Salinas Trip

 

 

 

 

Headed Out of Town

I really am excited to share a little bit about the amazing weekend I had with Michael when we visited Grammy and Leroy in Salinas this past weekend. They showed us around town and we even got to spend some time in Monterey and Carmel. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had such an amazing time! I was able to reconnect a little bit with my Grammy. I have missed her so much and I really want to be able to find a way to be a part of her new life that she is creating. It hurts and it's new, but I know that it will be wonderful when it happens.

The most stellar thing about my weekend though were the precious memories that I created with Michael. That man... he is the most incredible man... the sweetest man... that man that I am in love with. I won't gush too much about it, but WOW I am such a blessed woman to have God bring a man like that into my life. :)

J is for Joy

This weekend the kids went up to my Mom's house and I was so blessed to get to spend (close to) the entire weekend with Michael! We really needed the time to ourselves, especially with as busy as both of our schedules have been. Every moment we spent together I began to realize more and more why I am head over hills in love with that incredible man. I have found a connection to another person that I have never experienced. *sigh* I sure love him!

Friday night I was praying with Michael and I asked God to just pour joy into my life. There has been so much tension and stress lately. My God is so good to me and he delivered. I am at peace with the happenings in my life. I was finally able to surrender to God and place my heavy burdens at his feet. A huge weight has been lifted and I finally feel as though the next phase of my life is just around the corner.

It is so easy to get caught up in the problems and drama that life is constantly inundating me with. I am so tired of allowing circumstance to dictate my reality. God is in control of my life and he wants to bless me. I am going to start stepping back and allowing him to take over. This entire day... wow... this entire weekend has been an excellent example of how truly wonderful my life can be when I let God take care of me.

I added some pictures of when Michael and I went up to Dunsmuir this weekend. It was so relaxing and I loved the connection we found there.

Sensitivity

These past few weeks have been busy and draining. Last night, well, last night was different. I was able to relax and just enjoy the company of my wonderful kids and amazing boyfriend. It was good to just relax and laugh again. Life turns into busy-ness so easily for me. I can run around in circles with the best of them, but when I do that I lose sight of what God wants me to be doing. I am not honoring him with my time.

I am still going through the process of learning to listen to my heart, and not distracting myself from how I truly feel. It is still kicking my butt and I realized that one of the reasons I probably stopped listening to how I feel is because I am OVERLY-SENSITIVE and EMPATHETIC. Which means that when someone else feels like crap, I end up feeling like crap too. I don't take control of how I feel, I allow my environment to dictate that for me. Then the other side of that is that my tender heart becomes easily hurt. Throughout my life I learned to protect myself though and I built walls all around me. I learned not to listen to my sensitivity and taught myself to let things roll off my back. I love the idea of "mellow". I wanted that so desperately that I began to deny what my heart was really saying. I became a girl that didn't cry and I saw crying as a weakness. It was awkward and I didn't know what to do with it.

God is cleaning up the mess that I made and it hurts. I've been having to express how I am feeling to the people that I love, even if my head wants to tell me it is ridiculous and I shouldn't feel that way. Well, I do feel that way. I need to honor myself and my feelings by being honest about them. The amazing thing is I am learning to do that simply for myself, and not because I have an expectation of some sort of response from who I'm talking to. It's been great and I am really blessed God is changing this in my life.

I added some pictures from our trip to the coast a couple weeks ago. Enjoy!

San Francisco

In celebration of Christian's birthday we went to San Francisco for a Giants game. We had a BLAST!!! It was so nice to get out of town and chill out. We experienced some grumpiness... and I ended up with a few headaches along the way, but over-all we could not have possibly had a better time. There were just soooo many experiences for us.I was so blessed that Michael came with us. It is amazing how much more complete our family feels when he is with us. I love him so much!! He and I learned a lot about each other this weekend. Traveling has a way of doing that to people. The good, the bad, and yes most definately the ugly all seem to make their appearance when we leave the routine we are used to at home.