Team Espinoza

“Where you send us
God we will go.
You’re the answer
We want the world to know.
We will trust You
When You call our name
Where You lead us
We’ll follow all the way.”

~ Chris Tomlin

When people think of ‘Missions’ they usually quote the Great Commission. And that’s where it stops.

The reality is that the Bible is strewn with the message of God’s mission to reconcile his people to himself and to each other. Genesis to Revelation shows that God’s heart is for the nations. He has used people, ordinary people, to carry out this amazing mission. This work continues today.

Today our family is headed to the Philippines. We can’t wait to see how God will use us through this trip.

I have just read…

‘Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope’ by Jenna Bush.

I did like it. It is is written at a pre-teen level, but I didn’t mind. I don’t want to know the details of the horrible things that happen to her. I just want to know what happens and how she got better. I was interested to know how kids end up with Aids, with a child at a young age, and come from abusive homes. I felt like the book answered my questions and I have a better understanding of what it is like to grow up in her circumstances. The book comes to abrupt end, because Ana’s story is still ongoing. I hope Jenna writes a follow-up book in ten years.

‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I enjoyed Hemingway’s sharp and succinct descriptions. It was interesting and I am still mulling over what all happened. I know what happened, but I am still not sure what I think about it. I think that is part of makes this book so interesting. It starts off slow, then something happens and its over, leaving your head spinning. *spoiler warning* My favorite part of the book is when the protagonist sums up Tom and Daisy.“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it is that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…”

I am currently reading…

‘The Supernatural Power of a Transformed Mind’ by Bill Johnson.

The book was lent to me by my former Pastor’s wife. It is really cool learning how to expect healings and miracles to be apart of everyday lives.

I will be reading…

‘Writing Down to The Bones’ by Natalie Goldberg

It was suggested by my friend, Dawn, on her blog. I really want to learn how to write better and more creatively.

‘Room With a View’ by E.M. Forster

This is going to be my fun book on the trip. I have been wanting to read it for a while. I don’t know much about it, except that it is set in Florence, Italy. I have been to Florence, so I can’t wait to read about it. I have plans to watch the movie that was made from the novel, when I get back. I will be sure to let you know how I like or even dislike the book when I get back.

Aaaahh! Do we have everything we need? Is the house clean? Did we pack diapers? Did we buy gifts for our host? It’s all coming down to the wire. So much to do.

So that is what we have been up to.

We will be at the top of Victoria Peak in Hong Kong in 5 days!

Here is a photo of the view:

Daniel and I love this song from Saturday Night Live. We always get the melody stuck in our heads. Dinka dink dink dinnnnk dinnnk….

Due to NBC being poo-poo heads the original skit with Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, Tracey Morgan, and Simon Cowell can not be played through YouTube anymore. Instead we get to enjoy the Source Guys.

I seriously love del.icio.us and I use it all the time. Del.icio.us is an easy way to bookmark all your favorite webpages online in one place. Sometimes I come across a site or a webpage that I will want to come back to later, so I will tag the page. You can tag pages when you are shopping online, researching a topic or a vacation, or saving cool recipes.

Del.icio.us works by integrating two buttons into your web browser. Don’t worry, installation is easy! I promise. One button is your “My del.icio.us” button that displays all your tagged webpages. The second button is the “Tag this” button that you click when you want to tag the webpage you are displaying. Using del.icio.us is cool, because it takes two seconds to tag a webpage after you have installed the buttons.

Bookmarking online is better than using your web browser’s book marking system, because you can bookmark all you want and it won’t fill up that menu window. I currently have 190 webpages bookmarked; that would be a really long menu window! Also, you can easily make notes, change the title of the bookmark, and specify tag categories.

Your homepage with all your tagged sites go with you wherever you go. They are always online. If you are at a friend’s house and you want to show them that really cool purse you were considering buying on Etsy, you could have bookmarked the page, and open the link from your del.icio.us account.

Setting up del.icio.us is incredibly easy. One of the things I really like about del.icio.us is that all their instructions are simple to follow.

The first step is to register with del.icio.us. After you fill out the six blanks on the registration form, you will then be instructed to install your two del.icio.us buttons. You will have to re-start your web browser after they are installed. Then, you can start using the buttons and saving the links to all your favorite sites.

Take a few minutes and set up del.icio.us. You will be glad that you did!

Del.icio.us homepage
Register
Installing into Internet Explorer
Installing into Firefox
A Guide to Saving Bookmarks

45 is the number of times that I have blogged this month between this blog and my other blog. I have enjoyed participating NaBloPoMo this month. NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month and you basically post every day for the month of November. There is also a social network that you can connect with other NaBloPoMo-ers.

I joined NaBloPoMo on a whim. It has been fun working out my blogging muscle. I do think that I will blog more often than I did before NaBloPoMo. I also got inspired this month, by our redesign of the site. Thanks Daniel for fixing our blog!

Some posts have been good and some bad, but you guys have stuck with me through it all. It has been interesting to see what posts people like and those that couldn’t give a flying flip. Everyone wanted to know which European city they belonged in. I even had people come up to me that didn’t comment and tell me, “I belong in Dublin!”

So here’s to you faithful readers. Thanks for sticking with me. Here’s to the end of NaBloPoMo and to the continued whimsical, randomness of this blog.

Cheers!

I just wrote this amazing final post for NaBloPoMo and just has I hit save, my husband did something to the server and I lost my post.

Earlier in the night I was having trouble writing it and he said, “Just flow with it.” So I was flowing and writing. It was great. Then *poof* its gone.

He said he was sorry. I do forgive him. Venting to my blog has made me feel better.

I love you, honey. I forgive you.

It was a sad night tonight. The Packers lost to the Dallas Cowboys and Brett Favre got hurt. Hanging with our life group and watching the game was fun.

I have shopped till I dropped today and now I am seriously drawing a blank on today’s post. I went shopping to get some needed items for our upcoming trip. Right now I just want to get to bed and continue reading The Great Gatsby. I started it earlier in the evening while Daniel went to the gym. We lead such exciting lives, don’t we?

Here is a picture of the little shoes I bought Annabelle yesterday. I think that they are super adorable. She looked really cute in them today with her dark wash jeans and little pink top.

Oh and I felt a little sharp tooth in her bottom gums today! Soon, she will have her first tooth!

Daniel and I were sitting in the car stuck in traffic and he asked me, “If you could open up a restaurant of any kind, what would you pick?

I would love to open up a Dessert Bar. I would sell all kinds of desserts, coffee, and wine. You could order at the counter and then stay as long as you would like. It sounds so good. It would be a little like Candlelight Coffeehouse here in town, but with more dessert options and no food options. When Metropolitan was open in the Quarry, they were a little like this. A Dessert Bar sounds so great. An after dinner hang out place.

Daniel said that he would open up an American food restaurant with steaks and wings. A real manly man place. Maybe some large screens. He would also like it to be a place where you can sit around and have great conversations with your friends. Like an American pub.

What kind of restaurant would you open?