A Walk Across the Golf Course

Travis grew up playing on his grandmothers and good daddys golf course. It gives him joy walking across the golf course after everyone has left. The joy has spread towards me because I just get to walk by him holding his hand admiring the sunset the Lord painted that day. Simple joys in life as so wonderful and I wish that I took more time to thank the Lord for them.

Update on Travis and I's counseling:

Reading Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas

It is absolutely wonderful and eye opening. Our pastor-Zac Allen- has really challenged us to look at Marriage the way Gary Thomas illustrates it. The theme of the book is What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than To Make Us Happy? This doesn't mean that happiness and holiness are parallel, Thomas explains that Marriage is a refinement process. Dieing to yourself daily and serving your spouse second, serving the Lord first. We also are learning that if you serve the Lord each day and concentrate on that, that will overflow into your other relationships. Another thing I learned is that if you feel like your spouse needs to change...change yourself first and see what happens..

We were in the car the other day and Travis looks at me and goes, "Tricia why do you think we should get married?" Its a good question.. I answered, "I know you and I were meant to be together so that we could glorify the Lord through our relationship/marriage." He replied, " I agree." Then we read the book and Thomas stated, " In a God-centered view, we preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator." I am so glad my fiance and I are striving to do this! We need prayers.

Something that I love about Travis and I, we laugh... a ton.. I added this picture that was taken last year fall semester because it just makes me laugh how interesting we can be. I hope you all have a joyous day and notice the simple, extravagant details the Lord blesses us with to show us He loves us and to give Him glory!

Tuffy and Us

I told Travis we should start a book spin off of the Marley and Me called Tuffy and Us. We have had 3 adventures with Tuffy-"our" blonde Dudley Lab. Let me tell you..

Brianna (my roomate/one of my best friends) and I cook dinner together and make desserts throughout the week. I made some amazing Pioneer Woman strawberry cobbler. Travis and Tuffy came over to eat and then us three humans went out to show Brianna around Fort Worth. I left the freshly baked strawberry cobbler in my pyrex dish on the counter..bad idea. You see, Travis and Tuffy are freakishly alike. Travis always goes for the sweets..so does Tuffy. We came back and I look at the pyrex dish and go "Travis, did you eat more cobbler..like all of it?" and he goes, "No..." and we both looked at Tuff and Tuff's ears were down and he started squinting his eyes and getting low to the ground. He managed to eat the entire cobbler without moving my pyrex dish and only getting a few crumbs on the counter..talent.

I came home from Tulsa with some 6 yummy Porter Peaches my mom lovingly supplied me with. I ate one on the road and placed the others on the counter. Travis and I left to go run some errands that night. Travis took Tuffy home with him and the next morning I realized my peaches were on the carpet. I only had 2 peaches left and there were stains on the carpet! Tuffy ate 3 peaches and their pits too! We took tuff to the vet and the vet said that he was worried about a part in the intestines and stomach section where its smaller. Therefore, "Mom and Dad" aka us had to dig through Tuffy's poop for the next couple days. It was a good picture of us..Travis and I holding our noses, both have sticks and searching through poop while tuffy watched. We laughed through it.

Last story. I live next door to a huge cemetery. Travis and I enjoy taking walks through there. Tuffy doesn't wear a collar or leash because Travis trained him so well, therefore Tuffy just runs around smelling dead people, chasing squirrels and an even larger "squirrel" that we didn't train him to stay away from. Tuffy came back suddenly rolling on the ground and drool everywhere. The security lady drove by us watching Tuffy and goes "Oh, he did it again..that skunk gets so many dogs". Quick run to Target and got Tomato Juice and get this.. Hydrogen Peroxide, Palmolive, Baking Soda mix. We tried the Tomato Juice first and he turned out looking like a pink bunny for days. The other mix works!! That was fun.

The Anticipation of the Bride

I was in one of my best friends wedding-the beautiful Bekah Blume- in Kansas City. We were all standing up at the front waiting for Bekah to walk down. We didn't see her at the actual ceremony site before it started so we were all excited to see where she came from and if she was on time :) I was watching Luke (her husband now) and watching his face was priceless. He was so excited and so intent on looking at the start of the aisle. Immediately I felt goosebumps and had a vision of what it is like for Christ to be waiting for us (His Bride) to come to Him. We had such a great anticipation for Bekah to walk down, think about how much greater this is for Christ waiting for us. And even more, Bekah wore a white dress and her heart resembled this whiteness. She has a beautiful pure heart and this is how Christ sees us too. He sees us as beautiful and pure children of Him coming to Him. Wow. I love this vision!