Sunday, January 28, 2007

"Giddyup" Ashley

After I posted the picture of me on the horse I aquired a few more horsey pics that I thought were pretty special. I now have 3 generations of Horse pics. Next up is finding Sage the outfit and a horse that isn't covered in moss this time of year. The picture above is of my Dad when he was about 4 or so.

The picture below was taken of my Grams, my father's mother. The picture was taken in 1935! The funniest part is that she really looks almost the same today!

Yep that's me....so what do you think, do I look anything like Sage? I think I was about the same age in this picture as she is now. Thanks for the pic Dad.

My Women's Retreat

I don't know how many of you know just how crazy the women that are go to with church are, but I thought I would post a few pics of the highlight of the Women's retreat that I went on last weekend. During our free time on Saturday while all the other women were at the outlet mall or taking nature hike's or reading their bibles, my churches group of women were playing war! Each woman was in charge of finding her own "Air Soft" gun to bring on the retreat. If you don't know what an Air Soft gun is, it is like a bb gun but it uses these little plastic pellets that don't hurt as bad. They loaded their guns, took a few "Charlie's Angels" poses for me and then proceeded to annihilate each other until they ran out of ammunition. They had everything from pistols to fully automatic battery powered rifles that would have made the terminator wet his pants. Never in my life have I been more proud of the church I went too! For those who are curious, I was just the photo journalist, but I did find myself in the line of fire more than once.


My Birthday!!!




For my birthday Von took me out to my favorite Indian restaurant "Evergreen" in Corvallis which is about 25 minutes south of us. We were going to see a movie but we took to long at dinner and instead we went to Starbucks and had coffee and chatted for a while. We went to a really neat "Tea" shop that is owned by Rhonda and Ted, a very talkative Menanite couple and bought a small bag of their hand blended mint tea. They were so nice that they actually gave us 6 CD's and a book about church history for free. I felt kind of bad that we only spent $1.75 on some tea but they seemed pleased to get to give away stuff they were interested in. Von has been trying for most of the day to listen to the first lecture, but of course Sage and I talk too much for him to concentrate!

Ok so I don't really look 27 right? More like 21....I did get carded at the grocery store the other day.....:)
Sage got to hang out with David and Kat for the evening.
Ok so Papadam, Makhani Chicken, Naan, Rice, a Mexican Hot Chocolate, and a little pastry later.....I'm full and sleepy on the drive back home from Corvallis. Von actually stopped at Burgerville and got Ice Cream, but I behaved and new I was "done" for the night.
The Birthday card that von and sage made for me. Von cut and Sage colored. Aren't they talented!!!

It was a great birthday, beautiful weather, I had a great nap....who could ask for more!

Afternoon Tea

Every Tuesday afternoon we have "Tea" at my house. This week Kat and Shelly came and we decided it would be a great day to sit outside. Notice the glare? Yes that would be the sun shining. It was actually tolerable to sit outside that day. We enjoyed our tea and some goodies and then went inside where it was warm. Even though the sun is shining, it is still pretty darn cold! This is Kat!


Shelly and Kat
Me!.....It was so nice to be outside for a bit.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

First week of School!

