Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas!

Another great time

We had the awesome pleasure of having Andrea, Nathan, and their precious daughter Lindsay over to our home last night. Andrea is an amazing friend and I have been so blessed by our friendship. When my parents moved me to Waco many, many years ago I was a very upset 8th grader. God truly blessed my move though with having Andrea right next door. Our friendship bloomed and grew stronger over the years. We roomed together at Baylor for her 2 years before nursing school in Dallas. Andrea married her high school sweetheart, how sweet is that! We all used to go to lunch everyday during high school, we would trade off between her house and mine. Gotta love those HotPockets :) It is fun to think about all the years that have gone by and how God has strengthened our relationship.

Fingerprints 101

Today was our day to get our fingerprints done. As part of the international adoption process they need our fingerprints, go figure. We had to go to Ft. Worth to the USCIS office. Here some things to know... Do Not take a cell phone. Due to me having mine, it was off what's the deal!?!, we got to wait a longer time. Also, there is no more ink to wash off. Everything is done with computers, not surprising I guess. It was cool to see the print come up on the screen. I was going to take pictures but with the no cell phone policy comes no camera. I figured since we were at a government agency I shouldn't push it!

One more thing to check off for the adoption, yea!!! Now we wait for the paperwork back from the gov't and then we can send everything off to our agency. We are picking out pictures to send in as well which is fun.

One year ago...

One year ago today we left for the best family vacation! My parents took us and Cheryl's family to Walt Disney World in Orlando. We had an incredible time. I know they say it's a magical place and I think it really is. A friend of mine is going in a couple of weeks and I am so jealous. I think the Disney trip is what really inspired my love of planning trips (I have always loved going on them). I have been to Disney World three times now. The first was in high school with band. We participated in a marching competition in the Magic Kingdom which was cool. The second time was with some friends in graduate school. Who know going as an adult could be so much fun!?!

If you ever go to Disney World with a large family (more that 8 people in your group) I would highly suggest taking advantage of the Magical Gathering events. We did a breakfast with Mickey which was great b/c there were a few families and we got to be in the Magic Kingdom before it opened and get some great pics and of course spend some time with the big mouse himself. We also did a fireworks voyage with Peter Pan. Once again Disney does a great job at making everything feel magical during these special events. If you are going with little girls who like the princesses the Princess Breakfast in Epcot is a must (there is also one at Cinderella's castle that is a bit more expensive and very hard to get into but I am sure it is wonderful). My mom, Cheryl, Hannah and I had breakfast together and the princesses would come by to talk to Hannah and get pictures. As you can imagine Hannah was in awe (so was I:)

I can't wait to take our little girl to Disney one day. I can only hope she will have as much fun as we did!!

Celebrating the Season

Wow! What a fun end of the week and weekend. One of the many reason I love this season is getting to spend great fellowship time with friends and family. It started off with my school Christmas party. I am hospitality chair and was in charge of planning the staff Christmas party. It went great and I think we all had fun getting away from school for awhile. It's amazing that we work together all day but don't really get to "talk". We had lots of fun catching up.

On Friday night I went to a party at a friend's home. She had decorated beautifully and we enjoyed yummy Christmas goodies. It is so fun to see how different families decorate for the Christmas season. Janet had lights strung all through the house which made me truly feel warm and cozy.

Saturday was a fun day of shopping with my mom and sister. I discovered a new gift store with them that many people had told me about but I had never been. It was great fun picking out Christmas gifts. We also enjoyed a girls lunch which was great. The rest of Saturday was spent at choir rehearsal to get ready for our Sunday morning concert.

Sunday was my church's Christmas choir concert. I always have had fun singing, even though I might not be very good, I love to sing with others. I really enjoyed having my parents and friend, Karen, there to watch. We had our Sunday School party on Sunday evening which was tons of fun. It was full of great fellowship and yummy food.

We wrapped up the weekend by attending the Point of Grace concert here in Waco. I have always enjoyed their music ever since Cari gave me their first CD over 10 yrs. ago. The concert was wonderful and as an added bonus my friends EJ and Kim had seats next to ours.

I hope you are enjoying this special season and are able to have some special time with family and friends!

A night of Magical Music

What a night! We celebrated the Christmas season with a concert with one of my favorite performers, Michael W. Smith. The concert was INCREDIBLE. There is nothing better than hearing his music played with a full orchestra with him plus his band.

The evening didn't start off too good though. I got home as early as possible from school so we could get to Dallas in time to enjoy a nice dinner. We started to get on I-35 and noticed a traffic backup. We stayed on the frontage road thinking we would get around the backup, no luck! There had been a really bad accident and I-35 was shut down about 2 miles from our house. So we sat in traffic for about 45 minutes not able to turn around and go another way, not fun. We finally made it to the other side of Waco about an hour after we had left. So much for leaving early!!

Since we didn't get to leave early I thought we missed out on having a nice dinner, I was wrong. We got to the Meyerson center early enough to enjoy their buffet. It was very, very nice and totally made up for having to sit in traffic back in Waco. As we were enjoying our dinner another patron came over to us and asked where are seats were and if they were "good". Since we had never been to this venue I had no idea how good they were or where they were (I knew I had paid a good price for them though). He said he had been called away unexpectedly and wanted to give us his BOX seats as a Christmas gift. Why'd he choose us? I don't know but God sure did make up for that traffic :) Anyway, now we had two extra tickets on hand. Steve took them down to the ticket center to see if they wanted them. As he was asking, two ladies said they would take them. The ladies offered to pay but we knew there was no way we would take payment since we had been blessed from another. The ladies were especially happy when they found out the concert was SOLD OUT!

As the concert started I was definitely enjoying our great seats. The concert hall was decorated beautifully. I have always loved hearing live music, especially at Christmas. Michael came out and performed songs from all three of his Christmas albums. If you haven't gotten his new one I would definitely suggest it for a great Christmas CD. He also had the Katina's and Melinda Doolittle (American Idol fame) to join him. He sang my fav song from his first album, Emmanuel and so many others from his current CD. Can you believe he is a grandfather, I nearly fell off my chair when he said that. I figured out that I first saw him in concert about 20 years ago when he was with Amy Grant on her Lead Me On tour. He still looks the same and has incredible music.

For such a slow start to the evening the night turned out GREAT. It was wonderful to celebrate the birth of Christ through amazing music.

A Picture and A Party

This weekend we were able to have some great family time with my fam. It is so fun have the Gochi in town and not have to drive three hours to see them. They are just across town. We took the annual Segura Christmas card picture on Saturday morning. I won't post the actual picture b/c I don't want to ruin it for those who will receive it but I will include a picture of the fun that happens between takes. Notice Cheryl getting the kids ready and who knows what I was doing. My mom is just reminding us that all her friends are going to get this so let's smile. For those of you who take Christmas card pictures I'm sure you will appreciate :)

This weekend we also celebrated Hannah's 5th birthday. Her actual birthday is on Tuesday but we got to celebrate early. Steve and I haven't made it to her birthday party in awhile so I was especially glad to be there with her this afternoon. She wanted to have it at Chuck E. Cheese which was lots of fun with games and loudness. She enjoyed being the birthday girl! It is hard to believe that she is 5 yrs. old. My how time flies! Steve and I had just gotten married when she came to us from China. My sister makes the best birthday cakes and I can't wait for her to make my little girls cakes one day. Happy Birthday Hannah!