a new home

12 days into 2010 began a new journey for us... we hopped on a plane (1 day after our 3rd anniversary) and stepped into a new world (and new home). we left everything that was comfortable, safe and KNOWN, and moved in with about 40 or so other people. we didn't know anyone except each other.

and yet we have never felt so at home. so welcomed. so safe. isn't it amazing how god can do things like that? we choose to say YES - even though everything seems strange and crazy and doesn't really make sense - and he comes and meets us in that exact place and says, DON'T WORRY, I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU. BETTER CARE OF YOU THAN YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF YOU. we're so silly sometimes. thinking we can care for ourselves better than he can.

we have been at holmsted manor in cuckfield (pronounced cook-field), west sussex, england for 10 days and yet it feels like we've been here for months. relationships have been formed, memories have been made, and god has done some great things. we are so honored and thankful to be a part of this amazing adventure. sometimes i really can't grasp the fact that god CHOSE us and WANTS to use little ol' us. what a loving and redeeming god we serve.

here are james and i in the front of our new home... it's quite a breath-taking place. very easy to find jesus here. this particular morning (all these photos), it started snowing and stuck for the entire day.... it was beautiful. the top photo is the long driveway leading up to our home and the second photo is the rolling hills surrounding our property. thank you jesus for your beautiful creation.

we feel like we've jumped in with both feet and are fully embracing all this season holds for us. by god's grace we have transitioned so smoothly. thank you to our dear friends and family for loving us and praying for us so faithfully. we are fully aware that without your faithfulness we wouldn't be here. we pray you are blessed just as we are through this process.

we love you and miss you ~ james & rachel noel

"for this reason i kneel before the father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. i pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. and i pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of god. now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in christ jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! amen." ephesians 3

new things, new places

i hope you had a lovely thanksgiving with your friends, families, loved ones...and with all that food. :) i am so happy we have officially entered the holiday season; it really is my favorite thing. our home is decorated in pine, snow, ornaments, and smells of cider; and most importantly, full of thankful hearts for who jesus was and IS in our lives.

those of you who visit this blog from time-to-time, expect my postings to be somewhat "event" related, and oftentimes they are just that. but many times, my posts are completely unrelated to events or design, and focus more on personal thoughts and adventures. why? well, for one, this is my blog and there are no rules. and two, while i own an event design business, that business does not own me. what i mean is, this little, tiny business is just a fraction of my life. there are so many bigger things that make up who i am, and in essence what this business is. if i were to solely post event related talk on this blog, it wouldn't be ME. i like to talk about the flowers i see outside and the birds chirping out under my bedroom window. i like to go on and on about how much i love christmas. and i really like to brag about my nieces and nephew. do any of these have much to do with planning your wedding? no, but for me, it has much to do with living life and being inspired by it all.

so, this is one of those times. a time when the post has absolutely nothing to do with events, design, planning parties, or arranging flowers. what this post IS about, is living LIFE, risking some, and embarking upon new adventures. i said here, almost a year ago, that this was going to be the year of completion - the act of finishing something; bringing it to an end, and entering into a new season. i even proclaimed on my blog: here is to NEW things, NEW seasons, and NEW growth. happy NEW year and NEW seasons to you. never in 30 years did i think those NEW things, NEW seasons, and NEW growth would lead my husband and i to where we are today. that is where this post comes in.

in this process of god closing doors and opening new ones, we have found ourselves 43 days away (fittingly one year after the "year of completion post") from boarding a plane, destined for west sussex/surrey, england, where we we will live for approximately 3 months as we partner with an amazing organization called YWAM. our first 3 months will be full of training as we participate in the DTS (discipleship training school) program. the last 3 months will be spent (most likely) in a third world country, where we will get to share the love of jesus with other people, in other cultures. words really can't begin to express how excited and honored we are to do this. we know it's not all going to be easy, but still so worth it. i share this with you, mainly because this is a huge change in our lives! but also, because this blog will look very different in the coming months. i am not sure exactly what will hapen, but it may become stagnant for those 6 months, or become more of an update hub for our friends and family and anyone else interested in following our journey. for now, here is our home (along with the picture above) for the first three months: holmsted manor, in west sussex, england.


