this is how i spent my friday night.

Many moons ago {in reality...it was as little as 5 years ago} I spent every Saturday in a band uniform. See Exhibit A below.

Yowsa, that's a bad picture. That's me, second from the left.

Before that, I spent 5 years of Friday nights in a band uniform. {I was in the high school band in 8th grade...I was quite good.} There are no pictures of me back then. Well...at least not handy. There are and I'd rather not go back and relive those days!

Before THAT I spent my Friday nights being a band groupie when my oldest sister, Leah, was in high school. I'd hold music for band members in the stands. I worked in the concession stand. I was quite good at making popcorn. I was all-around awesome. And I had multiple crushes (I was 9 or 10) on Leah's friends. Nothing like a teenager with bad acne that played an instrument to make a girl swoon. HA! :)

With all that being said, I love football. There's nothing like the feeling of sitting under the Friday night lights and watching boys take their teen angst out on the opposing team. However, I have not been to a high school football game in 3 years! Until Friday night.

Our youth pastor's son is the star quarterback at a local high school, one of his daughters is a cheerleader. Another younger girl from youth group was a cheerleader for the opposing team. We go to church with one of the coaches from the opposing team. So, I figured I'd go to this one. Here are some pictures of my night and boy how it made me feel young again. I absolutely love the smell of hamburgers being grilled, the sounds of the band and cheerleaders, not so much the smell of the boys (we were standing on the fences because there were NO seats available in the stands...it was a rival game and we got there 45 minutes early and still there were no seats. crazy). It is all fabulous.

a dog most definitely got on the field.

mooreville's team coming out. they were swaying and it was scary.
very intimidating.

look at this sunset!!!! is that not ridiculously gorgeous??

ridiculously gorgeous sunset, again.

mantachie was about to score a touchdown.

helmets held high when they were about to kick-off after scoring the aforementioned touchdown.

my good friend, holli. this is a great picture of us if i do say so myself.

there's not much better than being surrounded by great friends.

this random little kid was sitting next to us.
i looked down and this is the face he was making.

chelsea! she's the cheerleader for mooreville.
we were pulling for mantachie.
such a cutie.

is this not one of the most adorable children ever?!?
her name is emma, and we go to church together.
she refuses to speak to me.
one day she will.
one day.

love these girls!
kelsy and madi, who i also go to church with.
madi is the only of the youth pastor's children that wasn't on the field.
they are best friends.
such sweeties.

that's dalton.
i really like this picture.
by this point, they were getting beat pretty badly :(
but, this boy is a winner regardless of what the scoreboard says.
he's one of the few boys i've seen that has a winning attitude despite losing.
he's a leader of that team and i'm so proud of him.

my good friend, lilly.
we took like 6 or 7 pictures and this was the best one. :S

this is lilly and her fiance, les.
they both went to mantachie and are getting married in less than 2 months!
they're such a funny couple.

holli and her husband, brandon.
he went to mantachie.
holli went to fulton with me and we played softball together.
we weren't that great of friends back then but now we're tight.
like...something that's tight. :)

molly and matt.
they're my neighbors.
and molly and lilly are sisters.
i've known matt since junior high and molly for the past 5 or 6 years probably.
they're the sweetest couple i have ever known.
you think i'm exaggerating, but i'm not.
i don't remember if i've mentioned their housewarming last weekend, but molly has an interior design degree and she did a fabulous job designing the interiors. ha.
it looks like a pottery barn catalog except better.
awesomeness.

i have no idea who #15 is, but #21 is trent.
that boy has an awesome testimony about what God has delivered him from.
and he's only 15!
i don't remember if this is right before or right after he scored one of the last touchdowns for mantachie.
it was a special touchdown because they had just buried his grandmother that afternoon.
he wanted to score a touchdown for her and he did.
so so so sad.
that family has been such a light for Christ during this tough time.
they're one of the best families i know.
no joke.

game over.
mooreville won.
chelsea was picking up trash.

overall, it was one of the best friday nights i've had in the past 8 years.
i'm definitely looking forward to making it to some more games this season.

i promise i'm alive.

There will be pictures of the nieces' visit soon...I promise. My life has been crazy busy the past two weeks and I can't really say with what. I hate that...when I've been ridiculously busy but yet, after two weeks I can't remember what any of it really was. Ya know?

