Lens Life THE BOOK

It is coming soon!! I have been working on getting my Lens Life Project published into a photo book. Ryan is working on the art for the cover and after that there will just be a few more details to work out, but hopefully by the end of the month YOU will be able to buy LENS LIFE - THE BOOK!!

I am going to try to contact people like Oprah and Ellen to see if I can send them a copy and maybe if they like it they can mention it on their show or something (I know, it's a long shot, but I won't know unless I try). Also I think I will get business cards made up to advertise the book release. It is okay with me if no one buys the book, I just want it to be published (but I hope a couple people may buy it, hehe).

20% of the profits will be going to charity.

Marriage Enrichment

Ryan and I signed up for a Marriage Enrichment Night at church. I am quite excited about it!! I love Ryan and anything that could help me show my love better to him is A-OKAY in my book!! We feel as though we took a lot away from our Pre-Marriage class we took through North Coast, so I am sure this will be a worth while night as well!!

MARRIAGE ENRICHMENT NIGHT

Marriage Enrichment Night
Friday, January 30, 7:00-9:00 PM


Chris Brown will be our introductory speaker on the trials of marriage.

We’ll offer 4 breakout workshops you can pick from:

- Communication & Conflict Resolution

- The Difference Between Men & Women

- Love Languages / Love & Respect

- Intimacy in Marriage

Mount Soledad Paint

Paint makeover spruces up aging Mount Soledad cross / Help offered year ago; volunteer work ends today

Professional painter Jim Codde would say a prayer whenever he drove past the aging Mount Soledad Cross in La Jolla – that one day he would be able to restore the landmark to its original glory.

Someone listened – to his pro bono pitch, if not his prayer.

Today, Codde's crew will apply the final touches of paint to the 29-foot cross, realizing a dream that took root more than a year ago, when Codde heard that the federal government had taken ownership of the site in a bid to end long-standing legal questions over the cross's presence on city land.

Brothers Jim and Dave Codde, principals of Oceanside-based Bay Cal Painting, offered that day to refurbish the cross for free.

The rest of the article here.

Buddy the Bike

Ryan made me a little sign for Christmas saying that he wanted to buy me a bike (the sign was him made into Buddy The Elf). Today we found a bike on Craigslist that looked like it would work perfect. We went over to the guy's house and PICKED IT UP! This afternoon we sanded it, washed it and primed it. I picked out a fluorescent green spray paint that we will finish it in tomorrow. I am taking pictures of the process, but here are the pictures that were posted on Craigslist for it.




Thanks Peter for the Christmas gift!! Check out the process pictures here (and check back for more this weekend).

Prayer for Israel

I got this email from Todd (a friend that Ryan actually lived with when he first moved out to San Diego) and wanted to pass it along to ask for your prayer support for Israel.

As many of you know Isr@el and H@mas are engaged in a war as of Saturday. Please remember to pray for Isr@el during this time. They have sat back long enough while H@mas (a terrost organization bent on the destruction of Isr) launched rocket after rocket into Israeli towns, targeting innocent civilians. Now Isr. has no choice but to use military force to put H@mas out of business. Isr@el has recruited thousands of reserves into active duty (males remain in the reserves until they are 50 years old). I talked to my good friend there and he said it's pretty tense. There's a chance he may get called into action too.

Please pray along with me for the following things:
-Wisdom and discernment for Isr. leaders as they make very important decisions.
-Angelic protection of Isr. troops as they fight an evil terrorist org.
-Protection of civilians on both sides of the battle.
-That Isr. would draw near to God during this time and that they would come to know their Messiah.
-That the Palistini@ns would come to know the peace that only Jesus can bring.
-Lastly, please pray that my friend Hani would not get recruited to war.

I can't help to think how amazing and Soveriegn God is. He allowed us to go to Isr and get all the footage we needed for our promo film on Isr surfers and get out just in time.

The promo film will be done by tomorrow and I hope to have all of you over to my parents house to get a sneak preview sometime in January. I can't wait for all of you to see it! I will send out an email with a date and time.

Thanks,
Todd

DONATE TODAY!!

Only 2 more days to donate for a Tax Deduction for 2008.