i suppose we will drive down little streets like this...

isn't it amazing to look back - in hinds site - and see all that has happened in one year? it is exciting to think what will happen in this coming year... happy christmas season! and thanks again, for stopping by. ;) ~rachel

join us

if you are in the central valley area (or not, and you want to drive), you should join us for the 2009 created to worship conference. it is sure to be a great weekend, full of lots of worship, teaching, and practical workshops, featuring rita springer, cindy rethmeier, and tony sanchez. find all the details here.

good-bye

i'd say it's been a while, huh? sorry about that... guess there is not much to say here on my end. however, i thought i'd give a formal good-bye for the summer...and perhaps longer? we are headed to hawaii for 3 whole weeks and we could not be any more excited!! i guess we will eventually make it back to reality when the time comes, but as of now we are in full vacation mode and i don't see myself coming out of it for a while.

i have some fun pictures from a wedding and from a beautifully sparkly-girlie party my sister and i threw last weekend. perhaps when i am out of vacation mode i will be a bit more interested in my blog? hmm... i don't know. we'll have to see about that. until then, i wish you all a happy memory-filled summer. (that is, if any of you are still poking around here to read this.) :)

for now, i leave you with...... ALOHA

reality

i feel like a bird in a cage.

but my husband reminded me today that birds still sing even inside their cage.

our birds still find joy in their little cage...my husband said they sing and chirp even though they can't spread their wings as far as they want to.

that's how i want to be.

and i am thankful i have a husband who teaches me that.

i <3 memorial weekend

for as long as i can remember, it has been tradition for my family to head to the coast on memorial weekend with my grandparents. over the years the numbers have grown, from 6 people in the family, to 7, then 8, to now, a grand total of 11 people. we have almost doubled in size! it is crazy and wonderful... and usually very loud.

i love all holiday's and any excuse to celebrate life, but memorial is definitely one of my favorites because i know i'm headed to the beach! ...and i know i will get some much needed extended quality time with these favorite little ones...

ethan michael - 6 years

grace kathleen - 2.5 years

lana kate - 11 months

i hope you have some fun plans this memorial weekend, even if it is just relaxing around the house and doing yard work... enjoy the small things! see you next week! xoxo

today

i am thankful for these 3 things

1- the windy cold weather so i {have} to wear a scarf
2- nature walks
3- coffee to keep me warm on the walk

bleh

i'm having one of those days. it's not that i did anything wrong, i'm just having one of those days. i went to bed at a reasonable time last night (even got to go to bed WITH my husband, not 5 hours later), had a great nights sleep (9 hours!), woke up, had coffee, went to aerobics and had an amazing, kick-my-butt workout, and came home. but since then, this day has just felt weird...do you ever have those days? i am motivated yet un-motivated, i am energized yet i am sleepy...what the heck?! today has been a good day and yet i just feel kind of annoyed and BLEH. i hate that! i don't want to feel BLEH, i want to feel happy and energized and joyful...what do you do when you feel this way?

it must be bad when i do a post without any pictures. you know how much i HATE doing posts without pictures.

i sure hope i am out of this funk tomorrow.

seriously sad

you know you are busy when your favorite publications get put on the TO-DO list. you know you are TOO busy when that to-do list lasts five months. i have five months (november, december, january, february, & march issues) of catching up to do with ms. martha stewart and two months (january & february) of catching up to do with real simple. am i the only person that puts magazines on the to-do list? this is just sad.




at the rate i am going, i will be learning how to make these cupcakes for NEXT valentines day.

