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I'm doing a giveaway on Whitney's blog to celebrate our 100th post. This is a picture of the goodies I bought for it! If you haven't already, go over to the blog and enter to win! They giveaway will be open for a week! www.whitneyjill.com

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Sean and I went to the Fresno State vs. Cincinatti game tonight... you can't tell but I'm wearing my Fresno State shirt with my UC hat. :-) It was so much fun being at the game, even though UC lost.

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We had to go home today. :-( But our flight didn't leave until later this evening, so we still had some time to play with the girls! My brother, David, flies into Phoenix later tonight... we will just miss him by a couple of hours. Bummer! We had such a wonderful vacation with our family and can't wait to visit them again!

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We spent this morning on a boat out on the lake... it was so wonderful! It was hot outside, but swimming in the lake felt great! We brought a cake to celebrate Emmalia's birthday on the water, and when we got back home, she opened her presents! Here she is getting all dressed up in her princess outfit from Nana and Papa Sam! For dinner, we ate at a really yummy mexican restaurant! I'm having such a great time here with my family!!

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This morning we went to Bass Pro shop. It was so much fun!! Emmalia helped Papa Sam shoot some bandits and Karia was her usual happy self! Isn't she so cute when she smiles?! For lunch, we went to Cracker Barrel... my favorite!!!

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Sean is such a wonderful uncle! Emmalia enjoyed playing with Uncle Sean! Aren't they just so cute?!?

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When we got to Megan's this morning, both the girls were looking so pretty in the dresses I got for them! I made Kaira's dress (the little one) and bought Emmalia's. I need to make Emmalia a matching dress, like Kaira's! Aren't they so cute?!?

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We head to Phoenix this evening to spend a week with my family! We'll get to celebrate my niece's 3rd birthday!! Before we left, I put the finishing touches on Emmalia's birthday present... a custom-made memory game!!

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Tonight, I gave Sean a pedicure. Our orange kitty, Seal, loves running water.... he kept trying to lick the water from the foot spa! Silly kitty!

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Today we took the mobile ultrasound clinic out to Dinuba. They are just starting a new Pregnancy Care Center there, and this is the house where it will be. Cheryl, their new director is on the left, followed by Debby and Sara, whom I work with on the MUC. It doesn't look like much now, but it is an incredible God-send. The house is kinda run-down and has been completly gutted on the inside. It is owned by the public school in town... and the high school is right across the street. Yes, RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. As in, you can see everyone outside at lunchtime from this front porch. Imagine all the young men and women they will be able to serve! They're projected to open their doors at the end of October. I'll keep you updated!

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Its been a crazy day! An insane Monday. My morning got off to a start with a guy who had apparently not had his coffee yet. I was driving to work and this guy (a Vanilla Ice lookalike, btw) started to get all road-ragey... ugh. Too early for cutting people off, shouting and flipping the bird, dude. Seriously. I was cranking out stuff at work like a crazy person so I could leave at noon. It was nuts. But, alas, I got out of the office aroun 12:30 then mom and I went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Mom's been working on a quilt for David for years, and needed to find someone to quilt it. So after lunch we went to a lady's house for her to look at it. This lady's entire liviing room was filled with quilting and sewing machines! How amazing! For dinner tonight, we went to Wahoo's! Yum! I'm so bummed mom has to leave tomorrow... but we will see her again in less than a week! I can't wait! Its been a great time having her here!

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Since we went to church on Saturday night, Mom and I went to see "Eat Pray Love" at the theater. It was a pretty good movie! I loved the scenery and the food... it was all so pretty! Definitely boosted my wanderlust. For dinner, we cooked out brats on the grill. It was so beautiful outside, we pulled our table in the back and played a game of Carcassone. I'm so ready for Fall to be here!

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This morning, Mom took us out to breakfast... we went to Huckleberry's. It was so yummy! When we pulled back into our driveway, we saw about 6 kids playing in our front yard. I've never seen these kids before in my LIFE! And here they were building a fort and playing "survivor" in MY flower beds. After the initial shock of their brazenness, I was actually amused! They played out there for hours! ha! For dinner, mom made some DELISH fish! It was such a great meal! Thanks MOM!

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This morning, I had an appointment with a new doctor, Dr. G. I was a little irked because I had to wait quite a while, but once I got to see the Dr., everything was good. I hated the Dr. I had when I was pregnant with Whitney and just did not want to even see him at all anymore. So this new Dr. is a family practician, which means I can take care of my allergy issues with him, too! He is a great Christian, and I absolutely LOVE his nurse. I am so glad to have found him. After that, mom and I went to Old Town to a quilt store. OH! The fabrics! We bought a pattern and some fabrics for me to make a dress for my littlest niece! This is the first time I've really sewn in a while, and I think it came out pretty good! Its also completely reversible and has a little headband, toO!