Well let's see what all has happened in the last week or so. We started off the term with a retreat for the students who serve with us on Campus. It was alot of fun. We have this great 3 story house out in the woods that is loaned to us and we take lots of food, games, and pillows. We spent the weekend eating, sitting by the fireplace watching movies, and brainstorming about how we wanted to share the love that we have for Jesus with other students on campus. It was great! Then all week long on campus we had an information table set up. It was really amazing to see how many students we met that we had never even seen before. Most were very interested in knowing more about what NCM "Northwest Collegiate Ministries" had to offer. One of the days we were on campus we ran into one of the few people that really doesn't like us. In fact I would come close to saying she loathes us. I'll tell you a quick story about her and then we can move on..... So last term we were handing out candy on campus during finals week and each piece of candy that we passed out had a little note of encouragement on it with a scripture verse and a note that said, "hope you are blessed this week, we are praying for you". Well Sage is always a great helper and since I didn't have a babysitter that day I thought it would be a good day for her to tag along. To make a very long story short, she gave a piece of candy to a lady who was not as appreciative as everyone else. This woman came and found me a few minutes later and proceeded with what we have now called "The Altercation". She informed me that she was very offended that I would, "Use my child to peddle my God Crap!" Needless to say I was so shocked I didn't know what to say so I did what came naturally, I laughed....and said, "I'm so sorry! But have a great day anyway!!!" And before I could say anything else she walked off. It was quite a shocking day. Well now this last week Von also was blessed enough to have an "Altercation" of his own with this woman. He was setting up our info table in the student center and she walked past him grumbling and he said, "Hey have a good day". but unfortunately he didn't stop there and he happened to throw in a "God Bless You!" at the end of his greeting. Well her reply was quite humorous and a little confusing. She said "He'd better not! That's taking away my rights!" And she stomped off down the hall. Later that morning she passed by our table and conveniently enough happened to pick up her phone right as she passed by and say, "The Damn Christians are Here Again!!!" It gave us a good chuckle but Von and I talked and we decided that from now on we will not provoke this poor woman with any greeting of blessing or random act of kindness involving candy or scripture, we won't invite her to our bible studies or worship services, we will just say hello and silently pray for her. As frustrating a situation as this was we later found out from a friend that this woman who happens to be a lesbian has suffered much ridicule at the hand of what she thinks are Christians. Apparently she has walked out to her truck on campus multiple times and found it tagged with things like "Jesus Hates Homo's". It was saddening to find this out and to think that she associates us and what we do with those same idiots that would write something as heartless and un-christian as that. But it does motivate us to pray for her and to have compassion instead of being offended when she walks by and makes rude comments just loud enough for us to hear.

After Von found out what this woman had endured at the hand of so-called "Christians" he said he wants to make a shirt that says "Jesus hates those that hate homo's" but we all know that's not true either. He said maybe we could just make one that says, "Did you know that hating Homosexuals could get you to hell". But thankfully he decided that wouldn't get us anywhere either. Thankfully Jesus loves us all! Even the stupid, hateful, people that write stuff on peoples cars to be jerks. If only I could learn that same kind of love. So if you think about it pray for this "unnamed" woman and pray that we would happen to have the opportunity some day to show her how much we care for her and how much Jesus loves her!

It's been a crazy start to the term but we are blessed to be here!

Von and I at the retreat last weekend!


The belly! I now know it is not in a pregnant woman's best interest to have someone take her picture from down low. It seems to widen the angle.

Sunday, January 7, 2007

Thursday, January 4, 2007

Christmas 06

Ok so a quick run down of our Christmas Holidays. Von left for India on the 11th. We left on the 14th of December and flew to Houston to visit Poppy. Then we had the "Livingston" Christmas at my Aunt Paula's House. We then drove to Corpus and spent the next week with Bampy and Grammy, and my Brother Keane and his family. It was a very nice time of doing a whole lot of nothing and eating a whole lot of everything!!! On the 28th Sage and I drove to San Antonio (courtesy of Bampy's Jeep) and picked up Von who arrived safely from India!!!! We then spent the next week visiting with his alternating sets of parents and his sweet Granny! Last night we arrived back in Portland and finally spent the night in our own beds after 3 long weeks of being away. We had a great Christmas with ton's of great presents which we brought back thanks to 2 extra suitcases, a very large cardboard box and a brand new cooler filled with deer meat thanks to "Ma and Pa". We bought a deep freeze today and are working on learning to live out of it like Von's mom and mike! They could survive a good 2 years on what they have frozen alone! We are still unpacking and tomorrow we start back with Collegiate Ministry here at Western Oregon University with our Servant Team retreat. Time to get our brains working again!!! We hope you all had a blessed Holiday Season and please feel free to leave comments, suggestions or novels of your own.
We love you all and thank you so much for all our great gifts!! Blessings, Von, Ash, Sage, and Baby ??? aka "Tumbleweed"
Sage in some of the "Dress Up" clothes she got from the Banuelos Family for Christmas.

Here is Sage swimming at her Bampie's house 2 days before Christmas!!! Only in South Texas.


Sage's first trip to the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. Thanks Aunt Sherry!!

The Beginner Blogger

Ok so here we go! Everyone says we don't send pics enough so now we will try to do this blog thing and see if it works a little better. Hope you all enjoy watching as our family grows!!

blessings,
ash