Hope Ella

I know this is late but the Libbys were in Canada when it was Hopey birthday... so we celebrate now!!
(Rachel read this to her)

My dear sweet Hope Ella Grace Libby...

I remember the first day I met you at your house in Brooks you were SOO little and just learning to really talk and you said "Hi Missa Mary"
I fell in love and knew that we would be great friends!

For those that don't know, Hope is my mini me... She is JUST how I was when I was her age.
Rachel has used my mom quite a few times for help on how to not "forget" her daughter at the store...
We have bonded in a way that no one else can, don't get me wrong I love all the Libby kids!

I love to hear her stories and how her mind works.
I love that she is a romantic and LOVES love.
I love that she can't quite say her "R's" I couldn't either!
I love that next to Chris and myself she is the most excited about my wedding
I love when she laughs really hard!
I love that she use to ask ALWAYS "Where's your Dog? At your house?" But she sounds like she is from Brooklyn.
I love that she loves Jesus with all her heart.
I love that she adores her mom and wants to be just like her someday.
I love that she loves her dad and has so must respect for him.
I love how she takes care of all of her siblings (she will be a great mom!)

Most of all...

I love that she loves me!
She is really one of my most favorite people in the whole world.
I can't wait to see who she will become.

Hope Ella, you are one of my best friends and I couldn't imagine life without you. You make me so happy!

Happy Birthday! We will party like rockstars on Sunday for
                                      sure girly!



Happy new life!

It's been SOOO long since I have written anything.
My life has become crazy! So many changes and things to share.
BUT for this post I wanted to say Thank You.
 +++This is long and if you want to get to the thank you skip down+++
My 26th birthday this year was way more than just a turn into my "late" 20's it was a celebration of the last year.
For my 25th birthday, I guess you could say I had a mid-life crisis! I really did:) Ask my family...
I made lists of things I needed to do before I turned 25 and thought about all the things I hadn't done in my life and how lame I was and unsuccessful and boring and blah blah blah....

To recover from my depression my wonderful parents sent me to Disneyland! Haha:) It really helped.

Any who... :) Within my 25th year on earth SO much has changed.

I got a boyfriend.. I dumped him (I know you all hated him)

I got a promotion- LOVE IT

I got another boyfriend:)

Got Engaged!

Bought a condo

Getting Married.

Whoa!

So this year I woke up on Ocatober tense and was greeted by a cake pop and coffee from my big sister:)

Got to work and walked into the most amazing birthday display I have ever seen!

They had cards and balloons and cupcakes and cookies.... :)

I was overwhelmed with JOY! I have worked so hard to get my staff to like and respect me and this just showed how much they care. I love my team!

THEN later in the day my wonderful boss sent me the nicest email saying he was proud of me! I'm not sure if you have ever had a boos be proud of you but it's worth more than any amount of money or benefits. He took a chance on a young girl and he was proud of ME.

Holy Moly at this point I have totally given up on working and am just soaking in my day..

Ok ok let's just say I REALLY love my birthday and if you have ever come in contact with me September-October you would probably have heard about my day of birth.

THEN!!!! I get the most beautiful display of flowers from my fiance:) He's great.

THEN I come home and get ready because my man is taking me out... he won't tell me where but it could be burgerville and I would be jazzed!

He comes over and has more gifts for me:)

My wonderful future MIL and FIL and SIL and RIL (mother in law, father in law, sister in law, and Rory in law) got me a large amount gift card to MICHAELS! I love to craft!!

(I tried to add the picture but it wouldn't work)

So Chris comes and gives me gifts and we head to dinner..

I'm telling him all about my day and reading him posts from Facebook and texts and emails and I start to cry... VERY happy tears. But I can't stop, I am so overwhelmed with the shock of how much the Lord has blessed me. My life has totally turned for the better and I cannot believe it.

We get to dinner at Papa Haydns! What a great meal! I continue to talk about how blessed I fell and how God has had this plan for me my whole life and I finally get to see so much happening. I cry again.. and maybe make him cry too;) (don't tell him)

I am not writing to brag or boast so please don't take it that way.

