Author Archives: Chase & Britt
summer parties… (part 1)
Since I can’t haven’t made room for new pictures, I have decided to catch up on some posts from this summer.
Besides driving about 5000 miles (and we didn’t even leave Texas or New Mexico), visiting friends & family, and eating lots of yummy food this summer, I threw a few parties. The first one was a bachelorette party for Aubrey! Brooke & I had a great time planning & baking for this party.
Decor:
– bras hung from the mantel
– Black & Red napkins, plates, & silverware (Aub’s isn’t a pink girl so we decided to got with black & red)
– Black & Red tissue balls hung from the celling
-Red Roses
Food:
– Delicious Slushy Strawberry punch: (thanks for the recipe Liz!) (I will put recipe at the bottom- a must try)
– Heart shaped cookies, made into lingerie cookies! Brooke found this idea- so cute! (my favorite part of the party)
– Cupcakes with cream-cheese frosting
– Strawberries & apples with chocolate and carmel sauce
We went to Savoy Bar & Grill for drinks and appetizers before returning to the house for dessert and lingerie! She got a ton of great stuff and we all had a great time! Still can’t believe my baby sister is married…
Slushy Punch Recipe
2 ½ cups white sugar
6 cups of water
2 (3 oz) packages strawberry flavored gelatin mix
1 (46 fl. Oz) can pineapple juice
2/3 cups lemon juice
1 quart orange juice
2 (2 liter) bottles lemon-lime flavored carbonated beverage (sprite works too)
In a large saucepan, combine sugar, water & gelatin. Boil for 3 minutes. Stir in pineapple juice, lemon juice, & orange juice. Divide mixture in half, and freeze in 2 separate containers. When ready to serve, place the frozen contents of one container in a punch bowl & stir in 1 bottle of lime-lime soda until slushy.
Back to school, back to school…
Yesterday we officially started our 2 semester of Arabic! Woo who! It has been great so far and we are enjoying knowing more than we knew last semester. We are so thankful to be back, to be speaking Arabic again, to be settling into a routine again, and to be moving forward.
I forgot to take first day and second day of school pictures… we will see if I remember tomorrow! Also, warning, it might be a little bit till we post any pics (hopefully sooner than later)- I have the huge task of looking through all my pics (I have over 12,000 on here now- I know crazy) to allow room for more- I have filled up my hard drive!
On a side note, we got broken into while we went on vacation to Amsterdam (more on this trip later- we had a wonderful time)! Even though it is super frustrating, kind of unsettling thinking about people being in our house & going through our stuff, and a pain, we are in good spirits. We have peace & are being reminded of where our treasure is…. Not in our stuff, but in Christ. And luckily they didn’t take my computer, our tv, or anything too big. Only DVDs, money, and some clothes). On a positive language learning note, Chase was able to explain to the police what happened in Arabic! I was proud of him.
Back again!
We made it back safe and sound!! And we keep saying to each other, “can’t believe we are already back!” as we clean bathrooms and unpack bags. Time flys when you are having fun!
Anyway, we are getting settled in our new house – I will be sure to post before and after pics when I have them. Love u all- thanks for the prayers for safe travel. Now we just need to get over jet lag!
“nasafer bookra”
…. yup, that means We travel tomorrow!” in Arabic… or at least I think?! Ha! Hoping that all our Arabic has not gone out the window this summer. 🙂 Next time you hear from us we will be across the seas.
Tomorrow is the day we head back to the desert. Tomorrow is the day we say goodbye to America once more. Tomorrow is the day we have Sonic drinks with crushed ice for the last time in a while. Tomorrow is the day we say “see you later” once again to family & friends. Tomorrow is the day we continue this adventure. Tomorrow is the day we trust the LRD and rejoice in all that He has (and will) provide for us.
We are excited & ready. Sad to leave loved ones, but comforted in knowing we are headed where we are supposed to be.
long over due.
Thought I would give you an update on what we have been up to… sorry for the break in posts lately- seems like we haven’t had much time to sit down all summer! (it might be in two parts)
1. Believe it or not, we are enjoying a little cooler weather here in the states. I am not saying that it is cold here, but it does, surprisingly, feel a little cooler than our desert home. Especially in Albuquerque where it was 75 degrees last week- glorious!
2. Our purpose for coming home was to celebrate Aubrey & Nate’s wedding! We had a great time celebrating their love. The wedding was gorgeous, the weather was great (well for the most part- it rained, not as much as it did at ours, & it was a little windy, but what is an outdoor wedding without a little weather-right?), the food was delicious, the dancing was fun, and it was such a blessing to see my little sister marry her best friend and a man that loves Jesus and that I am confident will love Aubs forever. We couldn’t be happier for them! Congrats Mr. & Mrs. Myers!
3. So far we have driven over 3500 miles and we have one more trip to Dallas to make! We have traveled to Houston, Austin, Round Rock, New Braunfels, Dallas, Lubbock, Lamesa, Midland, and Albuquerque… here are a few pics of people and things we we saw along the way.
