The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday we served coffee at church. Most handsome coffee maker out there, don't you think?? The rest of the day was a beautiful, restful Sunday. Braeya napped, we napped, I scrapbooked, and we watched Olympic trials. {ANYONE ELSE loving the trials as much as we are???}

 * Monday was the 4th of July, and Ryan worked all day, but in the evening, we went to Red Robin for a dinner date, and then out to watch fireworks over the lake. Despite a cloudy day and some significant humidity {read: HUGE HAIR}, it was a great night and a lovely date!

* Tuesday night we got to attend our friend's 40th birthday party, which was a lot of fun! Her husband surprised her, and the party was a great success {and can we pause to talk about the ICE CREAM??!!? It was homemade and it's such a good thing I am not proficient in that!}

* Wednesday started out crazy stormy and rainy, and I thought it would stay that way all day, but it cleared up and actually became a really nice day! We continued our garage makeover that night - painting the chalkboard part of the wall. What? Do you not have chalkboards in your garage???

* Thursday, when I was busy making lunch, someone was very interested in what was cooking! She cracks me up sometimes! :) I worked on some craft projects that day, and then that night, Ryan and I installed the pavers I told you about earlier this week. I still can't get over how different that patio looks since we installed them!

* Friday was a busy writing day for me, and in the afternoon, I spent some time learning about rosemary: a new herb at our house. I don't know much about it! BUT - I used it to cook our dinner. Ryan grilled our chicken and Brussels sprouts: delicious!! And then I hunkered down to watch more Olympic trials, and Ryan worked on reorganizing the garage. His happy place!!

* Yesterday, I had a case of the grumpies. :( Never good. But I perked up as the day went along! I went to a baby shower for Ryan's cousin in the afternoon: it was a Pinterest delight! And Ryan worked more on his list of projects around the house. And even though this picture is really bad, I have to share it. We went for a walk in the evening, and we saw a DEER!!! You cannot possibly know how happy this makes me!!!

Fourth of July Fun!

I will not lie: I have no idea what day it is this week. Ryan worked the weekend and the holiday and I am not quite sure if Monday was a Monday or a Saturday...or if I'm coming or going. Anyone else???

But I thought I'd tell you about our Fourth of July fun!

I tried to be festive with our breakfast even though we had to be up crazy early so Ryan could go to work.

{To be fair, it's the same thing we eat pretty much every day, but I just made it prettier in honor of the holiday.}

After Ryan got home from work, we headed out for our date! I should say that our fourth here in Indiana was about 2000% humidity and completely cloudy with a danger of some rain. So my hair grew quickly, but it was a comfortable evening as far as temps went. {And it never rained, so YAY!!!}

We went to Red Robin for dinner, which is one of our favorite destinations, and when I got there, I remembered why it was the perfect choice for a patriotic holiday:

I was a good girl with my dinner, so I did allow myself a treat: root beer float!!!

It was delicious. 

Also delicious? Our dinner.

Red Robin was in an outdoor mall, and of course all the stores had closed early, but Starbucks was still open, so we actually, for the first time in the history of our Fourth of July dating, GOT COFFEE BEFORE THE FIREWORKS!!! It was a pretty significant victory. We walked around the deserted mall and then drove over to our fireworks spot!

Right when we got there, some planes were doing flyovers, and it was really cool to watch!

We sat in a new spot this year, which turned out to be a bit less than ideal {sorry, Ryan! It was my idea!} but we learned from it and know where to sit next year!

The seat was less than perfect because we had some power lines conveniently located smack in the center of all the fireworks. My apologies! But it was a GREAT show. Best we've seen yet!

Spectacular show...but I have to say the end was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. In the grand finale, all the fireworks were lower, and they got buried in the smoke and you couldn't even see them. You could see their color in the smoke, but you couldn't see the actual fireworks. I've never seen anything like it. It looked like a big fire!

A great night...thanks, Ryan, for our special date! :)

The Saturday Six

One.

