about Goldfish crackers and other things

It was a shopping day today. Journey kids sure love Goldfish. This will last a couple months. Maybe.

Speaking of Journey, over the past three weekends, 192 people "went public" with their commitment to follow Jesus. Mind=blown.

I never get tired of watching people get baptized. It's one of my favorite things we do at Journey.

And also speaking of Journey, our college small group, Journey18:25, kicked off for the fall semester. We are doing a study of Hebrews 11 over the next several weeks that my one and only husband pieced together.

This week, one of our assignments was to take a picture to represent each day of creation and share it on Instagram. I will share them on here as well after I take them all.

I am trying to figure out how I'm going to take a picture for the first day (light and dark), when the sky and sun and other lights weren't created yet. The struggle, I know.

Anyway, that's all for this random post. We are doing well. We are busy. We are having fun per usual.

about the night Ben Affleck kept me awake

Hey everyone.

I hope you all had a good week. Our week was...long. But mostly good. Last night I had rehearsal at church and then crashed at home.

Aaron and I have been watching all three seasons of Batman Beyond for the past few months.

Before you're just like "Oh, what a good wife she is..." for enduring my husband's Batman obsession, I do actually enjoy watching most Batman things with him. I mean, before he even came along, I was pretty Batman savvy. I was even Batgirl for Halloween one year.

Anyway, I had never seen Batman Beyond and it's on Netflix. So we've had fun watching that over the summer. Yes, it is a cartoon. Don't judge us.

So began our Batman night, that quickly went downhill.

We decided to save the very last episode for another day and went to bed. I was exhausted, and was about to close my eyes and sleep, when who but Ben Affleck decided to disturb my slumber.

Aaron opened up his Nook and was accosted with the news of the new Batman to star in the upcoming Superman sequel.

Ben. Affleck.

Here was his immediate reaction:

Sleep was postponed as I tried to console him.

I suppose life goes on.

Why did you abandon us, Christian Bale? WHY? WHY?

about our Journey-filled weekend

Hi.

It's oh-so-wonderful to be at home. And to be here. Aaron and have agreed that we can't quite have the same crazy summer schedule that we just had again. Surely there is a healthy middle ground.

It was fun-filled, of course.

But it was draining.

And we have never been so glad to be home. And be working even.

I had to agree with Aaron last Friday when he said he was excited to go back to work. It just felt like we had been missing out on so much by not being there.

So, since Friday, we've definitely been re-entering "Journey mode."

Friday, Aaron and I began the task of doing all of the work online to make our promotion weekend go smoothly. Let me just say, our church database, CCB, does not mess around with promotion. They are so serious.

THERE IS NO UNDO.

It warned us of that twice more before we finished. I mean, it's good I guess. It would be a pain in the you-know-what to mess up the promotion of 1,600 people to the next year/grade...

Thankfully, everything was correct, and we were able to start the weekend off on Saturday with our two new services.

For Journey Kids, the services went....

Well, they happened.

Really, they went well. Anything brand new like that always takes some time for everyone to get used to. Kids heard about Jesus and that's all that really matters. We had a lot of brand new volunteers that jumped in with no clue what they were doing, but they did awesome. 

It was a lot of fun. Hey, if Aaron and I could always do Saturday night, we totally would. You have most of your Saturday free, and then you still have a whole Sunday to rest. It's the way to go. You should attend on Saturday. Do it. But make sure you serve for one service!

Anyway, Sunday was wonderful as well, especially because we did not have our normal third service. Everyone got to sleep in a little later and leave a little earlier. It's a nice break for the next few months.

To end the weekend, we also kicked off a brand new season of Journey Students. Aaron and I still love that we get to help out with student ministry. There was great turn out (although the free pizza and ice cream may have had something to do with it).

MSO (Middle School Only)

3:12 (High School)

We were exhausted at the end of Sunday night, but it was definitely in the best way possible. There's no place else we'd rather be.

about August 8th

Four years ago at this time, I was off on an adventure.

My boyfriend had somehow broken into my parents' house (so it seemed), woken me up, made me take a shower, and then abandoned me with just this video to watch.

I set off in my car that morning kind of knowing what I thought might happen, but not entirely sure.

My first stop involved friends and board games.

I met other friends along the way, and collected clues from Aaron.

