Excited

I absolutely love this time of year even though with it comes a lot of work and stress. Thanksgiving is already here and I love all the Thanksgiving food. Last Friday, we had a taste of what's to come because we had our Young Adults Thanksgiving dinner. Most importantly I have a lot to be grateful to God for. The Thanksgiving service at my church is probably my favorite service of the whole year, so I'm looking forward to that. And who doesn't look forward to those couple of days off from work? I have been sent to bed rest for the whole week because I'm sick, but I always look forward to those two days off. Next comes all the Christmas musicals. This was my first year as a music teacher and it's the first time I have had to put together a Christmas musical with the kids. I'm a bit nervous about it, but at the same time excited because I've seen how much hard work the kids have put into learning everything they've had to learn. Then of course, comes my 25th birthday. Big party this year. I can't wait. Then our 2nd Wedding Anniversary. I can't believe so much time has gone by. Of course, Christmas. I looooooooove Christmas. New Year's...... and so on. I will probably gain about 5 pounds this year with all the food, but who cares? I'm just happy to be able to enjoy these upcoming holidays with the ones I love always remembering why it is that I celebrate these days.

Grateful

To start off, I just want to say that I am extremely grateful to God that my life is so great. I see the things other people have been through in life and it just helps me realize how absolutely blessed I am. I feel like I thank God a lot when he gives me something I ask for, but a lot of times I forget to thank Him for the things I didn't even ask for and He just gave me. So, I just want to take a little moment to share what I'm so thankful to God for this specific week. Health is one. I've been sick with the flu for the past week and God gave me strength to get up and go to work everyday even though I really didn't feel up to it. I am feeling a lot better. I am grateful for family. Sometimes things get a little rough and it's just great to have people there that you can call family that can help you out even if it's just to lend you a shoulder to cry on. And I'm not just talking about blood relatives. I am really grateful for having a roof over my head, a bed to sleep in, food to eat. I am grateful because God provides. I am grateful for soooo many things, but lately, those are the things that have stood out to me and I just wanted to share them.

Miss South Carolina

Poor girl. It happens to all of us....sometimes we're trying to say something and it doesn't come out right. Usually we have a chance to redeem ourselves, but Miss Teen South Carolina didn't. I can't imagine what she must've felt like knowing how many people were watching and listening. Watch.

Work Work Work

After 8 months of not working, I have once again started doing something valuable with my time. Not that being at home isn't valuable, I was just getting pretty lazy, waking up at 11am (sometimes later, don't tell Chris), playing with the dogs, watching my soap (Days of Our Lives). Pretty much I was mostly hanging out and even though I don't like to admit it, I was getting pretty anxious to do something else with my life. So, today I started working as the Music teacher at the church school. Kindergarten - 5th grade. I'm really excited about it and even though I know some days it's going to get pretty hectic because of all the church activities that I am involved in at the same time and the house work, I know that God has me there with a purpose and I want to allow Him to use me at my workplace. Please pray for me as the new school year starts. I also want to be able to continue my studies in Sign Language Interpreting and that also takes some time. I need to be able to balance out my time between Husband, home, school, work, church and never forget that I have to put God first above all. :)

Youth Choir Trip Highlights

Here are some of the crazy things from the trip.

1. Fiugitiva (Way to go Shannon! I Luv U!)
2. Beef Jerky
3. Our neverending devotionals (girls)
4. Ghosts on the fourth floor??? Really???
5. Cookies at the Country Inn...and more cookies
6. Gy Gy, they spelled your name wrong.
7. Louise (Ms. G)
8. "Tengo paz como un rio, tengo paz como un rio, tengo paz como un rio en mi ser...."
9. Elo Luv!
10. Anita and the vending machine....hmmm.
11. Ironing hair and more hair and more hair and more hair.
12. Baells
13. Guys by the pool at 2:30 in the morning!!!!!!!!! Yes, it was a highlight when you look back, but don't ever do it again!
14. Sweating in the sun, knocking from door to door, looking for people to share the gospel with. (Definite highlight)
15. Ally...remember the towel?
16. Getting stuck at 7 Eleven in the rain.
17. All the old people in Sarasota.
18. Food!!
19. Volleyball...switching every 10 points and me not being able to float with the noodle.
20. Leo and I trying to make you all smile.
21. Ana's bracelets
22. Chicken Nuggies (Pointed out by Coryna)
23. And who could forget......Delilah? I think I need to have a talk with her.

Not so much highlights
1. The Pilot by the pool
2. Wendy's...ew
3. And of course......Guys by the pool at 2:30 in the morning!!!!!!!! Still luv you guys though.

