2,000 and Counting

Today I was shown once again just how blessed I am to be married to Michael.

I was sitting in one of the offices at work, when a man walked in carrying a yellow bouquet of flowers.

I was thinking, "these aren't for me...I don't even know the date, but I know its not important."

Then I thought, "what did Michael do that he is trying to apologize for?"

I signed for the flowers, even though I didn't think they were mine, 

and then I read the card that came with them.

It was such a surprise!!

And the flowers are absolutely beautiful!

And just so cheerful!

Of course, this isn't the first time that Michael has done something like this.

You can read about the celebration of our 1,000th day of marriage here.

I know every day how lucky I am to have Michael as my husband, but days like to day it is almost beyond my comprehension.

To quote Maria Von Trapp "Somewhere in my youth, or childhood, I must have done something good."

I am looking forward to many more thousands of days together!

AFC Weekend

Michael and I are a little biased, but we have always advised the youth kids to attend a Christian university over a public one,

that is, until we started getting to know the AFC group.

AFC (Aggies for Christ) are students from Texas A&M who go to the A&M church of Christ.

Their group does mission work, week long trips at children's homes, inner city work with kids, and weekly devotionals on campus.
A big part of their group is the weekend trips that they take over the semester.
They travel to different churches, doing service projects, devotionals, and just having fun with the youth group.
Apparently last year I was too busy studying to write about our Aggie weekend, but you can read about our first weekend with the Aggies here.

The weekend always starts Friday night with a mixer, dessert, and a devotional.
You wouldn't believe the excitement of our youth kids while they wait for the AFC group to arrive.
They are absolutely giddy!
Our kids have so much fun playing games, and hanging out with the college kids.
My favorite part was the devotional.
It is not often that I get to experience that kind of singing anymore.
It was an every day kind of thing back in college, and one of the things that I miss most about those days.

^^Mixer game

^^Favorite thing about the weekend!!
I look forward to the AFC weekend every year mainly because it means I get 3 whole days with this girl!
I can't believe this is her last year to come on this trip, and that she is graduating and getting married soon  - where has the time gone??
I am so proud (but not surprised) of the woman she has grown in to.
I couldn't be more blessed by Claire and her friendship!

Saturday is usually spent playing basketball and doing service at the Brookwood Community,
but scheduling changed a little this year and most of Saturday was spent at our church.
The big project was painting a mural in our children's wing.
One of our youth girls has been working on this for Girl Scouts Gold Award.
Our youth and the Aggies spent all day working on it and I am so impressed with the results!

^^The before.

^^Youth and Aggies painting.

^^This girl free-handed these hands of Jesus.
Amazing!

^^My favorite part of the mural. So good!

^^The baptism of Jesus painted by some of our youth girls.
I am blown away by their talent!

After dinner on Saturday we went out to the Brookwood Community for a talent night.
I was surprised by how many residents remembered us, and were so happy to see our group again.
The Aggies did skits, the youth group sang songs, and we all did kareoke.
It was so much fun!

^^The residents love Michael, but especially Michelle.
I'll try to post some videos later this week.

We ended the weekend with an Aggie-led worship service Sunday morning, lunch together, and then a goodbye meeting.
We were so blessed by the Aggies this weekend!
It is an exhausting couple of days, but it comes with too many blessings to count!
I hope that the Aggies can continue to come to our church for many years to come.

Which Character Are You??

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen the Zimbio quizzes spreading around facebook like wildfire.

Which Disney Princess are you?

Which Star Wars character are you?

I can't remember which one drew me in, but once I started I couldn't stop.

I must say, I am pretty happy with my results:

^^Who doesn't want to be the Queen Bee?

"People fear you, but you kind of like it that way" is my favorite (and possibly most true) line.

 ^^I don't mind this one I guess.

Besides the character, this description probably fits me the best out of them all.

^^Umm, YES!

I've been wishing I was Hermione since I was in the 7th Grade.

I can't decide if I like the first line or the last line best!

^^I might have cheered out loud when I got this one.

Yes, sometimes I'm more of a Christina, but in my heart I want to be Meredith.

I mean, she got McDreamy!