I had lunch with my best pal. 

And then headed to Journey to dig through baby dolls and ziplock bags with Amanda.

Until finally, I reached a bridge and was reunited with Aaron.

It was definitely a proposal that I could never forget! Happy Engagement Day Anniversary, Aaron Bauer. You definitely swept me off my feet!

hello from Tennessee

Hello from the Smoky Mountains!

It's been a great few days visiting family. My parents blessed us with a cozy cabin to stay in, and it's been such a nice setting for our trip. Especially the hot tub!

Since we've been here, we've gone outlet shopping, had too much food, and played our favorite family board game, Aggravation.

I can't believe it's already time to go home tomorrow, but we have a busy weekend ahead. Only three more days until we start Saturday services!

Speaking of Journey, we have a new App available. You should check it out.

Not much else to share today, but check back tomorrow. It's the anniversary of one of my favorite days ever.

about my unwelcome alternate self

I don't know what has gotten into me lately, but I have had some very "un-Whitney-like" incidents in the past couple weeks.

I am usually pretty calm, cool, and collected. As well as neat, clean, and organized. 

1.  Two weeks ago, I painted my nails. That was all fine and dandy. Until I went to put the nail polish away. I could have sworn I screwed the lid on. But no. I had not. Nail. Polish. Everywhere. Thank goodness I was in the bathroom at least. I got it mostly up off the floor and the cabinet. One of our rugs went straight to the trash as a lost cause. And there's a faint mark on the door for the next time we get the paint out.
2. While Aaron was at camp this past week, I was driving his car around. One day, however, I decided to drive my car to the pool…only to discover it was completely and utterly dead. Ah well. This was not a huge deal. A couple nights later my sweet dad came and jumped it for me. It worked fine after that. To make sure it had plenty of fighting power, I drove it downtown. When I arrived at my parents' apartment and parked on the street, I gathered up my purse and my phone and my water bottle and Penny and…not my keys. I locked my stupid keys in the car. For the first time in my entire life. I couldn't even understand how it happened. All I knew was that a trip all the way to Wake Forest to get the spare keys after I had just arrived sounded awful. Thankfully, my dad, a friendly neighbor, and a wire hanger were able to unlock my door. That was a close one.
3. You would think I would have some luck on my side after that, but, no. Unfortunately, it got worse. Saturday night, Aaron and I went back downtown to have dinner for my dad's birthday. Dinner was fun. Presents were fun. A game of Aggravation was fun. Birthday pie was fun. Dropping my iPhone in the toilet was anything but fun. Yes. I CANNOT believe I dropped my phone in the toilet. Again, I'm not sure what happened to my usually working brain. I was able to snatch it out right away, blow dry it, and put it in a bowl of rice for 24 hours. Knocking on wood and praying to Jesus, it's still working so far. It's not entirely normal, but I think the basics are just fine.

Well, let's hope that these days and incidents are well behind me. I mean, it's like Aaron is rubbing off on me or something...

Happy August!

I can't believe it's already August. The summer has flown by. Here are some fun things happening this month to wrap up our crazy summer...

1. Aaron comes home.   This is happening tomorrow, and I can. not. wait. It's obviously exciting enough to make this list.
2. Dads' birthdays.   Both of our dads have August birthdays. My best pal Renee also celebrates her birthday this month. It's a good month to be born. Almost as good as October.
3. Tennessee.   On Sunday we are driving to Sevierville, TN to stay in a cozy cabin for a few days and visit my other grandparents. My whole family is going. This is the first family trip to TN for Aaron. He and I have gone a couple times alone, but we have not been able to go with my family since we've been married.
4. Engagement anniversary.   We don't necessarily make a big deal out of this, but Aaron proposed to me on August 8th. You can read all about my amazing proposal on our other blog. 
5. August 10-11.   This is only significant to Journey people, I suppose. This is the weekend where we go from 3 services to 4, promote all the kids up, and kick-off the year with students. Have I mentioned how excited I am about only 2 Sunday services? Oh my goodness.
6. fxMINI.   We have our second fxMINI scheduled at the end of this month.
7. Bensen and Keyen date.   Aaron and I are finally around long enough to spend a night babysitting the boys for a few hours. I can't wait!

Happy August!