I know I haven’t given an update in while and this isn’t one either. While you wait with anticipation for another post about me, you should watch these videos, because everyone should laugh at least once (or three times) everyday!
Oasis LA now has live streaming of all five of our services. Now our family and friends around the country can catch our services every Sunday at 8:30am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, and 6pm Pacific Time. Here is the link: Oasis Live!
We’ll try to let you know when Dave is emceeing and when Teresa is dancing.
One of my favorite things about living here is our community. Yesterday I had the privilege of standing with my friends Ariel and Otelia Vergez as their little girl Eva was dedicated to the Lord before our church. They say it takes a village to raise a child and I can honestly say that we have one.
Eva was born December 16th at 1:20 am and was 8lbs. 7 oz. There were about 15 of us waiting in the lobby for SEVERAL hours (about 6), just to welcome Eva into the world. We finally saw her at about 3:30am, and some waiting longer then that even.
The girls, waiting to meet Eva!
The boys, playing cards
Eagerly receiving an update from the midwife
Yesterday morning a few of us were able to stand with her parents, in front of our church, to commit to raising her for the Lord. I was truly honored to be able to stand next to her parents and make that commitment with them. When it is Dave and I’s turn we know we won’t have to worry because those same people are ready to stand up with us and support us. It makes being far from family a little bit easier, because we have friends who are like family!
The Vergez Family
The group of us standing with them
Budgeting is one of those things that we all know we should do, but how many people really live by one? I’ll be honest, for most of our married life we just make purchases and check the account every now and then to see if we still have enough money to keep buying stuff . Which is definitely not the ideal financial scenario, especially when you want to pay off debt, save for a car, and make sure you have enough to pay your bills.
Therefore, I’ve been in search of the best financial software to make our budget functional but not have to pour hours every week to make it work. I searched for software high and low, reading articles and testing demoes, and was still left without a viable solution. Until….
I FOUND MINT.COM!!! It absolutely blew my mind how incredible this website is. Its everything I’ve ever wanted from a budgeting solution and more. Now I know you’re thinking at this point, “Is Dave really that big of a dork that he gets this excited over a financial website?” But there’s so much freedom when you know where your money is going! That’s the beauty of a budget–no more living in fear about paying bills or feeling stressed about debt. Mint helps you get everything out there to see and then make decisions about how to spend your money.
I would highly recommend going on their site to read about it, because they’ll do a much better job than I explaining it. But here’s my one sentence summary: Mint aggregates (or combines) all your financial information (checking and saving accounts, credit cards, loans, investments, assets, etc) all in one place that is continually updated and automatically categorizes every transaction for easy budgeting. And its completely safe because all the info is read only, even if someone hacked into your account, they couldn’t make any changes. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
So for everyone out there who hears the word “budget” and cringes, I recommend you check out Mint.com. I couldn’t imagine an easier solution to managing your money.
I gave up sugar for lent.
Yesterday was the first day of lent and I failed already. My friend brought me the most delicious looking (and tasting) cupcake. It was rasberry lemon, how could I resist?!? If you know me, you know my two favorite things are gifts and food. So, a gift that is food? Well, that’s enough to make me slip on a pact with God. Yikes!
But, today is a new day. I’ve decided that I am still going to give up sugar for 40 days and I’ll just have to wait until the Monday after Easter to indulge. It’s perfect because that is the frist day of my in-laws visit to Cali. It’ll be extra reason to celebrate!
You may be wondering how someone gives up sugar, exactly? I know it’s vague, but I set some rules for myself to follow.
1. No grain sugar, agave, or syrup of any kind. This means no sweetening my coffee and nothing fancy from Starbucks (Americanas are awesome and relatively cheap!).
2. No desserts, including but not limited to; pastries, cakes, chocolates, ice cream, pies (NONE!).
3. Fruit is okay despite having sugar in it, because it’s fruit. It’s all natural.
4. No soft drinks (which I don’t drink anyway) or juices except all natural ones that have no added sugar.
5. Finally, though I don’t eat these things anyway, nothing that is sweet tasting but claims to be “sugar-free.” That just means they’ve added artificial sweetener and well, that stuff will kill you someday (ask me if you don’t know what I’m talking about!)
The hardest part, so far, is my morning coffee. I’m admittedly addicted so to change my routine has been tough. I will only be able to drink good coffee, since I can’t drown out any bitterness with sweetness. It is day two of cream only coffee and really it has been fine. I buy good coffee and make it in my french press, so it tastes awesome. Like I said, I’m addicted, so pretty much I’ll take it how I can get it.
Dave is doing this thing with me. I’ll have to let you know how it goes.
I told you a few posts back that Dave and I won couples game night.
Singing The Blues to Pull Ahead in Victory!
Here we are, the orange team, sporting our G-Force t-shirts. I’m the one piercing her lips because I was so stinking nervous about singing in front of everyone. We played the game they do on, ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ where each person in the row sings one line. The second and fourth person had to rhyme. So Dave, being last, had to rhyme whatever I sang last! It was a stretch for the Greiders, but we were victorious!