Let me know if I forgot anything.

Sooooo many birthdays!!!!

The month of birthdays in my family has arrived. Josh on the 7th, uncle on the 10th, James on the 15th, Danny on the 18th, Aunt in PR on the 19th, Mom on the 27th, and Chris on the 28th. One party after the other. How exciting and exhausting. Sooooo Happy B-day to all you August people! Those I mentioned and those I didn't, may God Bless you greatly!

We're Baaaack!

So we got back yesterday afternoon from the youth choir trip. It was great. I am exhausted however. We went to 4 churches. The youth got to Evangelize in Naples. Met a lot of people along the way. One person did stand out. Louise (aka Ms. G). She was an amazing older lady who shared some time with us in Sarasota. She shared a part of her testimony with us and let us invade her house and her pool. I'm sure she made an impact in most of our lives. We had a lot of fun and I can't wait until next year. :)

Youth Choir

The youth choir at my church has been part of the music ministry for a veeeery long time. I can't say exactly how many years because I really don't know, but I'll round off to about 20 years. I participated in youth choir from when I was in 7th grade until my senior year of high school. We would go every summer on a mission trip. That was something that I really looked forward to. In 2002, my sister and I became the directors of the youth choir. She handles the music direction and I assist her in teaching the notes with the piano and coming up with the choreography. We pretty much work together in picking out the musicals and just organizing everything. It's been great seeing our little brother participate in and enjoy something that we also participated in when we were his age (it wasn't that long ago). I really enjoy being a part of it for many reasons. One of them being that music is such a big part of my life and always has been. God gives us gifts and we have to use them. For the past six years we can really say that we've been blessed. Even when there have been times that we lose motivation. It might be because someone made a comment we didn't like or a youth decides not to participate, but we are quickly reminded why we're doing this. We are allowing God to use us to minister to others through music. On Tuesday, the youth choir is leaving on their annual mission trip. At the beginning of the year we had decided that we were going to New Orleans, but God had other plans. He wanted to keep us here in Florida. We will be going to Tampa, Sarasota, Naples, and Gainesville (not necessarily in that order). I'm really excited to see what great things God is going to do this coming week. The youth will be doing some community service along with evangelism and they have a concert in every church we stop at. They've really shown a lot of excitement about sharing the gospel. I know God is going to use us and I just ask that you pray for every youth and adult that will be going on this trip. That God may start preparing our hearts and preparing the hearts of each and every person that we will be meeting. Also, that He may keep us safe and give peace of mind to the parents that are letting their kids go out without them for the first time. I would like to have all of you pray for the youth, therefore if you're willing to spend some time during the days July 31 - August 6 praying for a youth choir member, let me know and I will give you the name of a youth that you can pray for. Thank you for reading. God Bless!

Hairspray

For those of you that don't know this already...my sister and I are musical junkies. More her than me. We'd probably go bankrupt living in New York because we would want to see every Broadway musical over and over again. So you can imagine that I've been counting the days until "Hairspray" came out. Finally, last night, we were able to go see it and I absolutely loved it! It was so much fun. An absolutely, incredibly talented cast. The worst part of the movie was the pre-teen girls sitting next to me. Every time Zac Efron (Link) came out they would giggle, clap, and scream a little. It was cute, but at the same time annoying. So if you like musicals, you should definitely go see it.

