Shawn's Birthday Weekend

Shawn's birthday was on Saturday. We actually did a little thing at the house for him on Thursday; it was just me and his parents. I got him a really cool cookbook; he's Mr. Chef now. He totally loves to experiment in the kitchen; no complaints here. This is why its very important that mothers don't do everything for their sons while they're growing up. Let them do their own laundry, let them learn how to cook...so they can survive when they leave the house, instead of having to figure out how to do everything or being taught right before going to college. Shawn said the other day, if I'd of learned how to cook growing up, I'd of probably gone to culinary school. Oh well... We'll make sure our babies know how to do everything before leaving home : )

So Friday night we went out to the lake. Chris and Nikki had a campsite for the weekend and we sat by the fire and played Texas Hold'em, whatever its called. We goofed off and had some fun. Right when we got there, they called us from the marina and said they'd ran out of gas in the boat and the marina was closed. (I think they're the only ones around that area that sell gas on the lake). But I was like, the marina is closed at 7pm on a Friday night? They're missin out on some money, for SURE. So anyway, we had to go back toward the house and get them, get gas in the boat, and go back to the campsite. We had a lot of fun though.

And Saturday, we got some recording done for Destiny. It sounded pretty good. But then Dustin came down on Sunday and killed it. Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it. I was actually about to drop one of my songs, just because I couldn't get it sounding right. But after he put his handy dandy touch on it with the electric guitar, that thing sounds awesome!! Shawn says with the guitar on it, it sounds kinda like Katy Perry's new song, Vegas, lol... It rocks, though. We're submitting the album tomorrow to be mixed and mastered, and should get it back end of August. Very excited to hear the final sound. It definitely blows Freedom out of the water, well I guess anything blows Freedom out of the water, lol...

Become my Fan on Facebook

I've finally created a facebook page for my design business. You can access it by going to: www.tinyurl.com/designsbylaurencox. I only need 6 more friends before I can make my address www.facebook.com/designsbylaurencox. I just made the site yesterday, so I guess 94 friends in one day is pretty good. Anyway, check it out and if you have facebook, befriend me please?? And of course, if you need any graphic design, printing, or web design (very minimal; still learning), please do let me know : )

Great Sunday

So we visited this church that is needing a worship leader; their ad pretty much advertised me and Shawn to a "T"...upbeat contemporary praise and intimate worship, 30-45 minutes every Sunday morning, dress casual and relevant, 1.5 hr services, no Sunday night services (hallelujah), etc. So we were like, we're just gonna pop in on Sunday morning and check it out before we inquire about the position. Cause usually if you call and let them know your interested and that your coming, they pull out all the bells and whistles on ya, and we just wanted to see the real deal. So we got there 30 minutes early, not planned, so we sat in the parking lot and pretty much created our own pictures of what we thought service might be like, and what queus we'd walk out on, lol. You know first impressions, they're always bad, lol. So we were a little nervous as people were pulling up, not to mention the church is not exactly on the main highway. You know those boondock churches; they can be a little scary at first thought. So anyway, at 10:30am, we got out and headed in.

To our surprise, everyone was sooo nice. They were right; everyone dresses down. I didn't go in my pajamas like I told Shawn I was going to do originially. I actually dressed up a little. But anyway, as soon as we walked in, it felt like home again. We haven't felt at home in a church for a long time. And I think everyone knows by now that if the church passed my expectations, it must be a pretty dern good church, lol. But we had people walk up to us as soon as we sat down. It was good, almost too in our space, but it was good : ) ...then praise and worship started. The current worship leader is really good; he can SANG. He led by guitar, and the praise team can SANG...they're "Brad/Kendall" good, lol. And the band was off the chain, to me anyway. And it was LOUD in there. And you know we like it loud, but I was like oh my gosh, it's loud. But nobody seemed to care; I didn't know that world existed anymore, where nobody cared. They just worshipped. I kinda almost think it was a dream, lol. Oh, and the current worship leader is leaving to pursue his calling in youth ministry.