productive

who doesn't love making a little progress on the to-do list? the hubs and i were pretty productive this weekend and i love weekends like that. (almost as much as i love writing the actual list and crossing things off of it. which reminds me, i still haven't read my january issue of real simple: feel calmer now: 20 essential lists to organize your life. sounds like a good read.)

back to the point, my parents came over on saturday for dinner, which was so nice. feels like forever since we have seen them. we headed to lowes where my mom helped me pick out some curtain rods and my dad found some blinds for our bedroom. james got home from the academy and we made some home-made chinese chicken chow-mein and got some things done around the house. it was great. thanks mom & dad!

yesterday hubs and i continued on with the "getting things done." he really got so much done i couldn't believe it. he hung all my pictures and more importantly hung our dining room light fixture. yippee! we have been waiting to see what it would look like in our kitchen and we love it! i stood in the dining room for at least 10 minutes just staring at it. it's very fun. :) i'll post pictures of it once the house is ready...then it will be the before and after post of the entire house. (can't wait for that!) it was a productive day doing school work, laundry, paying bills (yuck), working on the house to-do list, and spending time together on james' 1 day off. we even had time to sneak in another walk to see the lambs (and get locked out of our house. don't worry, we found a way to get back in). it was a good, productive weekend. so many more things on the to-do list but at least some are crossed off. :) for now, i must write a paper, do more laundry and then i am off to play with flowers at my floral design class. happy monday!

how much is too much

is 31 units (at 4 different colleges) just too much for one household? i think possibly, maybe, perhaps yes, it is just too much school to be contained in one home (and split between only 2 people). but what the heck, we walk on the wild side. now, instead of going out on dates, we have study-hall in our living room. how romantic.

time flies

you are the loveliest {and handsomest} man i have ever known. thank you for loving me so perfectly, entirely, and unreservedly. happy 2 year anniversary. i love you.


(remember this dance? oh i am so glad we don't have to do that tonight or i would have real big butterflies right now.)

what the heck's your problem!

i am generally a happy person. i have been my whole life. i think if you were to ask anybody that knows me, they would agree that i usually have a smile on my face (except in the morning) or i am laughing at something. i like to be happy. in fact, i love to be happy. and it makes me sad when people aren't happy and don't live life happy. sometimes i just want to say to people, i promise that if you were a little happier life would seem a whole lot better. but i don't say that, cause that would be rude and might seem like i don't care about people's problems. and i do care.

but there is something that really bugs me. rude people. or people that think they don't have the time to smile or wave (or think they are the only ones with problems & issues). here is the deal. i now live in a town of 25,000 people. that is the kind of town in the movies where everyone knows everyone, everyone waves to everyone, and everyone is invited to the same parties. i like that idea of a town. it seems somewhat magical. i picture the downtown to be snowy, full of christmas lights and sleigh rides year round (because those things seem happy to me). i also picture the downtown to be full of cheerful people hollering to see how someone's family is, or how their daughter off in college is, or simply just to say hello. REALITY CHECK. this is NOT the movies. the town is not snowy, not full of christmas lights and sleigh rides, and definitely not full of happy people.

i was leaving downtown yesterday, and a man was crossing the street in front of my car. i looked at him and smiled and waited for a smile back. he looked at me and then looked away as if he never saw me smiling at him. i'll be honest. i was really annoyed, how hard is it to smile at someone! i then saw some of the words on his ball-cap and was no longer annoyed, just really sad. his hat had lots of words, but the two that i saw were HOPE and JESUS. are you kidding me? where is the HOPE man? where is JESUS? and where the heck is your smile? i started driving towards the freeway and was really bothered by this whole thing. it makes me sad when people are unhappy and it especially makes me sad when people who know jesus are unhappy. what kind of example are we being to other people who don't know jesus? as i approached the freeway there was a car turning real close to mine and so again, i smiled at the man. he looked at me with a disgusted face as if i had just flipped him off or something. all i wanted to say to this man was what the heck's your problem! i could not believe my eyes. i was shunned 2 out 0f 2 times by 2 old men in a matter of 2 minutes!

as i drove home i pondered these things. i then told my husband about it when he got home because i was so disturbed. what is wrong with people? why can't we smile and wave and be nice to each other? why do we always have to be so busy and in such a hurry that we can't take the time to be pleasant to one another (i am talking strangers here, not just people we know). i think jesus would want us to be nice to one another. and to smile and wave. and to holler out to one another to ask how the family is. but maybe that's just me since i like to be happy. any thoughts?

