Weekend Amusement

Today, me, along with the DeVenutos/Kilmans (my host family here in VA), went to an amusement park called King's Dominion. Enjoyed lots of fun riding some roller coasters and other high flying rides as well as a stop at the water park. Btw, my favorite ride was the Anaconda!! Turned out to be a pretty good way to spend a Saturday.

Today is 14 months since Becky and I started dating-which is very noteworthy (at least to us)!

I'm also looking forward to the upcoming 4 day work week. Should be a quick and relatively easy week. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do for the holiday. I might go watch the fireworks display in D.C. or I might try going to one of the beaches. We'll see.

I've also decided to go camping around late July/early August in the Shenandoah Valley, part of the Appalachian Trail. I'm thoroughly excited at the prospect of that as I really like hiking and the Appalachian trail is one of a few hiking/camping Meccas.

This really is a very nice part of the country to live in. I've described to most people that VA is a lot like NW Arkansas except all the trees are about 15-20 feet taller. But everything else is very similar geographically.

A semi-rotten day

So, today has been a very odd day. I woke up early and decided to run for a bit. Somehow during my run, I hurt my knee. It has felt really tight all day. Hopefully tomorrow it will feel better so that I can run again. While I was driving down to the Graves' house, I could not focus on the road no matter how hard I tried. This caused my car to veer into other lanes on a very busy highway. I was very scared. Thankfully, the Lord kept me safe. Once I arrived at the Graves' home I could not focus on what Becky was saying. I was trying to so hard, but my mind would simply not focus. I probably should have taken a nap. Oh well! After a few hours, Becky received a call from Kristi Salazar and her family is moving this weekend. She is very pregnant and could not easily bend over to pick up or move things. Becky and I helped her box some things up. She seemed very thankful. I was glad that I had the chance to help her out. After we came back to the Graves' home, I spoke with Russell for awhile and then we sat around and talked about all the options for the church in the summer. I want to ask everyone to pray that the Lord opens a door for CrossChurch for a summer location that would best suit the members of the body.

After some time, Brad decided that he wanted to take the boys to go see Wall-e! I was invited but decided to go back to San Marcos and spend some time with Cindy and Kim. Cindy and I hadn't eaten and decided it would be good to get some food. We went to the restaurant called Daphne's Greek Cuisine. It was delicious. I am pretty certain that it was my first time to eat a gyro (lamb meat). Definitely my first taste of falafel, spanakopita, and baklava. Everything was delicious. Once we finished eating, Cindy and I played a game of Scrabble. I won!!!! Woo hoo! It was a blast. I am glad that I am going to hang out with Cindy tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun. We are thinking about going to see Wanted tomorrow. So, if anyone wants to go see the movie with us, just go see it sometime tomorrow in your respective areas.

I miss everyone SO much! I cannot wait to see you sometime soon! I love you!!

Just pictures

Here are some pictures from Coronado!

On the bridge that goes from San Diego to Coronado. This bridge is so high. It has to be tall so the navy boats can go underneath it.

A big Cargo ship beside the San Diego skyline and some sailboats.

The hotel of Coronado. This picture only shows one out of 4 sides of the hotel. It had little houses or suites that you could rent out or you could stay in the actual hotel part. It was very big. I cannot stress that enough.

Me in front of the hotel!!!

The piece of land in the background is a military base with a lighthouse on the edge of the cliff. it was super cloudy.

Recently

I am very much ready to go home. I love it here, but the closer July 24th gets, the more excited I am to see my family. This summer has been rough. I have been almost depressed at the beginning of summer when I could not find a job and all I did for the day was hang out at the house by myself for 11 hours. I'm definitely a people person! I thrive on being around someone. It could really be anyone! I also found out that I am extremely good at Freecell. I hadn't really thought about being alone anymore since I started really working for the church until Tuesday. The mission team and Faith left, so we decided to take the next day off. I sat on my air bed mainly all day! BORING!!!

