A Year to Review

What a beautiful year 2009 was! I've been wanting to take a moment to think about some one the crazy rad things that happened to me last year. So here ya go:)
*I fell in love with Jason Cavanaugh and married my best friend July 12
*Moved back home for the summer before getting hitched and worked at a Craft store...loved it!
*Officially grew my hair out. I've never been patient enough to do this, yet when there's a wedding on the way there's a little more inspiration.
*Worked at a specialty chocolate shop and began to see just a glimpse of the tricks of the trade.
*Learned to love and appreciate true chocolate
*Officially dedicated 40 minutes, three days a week to some form of exercise
*Learned to cook decent meals
*Fell in love with Big Train Chai Latte's, yet struggle to drink any other brand when there is no Big Train.
*Gave away more clothes to friends than ever
*Gained more confidence in my voice, in leading worship.
*Was given a few opportunities to speak to groups of girls about my story and my passion for the beauty God has truly given us, and created us to be
*The Beautiful Truth dream was born. Time will bring this to a reality
*I actually invested more time into this world known as blogging.
*Learned some tough lessons along the way
*Learned many things about myself, good and bad
*Grew even closer to my amazing family. Never thought that would even be possible huh;)
*Saw my brother become a true soldier
*Watched my younger brother grow into a pre-teen
*Dedicated more time to reading God's word daily. It was always a desire for me to read the bible daily, yet until about two years ago, I struggled with keeping on top of it. Now I am able to say I read it at least five days a week:) Praise God for his beautiful love
*Fell more in love with my creator, and was given many new and refreshing blessings
*New friends came into our lives and old ones became even more familiar
*Made my first pulled pork bbq sandwich meal...and my goodness my husband fell loves it
*Just so many more firsts.

Here's to 2010:
*I want to run that 10K in Vancouver with Jason and our good friends
*Learn even more what it means to be a Godly wife.
*Start a new life with Jason wherever God leads us to go
*Finish my last year of schooling
*Begin to make more traditions in our new little family
*Buy a fishy:)
*Continue my three days/40 min work out
*Allow God to use me. Stretch me. and Bless me more than last year.

My goodness I am tired of thinking about what I have done and what I want to do. So let's just end it at this: I want to live life to the fullest and love God more and more each day. I desire to be a blessing to every person I see, and bless my husband even more. I would love to live closer to my family, but God knows where we are needing to be. I want to laugh more and more every single day:)

Have a blessed new year and take a moment to think of some attainable goals for this next year.

It's a Blessed Time of Year

This last Christmas was just so beautiful! Early in December Jason and I were able to spend an evening with our wonderful Cavanaugh family and that was just so much fun. It was the first time I was able to join them for a Christmas celebration and I loved every moment. God has blessed me with wonderful in-laws:) After getting some good hours at the Chocolate shop, Jason and I left the night before Christmas Eve to be home for Christmas! It was so much fun to have Jason with us Larson's for the traditional festivities and he was enjoying himself as well:) We both left feeling incredibly blessed with the quality time we spent with my side of the family as well as the amount of gifts we were given. They are such giving people and we truly experienced that one!
It's been so cool seeing how God is providing for our needs. He sure knows exactly how much money we need, when we need it and I can't believe we ever have a lack of faith! God is so good.

Little challenge for you today. Last night Jason and I made some chocolate chip cookies for the people living on the same floor as us in our building. Over a month or two ago we had a strong desire to do some missional work for the Lord, outside of the normal routine. Jason had the best idea to start where we are living. SO we made cookies for the ten different couples living around us and wished them a happy new year! It was so neat, yet stretching to introduce ourselves to people whom we live by, yet have never met or even seen. It's incredible how that can happen ya know? Anyway, the last door we knocked on was the woman living below us. We made sure to apologize if we ever make too much noise. We sparked up some conversation and left feeling like we had made a new friend. That was the point of this in the first place. About 45 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Linda, the woman we had just met, was standing there with a gift in her hands. She had just used her cricket (a scrapbooking type tool) and made us a plaque with our names on it. It was just beautiful! We were immediately blessed by this little outreach we had done towards our neighbors. How cool God is:) In the midst of desiring to bless others, we are blessed even more in return.

I challenge you to do something small for your neighbors, or those working around you. It's neat to see how a blessing can be returned:)

Happy New year and God bless!

Britt