Halleluiah Chorus

It's CHRISTMAS!!! After putting up the Christmas tree at mom and dad's after Thanksgiving, we came home to an undecorated house. :( However, we like to get real Christmas trees and thought it would be best to wait one more week. So, to get in the spirit of Christmas before decorating the house, we went to a performance of Handel's Messiah presented by the Fort Worth City orchestra and the choir from Southwestern Seminary. Neither of us had heard the entire piece before. And still neither of us have heard the entire piece!



We got dressed up (well, a little dressed up!) and headed to the seminary to experience this masterpiece. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but on a week night and after having sat for an hour for the first of 3 parts of the performance, and having gotten to attend for free since it was hosted by the seminary, we decided to call it a night during intermission. This meant we missed the enfamous "Halleluiah Chorus".



Maybe next year we'll start the performance AFTER intermission!

Have any of you ever heard the entire performance?

Meredith & Me

Have I mentioned Meredith lately? She's so cute!! This is another picture from our time in Ruston over Thanksgiving, but I forgot to post it and thought it was post-worthy. Meredith is so cute right now. She's totally not into her pacifier anymore, but she'll soothe herself with her thumb just the same! And, she's really into playing 'peek-a-boo' with anyone who is interested! She's a little mixed up on where to put her hands. Sometimes she covers her eyes, but sometimes she covers her ears! SO CUTE!

the FOUR FRIENDS reunion

So Molly, Anna, Heather, and I were all in Ruston for Thanksgiving and I invited them to come over during the break. The last time (other than our wedding festivities) that all of us were together with our husbands/boyfriends was in 2005 when I brought Daniel home for the first time. We all met up for coffee. At that time, our total number was 8. Now, we were 9. A single number change may not seem like much, but...


-Daniel became not just my boyfriend, but my husband.

-Heather and Chad's then 2 month old little girl who was having serious heart conditions has now made it successfully through a surgery and is 2 years old and lives life BIG! She's super energetic and funny!

-Molly and Brandon now have a little girl.

-Anna...well, Mr. Right has yet to find Anna, but I trust he is out there somewhere. I absolutely can NOT believe she hasn't been swept off of her feet yet. After all, she's got a fun, great personality, she's athletic, she loves the Lord, she's a good listener and a good friend, and last but not least, she's beautiful! God's keeping someone really special for her - I believe that!




Ah....good times with sweet friends.

Thanksgiving

What are you thankful for this year? Who are you thankful for? We have so much to be thankful for - families, friends, freedom in our country, our Savior. Specifically we are thankful this year that He has brought us through our first year of marriage and has directed us in staying here in the US for a bit longer and has brought a sweet community in our lives to fellowship with and grow in the Lord together. He's also given us terrific people to serve through our work. It's really a joy to have work that is so rewarding! And He's given us the privilege of being near family still!! Here we are - Dad, Mom, me, Daniel, Jenny, Meredith, and Brian.

We spent Thanksgiving in Ruston with both sides of my family - dad's family first, then mom's family. Here are some clips of our Thanksgiving celebration:

Mamaw and me making sweet potato casserole

cousins and aunts and uncles and 2nd cousins

2nd cousins - Meredith and Sydney

all of us at Granny's

cousins and babies

Meredith...driving home. Is this legal?!?!!?!

our small group

I've seemed to carry a "4-some" theme in my life since elementary school. Then it was me, Mary Marshall, Mandy, and Angela. In high school it was me, Anna, Molly, and Heather. In college, it was me, Libby, Katie, and Betsy. And I think I've found another 4-some, well, "8-some" I guess since at this stage in life we're all married. That "8-some" is our small group - us, Craig & Nikki, Josh & Elizabeth, and Caleb & Michelle.

Since September we have been meeting with this fantastic and godly group of guys and gals. Daniel and I had begun getting to know Craig & Nikki, our leaders, this past year. We really fell in love with their hearts for the Lord and with the ways that in the few visits we had with them, we left our time with them feeling drawn to know Jesus more. In July after we learned that we wouldn't be moving to Turkey, our hearts really longed to somehow be in community with them rather than just seeing them occasionally.



