God's Timing

Don't worry, this isn't a deep one. The title sounds like it, but seriously, God's timing is crazy!

Jesse and I discovered last week that even though we try not to plan events for my summer program and his youth groups on the same day (so that kids who are involved in both don't miss out on one or the other), we accidently did it last week. Generally, my group goes on field trips on Wednesdays, but our trip to the Orange County Fair was moved back a day since kids get in free to the fair on Thursdays (can't pass that up when you have a big group!).

Jesse tries to keep his youth groups busy over the summer, and has been averaging a trip a week to the beach lately. Last Thursday was his Jr. High group's turn, so I encouraged all the Jr. Highers that I have in my summer program to join the beach trip instead of the fair (and possibly implanted the idea that Jesse might be able to take them to the fair later...don't tell him that!)

I was bummed to miss out on a trip to the beach, but there's nothing I can do about that when they go during my work day! Sigh...I miss living by the beach.

Anyway, Jesse's group left long before I loaded my little ones into the cars and headed to the fair. We had a great day, seeing everything from Nellie, the "World's Smartest Pig," to Weird Al's new 3D brain movie. Quite the experience.

We shoved our worn out kiddos into the cars around 3:00 to enjoy a 2 hour long tour of Orange County's traffic. Don't miss that!

When we were 20 minutes away from church, my car overheated and lost power. I was in the carpool lane, so I just moved over to the emergency lane, hopped out, locked the doors (had to keep my curious Disney-singing quartet out of the car lanes somehow!) and check under the hood. All fluids were present and accounted for. With my beloved old car, I've become quite the queen of grumpy engines.

I had just hopped back into my seat and asked the boys what we should sing while we gave my car a break, when my cell phone rang. Noticing that it was one of the Jr. High girls, I answered it assuming that she was wondering when I'd be back at church.

"Bethany," she said, "we're right in front of you."

Confused, I looked over my car's hood to see Jesse's car hauling down the emergency lane in reverse.

You can't imagine the smile that broke out over my face! Jesse leaped out of his car and confidently strode toward mine. He checked everything that I had and then sat reassuringly with me until the car had cooled down. Then he took the keys from me, handed me his own, and said he'd see me back at church.

The boys in my car whooped and clapped when they saw that Jesse was going to be their driver from here on out. Instantly, he was their hero.

Mine too!

How crazy is it that we happened to be on the same freeway at the same time from two completely different locations?

I only know of One who can orchestrate something like that.

Our 4th of July Weekend

Long overdue, but here it is!
My computer has been on the fritz, and I just haven't felt like dealing with it lately. Loading pictures seems to be the main problem causer, so until I get a new computer (I'm thinking Black Friday deals? This will be a lesson on patience for me!) we'll see how the blog comes along.

Anyway, we had a wonderful weekend around the 4th! On Friday the 3rd, Jesse and I drove down to San Diego to visit our friends Kelly and Jesse. They became engaged a few weeks ago, so we went down to celebrate with them. We spent the afternoon enjoying the sights of El Cajon, complete with a trip to Mt. Helix. I had been there years ago with the Dinwiddies (when they first moved to San Diego) but haven't been back since, and Jesse had no idea what it was.

Here we are near the cross!






Mt. Helix has a beautiful view of San Diego, and on a clear day, you can see all the way to Mexico!


Our next friends to be married!



Isn't the sky just beautiful?





We had fun dining at a great mexican restaurant, and then did dessert the "El Cajonian way" by going to the Yogurt Mill. We took the yogurt back to Kelly's apartment and played several rounds of Sorry! before crashing for the night.

Kelly and Jesse made my Jesse's year by asking him to be a groomsman in their wedding. They also asked me to play the harp for the ceremony. We are both excited to be involved!

The next morning, Jesse and I joined Kelly and Jesse for a hearty breakfast at a cute diner nearby, and then headed for Ocean Beach, San Diego to visit Emily and see her new home. She bought her very first, very beautiful condo that is about a mile from the beach and has ocean views. It is so perfect for her!

We got over there early on Saturday so that we could hang out with Em and meet her new boyfriend before the rest of the family came over. We walked to the beach together, did some last minute errands, and got things ready for the family party.

July 4th is also Emily's birthday, so it was a double celebration. We had a great time playing games and hanging out when the rest of the Dinwiddies arrived, and had spectacular views of fireworks from Emily's balcony. It's really the perfect spot to watch fireworks--we could see at least 8 shows going on simultaneously, including Sea World's, Lego Land's, Ocean Beach Pier, two colleges, and more. It was awesome.


Here's a pic of Em modeling the apron I made for her birthday. It wasn't even what I was intending to make for her, but when I saw American flag-printed cow material, I KNEW I had to make something out of it for her! And now she has her very own kitchen to dance around in :)


I didn't think to pull out my camera until around 11pm, which is why we all look tired.


Going on 18 years of friendship!


The die-hard partiers (the only ones left by the time I remembered to take pictures!)


All in all, it was a very exciting weekend. Getting to celebrate an engagement, a birthday, a new house, Independence Day, and meet a new boyfriend is certainly enough to pack into two days! But we had a blast, and it was wonderful to spend time with such special friends.

God is good!