Hannah Mania!

My great friend Hannah came to town for a visit last week! It was great to see her and we had lots of fun exploring all things LA. It was her first time to LA, first time to California, first time to the Pacific! We did everything from the super touristy Beverly Hills star tour to sipping a beer at Dodgers Stadium, to chilling with a movie and a pint of Ben and Jerry's. Thanks for a fun time, Hannah! Love you!

A Very Happy Birthday!

This past Monday was my bday... the big 2-6! Or not so big I guess. Thanks so much for all of the bday wishes!!! I even love all of the random Facebook greetings - even if I've lost touch with many of the people giving them!

I have a pretty fortunate birth date - May 30. Almost always falls on Memorial day or the weekend surrounding it. This year... jackpot - Memorial day! All of my friends had the day off of work. My friend Tabor and I had a movie date Sunday night and saw Fast Five. It was totally Hollywood, but totally fun. Then Tabor spent the night and we woke up Monday morning and the girls made an extravagant breakfast feast which included 5 kinds of pancakes! We enjoyed a long and lazy breakfast with the girls and then a few of us packed up to head to the beach! We went to Dockweiler - the state beach directly west of the airport. We chose it for its proximity and were hoping it might be less crowded then some of the more popular/touristy spots. Despite the constant airplanes taking off overhead... it was perfect! We laid out and enjoyed the 70 degree sunny day... but still not quite hot enough to go in the water past our ankles! Then Kyle and I broke out the longboards and went for a few mile jaunt down the boardwalk. It was so fun to be on a board again! I had to leave a bit early to head back to town... I had to work and close the coffee shop that night! But so worth it for an amazing day outside with friends!

Grace and Tabor making pancakes!

The breakfast spread: potatoes, cream cheese eggs, 5 different kinds of pancakes, fresh fruit, juice and coffee... Yum!

Tabor and I getting some rays at the beach!

The next day I got a sweet card from my CO friend Hannah and the cutest random box of bday goodies from my CO friend Lauren! Thanks, girls! And looking forward to spending a whole week with Hannah when she comes to visit in less than 2 weeks! Yay!

And then... on Saturday our team hosted another one of our neighborhood bday bbqs. My house hosted it this time and we celebrated my birthday, Tabor's birthday, and 2 neighbor friends' bdays. We passed out little fliers around our street about it last week in the hopes that a bunch of our neighbors would show up. We didn't really get any random neighbors, but a bunch of the neighbors that we already have a relationship with came out for the party. And the coolest thing was that there were neighbors from each of the other teammate houses as well!

We rented a jumping castle for all of the kiddos, we grilled out chicken, burgers, and hot dogs, played a fun mix of latin/rock/bolivian/bollywood music, and then we broke out the karaoke! Our neighbors downstairs have a karaoke machine so we connected it outside with a big screen and had a blast! Some of the song selections included: I Will Survive, Livin' La Vida Loca, Oops I Did It Again, YMCA, etc, etc. So much fun!

And then... there was the cake! My roommate Grace slaved away at a HUGE chocolate peanut butter cup cake for hours! And it turned out AMAZING. Mmmm... delicious.

Thanks so much for continuing to lift up my team and our ministry up in prayer. The Lord is really starting to answer our prayers for more and deeper relationships with neighbors. We are so blessed!