zach n kali

As I mentioned yesterday, we are moving soon. With this I have given myself a challenge: to use up all or at least most of the edible items in the house. Why am I doing this? Mainly because I hate packing, and well, I have been watching too much Chopped lately. But here is the goal: over the next three weeks to only shop for perishables such as milk and fruits and vegetables and to clean out my cupboards. This began last night with using a bag of quinoa that has been sitting in the back of my cupboard since I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. It has never looked nor sounded appetizing, but tonight it made a lovely base for my chicken cacciatore. Will I buy it again? Probably not. But now I don't have to pack it and allow it to take up space in my new cupboard for the next four to six years. Tonight we will be having quessadillas using the leftover meat from Monday's fajitas and the 100 pack of corn tortillas that you are forced to buy. I will use my blog to keep m...

There are many "firsts" that we will probably remember forever - first day of college, first kiss, the first time you conquered a fear... Over the past few weeks I have had a blast enjoying many of Baby M's firsts that he will more than likely not remember, but will hopefully all contribute to a deeply rooted sense that he is loved. On September 10th we celebrated his first birthday with friends and family in a Monsters Inc. themed party. I cannot express to you how blessed I was to share this day with loved ones who were equally sharing it with us. Zach's brother showed up as Mike Wazowski and was a great sport as three of the kids chased him around the yard. It meant so much to me as family jumped in to help without us even asking and even though M probably didn't have a clue what was going on, he was loved. Then a few days later M and I took his first airplane trip to Colorado! It was definitely a new experience flying with a little one, and don't t...

Last night Zach and I went to a training at Olive Crest in order to maintain our foster care license. The theme of the night was a documentary called From Place to Place followed by a discussion. The movie followed three children who had been placed in group homes as teenagers and what happened to them when they aged out of the system. The statistics were shocking. 40% of these youths will end up homeless. Over 70% of the girls will end up pregnant and over 70% of the boys will end up in prison. How can we as a society and especially as a church be ok with this? These children enter the system angry and troubled and are often "too difficult" for foster parents to handle. Instead of sticking with the children through the issues and loving them unconditionally - through the self-sabotage, through the anger, through the tough times - these children are passed from home to home and will eventually end up as a number in a group home. There they may be overmedicated and d...

It's not that I didn't before the other night. But I have now had a first-hand experience with them. My brother was flying out to China for three months, so I was taking him to LAX to catch his 1am flight. I have major anxiety about missing flights, so even though I knew I needed to get gas, I figured I could make it to the airport. The drop-off was successful, Toby made his flight and is now in Beijing. My gas gauge was way below the E at this point, but anyone who know the area around LAX knows that Watts, Compton, and Inglewood are probably not the best places for a girl to get gas by herself at 11:30 at night. So I said a prayer and hoped that I would make it to the end of the freeway where I knew I'd be safe and there were gas stations. Well... the prayer was answered. Literally seconds after I got off the freeway my car sputtered and slowly began to die. The gas station was probably a hundred yards away and I was loping along on borrowed time. The left turn ...