Well, as the Lord would have it, He orchestrated circumstances such that Nikki and Craig would become the leaders of our small group. we had previously been in a great small group, and our church was beginning a new "push" for building community in small groups. We weren't looking to change small groups, but in conversation with Josh, Daniel's brother, and his wife, Elizabeth, and Caleb and Michelle, a couple we'd been discipling for about a year who were also newlyweds, the six of us began having dialogue about trying to get together more regularly. This eventually developed into conversation about becoming our own small group. And so we went for it, but...we were leaderless...until in a phone conversation with Nikki, she said that she and Craig had been praying about leading a small group and that whether they led our small group or not, they wanted to really be more purposeful about getting together with Daniel and me. Well, as God had ordained it, they became our leaders. Over the past 3 months the Lord has begun birthing in all of us a deep desire for growing in Him and learning to live the abundant and joyful life that He has called us to as believers. Our group has a blast together as we are challenged in the Lord. There is both laughter and tears almost every night. The eight of us meet together for a time of worship and a brief time in the Word together, but the majority of the time is spent separated - guys with guys, girls with girls. And it's in those girl times that the tears come. After all, who ever heard of 4 guys getting together and crying!?!?! ;-) The Lord is digging deep in us to grow us and draw us into His image. It's super fun! And we really love these couples - lots!

Cheers to:
Caleb&Michelle.

Josh&Elizabeth.

Craig&Nikki.

Meredith turns ONE - belated post.

Meredith celebrated her first birthday with a hayride at Mom and Dad's. She had quite the turn out of guests - Brian's family from Baton Rouge drove up, old friends of ours from Shreveport drove over, we came in from Fort Worth, Jenny's best friend and her little boy came down from Little Rock, and a host of family and friends came from Ruston!

RUMBA!!

So, we took our first lesson in the RUMBA tonight! And it was so fun! Our friend Amanda told us about dance lessons that a man at her church gives. He just takes a couple of dollars donation - can't beat that!

For a girl who deals with issues of control and trying to lead in our marriage at times, I'm thinking these dance lessons will prove to be helpful in learning to let Daniel lead me in marriage as I learn to physically let Daniel lead me around the dance floor. Oh, God, teach me. Make me. Mold me - even through learning these latin dance moves!

Glow-in-the-Dark Festival

Our church had a glow-in-the-dark festival on October 31. We invited a family we love to come to this feast of games, candy, hot dogs, 3-legged races, and more! All the kids went home with at least half of their sacks filled with candy and big smiles all over their faces! One of the girls even asked as we were leaving, "Can I go tell your pastor 'thank you'?" ....a big step for a little girl of different faith.

birthday celebration

Our newest friend, Brendon, celebrated his birthday a couple of weekends ago. A couple of his friends he knows from India are currently students at SWBTS and we picked them up for the party. Here we are!

another relaxing weekend for the Audis

After our whirl-wind of a month in September when we were only in Fort Worth 1 of 5 weekends, we've really enjoyed the rest that we've had so far this month!! This weekend has been relaxing as well!

Who of you are fans of the Lion King? If you're a fan at all and you're in the DFW area, I highly recommend going to the broadway presentation of the Lion King at the Music Hall in Dallas. We went last night with the other Audis and with the Dulocks. The performance is absolutely phenominal! The costuming is mind-boggling. The singing is dynamic. The story has just a few tweeks and it's full of points of laughter. Little Simba is cute as he can be!

That was last night.

In the early afternoon I had a small reunion with some girls from seminary - it was actually a baby shower for Leila and George. They will welcome little Elijah into the world at the beginning of December! It was great to catch up with these girls who I haven't seen in almost a year.



Later in the afternoon we played tennis. I played on the tennis team at RHS my freshman and sophomore years. I was the last seed on the team, but I had a good time and even won some games! Daniel. However, we're both quite rusty in our skills. I've never had a strong serve. Daniel does, though, and sometimes the ball gets in the right box when he's serving. If we took advantage of the courts at the seminary more often, we might get better, but our playing is so incredibly sporadic that we pretty much stay the same in our skill levels. Today's score: Kim - 7; Daniel - 5.