Two Years Later

Now that I have found the camera cable I can update with pictures. July 24th was our two year anniversary. We celebrated the Friday before by staying in San Antonio near the Riverwalk. We took time to "Remember the Alamo" and relax walking up and down the river.







Once upon a time...

2 Years later...

We had a great time! Can you believe it's been two years? Sometimes it feels like much longer...sometimes I can't believe time has flown by so fast! =) Glad y'all have been along for the ride. =)

Random Pictures

Here are some pictures from the 4th of July. We hung out with Joshua's friend Wesley and we took these pictures at Sonic with Wesley's camera.



Sammy has found a new buddy!










Sonic...always good for a few laughs.

Viva Mexico!

I know, I know it's been forever since we've posted something! But we were on a mission trip to Mexico for a week. So now I will share some pictures and stories from the incredible trip. We went to Monterrey, Mexico, a city surrounded by mountains. We drove there from Kerrville, Texas with a youth team from Westwood ministries.

We got to do many different forms of ministry while we were there. We painted the inside of a church and played with the kids there at the church. We lead the worship service that Sunday at the church; Joshua and I lead the music in Spanish and Mark gave a message. We had a fellowship with some of the ministers' kids of that church. We got to buy food and toiletries and distribute them to families living in the city dump.
(Here is the truck full of bags to distribute)





Then we got to visit an orphanage and play with the kids.



Here is Kelsie playing with some of the kids at the orphanage after we painted their faces.





It was an amazing trip and we are so thankful to have been able to be a part of what God is doing in Monterrey. Please pray for these kids and the families we worked with, that the seeds that were planted will take root and grow. Pray that Monterrey will become a city of the Lord.

Happy 4th of July

Sammy and I wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy 4th of July. We had a great day celebrating and getting to spend the day with Joshua. Usually he is at work, but yesterday we got to have him home again.
We went over to a coworker's house to grill with him and his wife and new baby boy. Sammy came and entertained everyone in the backyard. He played soccer, fetch-the-tennis-ball, and his version of frisbee, which is where he waits until the frisbee hits the ground, grabs it, and runs off to chew it.
Then we watched a movie with one of our friends from A&M and watched fireworks. But I'll write more about that when I post a pic from the adventure.

Hope you have a great 5th of July, too! =)

Baseball!

VS.

This past weekend Joshua's parents came in town and took us to a baseball game. The Rangers were playing the Astros. What rivalry! =) It was our first time to go to the ballpark since we've been here and my first time ever here in Arlington. We had a lot of fun!

Being from Houston, I was rooting for the 'Stros, but they lost. Unfortunately they has several bad plays in the field. Just not their night. Ah, well.

Busy Life

I apologize to those who have been checking this blog and found nothing new posted in a long, long time. I've been so busy with school and work! This was my first summer class ever and I had no idea how fast they move! But the class was great and I loved it. It was a class on group dynamics and we did a lot of work in groups to experience dynamics in groups. Anyways - between reading 30-40 pages every day, writing several papers and assignments and keeping up with my work for my jobs, I did not get time to update this site.

Here is what has been going on:

I turned 23 on June 4th! My parents and brother came up to visit and celebrate with me, which was way fun. Over the course of the weekend and the week I got 4 cakes! Sunday night Josh and my friends surprised me with a birthday celebration at Cheddars. So fun!
(I don't have any pics yet from that weekend because my mom took all the pics. I'll post them when I get them.)

For my birthday present my parents took us to Niagara Falls! My aunt and grandmother came too. We went to Toronto first and got to see the city from the CN Tower, which is so way cool!

This is the view from the CN Tower. We got to each lunch up there. The restaurant slowly revolves so you get to see the whole city and Lake Ontario.








Then we drove to Niagara Falls and got to stay in a hotel that overlooked the Canadian Horseshoe falls. The waterfalls are so incredible!
This was the view from our hotel room!
We had so much fun! We took a boat ride right up to the falls. It's amazing how much water is flowing so fast!


These are the American Falls-->






What an incredible trip! If you have not been, totally go to Niagara! And make sure you see it from the Canadian side!

More to come later!

We're still here!

I know, I know, what is wrong with me that I haven't posted anything in a while? Well, lots has happened, but we lost our camera cable and were unable to download pictures. Finally a nice lady in the photo department of Wal-Mart sold me another cable. Woohoo!

So, let's see....where to begin?

I'll start from where we left off...
(These will be posted backwards so that when you read them it will be in chronological order...tricky, huh?) =)

Dallas and Cheesecake

Before Joshua headed back to work full-time, we took an afternoon to head into Dallas. We visited a couple museums and then went to the Cheesecake Factory (the real reason for the trip!). It was everything I thought it would be! =)

We visited the Nasher museum in Dallas and there was an exhibit about the architect who designed the building. Pretty cool display. I had to pry Joshua away after spending 45 minutes looking at models and sketches and drawings.

