What I'm Loving - September 2012

I'm  loving how Journey and Trek are going at Desert Sun. Three months ago a group of leaders were gathered in my living room trying to figure out what was going to happen to our homeless ministry. The way God provided is incredible and it's been amazing to watch how things are unfolding.

I'm loving that I got all of my recipes sorted and stored in Evernote. It's the first time that I've ever had all of my recipes centralized and completely organized in such a way that I can quickly search through them. I'm on a mission to build up my number of  tried and true recipes as well, so my food board on Pinterest is going to be getting a lot of action soon.

I'm loving that I'm in the home stretch of crossing off the first real remodel that I've ever done. This master bathroom project has been dragging on for months, but the end result is going to be worth it.

I'm loving new episodes of Parenthood. I was seriously so excited on Wednesday when I came home and discovered that there was a new episode on my TiVo from the day before.

I'm loving the new Cactus Campus of Scottsdale Bible Church. I'm pretty sure I just found my new church home. Soma, SBC's young adults service, has been my home for the last two years, but I'm looking forward to making SBC as a whole my home. We'll see how the next few weeks turn out!

Philadelphia - Part 1

A couple of weeks ago I went on a short trip to the east coast. I absolutely love traveling, and it's without a doubt one of my favorite things to do. I also really enjoy seeing some of the cities that involve our nation's history. Washington DC is still up there as one of my favorite cities, so getting to go to Philadelphia was exciting for me. And of course, it had a baseball stadium that I needed to see, so that was another perk.
What I loved most about Philly was the fact that it's a very walkable city. I thought I was going to have to take the subway quite a bit and that a couple of sites might have been too far away, but I quickly found that walking was the best way to get around. I was also lucky enough to have a hotel that was right across the street from the capitol building and consequently it close to pretty much everything.  I enjoyed exploring the different streets and feel like I had a pretty good grasp of the central part of the city by the time I left.

Thursday
I got into Philly in the early evening and knew that I wasn't going to be able to do much on that day. Thankfully, I discovered the idea of doing a night bus tour and booked that before I left (it departed from right outside my hotel too, an extra bonus). Picture a double decker bus with all of us sitting on top. It was an hour and a half of driving around seeing all the sites in the city with a great tour guide. I loved it and highly recommend that you start with a bus tour if you ever visit Philly. It gives you a lay of the land and it helps you realize what you care about coming back to see versus what you're just happy to have seen from the bus.

A shot of my hotel that I took as we drove by it

And of course, it may have been 11 o'clock at night in Philly, but my body thought it was 8 PM and that I still had four hours before I was supposed to go to bed. So what does a girl in that situation do? She finds a cookie shop that's open all night, of course!

Friday
Friday was my big exploring day. I had my timed ticket to see Independence Hall, so I did that in the morning. On my way I stopped at Reading Terminal Market to look around and grab some breakfast. The market was one of my favorite places and I highly recommend it. Sadly, I didn't get to try any food from the famous Dinic's because they closed at 6 PM and I didn't realize that so that I would get back over there in time for dinner. Oh well.
I toured Independence Hall and the Congress building, both interesting. I also checked out the Liberty Bell and got the obligatory picture. The first person I asked to take the picture apparently didn't realize that I'd want both myself AND the bell in the picture. *sigh* I had someone else take another  picture which is why I also have a shot from the other side of the bell.

I spent the rest of the day exploring some of the old site streets in that area and had fun just wondering around. I went to a place called Jim's Steaks to get a cheesesteak because it was highly recommended online. I got it with "wiz" because I know it's the way you're supposed to try a cheesesteak. The wiz wasn't as disgusting as I thought and as a whole it was pretty tasty. The highlight of that for me was sharing a table with an older couple and getting to chat with them. They were a lot of fun and were on their way to visit their kids and grandkids in New Jersey. When I saw them walking away from the place they were holding hands, which always makes me happy to see old couples doing.

The rest of the day was fairly random. I went to Elfreth's alley, which is the oldest inhabited residencial block in America. What was pretty crazy to me was that there was both a place for rent and a place for sale. I looked it up online and it's going for an outrageous price.

