Some great websites...

As of recent I have started couponing and trying to learn how to be more frugal and here are a few great websites that I have found:

www.moneysavingmom.com
www.5dollardinners.com
www.dealseekingmom.com

I have learned a lot about different ways to save money and different saving programs at stores, so get your Sunday paper, cut the coupons out, and check out these websites - if you take the time to do it, you can save a lot of money.

PS: New posts with pictures and recent updates will be coming soon :)
-Sarah

Swagbucks!

A blog that I check pretty regularly is www.moneysavingmom.com, and on it I just recently learned about Swagbucks. It is basically a search engine and every time you use it you gain points that can go towards gift cards and other things. I know you don't earn but a few points a day when you start, but the more you refer people, the more points you get too!
Click here to sign up -->
http://swagbucks.prodege.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=247111

Here is Money Saving Mom's post about Swagbucks....

"I don't know about you, but I do a lot of searching online. If I need to find the answer to just about anything, Google is my best friend.
So when Lavonne told me about Swagbucks--an online search engine that rewards you for searching online--I was all ears. Especially when she told me she had earned enough in Swagbucks in the last four months to receive hundreds of dollars in gift cards.
I did some investigation and learned that Swagbucks is very simple to sign up for. In fact, it takes all of about one minute. There are no fees, no credit card required, and no phone number or address requested.
After that, you are credited 3 points to your account and then download the toolbar and every day as you're searching online, you earn a few more points. After only 45 points earned, you can get a free Amazon gift card. Or at 50 points, you can get a Starbucks gift card. There are dozens of other prizes, too.
Now, you might be thinking, "What's the big deal if I only earn a $5 gift card every month?" Well, you're right, $5 isn't that exciting. It's something, but that's only the beginning. You see, your earnings will exponentially multiply when you refer others.
Do you know anyone else who searches online? I thought so. Well, tell them about Swagbucks, send them your referral link, and you'll not only instantly earn more points when they sign up, you'll also earn points for the searching they do online.
Tell lots of folks and you're well on your way to funding your entire Christmas budget with free gift cards from Swagbucks. I'm not kidding you, that's exactly what Lavonne did.
For those of you who have blogs, you'll especially want to jump on board with this. It's free, it won't take much of your time to do, and it could generate a nice stream of gift cards in your mailbox."

So if you're always googling things like me, just sign up and earn points when you do!
http://swagbucks.prodege.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=247111

OMV

Some excited things have been happening at our church recently and I thought I would share a few pictures with you!

Here are some of the kids and adults getting ready to start Awanas.  

These are the kids that Aaron and I get to ministered to - the youth group.  Now I know this doesn't look like a large group, but the Lord has really been blessing us lately with more and more visitors.  When Aaron and I came to OMV 2 years ago we only had 3 kids, and recently we have had 8!  I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but we are really excited about it.
Here is the most precious 1 year old I know - Nate Conyers!  He gets cuter by the day and cannot stay away from these drums...
We recently had our homecoming and here is the spread
This is at homecoming too, but I just thought this was a cute picture of Michael and Christy.  They are such a sweet couple and they do a wonderful job ministering to our youth as well.
Anyways, the Lord has been bringing a lot of visitors recently to our church and has answered a huge need that we have been praying about for a long time - hopefully everything will work out and I can post an exciting announcement about that soon!

Myrtle Beach!

Over labor day weekend Aaron and I had a blast spending time with my parents and brother in Myrtle Beach, SC.  I haven't been to the beach for a vacation in a long time, so it was a much needed weekend of relaxation.  We stayed at Barefoot Resort in a beautiful condo and spent time relaxing at the pool and the beach and also playing some golf, putt-putt and some shopping. 

What we've been up to lately...

So I know that we have not blogged in a while, but here is a little bit of what we've been up to recently.  

This is my former roommate Lindsey Cain and her new husband Jeffrey Rhea.  Lindsey was my second roommate since I have been here at Southeastern and I am so glad that we were able to live together.  They had a beautiful outdoor wedding in July and here is a picture of them cutting their cake.

Aaron's former roommate, Aaron Rice, also got married this summer.  Aaron was able to be an usher in the wedding.  Here is a picture of Aaron and Lane.
I wasn't able to go to Aaron and Lane's wedding because I was in another wedding of another former roommate in the same weekend.  My friend and former roommate from Campbell, Mandy Hinson was married to Paul Flannery in August.  Please check out www.nasimage.blogspot.com and see some pictures from the wedding.  This is our friend Ashley's website.  She and her husband David are really great photographers and you should definitely check them out.  

We also had our church's Vacation Bible School recently.  We have been reaching out to a neighborhood close by our church in an effort to reach our community, so we decided to have our VBS in the neighborhood park.  We had an amazing turnout, around 50 or so kids from the neighborhood came out every night.  It was great to be able to teach and love these kids that would not have been able to come to a VBS if it was at our church.  It was a great week and we were able to get to know many of the kids and adults in the community and share the gospel with them.  Here is a picture of some of the kids during worship.
Finally, we had a church yard sale last weekend.  We raised almost $500 for the youth to go towards different trips that we will take this year.  The church members donated all sorts of items and the youth helped to price and sell them.  I didn't have a picture to show what we sold, but here is a picture of some of the youth and adults that helped out so much.  Thank you to everyone that could donate items, and or come and help!!

Anyways, I will try and blog more regularly so i can post a few more pictures of some things we've been up to.  We have also started back to classes so our schedules are getting a little more hectic, and Aaron is on the lookout for a part-time job that can still allow him to work at church and take classes, so I'm sure it may be a while.  Have a great week!

