Dinner Party!

I was so excited to try our families special ronies and sauce this week since my mom gave me a new pot for Christmas to make it in! Since it takes all day to make, I decided to make a fun dinner party out of it! I never have time to do these things, so I was really excited to have fun with it! My mom is an amazing cook and host and I want to get some good practice in so I can be just like her and provide and serve for my family and friends.

Here was my table and little encouragement cards that I made for each guest.
The sauce!! Soo good!! It cooked all day and made our apartment smell amazing!
My beautiful guests!

My sister even came and joined us!

Twinkie friends!

It was a really enjoyable evening topped off with a great new cheescake I made as well! I love these girls and so many more that attend our church and was happy it all went well!

I hope we get to do it again soon!

Happy Birthday Ashley!

Happy, Happy Birthday to our dear sister Ashley!!

We are so sad that we could not be with you and your family to celebrate your birthday and Christmas, but we still wanted you to know how much we love you!

You are an amazing mother and it has been so neat watching you raise your beautiful boys. I (Andrea) learned so much from you this summer and I pray that a time will come in the future that we can raise our families together.

Love ya sis! Happy Birthday!! Miss ya a ton and wish we could be celebrating with ya! But I hope you got my message and I am really thankful for you! God really blessed me with a great big sis who always cared for me and taught me what it looked like to live out my faith in Christ! To that I thank you always!! Hope all is well with the fam! See ya soon, hopefully!

We always enjoy our times with just the 4 of us. Though these times and far and few these days, we pray the Lord's will on all our future ministries and we would be thrilled if He lead us to the same place someday!!

Your faithfulness as an older sister I've never had has meant more to me than you know. This is probably one of the biggest reasons I miss you so much. This is a selfish thought but you know that we wouldn't want you guys to be doing anything other than what you are doing now! But i do always look forward to our times together. I will never forget those time we had lunch at CBU and when you had me over for dinner so that you could get to know me more when Brandon and I were just dating. Your intentionality showed what a great sister you were (and are :)) and I am thankful for that time that drew us closer together. Thank you!

Now that Brandon will have the summer off we are praying that it will work out to come and spend time with you and your family this summer!

We hope you had a great day!

Love you!!

Brandon and Andrea

Don't you wonder . . .

. . . what your pets do while you're gone during the day?

Well last week when I was home for Thanksgiving break I got to see what our little Punkin does all day! Since it's been colder in the mornings, she has been cuddling up beside us underneath the covers! So cute!

Can you see the little bump? lol Well, since i got to sleep in that week, I got to see how long she stays underneath the covers! One morning I woke up around 10am, and she stayed under there until 2:30pm! And that was only after I realized that I hadn't seen her all morning! So I went and found her a took a picture. Then she finally got out!

What a silly kitty!
But such a cute one! She is always making us laugh, and I'm so glad we have her! :)

Psalm 36

"Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;

your judgments are like the great deep;

man and beast you save, O Lord."

Psalm 36: 5,6

This verse brought me peace this morning. Our God is so great--he is above all things--he alone has the power to save. Thank you Lord, for taking all my wretched sin away. Thank you for cleansing me with your love and amazing undeserving grace.

The Giver

I have begun reading The Giver with my 7th graders. This is the first time I have taught this book but am really excited about it. We are taking it very slow because this group if students have not read through a class book like this and because it is filled with so many great things to discuss. Though we started reading it this last Monday, I already have a handful of students who finished the book! (This is very exciting to a teacher :) )

If you are not familiar with the novel, it is about a community that is totally controlled by a group of people and they have ridiculous rules that everyone must follow. My students and I have already had some great conversations as to what those rules and orders would look like in our communities and homes today. One of the rules is that each "family unit" must share their feelings of the day with one another. The family then calmly talked through each feeling and made their best effort to resolve issue and make that person feel better, or to encourage if things were going well that day. So, I encouraged my students to go home and try it.

I realized in order for them to attempt this "rule" that would mean their family would have to first, be sitting around the table having dinner together- herein the first issue. SO little of my students have this time with their families each night. I can't tell you how many students responded with- "we never eat dinner together," or "I have to get my own dinner every night," or "we never talk like that." Ouch! My heart sank. Even with the business that I grew up with, my mom did her best to sit us together for dinner. This is so not a priority in so many families today.

But, there were the small handful of students that do partake in family meals and decided to try the "rule," and those responses were great! One girl said when she asked her mom has she was feeling, that her mom talked for an hour! Another girl said that she felt it really drew her family closer that night and that the next morning, her and her sister were much friendlier and had fun in the car to school together. One girl is one of 8 children and she went down the line and told us what each sibling said- so sweet! Several students said they wanted to try it again.

I am so glad I challenged the students with this. I learned a lot from it, and it was so interesting to hear their responses. Though, I am continually saddened by how many broken families we have at out little "private Christian school." I realized this week, i can not assume any longer that their families are whole. This breaks my heart but also stirs me to continue to pray for these students.

Praying that God would restore families and that my students' hearts would be opened to the gospel and have the opportunity to see what God hopes for a healthy "family unit" centered around Him.

Halloween 2010

I know this is a bit late, but I think they are really cute pictures so I still wanted to share. For Halloween this year, each of our small groups got together in several neighborhoods in Riverside and Norco. Our group was in Norco. Unfortunately, we didn't get any trick-or-treaters but we enjoyed time together. Brandon and I went as Peter Pan and Wendy!

