...and we're glad to be here.
Matthew's job at Best Buy is going great and he's loving it. This week he's serving as acting supervisor while the normal supervisor is out of town. He's been working hard looking over numbers and getting ready for meetings. He is loving it! Jess graduated from Alabama (Roll Tide!) and will be starting her new job on January 10 as an RN in the Birth Suites at St. Vincent's in Birmingham (Roll Tide!). With the wedding in only 2 months, so many wonderful things are lining up for us as we enter the real world!
The new year began with quite a start for Jess as I was sick the entire evening and did not get to ring in midnight. I spent the next day sick as well, so my new year began late, but it is picking up quite nicely and turning into quite a nice year.
I honestly do hope to get in better shape this year and just be healthier overall, so I started back with P90X yesterday. Also I'm hoping to spend more time in The Word. I'm planning to make this the year I read the entire bible. I am praying and reading with this verse in mind
“If you remain in My word, you will truly be My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
Jess has also discovered the joy of cooking recently and has made chicken cordon bleu, potato salad, tacos and been baking breads. The chicken cordon bleu came out really nicely and you can find the recipe on http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Cordon-Bleu/Detail.aspx . As I delve more into the cooking world, I'll let you know what great recipes I find.
I had my first major cooking disaster as well. I recently learned how to make flour tortillas. I made them at home and they turned out quite nicely so I thought I'd try it here. I went to the store and bought the masa, but it turns out I bought corn masa instead of flour. They're not the same and seem to require a different touch. Someday I'll learn how to make corn tortillas, but for now I should stick to flour tortillas. Lucky for us, we had some store-bought tortillas in the bread cabinet and some chips to turn it into taco salad. At least it worked out overall.
As we look over last year, Matthew and I are so blessed and thankful for the family and friend we have in our lives and all of the amazing things that happened to us throughout this past year. We can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for the new year!
Love and blessings,
Matt & Jess
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thankful
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! This week marks the beginning, end and celebration of many things! We are definitely thankful for it all!
Jessica will be the newest labor and delivery nurse in the birth suites at St. Vincent's in Birmingham! I loved my preceptorship there and it ended this week. I'm so excited to get to continue working in the birth suites! It's hard to believe that 6 weeks have gone by, but I have learned so much! I was blessed with a wonderful preceptor in Jennifer Cuevas and I am positive that I will be learning and benefitting from those experiences and our relationship for years. I'm so glad I'll be back there in about a month! When I started praying about being a nurse, the passion that God put in my heart was to help children have the best chance at life possible and now I get to do it! I am so very blessed!
Matthew so wonderfully reminded me too that people often say "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans", but we have been in prayer over this. We've allowed the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and because of that our desires are lining up with God's desires for our lives. It is such a wonderful blessing to live in the will of the Lord!
For Matthew and Best Buy this is a very busy week. He has been working extra hours setting up for Black Friday and the whole store has been much busier. Because he is working so much, his parents are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving! We're so excited to get to have them here. We'll be celebrating at Jess's apartment. It's been so long since we've seen them and we're excited celebrate together. They're so wonderful to be bringing the food as well as a table and chairs (since I don't have a table and chairs in my little apartment). I'll definitely be taking photos.
With the wedding a 101 days away, we've really been getting some wedding planning underway. We have decided on our cake baker and are finalizing hotels and deals for our family and friends. So many things are falling into place and it's amazing to look back and see what we have planned and even more exciting to look to the future both our wedding and even more so for our marriage. So we can both look our best on the wedding day we have started P90X. Please be praying for that. It is a lot of work, but we find that the instructor, the "X-man" as Jess likes to call him, is very encouraging. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a healthy lifestyle for us.
We would also like to let our family and friends know that we've decided to give back to our community through our wedding. With Jess's passion for giving children the best chance at life, her new career in labor & deliver, our thankfulness for our many blessings and with our wedding being in March, we thought it would be appropriate to make a donation to the March of Dimes. We would like to encourage our family and friends to collect their dimes (or any donation that you feel comfortable with) and bring them to our wedding. We will have a special place set up to collect the donation and we plan to match the collection up to $500. Let's make our March wedding, a March of Dimes. If you would like more information about the March of Dimes, please visit . We're trying to come up with a cute title to combine our March wedding and March of Dimes. If you've got any ideas let us know!
