i'm not tryin to be a baby or anything but i really want zach to come back to america.
i talked to him yesterday for a total of 13 minutes and today for a total of 1 minute and 14 seconds. and i just miss my best friend. and i miss knowing whats going on in his life, what he's strugglin with, what God's teaching him. i just miss him a lot. and i'm allowed to whine a little bit okay!!!!!!!


but he is coming home in one week from today!! hooray!!


even though i do miss him a lot, i am very thankful first of all that he is safe. and also that he got this opportunity to travel the world and be with his dad and see things that i've never seen so he can tell me about them! 
he's an extraordinary person. and i know i've done like 52899673410 posts on how amazing he is. but he really is. and i am truly the most luckiest blessed girl in all the world. he's a living breathing testimony of jesus christ to everyone. he genuinely cares about people. he sees the best in them. he sees the best in me! he makes me feel like the most beautiful person in the world. he cares about little things. he's just wonderful okay!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i can brag. i'm lucky. he's great. 

praise the Lord for love. <3

britt merrick is probably the best speaker i have ever ever ever heard. he's convicting and challenging and encouraging and refreshing and the worship is amazing.
i never wanna not go to reality ventura.


akljsdhkalsjhkasd
alsfkdghioasughilasdhgiaursdfjkghisueryt87294iruwefkjsdfhgisdhf!

i can't even explain this. church today was soo refreshing! (i cant stop saying that word.) i've never ever felt that way after going to church. i've felt encouraged before, maybe even a little convicted. but neverrrrr like today, ever. i am soo thankful for God's word and reality and how they convey it and how they love people.
i love church.
i love today.
i love jesus.
i love the bible.
i love fellowship and people.
i love love.

love! aisudgyiosu!

wonderful

yesterday was just wonderful.

we were grocery shopping for about 76 hours trying to find the ingredients for our perfect dinner. (and also carmel apples!!!!!!!)

soo we went to the mexican market, which i've never been to. i thought it was going to be a dingy, dimly lit little thing with just fruits and vegetables and maybe cow intestine or something. but no! alas, it was a huge grocery store with just realllly good prices!! and so bright & colorful.  then we went to the 99cent store and someone backed into jaqui's car....... i was sitting in the back and pretend i got really bad whiplash and also i pulled out the ketchup from my back pocket and squirted it all over me. just kidding, none of that happened except jaqui's car gettin backed into, that really did happen. but it wasn't even bad!!!

after that we hit up fresh & easy and then we wwere home and started making our delicious dinner of mushroom chicken & steamed vegetables & cornbread with honey butter. such the housewives we are! 

ALSO we made carmel apples, which in my opinion is the best fall treat snack of them all! 

(ariel and i kept stealing the carmels and jaqui was like 'girls dont steal anymore carmels or we wont have enough!' but then as soon as she left the room we'd steal more and it was JUST like when i was younger and my mom was cooking something with carmel. it was a fun little part of it)

also we juiced a MILLLIIIIOONNNN apppples. soosoosooooo good.

twas a lovely day indeed!

yay halloween today!

ohhh friends.

tj, carl and colleen came on friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well first of all, our friday was started out with delicious breakfast sandwiches. and also, searching for change in our apartment for like an hour just so i could have money for the $3 movie theater (yes, i am that broke).
but. when they finally got there, they found a bloody knife in the door and ariel and i, laying on the floor with BLOOD ALL AROUND US!!!! except not. it was ketchup and we were laying on plastic grocery bags. we think we're so funny. but we are.
then we had some sweeet tea and played a few games of copy-that-sound! which was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. sometimes you can make noises that you really doubt you could make...andnndndnndd its just the funnest.
and then we saw despicable me at the $3 theater!!!!!!! i've already seen it but its still the funniest kids movie ever, i love it.
after the movie, we started craving every food item that was in the movie. pizza, donuts and cotton candy. so we hit up little caesers and KD donuts (we didnt know where to get cotton candy!).

it was such a perfect day full of soo much laughing!!! i love friends, soo much and i have been blessed with the best of the best!
:)

encourage

"you must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy" 

--john calvin

this is pretty.

ohh wonderful day.

today is just plain great.
love, ellis (check out the link) is a FOR REAL THING! we brought some of our things to Love Fox Vintage store downtown and the girl there, Faith, really liked them and sooo pretty much we get to sell it there. no big deal
also we decided that the organization we want to give part of our profit to is going to be the Baptist Haiti Mission!!! really excited about that.
also my sister mallory is going to make some stuff and be a part of it as well!
THEN jaqui's grandparents took us to the pumpkin patch, a real like pumpkin patch!! it was very cute and the weather was perfect for it!!

this is just a very exciting day. i never thought that something i could make would be something anyone would want to buy! and making stuff is like therapeutic for us, its the funnest.

i think it soo wonderful that God gave us creativity and that we can make money and possibly help people by doing stuff that we love to do. ariel and i are certainly very thankful for a creative God.

hooray and amen.
we are two very thankful excited girls.
:)

P.S. i just registered to vote! yipppee:)

our official business!

ariel and i have officially made an etsy and officially named our business, its all very official.


love, ellis is the name of it and we sell hair accessories--headbands, hairclips, beanies etc. and other things like coin purses and wallets and possibly jewelry!


hooray!