The move

I got several emails and text messages yesterday asking where we are moving since I failed to mention it in the post... sorry about that. Well, in the next two weeks we are moving to Lemoore! And this will be our view next Spring. Well, not exactly, but something similar to this. :) Beautiful!!! I will definitely post some pics of our home once we are all moved in. Maybe even some before and after pics. Those are always fun! And come to think of it, I am 2 posts away from 1oo posts on my blog and 6 days away from 1 year of having the blog! This calls for a celebration. Ok, not really. But perhaps in honor of those 2 milestones I will post fun pictures of our new home and all that has been done to it. It has been a fun process to watch. Ok... Bye for now. :)

hiatus

I can see it has been almost a month since my last post--WOW, where does all the time go? Well, let's see... since mid-October we have been a little busy. We celebrated my nieces 2nd birthday, celebrated my much anticipated "magical" birthday several times, :) got to see penguins for the first time in my life (for those of you who don't know, I have been obsessed with penguins since I was about 13 or so...waaaay before the penguin fad started ie. Madagascar, March of the Penguins, Surfs up, etc... sorry kids, I was loving them long before your time), had an amazing weekend away with my husband, visited the Carmel mission, bought Pomegranate wine and Cinderella pumpkins at Casa de Fruta, had sushi a couple times, finished one class and started another, said good-bye to dear friends who moved to the Aloha state, got sick (then got better), husband got sick (still working on getting better), made the decision to move, halloween with our favorite kids, had a work/cleaning-day at our new (yet very old) home, voted, had game night with an amazing new board game (thanks sister), bought lots of bins (good for storing, organizing, and packing), started packing (which really means started sifting through stuff and making 'yard sale' piles. still nothing packed but it's a step), and last night we learned that a mouse found a cozy home in many of our boxes in the garage and made nice comfy nests for himself out of large nibbles from my precious keepsakes-he even ate through one of my daily planners, ugh! Reminder: buy MORE plastic bins. :)

Well, as you already read, we are moving about 45 minutes away. SO, these next couple weeks are busy with packing, cleaning our house, and getting the other house ready. Unfortunately, you probably won't see me here for a while-the hiatus continues because I have lots to do in both houses. But, for now, here are some highlights from the last month! Enjoy :)

Gracie's "My Little Pony" party. Had to be lots of pink for this little girl. :)


She loves her new motorized car/quad/whatever it is

Our trip to Monterey...


I was pushing little kids out of the way, in order to get as close to the penguins as possible. Don't mess with me. :)

Seriously, how cute is this picture? They are all lined up waiting for dinner. I cannot even handle how cute they are. If I coulda broken that glass and stolen myself a 7lb. South American penguin, you better believe I woulda done it.

Besides my little penguin friends, the jellies were some of my favorites...


The Carmel mission was beautiful and the church service was awesome.

And, I didn't even get a sucker.

I had to get a tetanus shot today. :( Why, you ask? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Honestly you wouldn't, but I will tell you anyway. As I was setting up for a glorious outdoor shower this past weekend, I jumped back (while I was in a flower bed) in order to steer clear of a viscious man-eating wasp. Well, as my feet landed on the ground, I felt an excruciating pain in my left foot. No, I wasn't bare foot if you are wondering. I was wearing at least 1/2 inch thick soled shoes. Anyway-back to the climax-I yelped in pain because it hurt so bad! My husband and friend looked at me like, "what the heck is your problem?" That is approximately when I took my shoe off to find a 3 inch stick puncturing through the middle of my shoe into my foot. YES. You heard me right. Somehow, a freaking piece of bark pierced its was through my 1/2 -3/4 inch soled shoes directly into the middle of my poor-little-supple-foot. It was as bad as you imagine it to be. Just thinking about how bad it hurt after I took my shoe off makes my foot hurt even more now!