Anyway, the point of this post is to talk about our prize! We won a double date with our friends Nathan and Chyler (the hosts) at their favorite restaurant. The date included a bottle of Halo, this phenomenal wine that the restaurant has been holding for them.
We went to the Saddlepeak lodge and the staff there love them. We really felt like VIPs. We ordered the eight course chef’s tasting menu. Head chef, Adam, came out to see us several times. The manager, Ian, also stopped in a bunch and he paired our first few courses with incredible white wines and champagne. By the time we got to course 5 or 6 we were onto red wine which meant we were ready for the Halo!
One of Dave and I’s favorite things to do is go out for a nice meal. We save up just to be able to splurge on a meal out. This night takes the cake of anytime we’ve splurged on each other. Oh, and I almost forgot about dessert, we tried their bignettes, which were awesome. But, the most memorable, for me, was the Irish car bomb dessert. Yes, you read correctly. I have never had an Irish car bomb in real life, but the dessert was delicious! It has a Jameson chocolate cake, with Guiness ice cream, and Bailey’s whip cream to top it all off! I was so full by the time it came out, but it was so good I ate anyway!
The End of the Night!
I love great food but still the best part of our evening was the company. We had such great conversation and grew much closer as friends. We shared stories of where we’ve come from, where we are now, and where we’re going. We encouraged each other and we got real. It is awesome to have friends you can be transparent with. We love them as people and as a couple and for the example they are to us. Dave and I are so grateful for the many blessing we have because of their generosity and friendship. Love you guys!
p.s. Chyler is on the Ellen DeGeneres show, airing Wednesday, so watch if you can!
We spent all day together for Valentine’s Day. We started with brunch at EAT. Yep, that’s the name of the restaurant. Then we went shopping together at the Americana, a mecca de capitalism right down the road in Glendale. While there, and after we dropped some money on new clothes, we sat in Barnes & Noble and just read for a long, relaxed, while! It was great.
That evening we got all dressed up and went out. Several couples in our church put on the first annual Valentine’s Ball and they did an incredible job. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant with a beautiful view over the valley. There was a special dance, a singer, and a salsa instructor gave everyone a dance lesson for our entertainment. Our head pastors, Philip and Holly Wagner, spoke about their relationsihp and gave tips for a healthy marriage. They are uniquely qualified because they’ve written and spoken about the subject extensively, but mostly because they have been happily married for almost 25 years! There were cool raffle prizes, including a couples massage, which we did not win, but still that’s cool! We had a blast and enjoyed spending time with our friends. Here’s pictures…
The Girls with Pastor Holly
Our Table
Prom Style Photo
The Ballards Learning to Salsa
Our Guys, Looking Good!
I have heard many people tell funny stories about times they’ve experimented with dinner and it just flopped! It is one of those things you think will never happen to you. Then it does and you realize it was bound to happen eventually, and will probably happen again. Mine, is a story of failed soup. I decided to try a blackbean soup recipe from one of my cookbooks, for the first time. This was especially risky, though I didn’t realize it at the time, because it was my night to bring dinner for a friend whose mom is sick.
I think everything was going fine, until the last ingredient. It said,”cayenne pepper to taste.” Well, I just sprinkled cayenne pepper ALL OVER the soup and stirred it in. There were already a few spicy ingredients in there, and the pepper just shot it over the edge. It was so spicy, Dave and I could only eat a few bites before we could not feel our mouths. Tthere was no way I could bring this soup to my friend, and her young son. But, it did not end there.
I still had some sliver of hope that I could redeem my soup. We started brainstorming . What else could we do? Dave suggested making cornbread. Maybe it would be like putting chili over cornbread. Maybe it would soak up the spice. I liked it! As I mixed up to cornbread ingredients Dave and I got into deep conversation about, well who remembers, but we were focused. Apparently, I was too focused because as I pulled the cornbread out of the oven I realized I had only put a teaspoon of baking powder in it, instead of a Tablespoon, ugh! So I had super spicy soup and bricks for cornbread and we decided to pick up something ready made from Whole Foods and bring it over. Lesson learned and here’s to a better experiement next time!
Last Wednesday, at our weekly Creative Arts meeting, we had a little surprise. The Ryan Edgar Band was in town for a gig and they came and sang a few songs and then led us in worship. Don’t worry, I had never heard of them either. They are what we call up and coming, but they’re good, and I recommend you find them on i-tunes. They are a group of Christians who play at bars and clubs and every other normal place up and coming bands have gigs. They have several original songs that are all about God, just not blatently. The third song the performed was one that Ryan Edgar wrote in December called, Wherever You Are, and it is the real point of this blog.
In December, around the holidays, Ryan did not get to see all of his family members that he usually does. It was because of some, “family drama,” that was going on. He did not get into the details, but I think we all know about family drama, especially around the holidays. The way he talked about it, it seems there must of been some kind of feud going on and it frustrated him that because of the, ”drama,” he was missing out seeing people he loved. He wanted to tell his absent family that no matter what had happened–whether they owed him an apology or he owed them an apology–he loved them.
The thing is, love is the most powerful force in the universe, because God is love. So even when we go through hard times with people, if we still love them, that will win out in the end. I would like to say to all my friends and family out there, no matter what is going on, wherever you are, I love you!
