Yep! We got married!

I think two weeks is an adequate amount of time after a wedding that says "I care about my husband and getting this home settled, but I'm going a little nuts and need to watch cat videos on Youtube for the afternoon."

Either way, Chavo is going to go tear down stuff with big sledgehammers today. One of his coworkers needs a shed demolished, and of course all the guys were climbing over each other for the opportunity to tear something down with giant hammers. Who wouldn't want to do that??? In this hundred-degree weather, I think I'll pass. So here I am.

Anyways, Chavo and I got married two weeks ago, and it was totally fabulous. I don't have pictures from the photographer yet, but my aunt took a few hundred, so I guess it would be nice to see them.

The wedding was so awesome, I couldn't have asked for anything better. My bridesmaids were wonderful. The groomsmen were great. Both families came, and everyone blended so nicely. Chavo's sister and her husband came about a week before the wedding, so we got to spend some good time with them before the wedding, which was wonderful. The four of us had an awesome time. Then the rest of his family came, and it was great. Everyone was laughing and having a good time, and none of us got enough sleep, but oh well.

The wedding itself was just incredible, in that I had no idea what was going on. I do know for a fact that I was super nervous before and during the ceremony, I know that Chavo had a hard time reciting vows in old english (With this ring, I see red, and all my twirly goods...), the videographer made the limo driver take the long way to the reception so they could get the cameras set up (which made for a lot of funny speculation going around with people wondering what was taking us so long... Hmmm), and the DJ played Pitbull's song "International Love" which made me both laugh hysterically and turn a lovely shade of scarlet.

When it was time to go, (and the keys to my car were retrieved from my parents' house), Chavo and I ran through the sea of birdseed to our lovely decorated car. I'm pretty sure I hocked a birdseed-filled loogie right in front of Chavo's cousin Zumby.. Oops. How much I loved that everyone decorated our car in hearts and sweet things, instead of (let's just say it) penises and sex jokes (hey, you know you thought about it). We drove away from the reception and made our way to the Baer House Inn in Vicksburg, which was amazing beyond words. The owner, Doug, greeted us when we got there, and everything was so nice. It was a good stop on our way to Navarre Beach, where we spent our week-long honeymoon.

Navarre was also really awesome. We highly recommend it to anyone. Not as crowded as Destin, but still a lot to do. Chavo and I went jetskiing, we actually bungee-jumped (never again), and loved every minute of our honeymoon. We're already wanting to go back.

We went back to West Monroe and saw my brother off to boot camp. He left for Georgia on Monday, and he seems to be doing as great as one can expect of his first days of Basic Training.

And now, Chavo and I are firmly planted in our new home in Texas. I've been having fun setting up this new apartment, and I think it looks mighty fine. We love having people over, and I've been having a good time meeting new people. I'm playing in the church orchestra with the Chavo, and everyone has been really nice. It's been a good transition so far, but I know that we have a lot ahead of us.

I guess right now, I just really need good thoughts and prayers sent our way in helping us get set up. We're still waiting to hear back from a job that we are really hoping I get, but it is not set in stone yet. We have a lot of ideas, but we're still looking at our options. Chavo is working full time in the auto-shop at the Seminary, and while he's there, I'm at home, doing the things that I guess I need to be doing. His birthday is Monday, so we have some things planned for that. Right now, we could hardly ask for anything better. Being alone in this apartment while Chavo is away at work is giving me lots of ideas for blog posts, so stay tuned!

I'll be back around more often, considering that I have a lot more free time than I did when I was planning the wedding, so I guess I'll be seeing you!

-Ginger Spice

The Quest for the Elusive Marriage License!

I think the title of this post could also serve as a good title for the last 5 days (as well as the next 5). I have been trying to acquire Chavo's and my marriage license, and let's just say, it's not going according to plan. Consider this blog a fair warning to NOT wait until the last minute to get your marriage license...

So, on Thursday of last week, I go bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to the courthouse for what I like to call "Blissful Ignorance and Problem Numero Uno". I was told that we needed both mine and Chavo's birth certificates. Queue initial panic. I have my birth certificate, but Chavo's is still in Guatemala with his uncle, who cannot bring it until 2 days before the wedding. Also a problem because the waiting period for the license is 3 days. Oops.