So...maybe this week I'll get pictures up of AW's and MN's visit and all will be well with the world again. Also, if you're reading this and you don't know me in real life then I'd appreciate you praying for my little sister, Sarah, who is gone to the Philippines right now for a women's ministry conference with a group of women from her church up where she goes to school in Arkansas. She'll be back in about a week and a half and then she'll be heading back over there FOR GOOD closer to August. Ugh...while you're praying you can pray for me too because I'm pretty sure that I will need it. I do NOT do well with being continents away from my sister even if she's doing God's work. I know it's a trust issue so just pray that I'll trust Him for her. If that makes sense.

Lastly, I have no idea why, but all morning I've had this song stuck in my head. Well, really since we left church. I don't know why. I hate when I can't figure out why I have a song stuck in my head.

Mama made chicken and dumplings for lunch so I'm about to go enjoy those, or try to, because I don't like them. But I'll eat them. Which makes me think, JUST yesterday, I was eating lunch with a group of girls (ladies?) that I love love love and we were talking about chicken and dumplings and how they all love them, but I however, don't. I realize that's probably not that interesting...but obviously I felt like sharing.

Also, can I just say how disinterested I am in the Super Bowl? Yeah...I am. I've determined that 'who dat' has to be the most annoying phrase I think I've ever heard. I think I'll pull for the Colts if only because Peyton is their quarterback, and he's a Manning, and I like him, surprisingly more than Eli, which is kind of backwards because Eli played at Ole Miss, my alma mater...

This post has to stop because I'm pretty sure I've reached a new low in randomness.

Happy cheering folks.

He's off sides! He's lining up off sides!!

For those of you who read the title and think this post is going to be about football, you might as well stop reading. That quote is from one of my favorite movies, Remember the Titans (let's face it, almost anything with Denzel is 'good', plus it has an awesome soundtrack). Anyway, as I was driving to work this morning I encountered a situation where I said that in my head but I would need to substitute some words in.

My commute to the office is pretty boring considering I only use three streets, but today one of them was backed up because they're resurfacing it and that made for some interesting construction-worker watching. One guy tried to stretch beyond his limit to avoid 'foot-printing' a surface he had just smoothed, and let's just say he didn't quite make it. I felt bad for him considering he'd have to do it over but that's another story for another time.

I've learned that on streets where there are two lanes going each direction, it's a lose-lose situation. Basically because if you're in the right lane, you have people slowing and making right-hand turns, and if you're in the left lane, you have people trying to cross traffic, but the lesser of the evils is most definitely the right hand lane so I usually stay in that lane unless it's pretty clear in the other one (I think that's a run-on sentence, but, I don't care).

There are a lot of one way streets in Dallas. A lot...probably more than there should be (especially Downtown--where I was headed) and as I was be-bopping along, this woman in front of me slowed down to make a right hand turn. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, however, she was trying to turn and go the wrong direction down a one-way street. I looked in my rear-view to see if I could get over, but sadly I couldn't, so I had to sit there while this woman tried to do the impossible. Fortunately for the woman there was a man in a big 'ole truck that was sitting at the stop light and keeping her from going down this potentially disastrous road. He was waving his arms, pointing at the 'one-way' sign and mouthing something (I can only hope that they were nice words of rebuke instead of...some not so nice ones), but this is where I thought 'Wrong way! You're trying to go the wrong way!!' (see first paragraph to imagine how I said it). Well, the lady realized (not soon enough in my opinion) what she was trying to do and went down the road some more until she could make a right-hand turn.

This got me thinking, how often in my life do I try to go the wrong way down some street and there are some warnings signs (maybe not a guy yelling and pointing...but signs) that I just completely ignore and continue on my merry and doomed way?

Lots! Most of the time the warning sign is my conscience saying 'Rebekah...this isn't going to turn out well.' Or, 'Rebekah...is God going to like this?' The little signs are God's way of saying stop. Turn around. Come back to me. Don't go there! His Word says it as well.

Maybe we should look at what path we're on and make sure it's the narrow one.

Just as a side note, I have driven the wrong way down a busy road...with 4 screaming girls in the car...not good!