Following HIS Lead

in my attempts to change the look of the blog..i did some playing around on wordpress and liked the ease and features over that of blogger.

so you can now find "following His lead" here

be sure to change your sidebar links :o)

grace & peace,

alisha

in attempt to give the blog a make over..i'm trying a new template with more pics...


its a work in progress.

so please bear with me.

now that i'm a fulltimer, my weekends are full of relaxation and fun.

2 weekends ago, thanks to the aggie game on Tursday, Valerie and I were able to attend night church on Saturday and then take a fun trip to Houston, where we made a stop in IKEA for my birthday comforter: I purchased a red and pink one and Valerie spontaneously decided it would be fun to have matching ones being that we're bunk mates and puchased a green and lime green one.

and then saw Once in this crazy hidden movie theater in some business district...and then we ate some yummy PF Changs.

it was a great day.
after our fun festivties in Houston we had to get back for AWANA. We are Sparks leaders: I work with the sweet kindergarteners and Val manages the 2nd graders. those Kinders are so sweet and precious...they are too cute!

This past weekend we celebrated Mom and Dad's 50th at the Burleson's house with friends & Wii! we had some yummy mexican dishes and dips and delicious homemade chocolate cake and banana pudding! I bet Val in baseball and then she knocked me out boxing. Mom tackled bowling. they are rvery excited to get their own system in a couple weeks for Daddy's official bday.

On Saturday I babysat and then Andrew and David came over since they were in town for the game. We played some 42, talked and had Mr. G's for dinner. Yea for college friends..we did find out that 80% of the Helena boys are working at Champion Forrest, how cute is that? roommates together :o)

Me, Tracy, Didi and Val went to a later showing of Across the Universe after our company headed home...I'd rate the movie about a 7 out of 10. it was pretty long and there were some parts that were just random and uneccesary. after AWANA, Val and I saw The Kingdom..it was good, pretty graphic/violent in some parts..it was bittersweet. The sad, depraved state of our world was vivid-some parts were very heartbreaking to watch.

on a pleasant note, I had wonderful fun with my bunkmate yesterday afternoon as we prepared our food for HOPE group tonight...cavatinni and homemade tiramsu..its going to be wonderful.

okay...back to work for me!

My birthday fun actually got to start on Friday night...
Val let me open my presents early..I got some pretty awesome gifts from her..like an official Dunder-Mifflin shirt, fun games and Dr. Pepper jelly beans!

we waited 1.5 hrs to eat at Texas Roadhouse...and we only waited that long because it was my birthday. She did not make me ride the bull..and even made sure that even though the waitress knew it was my bday..she didn't make me ride. Dinner was delicious. Afterwards, we came home and watched some of Season 3 of the The Office. and Andrea Carney came to town..yea..not for my birthday, but it was great to spend time with her..so Val and I went to Yell with her and her sister who is a freshman this year.

Saturday I got to sleep in...whoo hoo! My wonderful roomies got me breakfast and my wonderful parents did this:





Yes..a poster-size picture of me at 4 yrs old was sitting on our porch with 25 balloons in my truck! I loved it..and its now in my room :o) not so much the balloons.
The rest of the day was spent hanging out. I ran a few errands and then headed off to babysit for the game.

After the game, the real fun began. Val and Andrea made my guitar hero cake.
And then it was Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution.



I love me some Guitar Hero.

It was a great 25th birthday..thanks to all my friends and family who made it extra special!

okay, so i know most of you are waiting for pictures and a recap of the big 2-5 last weekend--tomorrow!

so I work for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Texas; specifically Brazos Valley.
If you are unfamilar with our organization click here.

My job is basically encompasses the last part in our organizational model: Match Support Specialist. I'm the gal who makes sure all of our matches are going A-OK.
I make Match Introductions i.e introducing the Big (volunteer) to the Little (child & family).
I conduct follow-ups and get monthly and quarterly updates via the phone, email and in person.
I am responsible for maintaining our site based program--instead of meeting 3-4 times monthly (thats community based). Bigs will meet weekly in the Little's school for lunch.
I handle all match closures & evaluations.

My day to day activities include emailing Bigs and calling families to set up Match intros and get updates, meetings and mail outs.

I'll be playing catch up for about the next month.
On the upside, I started the week with 101 matches in "My Queue" with 70 overdue and as of today there are 104 matches and only 49 overdue!

So far its really fun getting to talk with parent's and Littles hearing how great the matches are going. On the downside, i'm still trying to get in a routine..so the blogging has been a little bit sub-par, but its my goal to keep it up!

okay...pictures will be up tomorrow-late afternoonish.

so my awesome momma was getting on to me about how my blog has gotten dull & boring with no updates about my super crazy life..