Yesterday I went back to the Graves. It was fun. I organized the church stuff in the garage. It was pretty fun since I like doing those types of things. Then, I helped Dave out with the church's website! It is going to look very cool once we publish it. I want to go to San Francisco sometime before I go home and so we all got into the conversation how that bridge is the number one bridge for suicide. Then Dave said that the Coronado bridge was the second. I asked where was that bridge. They were all shocked that I hadn't been there yet. We all were going to take a trip down there, but the Graves went out for dinner for Brad's birthday. Dave and I still went. There is this gigantic hotel there called Coronado Hotel. The place was pretty, but I was more interested that it was so close to Mexico that you could see some of the land. I tried to take a picture of it, but the clouds were in the way. Sometime, I want to go to MEXICO!!!!

Well, today we have no big plans. I had to stay at the Graves last night because we were all playing Rock Band on XBOX. I am a rocker on the drums. I am not the best of course, but I can play on the medium level! I called Cindy this time, too! So, she should not get mad at me. Alright. I guess I rambled on enough for today. Thanks for reading if you got this far! I love you all! Mom, please give my broken now fixed dad a hug for me.

First post, not the last

I realize now that you have to most more often than...never. Anyway, for those who do not know, I'm in living this summer in Spotsylvania, Virginia. I am working for the U.S. Navy (USN) and interning at the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program, known as MDA/AB. Recently we've made the news with the satellite shoot down on February 20 (my birthday, no less). Look at this site to see video clips: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/video-pentagon.html

Anyway, I'm traveling a good deal with my job (as Becky can attest to) and enjoying life. I've been to Washington, D.C. many times already for both work and tourism. For anyone reading this who's never been, you are definitely missing out. Even if you aren't a history buff, you will just be amazed to be around everything. Recently I've visited the Battle of Fredericksburg sites, Monticello (the home of Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the USA [POTUS]), the National Archives, the Smithsonian, and many other places.

Anyway, the purpose of this blog is for Becky and I (or I and Becky, to get equal name time!) to share our day to day/week to week experiences from Atlantic to Pacific. Also, ask questions if you want to know more about anything. I'll try to post every day or every other day from here on out.

Until you read again,

Russell (Rusty, Russ, son, etc., your pick)

Family Festival...Possible Itinerary for Road Trip Home

Yesterday the church had a Free Family Festival for the San Diego community. It was super cool. I know that I have told a few of you about my news, but for everyone else. I led someone to Christ last night. It was absolutely amazing. I think God knew that I was needing a little push to go and talk with Cindy and Joey. I am not really sure about how it is all going to go, but we will see. Anyways, the little boy's name was Kevin. He came up to my craft table and asked if he could make a necklace. I said, "Of Course!" I asked him if he knew the story that went along with the necklace. He said no, but told me that he wanted to hear it. So, I told him what each color bead represented:

Black- for our sin
Red- for the blood this cool guy named Jesus shed for us
White- for after we accept him we become white as snow (instead of black) to God
Blue- for us being washed away from our sin and becoming baptized with the Holy Spirit
Green- for growing as Christians
Purple- for being children of the King of Kings (which meant he was a prince)
Yellow- for the streets of Heaven and its glory

He had a lot of questions so another church member took over my table and I took the boy aside and answered each one of his questions completely. Finally, we discussed what prayer was and I asked if he believe in everything that I was saying. He told me yes. I asked if he wanted me to help him in his first and most important prayer ever. He said, "That would be nice." So, we both bowed our heads and he asked Jesus to be his king and savior. PRETTY COOL! The best part was that later on I saw him walking around the festival talking quietly to God and holding his necklace.


That was the end of my story for today. God has a purpose for my life and me being out in California! Okay, on the way back, I was thinking that we go to San Diego Zoo on the Thursday. The Los Angeles Dodgers are playing at their stadium on Friday, July 25th at 7:40 pm if we want to catch a game there. I would not mind. Every other field that we would drive by, the teams are going to be out of town!!! What luck! So, we could watch the game then drive to Las Vegas for the night and stay a day or two. Then stop to see Chelsea Simpson in AZ and off to the 4-corners for the day/part of the day. Next go to Grand Canyon. Finally, Santa Fe! I cannot really think of any more cool things to go see. Let me know what you think!!!

