Thursday, March 13, 2014

Thankful Thursday: March & CF Community

It's thankful Thursday time! We all have so much to be thankful for and we love to take this opportunity just to write down each and everything that comes to mind. Please take this time to share with us what you're thankful for as well. If you have a blog expressing your thankfulness, please share the link! Without further ado, here's what we're thankful for:

Mandi's List:

I'm thankful for late mornings. Mckenna is usually an early morning kind of gal…a gal after my own heart really. She usually is up between 5:45 and 6:15. But thanks to a little exhaustion from all of last week's traveling, she has been sleeping in this week until 7:15 (which in the morning hours, feels like an eternity)!

I'm thankful for smoothies. We've been drinking a ton of them as the weather is heating up, and boy are they delicious.

I'm thankful for March. March in Arizona is amazing. The weather is perfect. The sun is shining. It is a great time to be outside and enjoying all of God's creation in this area!

Ronnie's List:

I'm thankful for powdered creamer. I go back and forth between milk with sweetener and powdered creamer, and right now, I'm on the dry stuff. Considering I'm probably knocking down 4-8 cups of coffee a day right now, it's a pretty vital part of my day. I'm not a drink coffee for energy kind of guy, I'm a drink coffee because its a habit and I love the taste kind of a guy.

I'm thankful for March in Arizona. March is probably my favorite month of the year. I have very fond memories of the buzz around the U of A campus during "March Madness" and the weather is almost perfect everyday of the month. Now that I'm a homeowner, it's also the month that the yard starts greening up like crazy!

I'm thankful for the CF community. I recently gave a call-out for those that would be interested in being a part of an advisory board we're putting together at CysticLife. Well, the response was so overwhelming, that we've had to add some steps to the selection process just to pare down all of the interested folks from the community. It's a great problem to have!

What about you? What are you thankful for today?

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Wordless Wednesday: First Dance Class

Mckenna started some fun classes at a local rec center this week. Each class is 45 minutes long. Monday is dance, Tuesday is tumbling, and Friday is a "sports" class (where each week they do a different sport). We want Mckenna to be active, but don't care what she chooses to do for activity and exercise. We figured putting her in a bunch of different classes would allow us to see what she liked best and what she was good at, before throwing her into something more time consuming that we randomly selected for her.

So far, so good. She loved her dance and tumbling classes. It is possibly one of the cutest things of all time to watch her wiggle and move to music. She definitely doesn't look like a child prodigy so far, but it's super endearing to watch. It's heartwarming to watch her adorable little self try to emulate some of the movements and skills. I love watching her brain try to process what she's seeing and recreate the movement.

Here is a video from dance class numero uno:

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Sunday, March 9, 2014

We're Still Here

Welp, clearly things have gotten away from us. Life has been a bit nutty these last couple weeks…shoot these last couple months, and well, this little journal we call RSBR has been a bit neglected. We promise to try to nurture this bad boy a little more going forward.

Here's what's been going on with us…

We went to Lancaster, PA last week, Saturday to Wednesday for my Grandpa's funeral. He passed away in AZ, but my Grandma is buried near where they lived in PA, so that's where he wanted to be buried also. Believe it or not, it is pretty easy (and inexpensive) to ship a body…if you're wondering how to transport your next murder victim. I kid. Anyways, we went to PA for a few days. It was a great trip. We enjoyed time with family, seeing and meeting all those who loved my Grandpa, and seeing a little snow. My Grandpa would have loved how the services went and turned out, and we were really grateful for all the people that came to celebrate such an incredible man. The one interesting aspect was having a toddler at an open casket visitation. Mckenna posed a lot of questions, but seemed to handle it all well. It's certainly an impossible concept to grasp that Pa's body is in the room, but that the rest of him now "lives in heaven at Jesus' house," as we told her. We weren't sure if we should let her be there and see him, but I'm glad we made the decision we did. I think we often make death so scary in our culture. But I want it to be something Mckenna feels comfortable with. I want her to learn that there's joy in a Christ-follower going to "live at Jesus' house". So that's what we did. We called it Pa's party and Pa's funeral party. We were real. We showed how we were feeling. She, of course, saw tears. But I tried my best to offset any tears with talk of how much joy Pa was feeling and what fun he was having.

When we got home from PA, it was a quick turn around. Ronnie had a work trip to FL already booked for a speaking commitment, and Mckenna and I had a trip to CA planned with my friend and her two girls. The trip to California was amazing. It certainly wasn't relaxing, as I'm pretty sure a trip with 3 little girls under 3 is never a recipe for R and R, but it was a trip full of fun, memories, and a lot a laughs. Here's the only group shot we got, and it's a miracle everyone was still long enough to fit into one frame…However, expecting all of us to be looking at the camera would have been asking too much :)


All in all it's been a busy couple weeks filled with a lot of love, a lot of quality time, and a lot of thankfulness for all our many blessings.