Creed Camp

We just got back yesterday from taking our youth group to Creed Camp at Anderson University in South Carolina. This is the first of hopefully many summers that we will be working with other local churches in our area to help put on a biblically solid camp for our youth groups. The Jeff Capps band lead worship, some of the pastors from the participating churches preached, and we had a lot of fun competing in different sports and activities

These were just a few pics from the week...

New updates to come...

I was so excited to hear this week that at least a couple of people read our blog. We have a lot of new updates that we will be posting soon. Aaron just got back from Uganda, our church softball team has started playing, I have been working on a few card-making and sewing projects, and we are getting ready to take our youth to camp. All this to say, there will be a lot of posts coming up and I hope you like our new header design. I was told by a friend to check out a blog of someone they knew and found great grabbie designs. She makes really great blogheaders using digital scrapbooking. Please check out her page at http://greatgrabbiedesigns.blogspot.com/2008/05/welcome.html

Updates will be coming soon!

Updates on Dylan

Just a reminder to keep praying for the Shugart family.
www.updatesondylan.blogspot.com

Our hearts break for them during this difficult time and ask that you would remember this sweet family in prayer.

Church Softball and the Gondaliers

So I was really planning on posting some pics of our church softball team, but as I was going through the pictures I couldn't resist posting some of these adorable kids that those of us ladies not playing get to watch during the practice. Here are just a few pics of Nathaneal and Tori during one of our practices. I promise to post some pics of the softball practice soon.






Last Thursday Aaron and I decided to skip our last class and go see Christine (one of our youth) in her musical at school, The Gondaliers. It was a great performance and it was so much fun to see Christine hamming it up on the stage :o)

Here is Christine and her mom, Mary, after the show...

I love plants

I have always loved planting different flowers and plants. Here are some new ones...
This is not really a new one. It's a geranium I've had for a while. It's usually more pretty than the picture shows, but I wanted to include a pic of it.
These are my double impatients. They have just started blooming and the pink colors in them are really amazing. Sorry for the fuzzy picture.

This is one of my three tomato plants. It's the first time that I have tried tomatoes on my own so I am really excited to see if they produce. There are three different kinds of them that I planted, but I will spare you the details.
Here is my squash plant. Squash is definitely one of my favorite veggies and I especially love eating grilled squash in the summertime. I cannot wait until they start growing more.
This is from the honeysuckly plant on my front porch. It smells nice, but man does it grow like crazy.
Here is the honeysuckle a little untrimmed. Haha.
These are my purple and white begonias. They are so pretty and have been so easy to maintain. They require a lot of sunlight so they hang out on the front porch most of the time.

Stuff Christians Like . . .

"Flags, handbells, and puppets."

"Boycotting stuff."

"Rooting for secret Christians on American Idol"

"Mixing sign language and music"


If you have heard any of these phrases, or even worse, if you are guilty of participating in any of these things, you are probably an Evangelical Christian (and probably a Southern Baptist), or you at least know someone who is. And if you shudder whenever you hear any of these phrases, you are probably like me - an Evangelical, Southern Baptist who is (sadly) well aware of the charicature that the American church has painted of itself to the watching world.

All of those quotes are from entries in a blog that Sarah and I love to read which takes some of the idiosynchrasies of the American "Christian" subculture and satirizes them, or at least simply brings them to our attention. It is hillarious. They are painfully true. And hopefully these observations will make us think twice next time we try to make a war-themed mens ministry, or buy more bible fanny packs, or getting highly specialized bibles, or dancing with enough room for the holy spirit, or quoting the message whenever the real bible doesnt say what you want it to, or breaking up with your girlfriend after camp because God told you to, or taking spiritual-gift inventories that are hundreds of questions long, or fearing the rapture would come before you lost your virginity, or rededicating your life (again), using the one "seminary word" you know, or making email addresses that go something like, GodisGoodandBeautiful777@yahoo.comm

Check out the blog, Stuff Christians like, at http://www.stuffchristianslike.blogspot.com/.


- Aaron

Service

This past weekend we took our youth to Whitakers, NC to join Ben (Aaron's old roommate) and his youth group in a weekend of service. It was so great to see our youth serve a couple that really needed some help. Here are a few pics from the weekend...

Shay and Christine bleached the sheds
Some of the men building steps
Mr. Gene climbed in the top of this tree to trim it away from the power line.
This was most of our group with the Snellgroves.

All of the youth on the steps after church on Sunday morning.

Updates on Dylan

Hey friends,

Please check out this blog: www.updatesondylan.blogspot.com

It is about our friends from church, the Shugart family. Dylan has been in the hospital for about 3 weeks now with some serious liver problems. This blog gives the latest updates on Dylan, Gary and Debbie so that we can better pray for them and enourage them.

New updates...

These are just a few of my favorite pics from our wedding. The photographer is our friend, Brian Fleming. Check out his new website at http://www.brianflemingphotography.com/ .

It seems like blogging is the new "thing" that everyone is up to, and I am just as easily influenced by the new internet trends as the next person. In reality, I am hoping this blog will serve a greater purpose of keeping us in touch with our friends and family that are no longer close by.

So to update any of you who haven't heard or seen...we are newlyweds as of January 12, 2008! We had a wonderful wedding thanks to our families and friends that went above and beyond to help. We also had a great honeymoon in Costa Rica as well (we are greatly indebted to my aunt, Jane, for making the trip possible). The only bad part is that I picked up a parasite on our trip :o(- luckily they don't make you sick until a week or so afterwards, so I was not sick until we got back. So basically our life since the wedding has been filled with setting up the house, March madness, and stomach problems!

We are also in the midst of possibly merging with another church. This has been going on for quite a while, but it is exciting that we will soon finally know the outcome. We will know for sure if it will happen on April 6, so please be in prayer for this. The Lord has presented great challenges with the youth, but with that has come great opportunities for ministry and to share the gospel and for that we are grateful.