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I've been working on a month-long teen devotional book that will accompany a new youth/parent program we're starting at work. I stayed home and worked on that this morning... I could really get used to working at home. Believe it or not, I actually got a lot more done than I would have at the office! This afternoon, my mom came into town!!! I picked her up at the airport and it was so good to see her!! We went to Pismo's for dinner. I, of course, had cioppino. Delicious! It is so great having mom here! She had all kinds of goodies for us from Egypt, including a beautiful Eye of Ra necklace!! This picture for today is just mom and I being silly... she had these puppets for my sister, and we thought they were kinda creepy.

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Last night, while I was at my HOW dinner, Sean had a carnival for some apartments our church supports. They gave away 120 backpacks, and still needed more! I helped him stuff them with school supplies... what a task!

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Some of the "Leading Ladies" from womens' minstry went out for a Helping One Woman dinner. Its basically a dinner that is held every month and all who attend contribute money to be given to a woman in need. This month's dinner sold out 2 restaurants and raised over $4,000 for ONE WOMAN. It was incredible. I picked up another friend, Tiffany S. and we went to dinner at the Daily Grill. It was so much fun! I'm looking forward to next month's dinner!

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One of my projects for work is getting together our conference stuff. We finally got the banners I ordered! They look great! It took forever for me to find the right pictures to use and stuff but they're here and we love them! The purple and green backgrounds are so much more vibrant in person and at more than 6 feet tall, they definitely catch your eye!

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I tried to get all fancy making some pretty sugar cookies this weekend. Gorgeous decorated cookies are all over the blogosphere, and there are multiple tutorials that make it look effortless. Let me just tell you: It ain't easy. No matter how many step-by-steps you give me. I had a few turn out ok though.

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A purrrrrrfect Saturday afternoon.

(You're thinking: Oh no she di'int just make a cat pun.

I tell you: Yes, she did.)

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Tonight we went out with Josh & Kirsten for dinner and a movie. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen then saw "The Other guys" with Will Farrel and Marky Mark. The movie sucked... it wasn't even stupid funny. It was just... not funny. And the sound in the theater was horrible, so after complaining several times, we all got free movie passes for another day! woo hoo! We had a great time hanging out with the O'Bars.

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Look at how many passion flowers are on our vine today! Its getting pretty out of control! Tonight was the first meeting for our women's leadership team that I am now a part of. I am really looking forward to meeting new women and being a part of the new direction our womens' minstry is starting to go!

Women's Ministry meeting

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Duke LOVES tuna. I barely crack a can and he comes running from whatever corner he's sleeping in. He licks the can completley clean!

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Its been pretty hot here lately. Seal seems to have found a position in which to stay cool though!

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Today I got to play with my new Cricut cartridge, Heritage. It was so much fun!! It can do all kinds of great things... my favorite is this cameo thing it can do! I made a card for a friend. Later this afternoon, we went to Anthony and Kimberly Doi's house for Kimberly's birthday. They made so much delicious food... grilled veggies, shrimp, tritip... all kinds of yummies! It was a great time!

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Another wonderfully lazy Saturday! I got my hair cut this morning... yay! I love the girl who cuts my hair, Katy. Hi Katy! :-) She's crafty, like me... we're going to get together hopefully soon to sew or something fun like that! After church tonight, we went over to the Chapman's house to watch a UFC fight... it was Silva vs. Sonnen... and it was a GREAT fight!!

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Sean was at a church conference today, so I met him for lunch at Sequoia. Then, I got crafty and had fun making this card for some friends.

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I searched high and low for the right things to use to make this birthday gift for my niece and couldn't have been happier when I found these cute ladybug coasters! I'll post a fill picture of what it is after I give it to her! But here's a little teaser!

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Tonight I went to a movie with a couple of my friends, Christin and Mandy (and both their little buns in the ovens). We saw Charlie St. Cloud... it was pretty good. Sad, but good. I used a free movie ticket Sean had gotten from his Regal rewards card, and then, I even got a free popcorn with our reward points! A free movie midweek?! Fantastic!

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Rotisserie chicken for dinner... yuck. I need to get back to grocery shopping and cooking REAL meals!!

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Tonight we went to dinner at our friends' house, the O'bars. Josh loves to cook and everything he makes is delicious! Tonight he made cioppino... and we ALL had our fill of it! YUM-O!

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Do you see the kitty hiding in this picture?!

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Sean took me out for a nice dinner tonight... we went to Pismo's. We'd never been there before but it was SO good! We'll definitely be back! This is the only place (other than Red Lobster) to get seafood in this town! The pic above is of our appetizer... fried oysters with an olive tapenade! Yum!

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The other day, i was making some hair accessories and had cut up this elastic hair band. They boys had fun playing with it-- they batted it around, all the way from the guest room to our bedroom. Seal apparently won ownership of it for the evening as you can see from his protective posture! Duke is looking quite disgruntled in the background. But then again, he always kinda looks like that. :-)

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Silly Seal. He's discovered its cooler to just lay in the sink on hot days like today.

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Fall is just around the corner, though if you live in Fresno, you'd never know it. I went to JoAnn's and couldn't believe all the Fall stuff was out already! But I guess it is the last week of July!!

