Birthday Fun!!!

Anyone who knows Lindsay knows that she LOVES birthdays!! She not only loves her own birthday as her "love languages" include gifts and quality time - presents, cards, phone calls, and spending time with Joe and friends - but she also really enjoys celebrating the birthdays of others. This time, though, we celebrated her 28th with some much needed road trips. When Joe asked what she wanted to do Lindsay said, "Dallas."

We stayed with our friends Chris and Heather Chavez who we haven't seen since their wedding in January. It was fun to spend time and catch up with them. The morning of May 22 Joe woke Lindsay with some Kolaches for breakfast. She then spent the morning getting a deluxe manicure and pedicure at her favorite place in Flower Mound. For lunch we went to Parma Pizza & Pasta in Lewisville which is their very favorite restaurant in the area. Later, Lindsay had an hour long full body massage. She was actually very sore for the next few days which is exactly the kind of massage that she needs and likes! That evening they went with Chavey and Heather to Blue Goose, another of their favorites, for dinnner and then went bowling at Main Event.


The rest of our time in Flower Mound/Highland Village included a couple of trips to the movies - Night at the Museum 2 (the first one was the first movie we saw together) and Angles and Demons - eating at a few of our favorite restaurants including Rosa's and Patrizio's, hanging out with friends like Higgins and Marshall, and attending our old church.

We left Flower Mound on Sunday morning and headed to Valera to see Joe's parents. We watched some old family videos (which included many hilarious moments of young Joey), did a lot of catching up, had a meal with Rhonda (Joe's oldest sister), and celebrated the Rodden's 63rd anniversary on the 25th! We had an extremely long ride home to Baytown but the weekend made it all worth it. It was so nice to see so many people who love us and who we love so much. We are looking forward to several trips back to Dallas this summer for various weddings and Rangers games!

Overall, the weekend was amazing! Lindsay could not have asked for anything else...what an amazing husband Joe is :)

Updates are needed

We apologize for the lack of posts since we left for Turkey. We have posted a few pictures from our trip here but encourage you to read more in depth and see more pictures on our other blog...

www.roddens.wordpress.com

We updated daily while we were there and had many adventures to share. If you would like to view any of the pictures in a larger format, just click on them. Enjoy!!

Some of our Turkish friends from Bogazici University, Gohkan and Alp.

The side streets of the Asian side of Istanbul.

Istanbul University main entrance

In front of the Blue Mosque - home of the stinky feet
(read our other blog to hear more about that!)

The Turkish flag flies everywhere all over the city

Leaving for Turkiye on Tuesday!!!

Please follow our adventures in Istanbul HERE

Which is:  www.roddens.wordpress.com

We are hoping to update that blog every day while in Turkey, so go on over and check it out!

Great news!

Lindsay went to a job fair today for the local school district here in Baytown. Of course, as usual, she was more stressed out than necessary. There were hundreds of applicants there but through God's grace she went in with confidence that she would have exactly job the Lord wanted her to have. She had a great experience and met some wonderful people. She even walked out with a job at the school that she REALLY wanted to be at! The principal is wonderful and we have only heard amazing things about her and the school from many reliable sources around town. Lins will be teaching a self-contained 4th grade class starting in August. She is very excited about the job and is looking forward to meeting with the principal and some of the staff, seeing the school and her future classroom, and possibly subbing there some as the year finishes. Here are some links to the district and school websites for those of you who are interested (Frank and Becky!).

Goose Creek CISD
Victoria Walker Elementary

Thanks for all of prayers for us as we continue to trust the Lord to provide each month. We appreciate you more than you know...and LOVE comments hint, hint :)

March Update

First of all, we would like to apologize for the lack of updates lately.  There is no excuse, we just don't have a lot of roaming to tell about... until now!  We just returned home from spending a couple of days in downtown Austin.  We went so that Joe could make some contacts and do some vision casting for a student trip we will be leading the last week of July.  It is going to be a great time as we serve the city of Austin through service and clean-up projects, sharing the Gospel to the lost, and learning all about one of the world's (that's right) coolest and most unique cities.  We are excited about the experience this will be for our teenagers!

While in Austin, we spent time with Pastor Jacob Vanhorn and his family.  Jacob preached the sermon during our wedding ceremony and is the pastor of a wonderful young church, SOMA, in downtown/south Austin.  Jacob is a mighty man of God who has a heart as big as the city of Austin.  Many are and will be blessed by his ministry and church in the decades to come.  

