I hope this finds you doing well this Sunday afternoon.  It is a beautiful fall day here in Austin, a central Texas city that was untouched by Hurricane Ike's breath.  But unfortunately, there were many, many people who did not go unscathed by the storm's furry.  Beth Moore wrote a brief update on how her family is doing as well as about friends and loved ones of hers whose lives are forever changed.  We await news from some friends of ours who have graciously opened to us on occasion their beach house that resides smack dab on the coast of Galveston; it only takes a few footsteps to walk from their home to the beach.  Our church is geared up for action to send short-term teams to the coast to help with clean-up projects over the next few weeks.  So please be in prayer for the people of the Houston/Galveston/Southeast TX coast region. 

In light of the hurricane, it makes what I'm writing more subdued, but I will go ahead and share.  This has been the third weekend in a row that me and the hubby have enjoyed together at home, and we are loving every minute of it!  My folks didn't end up coming this weekend, so that gave us ample opportunity to talk about more serious stuff related to our wills.  It was definitely more emotional than what I anticipated, but it feels good to have most of those big decisions out of the way.  For those who might think I'm morbid wanting to get everything in order, I'm really not; I simply would feel relieved (we both would) to have everything down on paper, official, and organized (yes, yes, I have a type A personality).  We are certainly not in control of anything that will happen, nor is any life insurance policy to be depended upon for security; that is not where our hope is for ourselves or for our kids.  We will complete the task before us to put things in order the best we can, and then truly, we desire to surrender it all to the Lord, whatever His lot.

So real quick, last weekend we had our annual small group lake outing.  This is one of Molly's favorite days of the whole year when she gets to swim, play with a bunch of kiddos, ride in a boat, and sneak all the bites that the kiddos want to share of their food.  I had to skip out on my favorite part:  tubing, and we didn't make it on the boat this year.  But we sure had fun swimming and Miss Molly was in her element....obviously, the filthy goober that she is.

As for this weekend, I alluded to it a bit above and then today has been a very fun Sunday!  Pastor Rob gave a really good sermon on Job (you can check it out here if you're interested in hearing it--it should be posted on Monday morning), and I have a new favorite worship song that I'll share with you soon.  We toured the new nursery section that will open up next weekend as well.  My old office was turned into a playroom! <grin> It smelled brand-spakin' new and it's fun to think that Polka will get to enjoy the spacious area in the blink of an eye. 

Upon leaving church, I told Matt, "Honey, I feel spiffy today so you need to take me out on a date."  He went for it!  So he took me to one of my favorite places in Austin, The Steeping Room, where we both ate scrum-dilly-dilly-icious Monte Cristo sandwiches, and sipped on refreshing jasmine lemonade!  Gaga made Monte Cristos for me every once in awhile, but this was Matt's first experience of biting into the rich sandwich (I'm allowing myself one non-gluten free meal a week to keep my sanity...at least for now).  He kept asking me if I would need help finishing my sandwich, so he was disappointed when he saw me clean my plate.  We brought home two cupcakes to dig into later while we're watching a game of football and working on fun, artsy projects on this leisurely Sunday (the artsy projects are mine, not Matt's) <grin>.  Along with a nap and some reading, it will be one of those delightful Sundays.

I still get the questions and reactions from people that indicate they don't know if I'm pregnant or not.  So you can take a look for yourself; here I am at 23 weeks and 2 days.  How was your weekend?  What are you looking forward to the most this coming week?