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Ugh today was such a waste. I have today off this week, which meant 4-day weekend! Yay! (I am working Friday, though, which I usually have off.) I woke up later than I wanted to today, and then spent the entire afternoon looking for curtains for our living room and dining room. I bought stuff for both, but when I got home tonight and put them up, I hated them. I mean H-A-T-E it all! Grrrrrrrrr. So I feel like today has been a horrbile waste of a perfectly good day off. This weekend we also switched up our TV service providers. We've had AT&T Uverse, but hated it. It just kept getting more expensive and it wasn't really a great service. That, and I just really dislike AT&T. So, we switched to Direct TV which is less than half the price!! And Sean gets all of his football channels that he's been wanting for years. Sean's been playing around with the TV and he found that you can put Apps on the tv! This is one where he could make the screen look cracked and write a message... did you think Shep was proclaiming his love for me on national tv? nope, just my husband playing with our TV apps. :-)

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Tonight, Sean and I drove down to Bakersfield to meet some more of our Joplin friends for dinner. The Heads and Liberatroes are vacationing down in Santa Clarita, so we decided to meet halfway so we could all hang out for a little bit. I'd never actually met Tim and Joe's wives before, but they were great! I could definitely see us hanging out all together if we ever moved back to Joplin. And Sean... oh, my Sean. It was so great to see him in his element with such great friends. I know he'd love to be close enough to be able to hang out with them regularly, especially during football season. This has been such a refreshing weekend with some really good people. There's an authenticity to some people that you just can't fake, and the friends we've been surrounded by this weekend have been just that. It was a really great reminder of the wonderful people that God has placed in our lives. I am so grateful for them!

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Today was a nice lazy day for the most part. This evening, before church, we went to a BBQ with our new small group. Sean met one of the couples through a church membership class he teaches, and thought we'd all four hit it off pretty well. He was right! They are a blast to be with! So hopefully we can work it out so the night of the week works for us!

Then we went to church and Matt Proctor preached a GREAT sermon on humility. Isn't that something we could all hear more about? It was excellent. Afterwards, we went to John's Incredible Pizza with all the Proctors and the Solorio's. It was a great time of just talking, fellowshipping and catching up on lives. Man I miss the midwest. :-)

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Today was a great day! The President of Sean and I's alma mater, Ozark Christian College, is in town this weekend preaching at our church. He has his whole family with him, so they took their older kids white water rafting. They needed someone to take care of their two little kids who were to small to go, so this morning, they dropped them off at our house for a little bit. Then, Lito (another pastor at our church who also went to OCC) took the kids to the zoo and went swimming. While they did that, Sean and I ran some errands... But we started off with brunch at BJ's Kountry Kitchen... a fave of ours. The waitress took forever to come take our order, so when she brought us our food, she told us the meal was on her! We were blown away, and of course told her she didn't need to do that, it was no big deal. But she insisted. So we still gave her a good tip (because really, that's what she was probably wanting all along, right?) At any rate, we go there all the time and have had this waitress many times so we knew it was off for her to be so seemingly rude about not taking our order. No biggie. But it was nice to get a free-ish meal!

After that we went to the mall. We got the plaque to go on the ultrasound machine that was partially funded by Whitney's Memorial Fund-- it is GORGEOUS! I'll have to put a pic up here soon of that. While we were at the mall, these shoes found their way home with me. Love at first sight!! And we also got a slice of cookie cake... what more could a girl want?!!? What's that? Top it off with Papa John's left over pizza! oh yes... a perfect day!

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Sean and I have been craving Papa John's Pizza....so tonight, we set out on an hour-long trip to get Papa John's and bring it back to our house. It was sooooooooo delish. We even got the buffalo wings, too. We haven't had PJ's pizza in YEARS... and it just hit the spot!! Yummy!

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Sealy had to go to the vet again for another check up... poor kitty was not too happy about it. But the good news is, his eye is healing, but we still have to do another round of drop to clear up his conjunctivitis.

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Our friend Jordan came and hung out with us tonight. We watched "Green Zone"... more like, they watched it.... I wasn't really that into it. I've also been pretty happy that Sean and I have managed to keep the house clean for more than just a day or two!!

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We had our friends, Tiffany and Lito over tonight just to hang out, but of course, I forgot to take a picture. I really need to get better at that! Grrrr. Oh well.... So here's just a cute pic of Sean and our kitties. Wish I had something more monumental for my 200th photo post!! But that means we're more than half way through the year!!

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I got this necklace from my dear friend, Christina. It is from a company called "The Vintage Pearl." They had a contest for people to take pics and show off their jewelry so I had some fun doing that this weekend. Here is one of the shots I took. It didn't win, but I still love it.

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Today I had to work for a little bit... took the mobile to a community health fair in Selma. This picture is from something that I found while I was cleaning out the craft closet... it is a box full of all the little love notes and cards I've written for Sean. One summer while we were apart, I made a box full of letters for him to open at different times... so Sean and I both sat down and went through the box again together... it was so much fun. It also reminded me of how much I tend to take things for granted. My letters were full of encouraging words and love and Scriptures to help him in his every day life... I need to get back to doing things like that. It was so much fun to go through these again!