I also walked by the Betsy Ross house and Chinatown on my way back to my hotel (for a nap of course, because if you have a hotel within walking distance of everywhere you want to go, why wouldn't you take an afternoon nap?).

I enjoyed all the random parks that I came across and all of the cool brick buildings that are everywhere in Philadelphia. It's really a change of pace from what I see in Phoenix all the time and that's why I love exploring new cities.

This is getting long, so I'm going to break the last two days into a separate blog post. Part 2 coming soon!

Oh How Pinteresting

Another blogging trend that I'm seeing more frequently and that I enjoy in addition to the "What I'm Loving" posts is the "Oh How Pinteresting" ones. Type that into Google to see what I'm talking about. Basically, you highlight some of your favorite pins on Pinterest. What's funny is that both of these trends are supposed to go with Wednesdays, but I almost never post these things on a Wednesday. But since this is my first ever Pinteresting post, I guess I can do it on a Wednesday, right?

Without further ado, I give you some of my favorite pins...

(all images link to my Pinterest pin so you can find the original source that way if you so desire)

From my "Food" board:

OK, so I haven't actually made this recipe yet, but that's only because we're still in the triple digits temperature wise. But I'm greatly looking forward to getting to try this recipe soon!

From my "Words" board:

Words to live by.

I particularly love this one because of my recent trip to Philly.

One of my favorite Hunger Games quotes.

From my "Stylistically Speaking" board:

I'm a summer kind of girl, so I'll be sad when I can't wear all of my summer clothes anymore. But a comfy outfit like this one does seem appealing as we move through September still hitting triple digits.

I never wear bracelets because they drive me crazy since I'm typing all day, but if I ever do wear one I want it to be this one.

From my "Wedding (For Someday)" board:

"Three cord" wedding band (ignore the other ring). See Ecclesiastes 4:12.

Probably an expensive wedding band, but I love the idea of all the opportunities it could create to share about God.

From my "Happy Feelings" board:

I don't know if this is actually what this is a picture of or not, but I sure hope it's true.

I used to think it actually existed, now I think it's just a matter of miscommunication. You can't get "stuck" in "the friend zone" if you can get out of it by just talking. This pin should probably go on my "Words" board, but the bottom part makes me laugh, so here it stays.

No caption needed.

The Count Is Now At 9!

I try to add at least one more MLB stadium to my list every season, and this year I was lucky enough to be able to add two.

View MLB Stadiums in a larger map

As part of my recent trip to Philadelphia I attempted to see a Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park. I say "attempted" because the game ended up getting rained out. It was my first time ever going to a baseball game and having it get rained out, so that was a bummer. I was still excited to see the stadium and like always, enjoyed walking around it and exploring (as best we could with the rain).

Hopefully I'll get to go back and actually see a Phillies game someday. I wouldn't mind going back to Philly one bit, so I'm sure it will happen at some point.

The second stadium I added to my list was Oriole Park in Baltimore. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and the weather couldn't have been better. And the fact that it was a game against the Yankees (at the time of writing this post, the Orioles and the Yankees are tied for first in the AL East) just sweetened the deal. The fans came fully decked out and it was a fun environment, even if the Yankees fans being there created some interesting interactions.

The view from our seats

I got to enjoy going to both of these stadiums with a friend from college that I've probably been to more baseball/softball games with than anyone else on this planet. Thank you Danny, for going with me!

Today happened to be the day that MLB released their 2013 schedule, so I can officially start planning for next year whenever I'm ready! At this point I have my sights set on California as there are still four stadiums there that I haven't gotten to yet. And really, I have five east coast stadiums and only four west coast? Gotta work on that.
As for potential east coast stadiums, Boston is the city that's currently at the top of my list of US cities I want to visit, so I'll probably be stalking the airline sales next year for flights to Boston. I wouldn't mind adding something in the middle and making a trip to Texas either.

But for now, as the current season wraps up, I can say that my MLB stadium count is at 9!