We made it through our 1st Year!

I love being married! We really enjoyed our anniversary weekend! Eric and Genie were so gracious and let us use their beautiful house for the weekend. We had just forgot how much we enjoyed spending time together. We biked, shopped, went to a Wine and Food Festival, watched Princess Bride on a huge screen on the beach, golfed, relaxed, laughed and just enjoyed the weekend. We need more of these! ha!

Happy 22nd Birthday Tommy!

Saturday was a jam packed day! We woke Tommy up with singing, noise makers and breakfast in bed. Then went off to a leader meeting at 8 then met up with about 20 YL folks to go to the A's game. It was a fun day! We tailgated, had birthday cake and enjoyed the sunshine.   The whole day we kept looking up at the billboard where it was supposed to say, "Happy 22nd Birthday Tommy!" But we never saw it!!! What the heck! Anywho, we concluded our day with one of Greg's close friends' weddings. Quick ceremony and lots of time for a fun reception.  It was definitely a Pioneer class reunion for Greg which he really enjoyed spending the time with his high school friends. Congrats to Dave and Jeff for their recent engagements to their girlfriends! Quiet an exciting day!

Sailing Time!

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this! We went and picked up the Sunfish sailboat that my grandparents learned how to sail on and my dad learned to sail on! It is in pristine condition and is just beautiful! I cannot wait to get it on the water!! 

Tommy has a girlfriend & we adore her!!

Yep! This is exciting news! Tommy is dating an amazing girl who we cannot quit talking about. We absolutely LOVE her! Yea for Bryanna and Tommy!  Here are some super cute pics of them... enjoy their cuteness!

Mollie Almost 1 Year Old!

Mollie is almost 1 Year Old! This Saturday I was able to spend a little time with Travis' little girl Mollie and had some first's with her (at least my first time hearing/seeing) Firsts....."Hi!" with a little wave, laughing, walking. She is precious!!! Ps- Camo and lace ruffles...so cute! Only in Biggs : )

Oh Mollie! I know you will hate this picture someday, but I had to post it on here! My dad calls this "Four-Hi". Mollie doesn't like to have her knees touch the grass so when she moves onto grass she pops her caboose in the air and walks on all fours! So cute! 

Happy 28th Birthday Gregory P!

Happy Birthday to YOU! Happy Birthday to YOU! Happy Birthday dear Greg! Happy Birthday to YOU! 

Thanks Larry, Kathy, Matt, Tommy and Bryanna for taking Greg to dinner for his birthday! 

Greg and I also celebrated by having a beach party dinner at our house! Quite fun!

The Shack

The Shack- Read It! Greg and I have been listening to the audio version on our iPods and have really enjoyed it. I also was able to spend a lunch with the author as he visited us at Woodleaf for the afternoon.  Very awesome to hear someone that is so transparent about their life! 

ISRAEL VIDEOS FROM OUR TRIP!

I just found out that there are videos from our Israel trip. Dan put all his video shots together. 

Thanks Dan! 

Click here to watch the first Israel video. 

Click here to watch the second Israel video!!

Sky High aka Bouncing off the walls!

Tommy has come to live with us as of late and we are bouncing off the walls in excitement that he's here!! Check it out!

Assignment in Santa Cruz

I just returned from an easy breezy 2 week assignment in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We did a 2 week Wyldlife camp (Jr. High). I say easy breezy because it was so short compared to my 5 week assignment in San Diego last summer at the peak of wedding chaos!

It was a great time with great people. My job was head leader so basically I got to love on leaders and kids the whole time. It was such a different assignment than my previous assignments at Woodleaf and Oakbridge. It was very small, not a beautiful Young Life property, dirty, and just different. The great parts were: our small A-Team, summer staff, (no Work Crew) and under 100 kids each week. We were able to know each kid by name and create for them an awesome experience! 

For Greg and I this was a neat assignment because it is so close to San Jose (relatively) he was able to come stay off and on during the assignment. He was able to spend time with the summer staff guys as there was not a male SS coordinator.  I LOVED having him there with me! 

Also- I found Vallarta's in Felton! The BEST burritos I've ever had!! More on that to come!

Glorious Graduations!

May and June have been a month of graduations for Greg and I. We absolutely adore our cousins. I am the oldest cousin on both sides of my family so when I get a chance to celebrate my cousins I can't wait.  As each of our cousins have spent their whole lives coming to my games, homecoming, graduations, etc. Because I went to school 6 hours away from most of them (a lot more for the rest) I have always felt sad that I could not get up there for all their games. So I rearranged schedules and rearranged again to try to make it to as many graduations I could. There were a lot! Some were on the same night so we had to put family first and miss out on some friends unfortunately but we tried to make it to either a graduation or party!  We made it to all of our immediate family-younger cousin's graduations! 

CONGRATS GUYS! WE CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE ALREADY GRADUATING!! LOVE YOU! 

Mathew's graduation from Oroville High School

Ryan's graduation from West Valley High School

Chelsie's graduation from Sutter High School

Morgan's graduation from Valley Christian High School 

David's graduation from Leigh High School 

Sorry we couldn't make it to the rest of our family and friends' graduations- we tried!! Congratulations on all your hard work! We're proud of you!! 

Jeromy's graduation from Chico State

Megan's graduation from Woodland's Pioneer High 

Jenny's graduation from Chico State

Rachel's graduation from San Luis Obispo High

23rd Annual Brent Jones Young Life Open

Another great year on the course at Almaden Country Club. I am really amazed at the generosity of people in our community that give up a day to golf and financially support the work of Silicon Valley Young Life. I am incredibly grateful for our dedicated committee. Jean runs this tournament like it's no big deal. This is her 23rd tournament and she is phenomenal. I'm learning so much from her. Greg served on the committee this year and provided great golfer/YL leader input (I love my husband--he is so great!!) Brent is also very dedicated to being present at planning meetings. People always ask if they can borrow him for their tournaments since it's just his name to ours and I always with a smile get to say, "It's not just his name. It's his tournament, his input, his perspective, his ministry and his way of giving back to the ministry that introduced him to Christ at Leland high school." It's so awesome to serve alongside people that have passion and that pursue their passions to bless others! I love my job!