++If you skipped start reading here++

I am saying Thank You for all of the notes and love and prayer and EVERYTHING on my birthday. It really made me see just how happy I am and lucky of a girl to find Chris and get to be married to him:)

My life is NOT perfect but it is perfect for me and I wouldn't want it any other way.

My friends and family are so wonderful! I am happy!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you

You have no idea what your facebook post, long email, text message, card.... meant to me



This weekend.

So summer finally decided to come and visit us! I was ready to play too!! I feel so blessed to have such awesome friends to play with. Saturday started with a sweet phone call from my long lost African friend Marci, she had some pretty encouraging words to share with me...super helpful! I love that Gods lets you keep friends even when you are thousands of miles apart.
 Then my two partners in crime came up to Portland for the day!! Jess and Megan are usually in the cards for my days to have fun.

Jess, Meg, my sister and I got all ready and went down to the river in West Linn. It was sooooooo HOT!!!! We LOVED it, but boy oh boy was it hot. We only lasted about an hour and we thought that chips salsa and MARGARITAS sounded better! Yes, we were right:) We sat outside for hours, talking, laughing, playing in the fountain (not suppose to, but way to hot not to). I love my sister and my best friends!

We came back and laughed and ate and drank a little more sitting outside while Josh was doing hard labor tearing apart the deck...he had four girls telling him how we thought he should do it:-)

Megan and I can make eachother laugh and we did. My sister happen to catch it:-) Love ya!

I love my friends and how they are more like family to me...they love me and my family and my family loves them right back! I love that we have so much fun together.

So Sunday rolls around and I went back to South Lake with Necia and Josh. It was funny because it was on parenting! I thought it was a sign they should have a baby...they didn't think so:-/ Oh well it was good:) I really like it and maybe feel like it could be a good home...Next week I'm going to try a new one in Lake Oswego with a new friend. So we'll see how that goes.
Later Necia and I went to a Portland Timers game...way fun but way hot!!! (don't worry I'm NOT complaining!!!) So many people came out, I hope to go to more!

This is one of my "I don't care smiles" But I really do, I just couldn't see and my back was burning off from the melting plastic;-)

So I thought I would update and show that I am starting to get a life...kinda... does it count when your friends come up? I think so! But I'm still loving it and learning lots at my job and how to get around up here.

PS Keep my brother in your prayers! He is coming home soooo soon! Pray for safe and easy travels!

Mary

Time for another

Time for an update,
 I still love my job very much! There is so much to learn still! My boss told me I will be learning something new for about 6 months...sigh. It makes me tired to even think that there is so much more to learn! :) BUT it's worth it. I love the little interactions I get with the patients I check in, and the people I work with are still so helpful and great.

 The search for a church was off for about two weeks...I went to the Oregon Jamboree with some girlfriends two weeks ago. It was so fun! My friend Sarah got us all ticktes and we had a blast camping. The last weekend I got bored, so I went down to Salem and hung out with my mom. (since I still don't have a life up here, I need to go back to my old one in Salem)

 Today I went with my sister and husband to their church called Southlake. I really enjoyed it! The message was great and worship was great as well. It was nice to go to a church that felt..."normal" whatever that means:) But I liked it a lot and will try it again. I met a girl a few weeks ago named Rachel (weird story how we met) BUT she attends a church in Lake Oswego, she wants me to try with her next week:)
This is harder than I thought!!

I'll be happy when I can figure out what to do and when to go! Then I won't have to keep being the third wheel to my sister and Josh ;-)

The search continues....

Alright so I went to Southwest!
ehh.... it was quite a different experience

I love to tell stories and this is a good one!
So my sister and I head to Southwest Sunday morning, we are looking cute in our Sunday best and I have my new Bonnie bracelet on!!
Welp, we show up and the church building is HUGE, a little intimidating... there are windows everywhere and we joke that we won't know what door to go in and everyone would be looking and laughing at the new girls...we shoudln't have spoken so soon!!!
We got out of the car and didn't know where to go!! No joke we were walking around outside feeling like idiots...I told her we needed to walk back to the car and leave!! HAHA...We didn't, as we were "leaving" I found a door to go in. Inside is really nice and worship had already started so we walk in and quickly find that we are VERY much out of place.....

