When does life begin?

One of my good friends just had an abortion. Well, we aren't really close, actually, we just know each other through friends. She is only a couple of years younger than me, so it's really easy to relate to her. Anyways, I didn't know she was pregnant until recently, and because of the way I found out I wasn't allowed to say anything. So I did a lot of praying, and I offered to get some pamphlets for her about abortion and that sort of thing. Despite the efforts made by me and some of my other friends, she decided to go through with it yesterday.
For those of you who don't know, I worked at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, which was a pro life agency. I firmly believe in Pro -Life, that life begins at conception, that the baby inside a woman is a life, has a heartbeat after 18 days, can feel pain. I respect that women who even are considering abortion are under a great deal of stress and anxiety that can't be measured. However, when it comes down to it, I don't think that can be compared to the life that is inside of you. That baby has a choice to, and ultimately, the man and the woman are the one who chose to give it life. I know this subject is controversial, but I don't think we talk enough about it. This remarkable photograph to the left is of a tiny fetus in it's unruptured amniotic sac taken after surgery for an ectopic pregnancy in 1972. This picture demonstrates the development of a baby at only six weeks after conception.


This is at 13 weeks and The brain is fully developed and the fetus can suck, swallow, and make irregular breathing sounds. Fetus can feel pain (New England Journal of Medicine). Fetal skin is almost transparent. Muscles tissue is lengthening and bones are becoming harder. Liver and organs produce appropriate fluids. Eyebrows and eyelashes appear and the fetus makes active movements including kicks and even somersaults...if this isn't life, I don't know what is. I truly learned where my heart lies today, a hard way to learn that, I would give up this sadness of a loss of life to see that baby someday, but for now I will try to follow the leading of the Lord as to where to go with this.

The honeymoon!

That's us snorkeling!! Our honeymoon was the most amazing week of our lives! We went to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. We stayed at an all inclusive resort on the ocean. When we got there, we told them it was our honeymoon and they bumped us up to an oceanview suite. Free!! We went snorkeling, on a boating cruise called Rythms of the Night. They take you away to a secluded island and do an Aztec wedding ceremony how it would have been performed ages ago. We did Kayaking, Ziplining (pic below) and became beach bums for a whole week! We came back really tan, well Dave came back almost black, and I came back tan. It's not fair! He has naturally tan skin, so he gets real dark. I am whiter than white, so I barely get a tan. Sigh.... :)

If anybody doesn't know what ziplining is, I guess I'll explain it. It's when you get attached to a metal rod that is strung from one mountain to the other. You hang on with your hands and glide down it. You go super fast and scream at the top of your lungs because you look down and the ground is so far below.

A week was definately the perfect amount of time to go. The first two days we rested and went walking around the city, just having fun. The next four days were jam packed with activities and fun. The next two days, we layed around at the pool and watched the world cup. It's funny cause four years ago when the last world cup was playing I was in Africa! Now I'm married and in Mexico!

Our Wedding Day!

The wedding went off without a hitch! Sure there were a few minor things, like forgetting my veil (which my uncle and aunt rushed off to get) And I forgot to eat lunch (which another one of my uncles rushed off to get). No fainting on the day of the wedding! And I broke a nail as soon as I woke up that morning. I was, for the most part, pretty calm about everything. Here I am about to marry the most amazing man in the whole world, so why cry or be anxious. I don't think I ever did anything easier in my whole life.
David looked amazing when I was walking down the aisle. He was so cute! He took out a little hanky and was dabbing his eyes with it. I don't think I cried at all until we did the unity candle and David started praying. It really got me!
It was so great to have our family there with us for the big day. Six out of 10 of the families on my side showed up, and David had a good showing to. His Dad officiated the ceremony. My uncle played the piano in our ceremony, and we tried to involve as much family as possible. He had met a lot of my family during a trip to Wisconsin, but I had never met anybody in his family besides his immediate family. It was fun to see his cousins and everybody interacting, they reminded me a lot of my family. Kudos to my mom and Dad! They did an amazing job on the whole wedding and the reception as well. It looked amazing! Dave and I could have never imagined it would have been this beautiful! Thank you!!