As for prayers, we ask that our family and friends pray for the Hickman family. Karri is one of Jessica's best friends and bridesmaids. Her father passed away this past week. They ask that we be praying for their peace and comfort, but they know that He is out of pain and with the Lord.
Also, we ask that you pray for Jessica's Uncle Danny. He was diagnosed with cancer this summer and tests this week showed that the pancreatic cancer had stopped growing but unfortunately they found 4 new lesions on his liver. They are changing his chemo schedule, but they gave him permission to return to work, which he has really wanted to do. The Mata family is having Thanksgiving at his house this week and I just thank the Lord for the wonderful support I know our family is offering him. I am blessed to have such a loving family.
We are very blessed this year. We are so thankful to the Lord for his faithfulness to us. God bless you and Happy Thanksgiving!
"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 118:1
Jessica will be the newest labor and delivery nurse in the birth suites at St. Vincent's in Birmingham! I loved my preceptorship there and it ended this week. I'm so excited to get to continue working in the birth suites! It's hard to believe that 6 weeks have gone by, but I have learned so much! I was blessed with a wonderful preceptor in Jennifer Cuevas and I am positive that I will be learning and benefitting from those experiences and our relationship for years. I'm so glad I'll be back there in about a month! When I started praying about being a nurse, the passion that God put in my heart was to help children have the best chance at life possible and now I get to do it! I am so very blessed!
Matthew so wonderfully reminded me too that people often say "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans", but we have been in prayer over this. We've allowed the Holy Spirit to work in our lives and because of that our desires are lining up with God's desires for our lives. It is such a wonderful blessing to live in the will of the Lord!
For Matthew and Best Buy this is a very busy week. He has been working extra hours setting up for Black Friday and the whole store has been much busier. Because he is working so much, his parents are coming to visit us for Thanksgiving! We're so excited to get to have them here. We'll be celebrating at Jess's apartment. It's been so long since we've seen them and we're excited celebrate together. They're so wonderful to be bringing the food as well as a table and chairs (since I don't have a table and chairs in my little apartment). I'll definitely be taking photos.
With the wedding a 101 days away, we've really been getting some wedding planning underway. We have decided on our cake baker and are finalizing hotels and deals for our family and friends. So many things are falling into place and it's amazing to look back and see what we have planned and even more exciting to look to the future both our wedding and even more so for our marriage. So we can both look our best on the wedding day we have started P90X. Please be praying for that. It is a lot of work, but we find that the instructor, the "X-man" as Jess likes to call him, is very encouraging. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a healthy lifestyle for us.
We would also like to let our family and friends know that we've decided to give back to our community through our wedding. With Jess's passion for giving children the best chance at life, her new career in labor & deliver, our thankfulness for our many blessings and with our wedding being in March, we thought it would be appropriate to make a donation to the March of Dimes. We would like to encourage our family and friends to collect their dimes (or any donation that you feel comfortable with) and bring them to our wedding. We will have a special place set up to collect the donation and we plan to match the collection up to $500. Let's make our March wedding, a March of Dimes. If you would like more information about the March of Dimes, please visit . We're trying to come up with a cute title to combine our March wedding and March of Dimes. If you've got any ideas let us know!
As for prayers, we ask that our family and friends pray for the Hickman family. Karri is one of Jessica's best friends and bridesmaids. Her father passed away this past week. They ask that we be praying for their peace and comfort, but they know that He is out of pain and with the Lord.
Also, we ask that you pray for Jessica's Uncle Danny. He was diagnosed with cancer this summer and tests this week showed that the pancreatic cancer had stopped growing but unfortunately they found 4 new lesions on his liver. They are changing his chemo schedule, but they gave him permission to return to work, which he has really wanted to do. The Mata family is having Thanksgiving at his house this week and I just thank the Lord for the wonderful support I know our family is offering him. I am blessed to have such a loving family.