I Love My Friends

I can't believe I'm actually writing on this from time to time. Feels nice to write what I'm feeling. It's no coincidence that my favorite bible verse is Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. Look it up. Ok..fine I'll tell you what it says. " Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up.But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" Let's see.....to start off, growing up, I loved having friends and making new friends, but I was never the type of person to maintain friendships. Weird huh? How could someone who loves having friends not be able to maintain them? Mostly because I have such a big mouth and I like to say things like they are. Those of you that know me well and have stuck by me through this, I love you guys! As I've gotten older, I've learned how to hold back a little. Not as much as I would like, but I am really working on that. I would like to thank Chris for letting me know when it's time to close my mouth. I've also learned how to appreciate my friends more. Anyway....after going through so much drama in my teenage years (girls love drama), I decided, I didn't want that in my life anymore. I would much rather have only a few people I can call my close friends instead of trying to make the whole world my friend. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have friends, the more the merrier, but because I'm such an emotional person, I prefer to avoid getting hurt. Yes, I have trust issues when it comes to friendships. And...it really hurts me when someone was calling themselves my friend 2 weeks ago, but today they won't even say hello. The worse part is trying to figure out why. A lot of people don't actually have the guts to come up to you and tell you what you did wrong. If you're reading this, and you consider yourself my friend...please tell me if I've done anything to upset you or hurt you. Don't just stop talking to me. I want to know. That's how relationships grow. You say things...and you say them with love. That is one thing I definitely have to learn. I have so many things to work on. I know. But mostly when it comes to relationships with people, here's what I want to be able to accomplish: 1. Forgiveness. I have a really hard time forgiving people who have hurt me in the past. I want to be able to let go and just move on. 2. Love. I want to be able to show love to EVERYBODY. It's one thing to think you love someone, one thing to say you love someone, and it's a totally different thing to actually show it to someone. Even when someone has hurt me, or someone just doesn't talk to me, I want to be able to show love and compassion towards that person. 3. Silence. I want to be able to say things only when it's appropriate to say them and I want to able to say them the right way. If I can't say it the way it's supposed to be said, then I need to stay silent. So those are 3 things I want to work on. I really want to take this blog and use it to let some of you know that I love you guys and I really appreciate you. If I leave you out, don't get offended. Just think of it as a way to start working on our friendship. Starting with....of course, God! #1 in my life because He is the only one who has never and will never let me down. Next...Chris, I love you! You've been my best friend since before we started dating. My sister and brother...Marien and Danny...I know I don't say it enough...but I love you siblings. Naty and Bryan. I love you guys and appreciate you letting me vent with you sometimes. You just sit there and take it. :) Yesenia. Really appreciate your friendship. Don't forget I got all 10 questions right at your Bridal Shower. Leo and Itch. Yes....believe it or not, your names get mentioned too. You think you're only Chris' friends, but you're mine too. Kristine...even though we had a couple of years of distance...I am really thankful to God for bringing you and Jose back into our lives. So....I love you guys. And again, if your name wasn't mentioned, don't feel bad. I'll work on mentioning it in the future. :)

Girls and Guys

Well...I'm trying to think of a way to express my thoughts without coming off too critical or judgemental or even too mean. I'm not even sure if anyone reads this, but hopefully someone will understand what I'm trying to say. Lately....well, I guess for the past year I've noticed the behavior of certain girls in the church. I like to call it, the "body massage." There are many single young girls in the church. Most of the ones I'm talking about are in their twenties and what I've noticed is the way they say "hi" to the guys at church. It's almost a full body massage. They get very physical. Sometimes they even sit on their laps. They hug for a large amount of time. As they talk to them, their arm is wrapped around their waist. They don't even do this with just the single guys. They act this way with guys who have girlfriends too. It's kind of disturbing. What's worse is that the guys actually allow this. Yes! Even the ones with girlfriends. I don't know about everyone else, but I sure wouldn't want a girl to come up to my husband and put her hands all over him. I know we need to have love for each other and a lot of us have been raised to say hello with a hug and a kiss. I just think these people are taking it a step too far and it doesn't seem right. Some of these girls at times serve as leaders to some youth activities and what kind of example are they setting for the younger girls? It's like I was taught as a youth .....one little thing can lead to much worse and I really want to urge the girls who read this to watch the way you treat men or guys or boys. Whatever age you are. Have some self-respect. It is so precious to wait for that special someone that God has saved for you. Please be aware of what you're doing. Remember that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. It's in the way you dress, it's in the way you speak, it's in your actions with the opposite sex. Again, I don't want to come off too judgemental, I just need to vent.

My First Post

So I've started a blog. Knowing me I'm not sure if I'll keep it going, but I'll try. Good things are going on right now. I have a new job which I'll be starting on August 15. I'm really excited about that because I'll be dealing with two things I absolutely love, music and children. I haven't worked for 7 months, so I have to start getting used to waking up early again and not at noon everyday. The little girls dance team at church is such a blessing. For the past couple of months I've been teaching some girls from church a couple of worship dances. There are 8 girls ages 3-10 coming every wednesday to class. The younger ones like to call it "Ballet class" even though I barely have a clue as to what ballet really is, but I love watching them learn and pay attention and just watching the excitement on their faces every time they dance. Youth Choir is going good. We are leaving on our annual concert tour in a couple of weeks. We will be going to Sarasota, Tampa, Naples, and Gainesville. They will be presenting a concert and going out into the cities presenting the Gospel and doing community service. We've encountered a couple of obstacles, but we know that God is in control and He's going to use these youth to bring people to His feet. So I guess that's all I have to say for now. Check out Chris' page www.thecrivas.blogspot.com. Until next time.