(P.S. i will post the URL to our etsy once we have things up and running:)

temper trap

temper trap is my favorite band. move over frightened rabbit and ray lamontagne.

weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning--psalm 30:5

i am blessed beyond belief.

i am having a hard time.
i don't know why God has me where he has me and i know i dont get to know everything but i feel very discouraged and useless and i just am disheartened lately. well not lately, i guess just today.
and i know this is all part of the stretching growing, feel-good-kind-of hurt but today it just stinks.
boo hoo.

may the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from eachother-- genesis 31:49

this is pretty

blessings up the wazoo

heavens to mergatroid!
God is really into blessings. and by that i mean blessing me. in soo many ways!!!!!! soo many ways. i'm so excited for the things He's workin on in my life cause theres a lot going down. & while its real hard and stretching, its like a good kinda hard. its like when you have really sore muscles and you push on them and then they hurt but its the good kind of hurt cause you know that its helping. its like that. and its exciting and painful and wonderful and messy and emotional and reassuring. and i know my God loves me and i know my God is bigger than anything i can ever encounter. and that is the greatest encouragement i've ever known.

this weekend

was soo lovely. in like a million jillion different ways.
first, was the neverending roadtrip to hume for paul & sarah's wedding!!! we got there like ten minutes before it started and i got to see my mama! she was up there the whole weekend for the womens conference. so that was fun. and also i got to see a lot of joshua people that i havent seen in a long long time and we got to actually sit down and catch up! i cant even tell you how wonderful that was. and the outdoor wedding was beautiful, with the incredible backdrop of the lake and mountains and the pretty leaves. and paul was the happiest looking person in the entire world! it brought tears to my eyes. soo happy for those two!! i also got to meet a bunch of the new joshua class! (and we gave a few of them a ride up the hill:)
but i really think that God knew that i really needed encouragement and i got soo much of it this weekend from almost everyone that i talked to. soo great.
then we drove all the way back and didnt get to zach's til like 1. but it was soo fun keeping eachother awake and talking about everything and getting rando mcdonalds fries at midnight. and then the next day we got to hang out with tyler and kaleb and whitney and OLIVER. (who, if you don't know, is the cutest little chubby baby ever.) and then TODAY we ate fake meat, washed my car, changed the windshield wipers on my car, finished the love languages book, and had theee best dance party ever. like ever. i cant even explain it. it was just a really good time with my best friend.
plus i get to go home this weekend! & zoei is coming with!!!
God is so good. and i am soo blessed & i'm reminded of that every single day.

thank you Jesus!!!!!!!!!!

weee

so i'm sort of getting into the swing of things, as far as vegan stuff goes anyways.

on wednesday i made a cilantro lime tofu dressing and i had it on a delicious salad and yesterday me and ariel made homemade french fries and i figured out how to make tofu alfredo sauce! and it tastes just like real alfredo. fancy that!

soo thats been pretty good so far!

also last night hilary was here!! and we went to the donut shop and almost got kidnapped. 

and then in the craft department, this is my latest creation!

its a head band. i'm pretty excited.

mostly we've just been making lots of yo's (which are those things on the headband) and flowers and we're going to make a bunch of headbands and hairclips to sell to Love Fox Vintage!

yay yay yay.

and this weekend is the wedding of paul and sarah at hume! 

weddings are the loveliest.

a day of firsts!

well, it was my first official day of being a vegan............
it was weird.

i had a donut (zach said my veganism doesnt start til 9 am. so i went with it. but thats the last of my giving in!!!!) i also had strawberries. and a really good salad with avocado and carrots and peppers and appples. but it was still weird. i kept craving a steak burrito from chipotle and animal style fries from in n out. i mean, COME ON, it has the world animal in it!!!

but i wont give in! i refuse. there are too many people who told me i couldnt do it and i am determined to prove them wrong. people said i couldnt be a vegetarian but i was for a year! ha! pish posh to you. just you wait

also, today was the first day of the october dress project! basically you have a dress that you wear every day for the month of october. and YES you can wash it, obviously. but its basically just pro simplicity and pro creativity. plus its a challenge. so i'm using a gray dress, its pretty plain but its really cute and it will be easy to accessorize and pick different combinations with what i got. soo yep! thats pretty exciting too!

it was a good day.
plus i might be getting a nanny job that pays $350 a month....... but it also might be a creeper scam. soo who knows. i'll keep you posted.......