I'm 30% of the way to my goal... Would you like to help??

Dear Friends,

Last year I participated in the AFSP's 2007 Out of the Darkness Community Walk and once this year's information was announced I made sure to be one of the first to sign up. I hope to raise even more funds for AFSP this year and hopefully with your help will be able to meet my higher goal.

I will be joining with thousands of people nationwide this fall to walk in AFSP's 2008 Out of the Darkness Community Walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I would appreciate any support that you give me for this worthwhile cause.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is at the forefront of research, education and prevention initiatives designed to reduce loss of life from suicide. With more than 32,000 lives lost each year in the U.S. and over one million worldwide, the importance of AFSP's mission has never been greater, nor our work more urgent.

I hope you will consider supporting my participation in this event. Any contribution will help the work of AFSP, and all donations are 100% tax deductible.

Donating online is safe and easy! To make an online donation please go to the AFSP Community Walk site here (http://www.outofthedarkness.org/) and search for my name(Carlee Padot) in the Participant field on the left hand side of the page. You can then click the "Support This Participant" button on the page.

Thank you for considering donating to this wonderful cause!

Carlee

Support Me!

We're BACK!

We are back in Sunny San Diego!! I have posted all of my pictures. I didn't take a lot of them (well, there are like 120, but I didn't take them every where we were I guess is a better way to put it). Check them out here.

Wednesday morning we got in about 5. Mom and Dad picked us up at Metro and we got in the car to head to Temperance. We sat in stand still traffic for a little over an hour because of some major accidents (I guess they saw that there was like a 3 car pile up on the way tot the airport and thought it would be cleared by the time we were heading back - it wasn't). We got back, hung out a little, then went to Monroe. We met up with my mom's parents and had lunch and did gifts with them. We then came back, played a lot of Scrabble, ordered pizza, and then went to the candle light service at Crossroads.

Thursday we woke up early (well, like 8am) and opened gifts. We then got ready and went to my dad's mom's house in Monroe. We ate lunch and did gifts there for a couple hours and then went to Toledo to serve dinner at the Cherry Street Mission. It was nice to be able to serve and give back on Christmas. I think we probably served about 300 meals to the homeless.

Friday we woke up to ICED roads and were planning on renting a car to drive up to Ryan's sister's house in Rochester Hills but because of the weather we decided that my mom would drive us up to Ann Arbor and Ryan's dad would meet us there to take us the rest of the way. The roads were terrible (we were driving about 15 mph most of the way) and we ended up meeting in Milan. We finally got up to Rochester Hills and did gifts with Ryan's parents and his sister and her family. We hung out with them for most of the day making pizzas, playing games, decorating cookies, etc until my parents drove up and picked us up for the Pistons game. We went to Auburn Hills from Aaron's house and watched the Pistons take on the Oklahoma City Thunder. They are the worst team in the league and we only won by 2 at the last second (literally there was two tenths of a second left when AI made the winning shot). It was fun to go to the game though (and mom actually got Ryan tickets for the Clippers Pistons game in a couple weeks in LA so we will be heading up there to cheer on our Pistons then too).

Saturday we hung out a bit, then went to the movies. We saw Valkyrie, which was a good movie. We then went home and changed to head to the Toledo Zoo. The weather had been crazy the whole time we were back and they were predicting 60 and rainy for Saturday. We decided that we would go to the zoo if the rain held off and by 6 it was still dry so we took our chances. We got through most of the zoo when the DOWNPOUR hit. It only rained really hard for like 10 minutes but in the first minute and a half we were drenched to our core. We had a lot of fun and it was an adventure like always :).

Sunday we went to church and then came back home to pack everything up. Our flight was at 5:40, so we decided to leave by about 3:30. Stacey and Gabe (her 6 week old baby) came over from 1 to 3:30 to hang out, which was great since I hadn't seen her since my shower in July. We watched the Lions Packers game while she was over and then went to the airport. All of our flights were smooth and on time.

All in all, it was an AMAZING trip, but of course, too short. Make sure to check out some of the pictures if you get a chance. I am sure I will probably be able to post more when I get the rest off of Ryan's camera, but for now this will work :).