Lamesa: Drive-in movie- Zookeeper- wouldn’t recommend it, but we had a good time with family.
Lubbock: West Crust Pizza (if you haven’t tried it and live in Lubbock- you should) with sweet friends.
Dallas: Celebrated our nieces sweet 16th with a scavenger hunt around town. This was a date with Uncle Chase at Starbucks.
Houston: Stayed with our good friends, the Vernons. Love you guys!
Austin: Celebrated 3 years of marriage on July 19th! Wow, can’t believe how fast the time has gone. I am super thankful to be married to my best friend. I thank the Lord everyday for him and look forward to 80 more years together! For our anniversary we stayed in a hotel, went out for dinner, and hung out at a coffee shop to read for a few hours together- it was great and much needed as it landed in the middle of our stay in America. I love you Chaser!
Will post more of the summer later…
On a side note, we head back to the desert August 15th! It is quickly approaching and we are getting more and more excited. Thank you to everyone that we have seen or talked to this summer. It has been blessing and encouragement to us to catch up with you. Thank you for your hospitality, love, prayers, and care for us. We could not be where we are without you.
my little bug…
Hello blog friends… so sorry I have not been on here in almost a month! We made it home safely have have been enjoying our time here in the states so far. It has been super busy with weddings, birthdays, babies, friends, family & traveling. I wanted to do a post for all our activities, but I am just not sure I can keep up with it all, but I will try.
I am starting out of order, but I wanted to share with you all about something I am very excited about. Remember when I told you that I am going to be an Aunt this winter?! Well, Chase and I had the opportunity to go to the ultrasound appointment to find out the sex of the baby. Wow! What a neat experience. For those of you that have not been part of an ultrasound I will tell you that it is about one of the coolest things I have ever seen. To be able to see a miracle growing inside of my sister, moving, stretching, yawning…. only a blessing that comes from the Lord! I cried (I know this is not surprising), Chase was even wiping tears from his cheeks (he will try to deny it). It was such a beautiful experience- I am so thankful that we got to be part of it! Now for the results!!!
I am going to have a….
Niece! Yey for girls!
Meet Blair Nicole!
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s whom. I praise you, for i am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalm 139:13
We celebrated at Olive Garden for lunch! I am thrilled to death to be an auntie- and super excited to meet Blair.
desert days..
We are sitting in the airport in Amsterdam right now waiting for our flight back to America! Cannot believe how quickly this semester flew by… I know that our moms are reading this and thinking- fast, yeah right! But really it is hard to believe that in less than 10 hours we will be back with our loved ones in the states. We are excited to see you all.
What a semester it has been… we have been blessed and surprised as our love for the people, country & language has grown. We have made some really great friends out here and are excited to return. I wasn’t sure if I was going to feel that way at this time, but I am thankful that we do.
I wanted to post a few things about what we have been up to lately- I have decided that I like these posts because it will be fun to look back at one day to see what our time in language school was like. Hope you enjoy them too! (I plan on adding more pics when we get home- I don’t have them all on my computer right now- sorry!)
1. Hosting…
We had 4 boys come visit us for about 2 weeks at the end of May. One of them is our good friend Drew, who will be moving out here with his family this fall! We can’t wait for them to come! The boys came for a vacation before summer school started up. It was encouraging to see them & fun for Chase to get to visit locals with them.
2. Eating… I hope that none of you are worried about what we have been eating, because even though we can’t get the same things we can in the states and we have to experiment with recipes and pretty much make everything from scratch, we do not lack in the food department. In fact cooking and baking for a lot of us is a way to let our minds rest after studying Arabic all day.
Part of the yummy eating we have been doing lately includes a Chinese dinner cooked by some of our Chinese classmates, along with a traditional tea after dinner. It was so yummy. I also made a homemade lasagna for our friends, of course a Pioneer Woman recipe, that was delicious, but sort of expensive to make- not sure I will ever make it on this side of the world again, but it was fun to try!
3. Bittersweet moments. This semester we met a family that we became super close to, super quickly. It has been such a blessing to get to know them, however, super sad because they just finished there last semester of language and will be moving to another country for a new job in two weeks. 🙁 This means when we return they will not be in our town- which makes me super sad. Liz has become a dear friend to me… one that I feel like myself around, one I feel like I can speak like a 2 year old on visits with & not feel stupid cuz she speaks awesome, one that I can just sit and talk for hours with, one that I can go on visits with & throw parties with, one that I can talk about cooking with, one that I can get pedicures with (we have decided to make it a goal to see how many countries we can get pedicures in together- so far we have 2 down!), one that I can cry and laugh with… it is hard to believe that we have only known each other for under 5 months. She and her family will be greatly missed, but we are excited for what lies ahead for them.
