Welcome to my weekly post I share a peek into our lives, talk about things I'm loving, share links to interesting articles or helpful ideas I've collected throughout the past week, and just talk about whatever is on my heart! 🙂
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I flew to Kansas on Wednesday for my sister’s wedding. (I read a pre-release copy of The Next Right Thing on the plane!)
All of my siblings were in the wedding and we had fun plans for Thursday and Friday that I didn’t want to miss out on! (Jesse stayed back with the kids so they wouldn’t miss school and then they flew out on Friday evening.)
My sister, Gretchen, and our good friend, Susanna, had planned a fun bachelorette party for all the bridesmaids. We started out by getting pedicures and then did a Photo Scavenger Hunt.
(If you couldn’t tell, we were all supposed to wear PJ pants and some sort of pigtails!)
This photo made us laugh so hard. It was supposed to be all of us standing in the street. I thought they were all standing and posing for multiple shots… but apparently I was the only one doing so! Whoops!
Olivia had to pull out a photo idea from a basket and then we’d have to figure out how we were going to make it happen. This one was, “Hug a Teddy Bear” — which we went into a Hallmark store and they graciously let us do! 🙂
(I still had on my pedicure paper thin flip flops because I had forgotten to bring flip flops and didn’t want to put on my regular shoes until I was sure that my toenails were completely dried!)
Susanna and Gretchen made this amazing salad dinner with all of Olivia’s favorite salad toppings. It was cold at the park where we ate, but Susanna had brought blankets for all of us (she’s one of those amazing people that basically always is thinking and planning ten steps ahead!)
After more funny pictures (including one of us all trying to balance on a teeter-totter at the park!), we went back to Gretchen’s house for a yogurt bar and mud mask facials and gifts.
On Friday, we all went to the church to help out with wedding prep. Some of my sister’s friends were there doing an incredible job, so we mostly just hung out and helped as we could.
The church where the wedding was at was in Hesston, KS — where my youngest brother goes to college. So he and I decided to take a break from wedding festivities and he took me around to show me two of the local coffee shops.
The first one was called Lincoln Perk and it was super cute! I got a Kansas Sunset Chai that I had them made like a London Fog (with syrup and steamed milk). It was SO good!
The next place we went to was the Hesston Bakery — it only recently opened and is in an assisted living facility. It was such a great place to hang out and the staff was so nice!
My brother bought me this maple twist which was only $1.50 and was SOOO yummy!
We headed back to the church for the rehearsal. Since there are 7 kids in our family + 13 grandkids and everyone played a part, there were a lot of moving parts and we had to rehearse some sections multiple times — especially the timing of the processional.
The kids patiently waited during the rehearsal!
The next morning, we had to leave around 6:30 a.m. to be at the church in time for all of the things that needed to happen to get ready in time for pictures. There ended up being quite a few hiccups, but it all came together and everyone was ready in time for pictures and the wedding!
My whole family (yes, I’m the shortest!)
The girls with Mom.
All my siblings!
They’re married! Welcome to the family, Michael!
(I’m bummed that I didn’t end up getting almost any pictures of the bride and groom. They didn’t see each other before the wedding and then after the wedding, it was kind of crazy and I didn’t have my phone with me any of the times I could have gotten a good shot. Oh well — at least they had lots of professional shots taken and at least I did get a few like this one!)
2018 Goals Update
Personal Goals
1. Read 100 non-self-help books that will build me up/encourage me/inspire me/recharge me. (Fiction/story driven/biographies /inspirational living books/devotionals.) See the list of 44 books I plan to read this year.
**Progress: 66 books read so far this year
2. Read through the entire Bible.
**Progress: I'm using the Robert Murray M'Cheyne plan and am all caught up— yay!
3. Write one handwritten note to someone every week.
**Progress: 39 notes written so far this year
4. Run 500 miles.
**Progress: 393 miles run so far
Marriage Goal
5. Go on an overnight trip with Jesse without the kids.Jesse and I went to NYC together in January.
Family Goals
6. Read 10 books aloud with the kids.
**Progress: We've finished three books so far.
7. Take the kids to South Africa. We took this trip in July. What a memorable experience!
8. Go on a family road trip. While we didn't get to go on as long of a road trip as we wanted to, we made the most of our Fall Break Road Trip to LA, MS, and AL (and checked off a few more states from our States We Haven't Visited Yet list!)
Financial Goals
9. Save up to pay cash to finish off an office for me and workout room for Jesse and me in the basement in our new house.
**Progress: The workout room is DONE and the office is almost done!
10. Replenish our Emergency Fund (we dipped into it to replace my car when it got totaled because of the carpet beetle infestation.)
**Progress: We're halfway to having this fully funded. We are hoping to finish this out before the end of the year — we'll see!
Business Goals
11. Increase our gross income from the business by 8%.
12. Launch 5 new courses.
**Progress: We launched 4 Weeks to a More Productive Life launched in January, Content Creation 101 in February, 4-Week Blog Coaching Program in March, Email List Setup 101 in March, Make Over Your Mornings LIVE in April, the Facebook Live Masterclass in May, and we launched Build Your List 101 in June!