I woke up Sunday morning with a foot 3 sizes bigger. No joke. It was so swollen I could not fit into a pair of my shoes AND I could barely hobble to the bathroom. It was pathetic. My mom and hubby took good care of me yesterday and made sure that I soaked the Quasimodo foot in Epsom salt all day, (which according to the doctor helped extremely much with the infection). BUT, just because I soaked my foot in Epsom salt all day does not help with the fact that I hadn't gotten a tetanus shot in over 12 years. And seriously, a piece of BARK? OMG.

After my sister told me that I might die if I didn't get the shot within 72 hours, you better believe we were making an appointment with the doctor (even though we have NO insurance!). Well, I am glad to say that I still have my foot (I woke up this morning and asked James if they were going to amputate), the infection is already starting to go away, and it's gone down at least a size. However, I still look like an idiot when I walk, my mom calls me peg-leg, and now I have round band-aid on my arm from that mean needle. And, I didn't even get a sucker.

couldn't resist...

As I have stated multiple times, the beach was beautiful and the weather perfect a couple weekends ago when we were in Pismo. We enjoyed being down on the sand goofing-off and breathing in that salty air! We have also really been enjoying our new camera lens that my husbands parents got us! They actually bought it for their trip to Alaska (which they got A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. pictures of), but technically they bought it for our camera. So amazing. Anyway, it's been fun playing with it and getting used to it. I'm still always having to call her and ask her questions like when to turn this dial or what this number should be at, or what speed, etc... She has always been so kind though in trying to teach me how to use this fancy thing. (Even back in high school she was teaching me how to use the settings on my old canon!) The more amazing thing to me is that she knows what the heck all these little buttons are for! (I am definitely going off on a tangent right now, but seriously, there are so many buttons and numbers it's like a different language.) Anyway, my husband and I are by NO means professional (I'll leave that to those listed in my blog roll), but it's fun to be able to snap pictures and have them turn out half-way decent, right? I used to get so frustrated when I tried to take good pictures and they turned out bad. ESPECIALLY WHEN I WAS PAYING FOR FILM. Now I just snap a million pictures and hope one turns out good. :) hehe

Anyway, back to the point of the story: couldn't resist... was this moment right here. How precious is she?



The fog in the background really makes the whole thing a lot better but she was too cute! I couldn't pass up the "kodak" moment. :)

treasures.

Since I was a little girl I remember collecting fun little treasures on the beach with my family. To this day it's still something I absolutely love. I don't always keep these treasures, but I love hunting for them. Seeing these natural beauties in all their rawness makes me smile a lot.

I got so lucky a couple weekends ago when my husband and I were at the coast with his family...there were lots of treasures to be found!

I love the purity of this white shell against the sand... it seemed as if it was gleaming off the bright afternoon sun.

This little feather was perfectly laying on the sand all by its lonesome. I am not a big seagull fan, but isn't this feather beautiful? I love the lines in it.


A glowing piece of jellyfish. Sort of looks like a baseball mitt doesn't it?

I loved the teal in this shell, it's not often that I find these beautiful blues in seashells!

Can you believe it? I found a huge jellyfish! I was wanting to play with it and step on it until my husband told me that it was flipped upside down. That would have been real bad. :)

One seashell that I am absolutely in love with is the sand-dollar. They were all over the beach that specific day, but this broken and rusted one in particular grabbed my interest.

The sun was bright, the water clear, and the sand clean. It was not a typical day at the central coast!

Spiky seaweed. I just thought this was cool!