Brittany's Wedding

The next day we headed to Jacksonville, Texas for my friend Brittany's wedding. We had the rehearsal and dinner on Thursday. We didn't really know anyone else in the wedding, so we spent the dinner talking to the music pastor and his wife. They are neat people. We stayed that night in Longview with my college roommate, Kristen, and her husband. It was so good to see her again after a whole year! The wedding was Friday night and everything went wonderfully. Brittany was absolutely beautiful!


We had a great time. And we are glad that we are on this side of the wedding process!

The planes, the planes!

This was our first weekend without any studying or homework! Yay! So we went to the Fort Worth airshow with some friends.

It was fun looking at all the planes and watching them do stunts in the air. My goodness, they are talented pilots!


This was one of my favorites because the propellers looked really cool. The big disc on top is for radar surveillance of ground fighting.






Having a real weekend to just hang out and have fun is so great! =)

We've been hit!

Friday evening we headed out to meet some friends from A&M. We were minding our own business, negotiating the yield-to-merge-into-traffic half-lane, when suddenly...we got rear-ended!


It really wasn't that bad. No one was hurt except our poor truck. The guy who hit us was young and it was his first accident, so he was pretty upset. Unfortunately, because of the way it hit, the tailgate, bumper, and side panel will all have to be replaced.



However, we proceeded to have a wonderful time with our friends. =)

So what do you do on a Sunday night just before Joshua's last final? Watch Lord of the Rings and eat spinach & artichoke dip and s'mores for dinner, of course! =)

At least, that's what we did! One of my friends from seminary has not seen the Lord of the Rings movies, so she came over for movie night and we made s&a dip and a layer dip for dinner, along with some fresh fruit, and ate s'mores for dessert. The movie was a good 3 hours, at least, and we enjoyed every moment of our fun movie night. Of course, we still have 2 more movies in the trilogy to go, so we'll have to come up with other creative ideas for dinner.

All suggestions are welcome!

Finish the race...

Woohoo! Classes for the semester are finished for me! It feels to good to have all of that finished. Don't get me wrong, I loved my classes. But there is just something about crossing that "finish line" each semester that makes you want to get up and shout. Today, however, my body has given out on me and I think a post-semester nap is in order.

Joshua has one final left on Monday. He will start working full time at the architecture firm when I start my summer class at the end of May. Until then he will keep working his part-time schedule so we can have some vacation time to enjoy no homework. Yay!

Now, off to nap...

Joshua's final presentation

On Monday Joshua had his final presentation for his architecture studio class. He had many sleepless and almost sleepless nights to complete this group project. But their hard work payed off and they had a beautiful project to turn in. He invited me to their presentation during their class time and I went as the proud wife, ready to reclaim her husband after the presentations were over. =)

Their project really was one of the best in the class -- decided by a class vote after the presentations. Joshua will no doubt make a wonderful architect. He has the vision and the eye for it, along with the willingness to put in the work needed to get the job done.

Things I like about school:

• meeting new people
• learning new things
• "celebrating" when tests are over
• all my classes
• not having to have a full-time job

Things I don't like about school:

• studying for finals

Here's to still being young enough to recover from many days of little sleep while studying and waiting for Joshua to finish up his projects. Two more days!

special message

This is a special shout-out to our friend Wenfa Hu!

Wenfa, we love you and are so encouraged by your faith. You are a testimony of the Lord's goodness to all people and a testimony of how His truth changes lives. We have seen evidence in you of what Paul exclaims in 2 Corinthians 5:17
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"
We are so excited that you can see our blog now and that we can share our lives with you. We pray that we will be able to live in such a way that we can say with Paul "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice." (Phil 4:9). You encourage us to walk by faith and live the Gospel out loud.
Brother, you are in our hearts and prayers.

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Jude 24-25

a new trick

Joshua has been teaching Sammy a new trick. He found out that Sammy could do this stunt accidentally and then decided to turn it into a trick. Here is the play-by-play.



Sammy must have done this jump trick 10 times in a row for me to be able to get all the pictures we needed. I don't think Sammy minded, though, because he loves jumping up on Joshua. I was about to die laughing!


Those are my funny boys!
I sure do love them!

How to cure boredom

While studying for finals and finishing up the last set of papers and projects, all students know that boredom is sure to set in at some point. There are many ways to ease boredom through study breaks. One of our favorite study breaks is sword fighting in the back yard with sticks. So that is what we did Sunday afternoon when the restlessness became too much to handle.