Want to take some quizzes for yourself?

Click here.

Its quick, easy and worth the time.

Except the Disney Princess one...I got Mulan.

Is she even a Princess??

*All questions on my quizzes were answered truthfully.

Each quiz was only taken once.

 And yes, this is what I do with my time...judge away.

Leaf Day

There are a few issues I have with home ownership,

one of them being the fact that no one is going to come take care of the lawn for you

(unless you pay someone to do that and I'm way too cheap)

which also means no one is going to come and rake our leaves.

And boy do we have leaves.

This is a problem that does not bother Michael one bit.

I can't explain it, I just don't like the leaves.

Yesterday Michael and I had a free day, so I forced him to help me take care of our leaf situation.

Can you tell how happy he is about spending the day with leaves?

In our defense, we are not the only ones on the street with a leaf problem.

Usually we are, which adds to the pressure for me, but since all the other yards are covered in leaves,

it wasn't as big of a deal to me, so we only cleared the leaves off the driveway and areas that blow leaves to the front door.

That's right.

All those bags, plus the trashcan full of bags, and our entire yard is still covered in leaves.

It feels so good to pull into the driveway, and walk up to the door, and not step on dead gross leaves.

So, that was our day.

We like to keep it fun and crazy over here!

In other news - I used the word leaves so many times in this post.

Way too many times.

Jiminy Cricket

I know I just did an entire post dedicated to our Disney World visit,

but I had to share this little video I did of the closing fireworks.

*If you follow me on Instagram, this is a repeat.

It's just too magical not to share.

IMG 5002 from Brittany Johns on Vimeo.

Wishing Upon Stars

Since we were already in Florida for the conference, 

we decided to take a little trip over to Disney World.

Two years ago when NCYM was in the conference Daytona, we went to Universal Studios, specifically Harry Potter World.

This time we chose Magic Kingdom.

I can't even explain how excited I was the night before.

I found this incredible blog on Pinterest, which details an amazing Disney trip, and it was pretty difficult to get any sleep.

*If you are going to Disney anytime in the near future, read her blog!

She has everything you need to know!

Unfortunately due to the fact that we were in Daytona, we did not get to 'open the park'.

We had some super sweet friends that let us bum a ride to Orlando,

which saved us about $150 or more, and made me more okay with getting there a little late.

^^Plus, you can't help but be happy when you see this sign!

I have to give credit to Disney for having the most organized parking lot I have ever seen.
It was an anxious driver's dream come true.
We took a shuttle to the monorail, and then we were at the park!
Of course, our first stop was Starbucks.
Yes, they have a Starbucks at Magic Kingdom, and Michael found it.
When we finally left the coffee shop, we walked out to be greeted by this guy.

We were already 2 hours behind schedule, so we did not watch the whole parade.
Instead we basically ran to the back of the park and found our first ride.

That's ride.
Dumbo.
Side Note: The ride broke down when we next in line and we had to wait an extra 10 minutes.
This became the trend for the rest of the day.

^^ Our little Dumbo served us well though.
Isn't he cute??
From there we made our way through the rest of Fantasyland including (my favorite)
The Little Mermaid ride
The Peter Pan ride - we waited for over an hour, and the ride stopped, while we were on it.
Its a Small World

 And then we found Gaston!!
He had a short line, and he happened to be right next to a bathroom so we stopped to say hi.

^^ He was quite proud of his muscles, and actually they felt real.
He then told me that they were much bigger than the ring I was wearing.
Obviously he was not too fond of Michael.

From here we raced over to Frontierland to get a fast pass for one of the rides there.
I can't say how disappointed I was to find out that they close Splash Mountain for the winter.
That was my all time favorite ride when I went with my family - and it was closed.
We got the fast pass for Thunder Mountain, and too a break to eat lunch.
I was probably just hungry, but that was the best BBQ sandwich I've ever had.
Disney is so perfect, at everything!
After lunch began the time of us going back and forth across the park in race mode.
There is always time for a castle picture though.

