Dinner Club Continued...

Our monthly dinner club parties have continued to be such fun...this past month's theme was "round food", which you can really do a lot with...however we were curious to see how the foods went together. We had everything from meatballs and homemade rolls, to couscous, pinwheel mac n'cheese and my wedge salad with poppy seed dress (to round out the menu) and much more...

Here's the gals getting ready to chow down on everything round...this was our first party where everyone was able to make it.

It was all pretty tasty...and dessert was so fancy!

Homemade chocolate cups with mouse and an apple tart.
I realized as I was getting ready to post about January's dinner...I hadn't posted about the last one I was able to attend in November.

The theme was Mexican food...hence the sombreros.

I didn't get any pictures of the dinner items that night...but I did get some shots of us making...FRIED ICE CREAM!

That evening we had enchiladas, a yummy Mexican rice dish, a Mexican bean salad and a cheese dip as an appetizer along with the fried ice cream of course! We're really having fun trying out new recipes. This coming month's theme is family recipes you've yet to try making. I'm going to make my Nana's lasagna for the first time.

A New Year...new goals

We're not really ones for resolutions because I don't think either of us have kept one...but it is always a good time to reflect on the past year and decide if there are any new goals for the future and this year we have some really fun new goals!

Our first was to have more discipline in getting into shape and maintaining a healthy lifestyle both physically and spiritually, which was actually along the lines of the theme of Adam's message to the church the Sunday after Christmas. To help with the spiritual discipline we started a new devotional system along with our student ministry teams called the Life Journal. It's a Bible reading plan that will take you through the year and help you to structure your time in the Word. During Adam's message, he also talked about how he had gained what he liked to call M&M weight (Marriage and Ministry weight) and he had plans to start P90X to get back to his physical shape from our honeymoon. Well I decided to make the physical process a little more fun and motivating for us for the next three months by having us play our own game of The Biggest Loser! Who ever loses the highest percentage of weight over the next 90 days will win a little extra pocket money to perhaps buy new clothes (wink). We'll be sure to let you know who wins...Adam seems to think he's a shoe in for the win and I told him the odds are in his favor, but hey the underdog sometimes wins...so I'm going to work it and see how I do!

Our other goal for this year is to learn how to better manage our finances. To do this we joined the Financial Peace University through the church and we're looking forward to what that class has in store for our finances! How amazing would it be to have absolutely no debt and to begin growing your wealth from a young age. All I can say is we're excited for what is in store!

So there you have it, a couple of our goals for 2010!

2009 was quite a year of learning and I cannot wait to see what 2010 will bring!

I can't believe it has almost been a decade since I graduated high school...wow the life changes: college and graduate degrees for both Adam and I, almost 5 years of marriage already, new friends, two new homes, new jobs and so much life experience already! All I can say is WOW, I'm excited to see what's in store for us and our family!

2010 New Years All Nighter

Some of you may be wondering what we've been up to since the new year has begun...well we rang in the new year with about 150 kids (high school and middle school) at our student ministry new years all nighter (8pm-8am). The night was filled with fun activities and games, which you'll get a glimpse of below. The night began with some ice breakers, a time to worship together and a message from Nima. Then it was time for some pizza to get everyone's energy up to ring in 2010! Here's the students counting down to 2010.

Watching the countdown in Times Square.

Happy New Year!

I LOVED THESE PHOTOS!!

They really captured the excitement and celebration that was taking place.

Then we kicked off the next 8 hours of entertainment!

Yummy snacks and drinks.

Games

Our inflatable obstacle course

The big game of musical chairs

The final two really wanted that chair!

One of our students trying to be TJ...he reminds me of a Peanuts character in this picture.

The leaders hanging out

Dodgeball...leaders against the students

A new addition to the fun this year was line dancing...we did the Cha Cha Slide, the Cupie Shuffle, the Electric Slide, the Macarena...pretty much every line dance we could think of.

This was my favorite activity of the night this year.

Still grooving

Carrying Nima around like Prince Ali...because he's Persian too.

A Serenade

Karaoke,

TJ was singing the girl part of A Whole New World with Nima as Aladdin on the magic carpet.

Red Rover

As you can see, there was plenty to do all through the night. It was a hilarious way to ring in 2010 and it's becoming quite the tradition. Even breakfast the next morning was HILARIOUS since I and a few of the other students and leaders who went were pretty delirious from not getting any sleep.

HAPPY BELATED NEW YEAR EVERYONE!