And here's one of my besties Saskia and she was a Lost Girl!

Pocahontas and John Smith!

Ariel and Prince Eric!

Brandon and Little Conan the Tiger!

Our good friends Scott and Stephanie who were in a different who decided to go with the Peter Pan theme as well!

Pan off!

The gang! (minus Brendon)

My girls!

The beautiful Sarah!

A fun and enjoyable night!

Reading for Instruction

Our church has begun a series on Ephesians. Pastor Jeff says we will be in this book for for a couple years! This is exciting because after a few weeks I already feel like I am understanding the book so much better. As we have been reading through this great book, I keep stopping at these passages written by Paul:

"14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

Ephesians 3:14-20

This has continued to remind me that my knowledge and love for Christ is so much smaller than I desire it to be. God is so infinitely powerful and strong-everything is done according to His will, and He has allowed us to be a part of it. I have been in awe this week of His awesome power and love.

Pastor Jeff also taught the other week that we need to be reading the word on a daily basis for instruction of living NOT simply a daily devotion. The devotions we read each day need to give us more than a little "pick-me-up." Really, they should remind us of our unrighteousness and ability to do anything good without the Lord, and thus challenge us to live for Him, and rely on Him, trusting Him in ALL we do and say. The Bible is here for instruction of living. These commands do not simply apply when they are convenient in our lives--they are meant to be lived out daily and consistently. This often means that we have to make hard decisions, but they are ultimately decisions that are good and honoring to our Lord which should always be our goal.

I am thankful for all that I, as well as what Brandon and I are learning together through this series. Meeting Wednesday night with our house group has been just an enjoyable and edifying as we flush out these truths.

Our Special Place

Brandon surprised me with a very special get away for our 2 year wedding anniversary! (Yes, like 3 weeks ago!) It was a much needed get away! We went to Palm Springs! This is where we honeymooned and we haven't been there since. These are actually the only 2 times I've been to Palm Springs. This is a special place for us and we enjoyed an incredible weekend of rest and quality time together!

This is right by the time share we stayed at on our honeymoon.

Brandon was so wonderful in planning everything! He even made reservations to a great restaurant right in downtown called Matchbox. It was a place we wanted to go to when we were on our honeymoon but we needed reservations so we couldn't go. So we went and it was great!

This is us in Palm Spring on our honeymoon!

We love celebrating our wedding anniversary! It is always a great time to look back on our past and reestablish our goals.

Being married to this man continues to be a great blessing. He loves and leads me towards Christ continually. I'm excited for our next year together!

Girlfriends, like gold!

This summer we were blessed with spending some great time with some very special friends. At one point this summer, my 4 closest girlfriends (the ones that in in Riverside) were all out of the country at the same time! So when they came back, we spent as much time together as we could! The girlfriends I have met down here have been priceless, purer than gold, and it has been so special to experience this time of life together. This is me, Kat, Dayna, Staci, and Saskia at Dayna and Cesar's wedding!
Staci and I with the beautiful pregnant Emily and sweet Whitney!

Us with the bride and groom!

At Dayna's shower!

My bestest friend Jennae came and visited! This girl is hard to be away from!

The boys being manly!

This was suppose to be a good-bye party for the Hunts and welcome home for the Rendels, but it's 2 weeks later, and the Hunts are still here! But we're not complaining!

The Hunts are waiting to go back to teach in the Middle East, and the Rendels were in Africa with their family for 4 months this summer!

Welcoming home Saskia, who was gone for 3 months this summer in North Africa!

It's both exciting and hard to think that there will come a time, probably soon, where we will all be separated, hopefully serving over seas and attempting to reach the lost, but we will probably be apart. But this time of building our marriages and faith and trust in the Lord together has been so encouraging and essential for us. We are so thankful for these friends and the many more that we get to live life with!

Thank you Lord for blessings us with people who love you and desire to serve and make much of you! Please be with us as we all seek to fulfill your will.

The Philippines :: Boracay

At the end of our trip we were able to rest up from the busy week for a couple nights at the amazing and beautiful Boracay island!!

Brandon and I have never been to an island like this, so it was really exciting for us!

On our way!!

Our room with the neat towel display!
When we walked out of our hotel and around the corner this is what we saw! Amazing!

This was built everyday.

The beautiful white sand and clear blue water!! And it felt amazing!

It was officially perfect when we found the Starbucks, and, right on the beach!

Brandon and I enjoyed an amazing walk along this beach our first morning there, and with Starbucks of course!

And then off to snorkeling!

We went to 2 different snorkeling sights. Brandon had been a couple times before but this was my first!

It was perfect conditions!

We're ready to go!

Our favorite thing we found was a Nemo fish! It was exactly as the movie portrayed!

We took a little boat around the whole island!

The mango shakes were the best in the world in Boracay! Thanks Jonas shakes!

Leaving Boracay . . . a bitter-sweet feeling for us Burns' cause we got BURNT!!

That snorkeling got us good! Man the sun there is strong! We applied sun screen twice before 10am and this is what we get!!

It took a good 3 weeks until our backs we fully healed! It was quite an awful, long plane flight back!

These were the neat boats called bonkas.

We saw some amazing views on our way home.

This is the top part of the island!

I was just playing with our camera here, but I thought it was a cool shot :)

We had an amazing time, and it was so neat to see the beautiful island that our Lord created! We would love to go back there too! (But this time with more powerful sunscreen!)

"O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

Psalm 8:1