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For those of you who love to read, the Christy awards were this past week, and this list shows the winners and finalists. This particular award is for Christian fiction, and a few on the list were books I've read and featured on previous editions of the Saturday Six. But there are many more I haven't read, so if you're looking for good reads, this might help you! And also - a special shout-out to my real-life friend and fiction author/winner Jody Hedlund for her win in the historical romance category!

Two.

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I really enjoyed this article written by a Christian photographer about how she lives out her faith in her small business ownership. It's a great story {even if you don't own your own business}, but it also holds solid truths about how to blend the two and not feel the need to keep them separate!

Three.

I love this brief article written by a woman who happened upon a 100 year old grave in a cemetery: a baby's grave. She paused to recognize the life of a baby we know nothing about, and it made my soul warm to read about it. I remember when Ryan and I were driving through Cade's Cove in the Smoky Mountains, and we wandered through an old cemetery. I took pictures of several stones on infants' graves, because I didn't want to forget that their lives mattered, even though we know nothing of them. {The photo above is one I took, not the one from the article.}

Four.

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Did you see this? Beth Moore has a new study coming out soon! It's called Entrusted, and I think it looks delightfully challenging. You can check out the details and a trailer here!

Five.

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Hey! Monday is the fourth of July, you know! I found this cute little recipe that I plan on twisting just a bit and serving with our breakfast! Cute and...you know...FRUIT!!

Six.

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Last week I told you I read the first of three books written by Jennifer Sands. {A reminder in case you forgot or are new here...Jennifer was the keynote speaker at the women's conference I spoke at earlier this year. Her husband worked in the World Trade Center and was killed in the 9/11 attacks.} I heard her say when she spoke that it's important to read all three books in her faith trilogy, and after reading book two, I absolutely see why.

The second book, which I read this week, is called A Teachable Faith. While I really enjoyed reading the first book, and even mentioned in my review last Saturday that the last chapter {which contained a smattering of her journal entries from that first year after 9/11} that it was inspiring to watch her faith grow through each entry, there was still something that settled funny with me at the end of that book. I hadn't found the moment when her faith became genuine and her heart truly born again. It nagged at me a bit.

And this is why it's important to read book two! Jennifer addresses immediately that her first book was published just a couple of years after 9/11 and her faith was incredibly immature. Growing, but quite immature. She had not, even at the time of publishing a book on faith, truly committed her life to Christ. But shortly after the book was published, Jennifer began receiving invitations to speak about her story. She'd never been a public speaker and found it intimidating. Her sister invited her to come to church with her to hear their pastor because he was an accomplished speaker. So she went...and she never paid one bit of attention to his style, because she became completely enamored by his message. The message of Christ.

So this second book chronicles her faith journey after she fully devoted her heart and soul to Jesus. After she let Him transform her from the inside out. Each chapter chronicles the lessons she learns along the path and it is quite obvious with each turn of the page, that she truly found Jesus as her Savior and her teachable faith matured.

It's a beautiful story of growth without being academic and preachy. It's a great refresher for those of us who have been believers for a long time and a great teaching tool for those new to the faith.

In the last chapter, Jennifer once again lets her readers peek into her journal, and this time it's to travel alongside her to the Holy Land. She had the opportunity to be part of a group with her church, and she writes candidly about standing in the very places where Christ stood. It's quite soul-stirring to read.

I have one more book to read in this trilogy, and I'm looking forward to visiting Jennifer's life again and learning more from her about growing in vibrant faith!

Fourth of July, Baby!

Yes, I know. It was HALF A WEEK ago now. Such old news. But we had a fun day, and I wanted to tell you about it.

By fun day, of course, I mean that Ryan worked for the first part of it, but I scrapbooked, so I had fun!

Last year, when we watched fireworks over the lake, Ryan noticed a little BBQ restaurant that he wanted to try. So a year later {we're quick!!!!}, we headed back for dinner! Destination: Big Dog's Smokehouse BBQ.

It was a cute little building with all kinds of character, and we had some fun with the BBQ sauces while we waited:

Food was good - and we ate up, since we knew we were going to be outside forever with only overpriced fair-esque foods nearby!

