Home Sweet Home

We have found an apartment!!! We are so excited about it! They are located in the North Norman area. They are by far our favorite out of all that we looked at. We also really liked the location, management, floorplan, size, basically everything! It is SO nice to know where we will be. We are still working on all of the paper work but it is well on the way and they are holding the apartment for us. The people are actually not moving out until April 30 so we will be able to move in on May 18. We picked that day because Britt is graduating on May 16 and when he is done he will just go ahead and move right in. I got a few pictures online. We are really excited!

Outside View (This is one of the 3 swimming pools!)
Floor Plan

Living Room. It has a fire place in the one that we are renting which I am really excited about!



God has truly been so good to us! He knew where we would be and had the perfect place in mind. it just took waiting on Him. It was difficult at times but as always, worth the wait!

Our Wedding Shower is on April 11 and it will be a lot of fun to get the stuff and be able to put it in our apartment soon! Everything is approaching so quickly! The wedding id exactly 2 months away today! 61 days if you were wondering! ;)

Looking forward…

I am looking forward to…

Friday and Saturday:
Movie
Starbucks
Girlfriends
Shopping
Laughing
Being….a girl.

10th Avenue North concert

Our Wedding Shower

Getting my hair cut and colored

Another shower

Bridal portraits

Britt graduating!!!!!!!!!

Getting married!!!!!!!!!

Going on our Honeymoon!!!!!!

Being Mrs. Clay.


- The above order does not show priority but chronological order. :)


Here are some random pictures... Because I was looking through them and thought I would share. :)

Rest to the Real World

For those of you who did not know Britt and I were gone this past week in Glorieta, New Mexico. We had a really great time of learning, relaxing, fun and friendship! It was a much needed break for the both of us!

I did take some pictures and will try to post some of them soon! For those of you that have facebook though, they are on there…

The week started with us leaving on Saturday morning. We had to be in Norman at the BSU there at 5:30AM!!! It was very early. I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before so it REALLY felt early to me. We loaded the bus and headed out somewhere between 6-6:30am. I was able to sleep on the bus for quiet awhile which was really nice.

We arrived in Glorieta that night at around 5:00pm. We ate dinner and went to our first session of the week. We had two speakers that week. Max Barnett who is the former director at the OU BSU and Dan Woolridge who is a business man who speaks at many conferences. It was really good. Max taught on how Discipleship begins with Evangelism and Dan talked about the work place and our influence there as well as the world we will in and where it is going. God spoke to my heart in many ways.

Sunday was more session and we also had “Workshops”. There was a list of workshops that we could pick from. Britt and my favorite was “Developing a Heart for the Lost” by Brian Zunigha. He was really great and his heart for the lost was evident. It was very convicting for Britt and I.

Monday and Tuesday were “Free Days” for us. A lot of the students go snow skiing on those days but since Britt and I are poor we opted on the skiing. ;) On Monday we went to Santa Fe, NM. It was…. Fun. (That is a whole other blog post). After Santa Fe we just hung out and rested.

On Tuesday Britt and some of the guys went hiking. Ashley and Hannah (the two girls in my room) and myself went and met up with them after a little while. We ended up hiking for about 4 hours. It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday and Thursday was more worshops and session, as well as a night of "Follies" on Thursday.

Really, the whole week was so nice and refreshing. God really spoke in my life in a lot of ways. I had a really great time getting to know some of Britt’s friends better and on a different level. They are some really great guys and great friends for me as well.

We are home now… Back to the “Real World”. I THINK I am ready. :p Are you ever REALLY ready though?

68 days until the wedding! I can hardly even believe it! Time is going by quickly and I could not be more grateful! I am so ready to be Lauren Clay! God has been so good to Britt and I. If you think of us please continue to pray for a job for Britt and that we would find an apartment soon. Apartment hunting is so difficult and frustrating. As for the job, that is something that we just really have to trust God on. He is in control though and he has a plan that is better than anything we can dream up.

So – That was up there with some of the longer posts I have published. I tried to reduce everything as well. A lot happened in the last week. Like I said, I will TRY to get pictures up soon.

Have a great week!