First, it was all the way to Tommorrowland.
We were headed to Space Mountain, but saw that the line was short for the Monster's Inc Laugh Floor, so we stopped there first.
During the 'show' they video people in the audience for the Monster's to talk to.
And we got on camera!!
Michael and I were sitting really close to each other because a family squeezed in our row,
and the monster's said we were a two-headed human!
Then Michael said a lot of really weird stuff, the monster's got confused, and I was embarrassed.
Next up, Space Mountain.
The wait time said 35 minutes, so instead of the fast pass we got in line.
By the time we got on the ride the wait time had changed to 55 minutes (I had the Disney app)
55 minutes is a long time to think about getting on a rollercoaster.
I was nervous!
We made it though, and it was actually kind of fun!
We were cutting it close to our time for Thunder Mountain, so we ran to the Buzz Lightyear ride, got a fast pass, and then hiked it across the park again.
Did we stop for another castle picture?

 ^^Duh!
Did we con a nice family to take this picture for us.
Yes. Its called, be nice to a family in need by taking there picture, than force them to return the favor!
Works like a charm.
Also, somewhere in this day we bought mouse ears.
I was so happy!
We made it to Thunder Mountain, and by the time we got off, it was time for our Buzz Lightyear ride.
So we ran all the way across the park again.

^^One last picture of the mice with their castle.

^^Michael was super excited about this ride!
I gave him a run for his money and almost beat his score, but didn't.
Then, we went all the way across the park one last time to get to the Haunted Mansion.
And what do you know, the castle looked different again, so I took a picture.

We spent the rest of the evening eating Nutella waffles and shopping for souvenirs.
I was pretty sad to find out that there was no parade that night, but at least Mickey sent us off with fireworks.

^^I had the best time running all over the park with this guy.
We were completely exhausted at the end of the day, but it was so much fun to just be kids together.
As for the trek back to our car...well I just don't want to talk about that.
There were so. many. people.
It was the perfect day though!

Looking Back at 2013

I posted a collage on Instagram already, but I wanted to take some time to share some of my favorite memories from 2013.

It was an incredibly blessed year!

And I am already looking forward to 2014 being even better.

I can't wait to see what God will do in our lives, and how he will change us this year.

^^ Sister got married and it was perfect!

See the full story here.

^^ Michael and I shared our first dance EVER!

It was also perfect...perfectly awkward.

But the picture came out great!

^^ I spent an entire month studying, shed lots of tears, and finally 6 weeks and 5 day later,

I got the letter that said PASS.

^^ We found our first bluebonnets!

If we claimed it, we would officially be Texans on this day.

But we don't.

Oklahomans forever!

 ^^ I got to spend an entire week with my Mom in May!

We shopped, we relaxed, and we threw parties.

It was awesome!

^^ I graduated in May and my whole family came to see me walk across the stage!

It was so special to have them all here!

Probably my favorite memory!

 ^^ I joined this wonderful group as an official Marriage and Family Therapist!

Couldn't have asked for a better place to work,

or better people to do it with!

^^ The day we took more pictures with people we don't know than ever before!

And later found ourselves on some rando's facebook page!

Perfect!

^^ I painted the hallway, and almost died.

But now it looks great!

^^ I went on the trip of a lifetime with some of my most favorite people!!

It was the most Diva weekend I've ever lived, and I loved every minute!

^^ We also saw Celine Dion in concert while in Vegas.

You can't top that!

^^ My bestie got engaged!!!
And we threw her a surprise party.
No one has a better surprised face than Claire!

^^ Michael's favorite memory of the year.

Century Link stadium in Seattle.

 ^^ We checked another state off of our list when we went to Oregon to see Multnomah Falls.

It was breathtaking!

^^ And we drank coffee from the first Starbucks.

^^ Michael got asked to officiate his 2nd wedding!

We love this couple and can't wait to watch them say 'I do!'

^^ We spent a weekend at the river with this crew!

It was a blast!!

^^ This post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the JV Youth!

We have had a wonderful year working and growing with them!

^^ We ended the year with some beautiful pictures of our family.

I am so happy that we have these pictures to remember this stage in our lives.

The stage where the most important thing to us is our puppy.

And where we just get to spend lots of time together.

It is a blessed life that we have!