Energy Block Flavor...Gross!!

Salted margarita flavored energy shot block-sick! So during Pat's Run we were given these little energy chewy things. We opened and ate them while we were running and  It was the most disgusting thing to be running (hot, out of breath, tired) and tasting tequilla(flavoring), salted margarita chewy things! Not my thought of energy!  Who made that up??! Seriously! Tequilla is not the taste I want in my mouth as I am feeling like I'm already going to die running up hill! haha

Pat's Run 4.2 Miles! We did it!

Greg woke me up at 7:15 AM and somehow (I must still have still been sleeping) that I should go with him to Leland High School to run in Pat's Run. Greg was friends with the Tillman family in high school and this was important to him-in honoring Pat. 

So....we drove over to Leland, (got lucky with close parking!) paid, got a cool yellow jersey and bib with a number on it and within 45 minutes of waking up I was starting a 4.2 mile run! (Do you know how long it's been since I've run! haha) The run went great, was challenging with a lot of hills, but it was really fun. We ran just about the whole thing and had a lot of fun in the process!

Happy Birthday DAD!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR DAAAD! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOO YOOOOOOOOOOU!!!

Happy Birthday Dad! Wish we could be with you! We love you!!

Mama Mia!!

My old roommates Barb, Cindy and I had a girl's night out and watched the musical Mama Mia in downtown San Jose musical theatre. It was incredible! I have seen in previously in Las Vegas with my roommates Amanda and Brook. It was fantastic the first time and then so great again! 

I absolutely LOVE this muscial. It makes me want to get up and dance and sing! It's the perfect musical to see with a group of girls.  I loved spending time with my old roomies! We need to get together more often : )

House Hunting

Ok seriously! Here's my soapbox for the day.... House Hunters.... stupid show! All they show is $200,000 homes or million dollar apartments in San Fran. Not realistic! And not helping me as Greg quite often gives me a reality check of what a $600,00-$800,000 home will buy us in San Jose. What's that you ask? A small, old, track home. Depressing.

Israel 2008 (To see ALL pics. see album link below!)

Seriously! It snowed in Jerusalem! So crazy...I thought we were going to the desert!

The Temple Steps that were dug up recently.... they continue on deep under the city.

Capernaum

Mt. of Beatitudes

I had to peek through the wall to get this picture. It's the Western Wailing Wall


I took way too many photos in Israel... Here's a link to ALL my pictures. Click Here! (Or type into your browser: http://picasaweb.google.bree.yl

Israel 2008-Ceasarea by the Sea (Mediterranean Sea)

These were the public restrooms years ago....they were very public! It was in the main entrance/walkway to a colosseum used for horse racing!


I had this great opportunity to visit Israel with a group of Young Life staff and friends from Northern California. I really had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be absolutely amazing. I was quite tired by the time I got there because I had just spent weeks in Florida for All Staff Conference and training after that. I brought along my amazing Grandma Pat with me! She is such a trooper!!! 

All Staff Conference 2008 in Florida

ASC 2008 at Orlando World Center! Greg and I had no idea what to expect as we flew to Florida. We had only heard of ASC from our friends Chris and Ashley and when they got back from ASC 2004 they could not stop talking about how fun it was! It was like camp for adults! Everything was new, a surprise at every hour. There were phenomenal speakers that were encouraging us at every corner. We met up with friends from around the country that we hadn't seen in awhile and met so many new friends. There were about 4,000 YL staff there! We can't wait for ASC 2012! 

There were so many surprises that blew each of us away. Young Life is known for excellence in all that we do and when you put every staff person in the world into one room, you can excpect nothing but the very BEST from every aspect! 

When you're entertaining adults that entertain high school students as their job you have to bring in the professionals to get a laugh....so that is what they did. 

*Jeff Foxworthy was there and he hosted "Are you Smarter than a Young Life Vice President?" Jeff Foxworthy is also a volunteer leader at a Wyldlife Club (for Jr. High) Can you imagine having a comedian at your Wyldlife leader!!?! Jeff also gave a stand-up comedy including his Redneck jokes as well as You Know You're On Young Life Staff When... it was funny at first and then he moved onto a more serious note of encouragement and the realities we YL staff and leaders face when working with kids. Kids' real lives, their real hurt, their real pain, their real joys. It was such a gift to hear Jeff Foxworthy (whom I was never a fan of before this trip but now I'm a huge fan : )

*Jack Hanna (a famous wildlife conservationist who is a regular on The Late Show with David Letterman. He came on with some crazy animals, a snake, an armadillow, a mountain lion (Puma). The most hilarious scene came from one of the upfront Club program (funny guys) volunteered his wife to carry the Python snake and the snake proceeded to wrap itself in between her legs and poked out from behind her. She couldn't move and the guy wouldn't grab the snake off of her. It was so awkward and hilarious all at once!! 

*Nicole C. Mullen and Jars of Clay musical guests. 

*6 phenomenal speakers that inspired each of us and affirmed us in our call to Young Life staff.

*Kids shared their stories that have been personally affected by Young Life and their leaders that invested in them and shared with them Christ in huge ways. It was so neat to hear the impact that YL has made on their lives and how visibly important this ministry is in the lives of our high school friends. I personally get to experience this everyday but it was just a great reminder of the mission we're in and how incredible it is in the lives of kids.