Bitty Snail

This morning we had a few errands to run before our mattress was delivered. When we went outside it was wet and misty (you canNOT tell it is July here in SoCal right now). Ryan looked down and noticed these itty-bitty snails (along with normal sized ones). I decided if when we got back they were still there I would take a picture. There were a few left. I didn't put anything in the picture to scale the snail, but he is tiny! These guys could have fit on the eraser on a pencil.

OTB Store

Outside The Bowl has started making shirts!! Check out the store here.

I am stoked to buy a couple of these :).

Outside the Bowl is not just about serving hot meals to the world's hungriest stomachs. It's about the ministry that goes along with it.

Can you find what goes with the bowl of soup on this t-shirt?

Buying this t-shirt will provide more than 750 meals over the next 5 years alone. And the next 5 after that. And the next 5 after that. And the next 5 after that. You get the picture.

Welcome Hannah!

Congrats to the Fuson's Fam!! A second beautiful baby girl - Hannah! Born at 11:40am EST, 7lbs. 4oz., 20.5 inches long. Mommy and Baby are both doing well!!

5 Skills for Healthy Relationships

5 key skills to preserving a healthy relationship

Be willing to forfeit: the win-win strategy

Disagreements are inevitable — as unavoidable as Tuesdays or the common cold. They don’t have to be acrimonious, though. And I’ve learned that in marriage the choice is often to win or to be happy. Being harsh and critical in an argument is only going to hurt feelings and alienate your partner. That’s fine if you want to rule the roost, but if you want to love and be loved, you’ve got to care for your partner’s feelings, especially when you’re fighting.

“When there’s a lot of goodwill, it’s amazing what you can say and still feel good about each other,” says Catherine Hastings, Ph.D., a licensed marriage and family therapist in Lancaster, PA.

Hastings sees couples become polarized in their disagreements, with neither person willing to yield. The problem, she says, “is the idea that there has to be right and wrong in an argument. And there really doesn’t.”

The rest of the article here.

Purchases

So Holy-Crapoly. I think we are done with our big purchases for a while. We have ordered everything now, just waiting for everything to be delivered. We ordered our bed and couch yesterday. The bed will be delivered today, but the couch is back ordered, so it may be 2-3 weeks. We ordered our laundry unit on Friday, but that won't come in for another 16 days. Either we are just picking the popular stuff or nothing is really stocked well lately. When we went to Lowe's on Friday we saw that Whirlpool was having a 20% off sale for the 4th of July weekend. We had just bought our fridge the week before (with 10% off). We asked them if we would be able to get the difference refunded. They said what they could do is refund the more expensive fridge and then charge us for the cheaper price. It looks funny on our bank statements, but hey, anything we can do to save money, right?

Of course I will post pictures when things are installed, but here are the stock pictures of the stuff we bought:

L Couch (Ryan is in love with it):

Queen Mattress and box spring:

Stackable laundry unit:


I am glad we are done with the ordering, but looks like I may have to wait till I am back from Haiti to enjoy it :)

Polar Bear Plunge

CHECK OUT THE NEW EXHIBIT! I didn't know they were doing the updates... We may have to make it down to the zoo soon and MEET THE BEARS!!

Fun Pics

Ryan was doing a few last minute touch ups, so I took his iPhone and took a few fun pictures with his Hipstamatic program. A couple pics from around the new place...