We are very blessed this year. We are so thankful to the Lord for his faithfulness to us. God bless you and Happy Thanksgiving!
"Give thanks to the Lord for he is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 118:1
Friday, October 29, 2010
Dates
So I'm successfully posting blog post #2. I'm proud of myself.
Here's our update:
Last weekend Matthew and I went on an Engaged Encounter retreat in Mobile, AL. It was so wonderful. It was a great retreat and God really affirmed for both of us that it is His will for us to be married. We got to focus on each other and put everything else aside. I have a very sweet, romantic, Christian and manly future husband. I can't wait until we're married!
This week has been great for me (Jess). I worked 3 in a row this week at St. Vincent's and it was great. We have done so much. We spent a day doing stabilization where I had the opportunity to be at most of the deliveries to be the nurse for the newly born baby. Jennifer, my preceptor said something really cool, that we're one of the first people to touch this brand new baby. It's pretty amazing. I did end up having a flat tire in the middle of my work week though, but Matthew and his uncle Frank came to my rescue to help me get the spare put on. Matthew is so sweet. He was actually preparing a wonderful surprise dinner for me that he had to put down in order to come to my rescue. Don't I have the most amazing husband ever? We split the meal over a few days and we had 3-bean asian salad, citrus lime rice and thai chicken with a thai peanut sauce. It was wonderful!
This weekend Matthew and I both have time off together, which is getting rarer with all the hours we're picking up. Yesterday we had frozen drink day. We had smoothies, frappuccinos and a lemon-berry slush. It was really fun. We can turn just about anything into a date. I love it! We're looking forward to getting to go to church together and having Monday off together too. We'll see what other cute date ideas we come up with. So far we've had dinner and frozen drinks. It's been nice!
Quick funny story that happened while I was writing this. I had all ready settled into my pjs and was typing about how I'm excited to have trick-or-treaters tomorrow when I heard a knock at the door and "trick or treat". So in my pj's I answered the door and gave them candy from my stash that my family had sent me for halloween. I was going to buy candy tomorrow! Obviously I was unprepared, but it was still very fun. lol
Congratulations to Karri and Trevor on their engagement this weekend! Love you both and I'm so excited to see what God has in store for you.
Let's go Rangers! First world series for the Rangers and tonight it's in Arlington.
"Brothers and sisters:
We always pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith,
that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12
God bless!
Matt & Jess
Here's our update:
Last weekend Matthew and I went on an Engaged Encounter retreat in Mobile, AL. It was so wonderful. It was a great retreat and God really affirmed for both of us that it is His will for us to be married. We got to focus on each other and put everything else aside. I have a very sweet, romantic, Christian and manly future husband. I can't wait until we're married!
This week has been great for me (Jess). I worked 3 in a row this week at St. Vincent's and it was great. We have done so much. We spent a day doing stabilization where I had the opportunity to be at most of the deliveries to be the nurse for the newly born baby. Jennifer, my preceptor said something really cool, that we're one of the first people to touch this brand new baby. It's pretty amazing. I did end up having a flat tire in the middle of my work week though, but Matthew and his uncle Frank came to my rescue to help me get the spare put on. Matthew is so sweet. He was actually preparing a wonderful surprise dinner for me that he had to put down in order to come to my rescue. Don't I have the most amazing husband ever? We split the meal over a few days and we had 3-bean asian salad, citrus lime rice and thai chicken with a thai peanut sauce. It was wonderful!
This weekend Matthew and I both have time off together, which is getting rarer with all the hours we're picking up. Yesterday we had frozen drink day. We had smoothies, frappuccinos and a lemon-berry slush. It was really fun. We can turn just about anything into a date. I love it! We're looking forward to getting to go to church together and having Monday off together too. We'll see what other cute date ideas we come up with. So far we've had dinner and frozen drinks. It's been nice!