GRRRRR!!!!!!

GRRRR!!!!! Do you ever just have one of those days?? One of those days were up is really down, brown is really blue, and your shirts on backwards? Yea, I had one of those days today. It wasn't a bad day, it was just really frustrating. I feel like i'm babysitting everybody at work. I shouldn't be babysitting people at work, but that is what it is turning out to be. I"m a restaurant manager and the night shift is full of people who are still in high school. They just want to get out and go party. They aren't concerned about making money, paying bills, or being responsible, which is what makes being there manager so frustrating! I think sometimes of how different our lives are, yet how close they could have been. Had I not surrendered my life to the Lord I probably would have been worse off than them. One of my friends and I were looking on the internet last night and we were looking up criminal records of our old friends. (ok i know, weird, but we didn't have anything else to do.) More than half of the friends we looked up had criminal records. I mean, some were as bad as kidnapping, robbing a conveynance store, intent to kill...and these are people I hung out with! I mean, good friends, played sports with, took classes with. It's weird to think of what I could have turned out like. Thank God!! :) So i guess i should just be patient with them, not let it get to my head, try to take a deep breathe and know that I really don't need to worry about them. *sigh*

Why is life a dance?

Wake up at 5am, be at work by 6am, work all day until 5pm, then go home to cook and clean and make time for loved ones. Lately it's been running around trying to plan a wedding that I've been doing in my off time. I'm constantly tired, constantly feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. I don't get finished with my day until 11pm, sometimes later, only to start it all over again the very next day.
Running a restaurant is hard work. I get in at six and the truck needs to be checked in. Then at six thirty the produce order is checked in, then the milk man comes and he is checked in. Then there are calls to be made to the bread man, the wine and alcohol order needs to be placed, as well as the fresh fish. Then i have to do the Prep list. For those of you who don't know, at my restaurant we prep everything fresh in the morning by ourselves. No prepackaged foods here. EVERYTHING is fresh! The managers have to go through what we need and make a list of things that the prep cooks have to do. This generally takes an hour or so. Then the front of the house check is completed. Sidework is checked, and the restaurant is prepared for the guests. I then make myself a cup of coffee and get to sit down and eat. After that the day gets even more hectic and i won't even get into the rest!
With all this stress, the reason I say that life is a dance is because, well, not everybody knows how to dance. It's complicated sometimes, and sometimes you mess up, but it takes practice. And once you do the moves a couple million times, you get used to it. Just like in life. And sometimes in dancing, you lead, and sometimes you follow, just like in life.
Life is a Dance because we were called to get up and live life. Truly live it to it's fullness. "I have come that you may have life, and have it to the fullest." My life is not that busy, and not that hectic, it's just FULL. The Lord will sustain me through whatever it is that I go through. Of that I'm sure. And when i start to get overwhelmed, I know that it's time to reexamine myself, cast my cares on him, and continue on my way, dancing through life.

My Blog

My soon to be sister-in-law (i hate the in law terms by the way) has a blog. I like to go to it and read it to find out more about her, mostly because i probably will never know her that well. So since i liked what i saw, i decided to create my own blog! I thought it would be fun to come and journal and write about what's going on and stuff. Not that there is a lot going on in my life. I'm getting married to the most amazing man in the whole world, and that's pretty much what my life is centered around. I'm becoming a restaurant manager to. It's fun, but what i really want to do is have kids and be a mom. But since i'm not allowed to do that for like three years, I have to be content for now with what I'm doing. Anyways, my parents are coming in to town this week and i have to clean a little bit, my apartment is a little messy, not to bad, but for working eight straight days in a row, it gets a litle messy. Dave's at work tonight (that's my fiance's name) He is a manager to, so with our hectic schedules, we won't get to see each other for the next three days *sniffle,sniffle*.