Becky....June 21, 2008

So, today was the Ladies' tea which was very different....but fun. I had to pretend to be all proper the cool thing was though that I knew the answers to the etiquette questions when Mrs. Burton (the tea lady) asked them. Anyways, they had an assortment of little finger sandwiches, cream puffs, lemon bars, brownies, fruit, and homade biscuits (kinda). Everything was delicious, except for the tea. It was peach carmel flavored, which may sound good but it isn't. It was hot, unsweetened tea. The cool thing was that everyone was dressed up. The pictures do not really do our outfits justice. We took a group photo of everyone wearing big hats and feather boas. So cute! The other lady helping out as well told us, "do not to match because it makes a better photo!" Anyways, after everyone had finished eating we had a quick devotional about being friends as women. That was really nice. Then we headed out to "Old Town." The name definitely describes the place well. It was basically a flea-market that vendors set the prices so high and then "marked off" 30%!!! What a buy! I was going to buy dad this sign, but then I could hear mom say, "now, where are we going to put that?" I would reply, "By the cardinal!"

Well, California is a very beautiful place. There is not a flat piece of land anywhere. Running is TOUGH!!! I am not feeling it to want to live here permanently....but it is a wonderful vacation spot. I do like the weather here unless it is really hot! No humidity. No one has air-conditioning here. Which makes sense because the weather is only really hot for like a week or two.

I am really connecting with Becky and Faith (Faith especially). One of the women today thought that Faith and I were related. Brad, Faith, James, Dave, and me all went to see Get Smart in the Theatres last night, and James and Dave are the worst two people to go to the movies with. They have never heard of a whisper, but it was funny. Just to let you know, Brad is absolutely HILARIOUS!!!!

Becky and I figured out that Noah has a crush on me. It is pretty nifty! I don't think that a little boy has ever had a crush on me. Everytime I say something to him, he blushes. If I go to hug him, he runs away. When we do things he always asks me what I am doing. It is very comical. Don't worry, Russell! He is WAY out of my league!!!

Sorry if you think that I am rambling. I guess I will sign off for now! I love you all! You will be reading from me real soon. I am going to try to post the proposed itinerary for the trip back to Arkansas!!!

Becky's first blog contribution

Hello,

I really don't have much time to type, but I do want to say THANK YOU, RUSSELL, FOR SETTING THIS UP!!!! It has been a really tough summer until about two weeks ago. I have been away from everyone I love or even know. I had no job....no money... no anything! Now since we have this set up, I will go into more detail as I get time to. Things will be fresh on my mind. I will eventually tell you everyone I have met...their personalities...their beliefs. Well, today we are about to go to the beach with the girls from the mission team. This is the second team that I have been around. The following are going to be the names of the people I am around and a very brief description of who they are, so you know a little about who I am talking about.

-Cindy - My Second Cousin, once removed
-Kim - Cindy's partner
-Joey - Cindy's son
-Brad - CCSD (CrossChurch San Diego) Pastor
-Becky - Brad's wife
-Faith - other girl intern....from Florida
-Dave - summer intern....also from Florida
-James - CCSD college student...lives in San Diego
-Nathan and Noah - Brad and Becky's nine-year twins
-Matt ???? - CCSD college student
-Nicole ???? - CCSD college student
-Jill - CCSD member (She worked with Maranda at the College Program)
-Tyson - Jill's husband
-Mark - CCSD member (cool family)
-Kristi - Mark's wife, she is pregnant
-Shadrach - Mark and Kristi's two-year old son
-Rick - CCSD member, bass guitar for the church
-Feion - Rick's wife.....and one of the coolest ladies ever
-Lisa - CCSD member, lady I babysat for
-Ben - Lisa's husband
-Jake and Max- The ~2 and ~4 year old boys I babysat for

So now you know about the people in case I ever mention just their first names in later blogs.

I will try and type again soon....We are off to the beach!!!

Becky

New Blog

Welcome to Becky Nichols and Russell Cline's new blog. Enjoy your reading!