What's new?

So, what's new... Well, not a whole lot... :) But here are a few random things from the past month:


Becky / Work-related:

• Our church had baptism last Sunday and more than 100 people were baptized. Matt & I helped hand out nametags. A minor job, but a crucial one. :)
  
• I went to a forum with other large churches in Texas, held in Dallas, recently. I had good discussions about leadership development with some people who know the subject well (some of whom have been working in ministry for decades).
• I've been coming up with lots of resources lately - things for the church leaders to use in helping others about many different topics.
• Two sets of friends (with work connections) had babies in the last week - congrats to Doug & Angela and to Les & Desi!

Becky / Other:

• Believe it or not, I've started to make crazy sock creatures. Blame Brian & Angela for that. :)
  
• I haven't done a whole lot of quilting lately but need to-- I think I'm 5 quilts behind at this point...
  
• My flower garden is growing well. Last year's dusty miller plants have nearly turned into bushes! They're not my favorite plant (though the color is good) - they mostly exist to keep the deer out. Other than one sad loss, all my perennials are thus far safe from our not-so-neighborly neighborhood deer, most likely thanks to the dusty miller and lavender which rims the edge of the plantings. I think we're up to the third species to bloom from buds in pots so far, too - I'm not sure what the other two were, but we now have small purple-ish cala lillies coming out.
  

Matt: (this is Becky writing for Matt)

• Matt's area has a major deadline coming up, so he's been working long hours making sure everything's just right.
  
• He, too, has a number of plants growing- mostly tomatoes & peppers. We hope they survive the heat so we can make salsa later this summer.
• He has made a few good loaves of homemade bread recently from a new cookbook, and made some nice slow-cooked green-chile-pork last week.
  

Both:

• We're thinking about our vacation scheduled for this fall. Maui, perhaps? (If you've been there, we'd love to hear about it.)
  
• We've been to quite a few Round Rock Express games already this season (see photographic proof).
• We saw Iron Man two weekends ago and Prince Caspian last weekend. Caspian is (somehow) basically the only Narnia book I haven't re-read again and again to the point of knowing the story inside and out. Even so, I caught the points where the movie veered into a new direction... Those moments weren't too bad, really -- the film made the story (which has never really been my favorite) far more interesting than I recalled. I'm anxiously awaiting the Dawn Treader, of course (it battles with the Silver Chair, the Horse & His Boy and the Last Battle for my favorite -- so hard to decide). Is it really another 2 years before we can embark on that journey?
• We're starting to make plans to go to Cornerstone this summer, and we're also working thru options for me to attend a women's leadership conference in Chicago in August. On the Cornerstone trip, we might get to see a Cardinals game and there's a chance Matt will join me in Chicago to see his Cubs at a day-game.