Last night we were invited by Jacob and his wife to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema for a Monty Python and the Holy Grail quote-along.  This is a fun concept that was very new for us, as we joined about 150-200 viewers in quoting the movie, through subtitles, and clapping together coconut halves to make the horse clopping sound.  It was a lot of fun and we would recommend a quote-along movie experience to anyone with a good sense of humor.

Today we toured the city scouting for potential projects and were blessed to eat at Freebirds, which serves the world's greatest burritos.  We also drove around several college campuses, the Texas state capital building, and the Austin Presbyterian Seminary.  We are looking forward to bringing our students to all of these places and more.

On the way to Austin, Joe greeted Lindsay in a gas station as she rounded a corner with the look below.  Fortunately for Lins, she did not allow Joe to buy the hat!

Below is a picture of the Spring Westfield HS baseball team.  They are talented group that Joe was able to help coach to a tournament championship last weekend as they went 5-0.  It was a lot of fun for Joe to return to the dugout and he really enjoyed coaching this very talented group of awesome young men!

Not long until opening day, and the Rangers will return to the playoffs thanks to The Natural, Josh Hamilton!

Finally, four and a half weeks until we fly to Istanbul, Turkey!

Go, therefore, into all the world...

Thoughts...

Well, we haven't updated in awhile so we thought it was time to update.  

***First of all, we have the blessed opportunity to travel to Istanbul, Turkey for two weeks in April.  Both of us have been there, and Joe lived there for a semester in 2004, but we are excited to experience one of the world's most amazing and historically significant cities together for the first time.  We are praying about the idea of perhaps living there someday.  Joe will be reunited with many Turkish friends who he has been blessed to keep in touch with since his last visit there in 2006.  

***Last night our student group hosted a Valentine's Weekend Appreciation Dinner for the members of our church, their families, and friends.  All in all, we were able to feed over 125 people from a menu including spaghetti with meatballs and either marinara or alfredo sauce.  We had salad and some tasty breadsticks, along with brownies and cheesecake for dessert.

***Things with our new church family are wonderful, and the students we work with are awesome!  2009 is already shaping up to be a wonderful year.

***Lindsay flew home last weekend to spend a couple of days with her parents in snowy Richmond, Indiana.  Though it warmed up in the 40s while she was there, there was still plenty of snow all around to greet her.  We are consistently in the 70s here in Houston, as winter came and went without so much as a heavy coat needed.  Joe loves being back in Texas!

***Finally, Joe is loving his life right now, though tomorrow is the opening day of spring training for the major leagues and he is missing the day-to-day involvement of the great game in his life.  He is blessed to have the greatest job in the world, but he sometimes misses being on the field.  To add to this longing, right outside the church door is the Lee HS baseball diamond, where young ballplayers are on the field and in the cages hitting every day of the week.  He wouldn't trade his job for any in the world, but boys are always boys and Joe is a lifelong baseball player and coach and that will never change.

Well, that's it for now, but we'll blog again soon...

A testimony to God's faithfulness, and more!

The other day we bought some groceries at Sam's Club and, since they do not take visa, we scrounged through our wallets to find the money to pay for our food.  The total cost was $108 and change.  Joe had $55 cash in his wallet, and Lindsay had fifty two dollars (bills) and dug enough change out of her purse to cover the rest.  We don't use cash much, and we were fortunate to have that much on us.  Amazing, we had the exact amount of money on our persons!  More amazing, when we got home and checked the mail we had a check for $108 exactly waiting for us.   We gave great thanks to our God and Savior that He is looking out for us, as Luke says, it is our Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom.  We are thankful and blessed for these little reminders in life that we are being looked out for by someone who is not limited by human understanding, intelligence, or ability!

On another note, last night we were blessed by a friend who gave us some money to have a date night, as we are scraping by on one income for now and haven't been able to have our date night lately.  We went to Baytown Seafood, which we highly recommend.  We enjoyed some awesome grilled salmon and vegetables (Lins) and red snapper with crawfish etouffee (Joe)!  The meals were awesome, but they also were enhanced by the boiled crawfish we enjoyed as our appetizer.  Lindsay had never even seen a crawdad, so it was a fun-filled experience watching Joe peel some tails and feed them to her.  She never got used to the eyes staring at her from the dish, and was in general creeped out by the experience, but she admits they were mighty tasty!