Surrender

I had an epiphany!!!! I say that jokingly but that the same time in all seriousness…

God has been teaching me to Trust Him and surrender my worries (a.k.a. finances, house, car, etc…) to Him. The thing is that I have said I want to surrender them to Him but when I was honest with myself I never really did. I was afraid that surrendering it to Him would mean that it would not turn out the way I wanted it to. I think that worry can be in a sense a security blanket.

The thing is that even when it is something as small as worry that we are unwilling to surrender we, as a whole, are not surrender. Surrender is death to myself and giving my will to Christ. When Jesus died on the cross He completely died. All of Him. He gave it all. In the same sense my surrender needs to be complete if I am going to be surrendered.

A good friend just did a blog post that speaks volumes to this truth and giving up our worries. It ministered to my spirit in such a real way. I encourage you to check it out.
Lifeencapsulated.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a lighter note, things are going well. Work is crazy this week as I prepare to go out of town but it only makes me look forward to the break even more!

Last week was CRAZY. Work was difficult for me and Britt had 6 paper due at school. This week work is still crazy but school has slowed down for Britt which I am grateful for. It can in a way be hard on me when school is hard for him. I am sure it is the same when work is crazy for me so in that sense I feel sorry for him. We are BOTH ready for Glorieta.

Tonight a few of us are going to work on addressing Wedding Invitations. It should be fun. My mom, future mom-in-law, both grandmothers, neighbor (a.k.a. adopted grandmother), aunt, sister-in-law, and maid of honor are all coming to help. It should be a lot of fun!

Hope you are all having a good week thus far!

Weekend Sunshine!

When I say "Weekend Sunshine" I mean it in more than one way. One being, yes it will be sunny and warm *yeah!* but also because I am SOOOO ready for it! It has just been one of those weeks. I have been so busy but it has gone by SO slowly.

Britt and I are going to go and put our names on a list at an apartment this weekend. I am happy. It will be good to “know” (kind of) where we are going to live. The wedding is coming up so fast! It is kind of weird but mostly very exciting!

Next Saturday Britt and I will be heading out with the OU BSU and a group from First Southern to go to Glorieta! I am more than ready! The break is going to be very needed! Sometimes it is just what I need, to get away from “life” and all that it demands. I have already decided that I am going to do NO wedding planning while I am gone! :)

I hope that you are all having a good “rest of the week” and that your weekend looks “sunshiny” too!

So what can I do?

Something that has really been on my heart and mind recently is Abortion. It is a scary and real thing going on right now. When I say right now I literally mean right now, this minute. Somewhere a baby is being aborted. Abortion is one of the most common surgical procedures in the WORLD and most people know NOTHING of it's horrible reality. Every day it destroys almost 4,000 HUMAN BEINGS a day in the US and 130,000 A DAY world wide! Do you know why this is happening in the US today? Because in 1973 seven Supreme Court Justices decided that abortion was a constitutionally protected act. Without a vote, without public debate, abortion came in through the back door without ever coming before the vote of the people. Abortion today is a billion dollar industry that is supported by very influential people in very high places. We try so hard to teach the youth of this nation in our high schools to not smoke, don't drink, protect yourself from STD's but when it come to abortion we do NOTHING!

As I write this and think about it I honestly become more and more angry. If you were to walk down the street today more people then you think believe that abortion is ok. THEY ARE IGNORANT. They do not understand what takes place during an abortion.

I recently stumbled across a website http://www.abort73.com/ This site offers facts, stories and pictures about abortion and the dangers of it. They clearly show you that abortion is MURDER.

I was recently able to give some money to this organization. Not a lot granted but some. Just think, if we all gave some...? There is not a lot that I can do about this gruesome popular trend of abortion but I can help aid those that ARE doing something.

Something else that I did was buy one of their T-Shirts. They are really cute and very comfortable, but most importantly they communicate a very important message...ABORTION IS WRONG! I encourage you to buy one. They are very reasonable. In fact, most of them start at $7.50 but you can give up to $15.00 per shirt. Here is the one I bought:



They also provide this list of "ten ways you can help" http://www.abort73.com/HTML/III-B-10_ways.html I found this to be really helpful and most of the things achievable for me and my limited budget.

We have been learning in our Bible Study on Monday nights about things that we can do to serve our community and ultimately our world. Well... this is something I can do. You WILL see me proudly wearing my "abort 73" T-shirt.