Family Time!

My family was able to come down and visit this week! It's their spring break so they were able to come down. It was a lot of fun. I was working most of the time and Raleigh was working the whole time, so they were hangin' by the pool or near BIOLA most of the time. We had a blast! I'm so glad they got to come. :) Here are some pictures:



At the Cheesecake Factory...one of my personal favorites!

Mom and Dad at the Cabazon Outlet malls.
Playing frisbee one night!

My grandma came over on Saturday from San Diego. Here's all of us at The River (not a real river of course). :)
More Frisbee :) I love this picture of us!

Pi Day, Spring Disneyland

Today Raleigh and I headed over to Disneyland for the day. We haven't been since January, and are trying to get there once a month before our passes expire in June. Well, this was the WRONG day to go. Raleigh and I agreed that it was the busiest we had ever, ever seen it- even in the summer, and even busier (barely) than Christmas! I don't get it- but whatever. :) It took us a fully hour from the time we turned into the long line of cars just to get into the parking garage, to when we actually walked in the park. And we even left 3 hours earlier than we'd planned to because it was so busy. Rides were too long, lines for food were too long..uhhgg. But, we still had fun. And Kristina met us there, so that was extra great.

It does make me wonder, though, does the media make up this recession? Of course I know the real answer to that, but if you were to go to Disneyland, you would never even guess anything was wrong with our economy- in fact, you'd think it was thriving! With tickets at $80 each, oversized rice krispie treats at $4 each, and a normal turkey sandwich at $8, you'd think people would stay away. Anyway it was just an interesting day, but of course, Disneyland is always fun. We went on a few of our favorite rides and just hung out, taking in the environment. We walked around Downtown Disney for a while too, which was really fun. There were some places we had never seen! Anyway I'll stop blabbing. But here are some of our pictures:

Beautiful spring tree. I miss these!

Kristina and I were on the train for Big Thunder Railroad and Raleigh got a picture. :)
Spring picture by the castle with a lovely tree!
Raleigh in line with all the kids, to go down a slide. :)

So on another note, yesterday was Pi Day (3-14 for 3.14) so we decided to have an event for Encounter. We had a pie-baking contest. There weren't as many people that showed up as we were thinking, but it was still a lot of fun. And I won!! Even though there were only 4 pies. :) haha. Oh well- Best Overall Pie, and best crust. It was yummy!

Brittany won best presentation- and there are our awards.
The pies.

Spring is here!

I've been quite the boring blogger lately!! We haven't done much in the last month or so- except survive. :) Ministry can be like that sometimes I guess- and we are both working full time, plus tack on all the ministry stuff that happens, and our lives get so busy and exhausting that sometimes it's all we can do to hang in there. Well, spring is finally here in the desert, and it's gorgeous. If you ever want to visit the Palm Springs area, NOW is the time. This is the only time of the year that I can't complain that I live here. :) It's been in the 70's (some days even the low 80's) and it's just beautiful! Don't worry Northwesterners, we'll pay for it in the summer with our 115 degree days- weeks-months. But anyway, here are some pictures from this weekend. Kristina came over from BIOLA to hang out, which was wonderful. I always enjoy our times together. It was also cool because Oregon State was hosting a baseball tournament in Palm Springs, so we went there to watch the game and cheer them on! To our surprise, there were more OSU fans there than anyone else! It was an overall great weekend.




Raleigh and I at the baseball game.

The baseball field.
Kristina playing frisbee golf with us in the park.
This is where I work- and the bouganvilla is absolutely amazing this time of the year.
Here's another shot of it- it is just flowing! So pretty.