The hardest part for us is keeping our swords away from Sammy, who likes to try to bite them and chew on them.
Sarah has become the champion. The object is to hit the opponent's legs with your sword without them hitting yours. We usually play best of 5. The trick is the lunge. You have to just throw yourself at your opponent. Who would have known that this is my sport? All these years I've been trying to get good at conventional sports. Self-discovery is a wonderful thing.

Live Latin Jazz

This story is from a couple weekends ago. I was looking around online for a community theater event for us to go to as a date night activity. After finding many prospects that were a bit on the expensive side, I was almost frustrated. Then I ran across the Rose Marine Theater. They were having a Live Latin Jazz concert that Saturday! Perfect timing! And student tickets were only $5. So I ordered the tickets and Saturday we headed over to Fort Worth. The concert was great! It was ina theater, with a big stage and room in front to dance. We sat at one of the tables set up by the stage. Most of the band were Puerto Ricans and the singer sang in English and Spanish. I was dying to dance but I knew we would only make fools of ourselves because we are not latin dancers. Then, in the middle of a song, the singer looked right at me and said "Come on, dance. You know you want to." Of course I did! But I was too self-conscious! So Joshua says "Let's dance." And we get up there and tried doing a little salsa. We had so much fun, even though I'm sure we looked pretty ridiculous.
After the show one of the ladies who was working the concession counter complimented us on our dancing. She said we looked really good and can dance well. We laughed and said thank you, but I'm sure she's a little crazy.
What a fabulous night. You can bet we will be going to the Rose Marine Theater again sometime.

The Long Trip Home

After a great time in Kerrville this weekend we had the long drive back to Arlington Sunday afternoon with everyone else along I-35. We kept meeting with lots of traffic and had to stop-and-go for a while.




Joshua got a little tired after all the driving. He's really good at driving with his eyes closed, though, as long as the road keeps going straight forward. We decided to stop and get a Dr. Pepper before we ran into someone. (just kidding for anyone who is worried!)




At that point I got this Arizona Green Tea, which was pretty good. However, because I enjoyed it so quickly, I ended up having to use a really gross bathroom at some gas station. Note to self: drink slowly.


Finally we made it home safely and even found the Rosa's in Fort Worth to pick up dinner. All in all, it was a fun road trip. Hope you enjoyed the comentary.

Seefeldt Celebration

This past weekend we celebrated Aunt Jill's 50th birthday in Kerrville. Almost the whole family was there, including cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Here we are with Joshua's sister Laurie. She just got a new haircut and it's so cute!

On Friday night everyone came over to Jack and Jo Ann's house for hamburgers. On Saturday we went out to dinner with the whole family and then back to their house for cake and presents.
It turns out that all 4 Seefeldt siblings (of Jack's generation) have April birthdays. Jill is the youngest, so that was the last 50th until the next generation.
Here is Joshua with his cousin Wade. (Kind of looks like my brother, Matthew, doesn't he?) Wade is a junior in high school and is Jill's son. His older sister Jacquelyn is getting married in July.
So there is some Seefeldt family info.

Seefeldt Family

Here is the Seefeldt gang at the birthday party. Harold and Freda are sitting in the middle in chairs. They are the ones who started the whole thing! And here we all are, 50 some-odd years later! Right down to the great-grandkids.

Birthday Party!

Joshua's second cousin turned 2 this month. We got to go to her "Puppy dog" themed party this past weekend! It was so fun! Jordan is so adorable and loves to dance, so of course she has a special place in my heart! =)Here she is with "big Josh" next to the dog house her mom made for the party.
All of the kids took pictures in the dog house as part of their party favors. There was a puppy-dog cake, coloring sheets, gift bags, and get this--the sandwiches were in the shapes of bones and doggies. Everything was puppy dogs! The only thing missing was our puppy dog! =)

Head in the Clouds, Feet on the ground

I love my classes at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary! They are so great! I am learning actual counseling skills in my counseling classes, which makes counseling seem so do-able for me. My human development class is the one that gets my head in the clouds. We discuss such interesting things about development and how we can minister to people at each stage of life. We discuss what churches can do better, what we as individuals can do to meet the needs of people in different stages, and what that looks like as a whole. I have realized how much of a dreamer/visionary I am when after each class I start thinking about how I can put into practice each principle we discussed. I start thinking "I wonder how our church does such-and-such? Maybe I need to tell them about this new idea. Maybe I should head up a new ministry in such-and-such." If I'm not careful, I'm going to drive my pastors crazy telling them all the ideas I have about ministry! =)

I am encouraged on a regular basis by the time I spend in classes. I learn something everyday and am excited about the time when I will start doing counseling. But even more than that, I am gaining information and knowledge that will serve for my lifetime, no matter where God leads us. It's so cool to see Him going before us and preparing the way. We will just continue to follow His path.