After worship, they did a little prayer at the altar which was cool. A couple people came up for prayer. Then the speaker came up. And he did an illustrated sermon...I LOVE ILLUSTRATED SERMONS. Otherwise, I get A.D.D. real quick and I end up thinking about lunch, or Shawn, or take out my novel and start reading. I can actually tell you what he talked about. The title of the sermon was "Change is Growth...or is it?" He had an electrolux vacuum talking about taking it to the store cause the cord was messed up. Anyway...he went on and on. But the point that really jumped out at me was he gave reasons why people don't do what they say they'll do (cause the vacuum man said he could fix the vacuum but knew he really couldn't and tried to make something work that really didn't work after all). The two reasons he gave for people basically not keeping their word...that stuck out to me was, they have integrity issues, or they're just pure liars. That's such a great point. And then they didn't do an altar call; they have different people speak each week off this elder board thing (that's how the church is set up) so its not so monotonous and the same person speaking all the time. And the guy that spoke yesterday pretty much taught instead of yelling. I really liked that; I feel like I could follow him better. Oh, and their media was totally cool too. As soon as the first song started, they had a video playing on the screen, you know like some churches play constant random videos that go along with the song. It was through the whole set; it was totally cool.

So anyway, after all my blabbing, we talked to the guy in charge of inquiries for the position after service, and they seemed very interested and really liked the fact that Shawn and I are a husband/wife team that work together with the praise and worship, that we both lead, etc. We were involved with a conference call with their board last night, and we have a meeting in two weeks with them. So we'll see.

My Sweet Hubby

So usually Shawn cooks a great dinner for me when I come home from work; I've always told him he missed his calling. He should have been a chef. He cooks so good and he can create beautiful, delicious dinners out of nothing. I would walk in the kitchen and be like, there's nothing to eat in this house. And he'll just throw something out and its always the BOMB!!

So last night I walked in and he had cleaned the house, which is normal, and had candles lit everywhere and a beautiful gourmet looking meal sitting on the table. It was great!! I have a picture below to show some of "his work," lol. It was as delicious as it looked. Mmm...I could go for some more right about now.

Green Peanuts, Water Aerobics, Pics & Crusades

So we went searching for green boiled peanuts yesterday after me and mom went to water aerobics. That was fun; never done that before. But anyway, Wal-mart was out. We ended up finding some at Publix. I freaked out when we found them cause I been craving some real boiled fresh green peanuts. So that's what I've been eating for the last 2 days : )

We're headed off to the concert in the park in downtown Woodstock tonight. A band called Shanendoah is going to be there. I hear they're pretty big, but I've never heard of them. Sam says their a girl band. That should be interesting. But we're all taking the girls, and mom and dad will be there. So it should be fun.

This morning we had a breakfast meeting with a pastor out of Atlanta that's from Nigeria. He wants RPM to be his house band for monthly crusades he's hosting starting in September. He has already booked a 2000 seat auditorium in Atlanta until Dec. 2010, and has already signed a contract with several radio stations. I may be doing some advertising for him as well. So we're pretty excited about that. But before we left this morning, mom did a photo shoot with me, Shawn and Caitlyn. The pictures are so cute!! Below is one that she's already edited. She's still working on them right now, but they'll soon be on my facebook for everyone to see, yay! We really needed some new family pics, so she did a really great job, as always!!

Gas

I'm totally glad gas prices are starting to come back down, or at least around here. I went to NC this past weekend and the prices were still around $2.50. The cheapest we saw it was in Gaffney at $2.13, and it's $2.21 in Greenville (at Exit 44). But we weren't dare stopping in Gaffney even for 8¢ cheaper gas. If you've not heard, there's a serial killer lose in Gaffney just randomly shooting people; 5 people are already down. I heard something on the radio this morning mentioning the serial killer, but I couldn't understand if they caught him or if they found him and he shot himself; it really didn't make sense. So anyway, be careful in Gaffney. But I'm excited I can start taking my Durango back to work, as long as gas continues to go down. It's not fun having no air condition in the middle of summer trying to look pretty going to work and going to work out on your lunch break. Getting back in the car from working out and sweat running everywhere. No one's said anything at work about me smelling unless they're just really nice, lol, so I guess I'm okay.

Charlotte

What a difference in temperature from GA to NC. We woke up this morning and Shawn wanted to walk down to the lake and fish a little. It was around 7:30 and I was like, no, it'll be hot. Well, we ended up going down there anyway and it was freezing. We went uptown a little while ago and it was still cool. I can walk outside for 2 seconds in GA and I start sweating. So it's been pretty nice. We're about to go out on the pontoon and swim a little bit. Then tonight, we gonna drive up to Mooresville. They're having something for the 4th, some fireworks and kids stuff going on. There's gonna be a band in downtown Davidson, might go to that too. Anyway, I'm hoping we get to go to the pool tomorrow. Believe it or not, I've been swimming in oceans and lakes this summer, but no pools. Oh, I'm having pool withdrawels. We were thinking about getting a pool a couple weeks ago, but some things have changed in our life and I think we're going to wait on the pool, atleast for now anyway.

Well, everyone's ready to go to the lake. I gotta go get my swimsuit on. See ya!!