Quick funny story that happened while I was writing this. I had all ready settled into my pjs and was typing about how I'm excited to have trick-or-treaters tomorrow when I heard a knock at the door and "trick or treat". So in my pj's I answered the door and gave them candy from my stash that my family had sent me for halloween. I was going to buy candy tomorrow! Obviously I was unprepared, but it was still very fun. lol
Congratulations to Karri and Trevor on their engagement this weekend! Love you both and I'm so excited to see what God has in store for you.
Let's go Rangers! First world series for the Rangers and tonight it's in Arlington.
"Brothers and sisters:
We always pray for you,
that our God may make you worthy of his calling
and powerfully bring to fulfillment every good purpose
and every effort of faith,
that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you,
and you in him,
in accord with the grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12
God bless!
Matt & Jess
Monday, October 11, 2010
New Beginnings (and a few endings)
Hey everyone! It's Jess. I'm going to try to get the ball rolling with this blog and see if I can keep it up.
Here's the news from our little corner of the world:
Jess- I have taken my last test of college ever. I can hardly believe that things are winding down. I've been working so hard for so long to succeed in nursing school and here I am basically at the finish line! (Of this part of my journey at least.)
I started my preceptorship at St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham on the labor & delivery unit. It's been really wonderful! We've worked in NICU, postpartum and triaging labor & delivery patients. I have learned so much and I'm excited to go back tomorrow! Please keep me and my preceptor in your prayers. God is creating a wonderful working relationship there, so that I can learn and grow into the nurse He's calling me to be. Also, please keep my job search in your prayers. We had a career fair last week and it's time to start putting in job applications, so I'm praying for God to open up the door at the hospital and unit where He wants me to be.
"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me" Matthew 25:40
Matt- Matt started at Best Buy a few weeks ago and he's loving it. He works with a great group of people and he loves technology, so this job is wonderful for him. He really likes the company and we're hoping that, if it's in God's plan, He'll be able to stay with Best Buy for a nice long time.
Both of us- We're getting some good wedding planning underway. Save-the-dates went out for the addresses that we have. It makes the wedding feel so soon! With the long engagement, we've gotten lulled into the idea that the wedding is a long way off, but it's coming up pretty quick! Lately we've been looking into cakes and the catering. Yum!
Also, we have our Engaged Encounter retreat weekend coming up this weekend. Please be praying for us as God uses that weekend to prepare us for marriage.
"So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." Ephesians 2:19-22
God bless you,
Matthew & Jessica
Here's the news from our little corner of the world:
Jess- I have taken my last test of college ever. I can hardly believe that things are winding down. I've been working so hard for so long to succeed in nursing school and here I am basically at the finish line! (Of this part of my journey at least.)
I started my preceptorship at St. Vincent's Hospital in Birmingham on the labor & delivery unit. It's been really wonderful! We've worked in NICU, postpartum and triaging labor & delivery patients. I have learned so much and I'm excited to go back tomorrow! Please keep me and my preceptor in your prayers. God is creating a wonderful working relationship there, so that I can learn and grow into the nurse He's calling me to be. Also, please keep my job search in your prayers. We had a career fair last week and it's time to start putting in job applications, so I'm praying for God to open up the door at the hospital and unit where He wants me to be.
"Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me" Matthew 25:40
Matt- Matt started at Best Buy a few weeks ago and he's loving it. He works with a great group of people and he loves technology, so this job is wonderful for him. He really likes the company and we're hoping that, if it's in God's plan, He'll be able to stay with Best Buy for a nice long time.
Both of us- We're getting some good wedding planning underway. Save-the-dates went out for the addresses that we have. It makes the wedding feel so soon! With the long engagement, we've gotten lulled into the idea that the wedding is a long way off, but it's coming up pretty quick! Lately we've been looking into cakes and the catering. Yum!
Also, we have our Engaged Encounter retreat weekend coming up this weekend. Please be praying for us as God uses that weekend to prepare us for marriage.
"So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners,
but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones
and members of the household of God,
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.
Through him the whole structure is held together
and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord;
in him you also are being built together
into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit." Ephesians 2:19-22
God bless you,
Matthew & Jessica
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