  See the pictures below... But we walked in and saw that we were the youngest by 30 years....and the brightest color other than Necia was forest green. We felt a little like the street walkers that decide to come to church that everyone stares at;) We just didn't feel like we fit in... I don't want to bash the church or the pastor. It was just not the church for me.

From last week to this week it was complete and total opposites age wise.... Ugh this is not going to be easy. BUT There are LOTS of churches and I will move on to the next one! Won't let it get me down!

This was us feeling awkward in church....

 Street walker number one....

Street walker number two....

 Street walker number two wearing her wordless bracelet

So we decided to enjoy the rest of the beautiful Sunday! We went wine tasting:)

 And got FroYo!!!! LOVE IT!!!!

{Bonnie}

This is a really awesome story that happened this week....
 As you know I'm looking for a church and taking suggestions. The two girls I work with have been telling me about their church that they LOVE and have gone to for...their wholes lives. It sounds a lot like Morning Star but I never caught the name..... So that's part one.

Part two- Thursday night I was over at the Libbys and they were telling me about this church they went to a while back that they loved...it sounded like an airline...Southwest??

Part three- Friday I was checking in this really sweet lady at work and we were talking a little. I noticed her bracelet...I was so beautiful and had the same colors as a wordless book. I asked her if that was what it was and she said it yes. She is an English teacher in China and a missionary, she wears it because they are not allowed to talk about the Lord over there but if they ask she can speak about it. It's so pretty, so people will for sure notice and ask. She has had it for 40 years! Anyway I was saying how pretty it was and I had never seen anything like it before....AND she takes it off and gives it to me! I told her that was not what I meant and please not to do that, but she insisted! She totally made me cry! I told her I would wear it all the time. We got to talking and we were talking about churches and I was sharing with her that I didn't know where to go or to look. She told me when she comes home from China she attends a church called SOUTHWEST!! My co-worker came over to see what we were talking about and I showed her the bracelet and told her about that church she goes to. She flips a little and says Southwest is the church her and her sister attend!!! Oh my word!!!

It was very clear to me that God was yelling at me to attend Southwest:)

 I told Bonnie it was not chance that we met, she agreed and we exchanged emails. What an amazing women, I'm excited to keep in touch with her.

So tomorrow I am going to try out the church, and I will wear this for sure!!

I just love how God is openeing doors for me on this new adventure!

Updates

My brother wrote me and said he wants to know what's going on. So I guess thats means I'm not very good at this blogging thing... Whatever:)

  I'm into my second week at the new office (I was training in another office my first week). I'm still loving it! This girls I work with are wonderful and love the Lord and are so helpful! It is SUCH a busy office!!!! I think I check in around 35-45 patients a day (just me, the other girls do about the same!) Thats 35-45 new conversations each day...I know I love to talk and God knew just where to put me! I've already had some pretty funny experiences, like to day this lady wanted a wheel chair so I got her one and pushed her back to the waiting room...um...then she had to go to the bathroom! She was no joke about 450 lbs!!! I'm NOT strong but got her to the bathroom and then she needed help!! I asked if she wanted me to leave while she went and she was ok that I stay!! AHHH!! So I helped her up and back out to the waiting room....then my boss told me to take a lunch....THANK YOU!!! Haha, she was a very swwet lady and I was happy to do it, it was just a weird experience! We really do have some great patients, I have enjoyed meeting so many different people and getting to hear just a little bit about their lives. I'm very happy!
  On Sunday I went with my sister and Josh and their friends (my friends) Michael and Erin to try out a new church. I know lots of people know about it, it's called Solid Rock. I enjoyed it very young feeling, I'll give it another try next week and see if I want to keep going. There are a few other churches I would like to try around town, I think I make them all go with me to some others:)
  I'm having a great time living with Necia and Josh, it's not weird at all. they take good care of me:)
 Miss my mom and dad, but get to talk with them a lot.
 I'm starting to figure out the roads and back ways....without using my GPS...Necia still has to show me some quicker ways to work! Traffic is terrible after I get off!!! UGH!

 PS....My brother reinlisted for another 3 years!! Good for him!! He loves being a soldier! He gets to come home in September and will spend his time in Salem for the three years and maybe be deployed later (he wants to go again)

Anyway! Here's a little update for you! I'll try to be better about things!!!