And then...we walked over to the lake to scope out our spot.

It was pretty empty when we arrived, so we had plenty of choices to set up our little folding loveseat and kick back to read. Yes, read. We're such nerds.

The cannon was back again this year, and again, we had about a dozen heart restarts every time they set it off with no warning.

Loved watching the sunset - shoot, I love it that we even had a visible sun TO set that day. I've missed those!!

So many boats congregated in the water to watch the show....

When book-reading ceased because we were done {Ryan} and it got too dark {me}, we just curled up and talked - and dodged the footballs the kids in the game behind us failed to catch.

And at long last...the show began!

{Doesn't that look like a smiley face in the middle of that one??}

 We had the most lovely night, capped off by coffee and cookies...and we were grateful this fell on a weekend this year, so we didn't have a full day of work the next day!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday afternoon, I made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies to have for sharing this week. Of course that meant taste testing, which meant consuming milk, which meant Braeya hovered until it was gone so she could wipe the glass clean with her paw. Beggar. We had a rare break in the rain, so that evening, we went for a walk, which was lovely. We miss walking! When is the rain stopping again???

* Monday was my first real day off work!! I kicked it off with a trip to the hospital for a physical. {Want me to plan your next party? I know how to do it up right!!} Bad news: I'm fat. Good news: not as fat as I thought I was! Gives me something to work on, right? Before I came home, I visited Ryan at work, took cookies to his co-workers, and stopped at the jewelry store to have my wedding ring cleaned and sparkle-fied. I felt that was a good first morning of productivity! I spent the afternoon cranking out work at home {and writing}. And then - the Shafferland salad bar was open for dinner. First day: BOOM!

* Tuesday was crazy busy - can you believe that two days in, I'd still not had a nap or scrapbooked a single page?? Ryan actually had an appointment that morning, which allowed us a whole extra hour of sleep AND gave us the chance to enjoy breakfast together. How cool is that? I spent some time editing and writing and trying {in vain} to teach Braeya to sit on the correct side of the fan. I did tons of cleaning and chores - AND - made my own laundry detergent. Just call me Mrs. Ingalls! 

* Wednesday was such a fun day! As you read about already, my sister Lori is visiting from Kansas, so the three sisters declared Wednesday "Sisters' Day Out." It was our first time ever to do such a thing, and we had a blast! We spent the day in Indianapolis at Julie's house and went to the salon, ate lunch, had a pool party, took pictures - MUCH FUN. Loved it! Lori also spent the night at our house that night, so it was fun to host a guest. We don't get to do that very often!

* Thursday, Lori and I squeezed in some shopping at our favorite place: Cato!! I had been hoarding a gift card for just such an occasion, and we had fun making short work of it! We got to have lunch with my parents, and then that evening, Ryan and I celebrated our 31st monthiversary by having dinner at Half Moon, a restaurant in Kokomo, with our good friends {and wedding party members} Adam and Sara. They were in town just briefly and gathered a HUGE group of friends together for a meal. It was so good to be with them and to mark another milestone in our marriage with people who stood with us that day!

* Friday was another family day out, and what fun it was! Mom and Dad, Lori and I all went to Kokomo to have lunch at this really cute little restaurant downtown, and because Ryan had an uncharacteristically long lunch that day, he was able to join us. YAY!!! The girls went shopping for the afternoon, and my willpower held up long enough to buy NOTHING, thankyouverymuch, and we rounded out our day with a hot dog roast and indoor dinner {stupid RAIN!!} at my parents' house. A good way to round out that first week off work!

* Yesterday I actually got a little relaxing and fun in! Did some scrapping, read a mere 145 pages in a novel I also started *ahem* yesterday...and even took a nap! I figured since it was a holiday, I deserved a little of that fun. Ryan and I tried a new BBQ place for dinner...it was really cute, and the food was good. And then we headed to find a seat for fireworks. We both pulled out books to read while we waited, and then we enjoyed a GREAT show before heading back home. I do love me some 4th of July! {And more on this to come!!}