The last few weeks we tried to fit in as many things together as we could. We had a going away dinner at our house for them, a party with some other students, got a pedicure, and went to “the big city” one more time together… Love you friend! Thanks for everything!
4. Studying… We finished our first semester of Arabic study & we both passed! We feel like we did well for our 1st semester, but know that there is so much more to learn & look forward to seeing ourselves grow in the language and start sounding like at least a 4 year old! ha I was telling Chase that I really love speaking Arabic. It is so fun to be able to (well try to) express yourself in another language. As most of you know, I love to talk… so now I am learning how to do this in another tongue- lucky for Chase- ha! I feel like it opens your mind & world so much more. What a blessing that we have this opportunity to learn.
5. Packing & moving… Yup I said moving! We are moving into a villa in the fall. We found a place to live that is much cheaper than where we are living now & the added bonus is that we have a carport & and a housh (outside yard area that is blocked in by walls). We are excited, but have been super busy with the move & feel almost as exhausted as we did when we left America 5 months ago. We are hope to get to rest before wedding festivities start next week!
6. Reflecting… we have been trying to take some time to think back on this semester- on how we did, what we can do differently, what we did well & what we stunk at, how we studied, how we spent our time, etc… This summer we hope to be able to put these thoughts on paper and be able to share them with you.
7. And finally discussing how Chase can be more involved in this blog! He desires to share stories with you all & has lots to tell- he is just sort of a “social media introvert” (we discovered this when we moved out here). We have some fun ideas that you can look forward to in the fall.
Better go about to run out of free internet! Sorry for the novel- feel free to read as much as you would like!
-Britt
hefla
I think I have mentioned twice now that we threw our local friend a bridal shower, or hefla (party) in Arabic, but have neglected to give you any pictures or details- so sorry. I will make up for it now…
At the beginning of the month my friend and I threw an “American-style” bridal shower for a local who is getting married in July. We had American-y shower food (in addition to a ton of local food that other girls brought), games, and music (which lasted for like one song & then got switched to Arab dance music). Here are a few details of the party. (with some pictures– I can’t share many as I don’t want to post pictures of the local women on here)
Location
We decided to host the shower at the work place of the bride that way more girls could come. (this is the same place of the girls that I try and visit weekly) It was a good thing we had it there because over 30 local girls came! The room was covered with girls talking, eating, singing, and dancing. It was so much fun.
Entertainment
We played to games and danced. (my friend got a video of this and of course I joined them! if you are lucky you might get to see it when we are home! ha)
The first game involved putting cotton balls into a bowl blind folded with a small spoon (pictured above)… pretty funny to watch! They got really into it.
The second game was a competition to see who could create the best wedding dress out of toilet paper & then the bride-to-be got to pick the winners. This was also so much fun to watch. I was surprised at how much fun they had with these games. We weren’t sure what they would think since this is not a typical activity during parties here.
Food
– Strawberry Punch (a hit & new drink for these ladies)
– Cheesecake (my first one to make! They love this stuff out here)
– Fruit Pizza
– Cream cheese herb dip with crackers
– Chocolate bits
– Ranch dip with chips
– Random Arab food
Decor
This was an interesting task out here because they don’t have a Hobby Lobby, or Target or Party City or anything really… But we made it work & I think it actually turned out pretty cute!
We bought the plates, cups, & forks in the “big city” at an expat store and the tablecloth was purchased at a material souk with some of our friends. I have already re-used the tablecloth! I hope to bring back some more crafty things this summer so we can use it for future parties.
All in all I would say it was a successful party! I had a great time & can’t wait to throw another one!
ballet video
My friend posted an edited version (which I love cuz my voice is not in it 😉 ) of the ballet recital on her blog. Go visit it if you want to see it!
Enjoy! I love watching it cuz it reminds me of “performance days” at Alwins (my dance studio back home) Miss those days.
little ballerinas
Remember that I have been teaching a few girls ballet?
Well last night I put on my first dance recital in the mejelious (sitting area) at our school. It was so much fun. My friend video taped it and if I can learn how to upload it on here I will share it with you all. The girls were so cute & I think they had a great time. I am looking forward to many more recitals here in the desert.
Here are the girls resting & enjoying some snacks before their performance…
So proud of these girls! The parents threw roses at them when they were done – because one of the girls saw it on Little Einstein’s and she thought that is what happens after a dance recital & kept asking if we were going to throw roses at them! too cute…
And what is a dance recital without refreshments. The mom’s were wonderful and brought yummy snacks to share!
Notice the blue skirt… I made that for my friend’s daughter! It looked so cute on her.
I have so enjoyed getting to teach these girls & seeing what a blessing it is to them and me. They love it… even if after 20 min (or less) their feet hurt, or they need to sit down cuz their tummies hurt, etc… it cracks me up! And I have a newfound respect for my dance teacher & when I visit her this summer I am going to ask her how she has taught 3 & 4 year olds the art of ballet all these years!