Problem Numero Uno got solved after we begged Chavo's uncle to FedEx the certificate for us, which he did. He also scanned the certificate and sent us a copy to our emails. Queue Problem Numero Dos: Chavo's birth certificate is in Spanish. Why I didn't consider this from the get-go, I haven't the foggiest. But either we need to get a waiver for the birth certificate (which we should have done first), or we need to get it translated by a "certified translator". My question is: who gets certified?!?! No one! No one gets certified!!! Soooo, we got the waiver. Super duper!

On the second trip to the courthouse, I was told that Chavo and I both had to be present to pick up the marriage license (which is false), so I went up there to get the birth certificate waiver. Turns out, the waiver stays at the courthouse and we're supposed to do everything all at once. Oh, and I don't have to have Chavo there with me to get the license. But I don't have my paperwork. So I drive about Mach 2 to my parents' house to get the rest of the paperwork (because the Deputy Clerk INSISTS that I get here to give her enough time to leave by 4:30 because she's ready to go home). I gather all the paperwork quickly and go back to the courthouse for Trip #3.

Now, for a little backstory, Chavo and I are getting a Covenant Marriage. My church does not do any other kind. It requires pre-marital counseling and just makes it difficult to get a divorce. Long story short, this stuff is serious.

For Trip #3, the Deputy Clerk states that she thinks the paperwork for Covenant Marriage may only be valid for 30 days (it was signed March 20), but she wasn't sure. She called 3 district judges (one wouldn't even make a call on it because it was covenant marriage, ugh), the Clerk of Court, and they ATTORNEY GENERAL!!! No one knew anything, not even the Attorney fricken' General. I left on Friday at 5 pm, still Licenseless.

At that point, I called the Chavo and asked him how he would feel if we just lived in sin for a while. He wouldn't go for it. ;)

On Monday, I was told that we do have to re-do the paperwork, but Chavo and I have to both be present for that. And as everyone knows, Chavo and I are in a long-distance engagement. He's going to be here in about 10 minutes. Mom and I went back to the courthouse before we got the call (Trip #4) and the Deputy Clerk was sick of seeing my face, so she sent us home. Whatevsies.

It is now Tuesday. We should be filling out the new paperwork tomorrow, and then HOPEFULLY we can get our license, so Chavo and I can be legally married.

I have a sneaking suspicion this is God checking my patience levels because honestly, it has gotten too absurd to not have a higher power behind it. What ridiculousness.
Anyway, I'll try to let everyone here know if Chavo and I are going to be legally married at the wedding. Wish us luck, pray for us, we hope to not have a Problem Numero Cuatro, or a Trip #6 to the courthouse.

Goodbye, LSU. Hello, new chapter!

Greeting, my spicy readers! (You know, because this is Ginger Spice and Everything Nice...... anyone? Ok, let's never speak of this again.)

I believe this is the right amount of recovery time from final exams to where I can no longer make excuses that I'm so exhausted from finals... So here I am. I took my last final at LSU on Friday and moved out of my college apartment, back to living at my parents' house until the wedding.

The last few weeks have been strange because, as a lot of soon-to-be graduates do, I've been evaluating my time at LSU in movie-montage format. There were a lot of ups and downs at LSU, and I'm happy to say that I left the university on a happy note.

I won't go into the not-awesome things that happened at LSU, but I would like to give a few thanks to some people that served as good reasons to stay at LSU. This list is not of everyone, because I couldn't possibly list everyone on here, but these are a few of the people down in Baton Rouge that were huge helps at LSU:

Person #1 at LSU that I want to thank is Joyce Wakefield, one of the freshmen academic advisors. She is an absolute gem on that campus. And while I haven't been able to visit her as much as I wanted this last semester, she and I always manage to keep in touch by dropping into her office every now and then. She's answered tons of my weird LSU-bureaucracy questions and has generally just been there for me, asking me questions about the Chavo, school, the future. She's really great. I hope she knows that WAAAY back in freshman year, back when I wanted to transfer, she was on my list for "reasons not to transfer."

A group at LSU that I really want to thank is Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship. There is no possible way that I can list all of the Chi Alphans that helped me through everything that ever happened at LSU. Y'all were always there. My Lifegroup Leaders, Christine, Arielle, Tricia, and Morgan. My Lifegroup girls, y'all were amazing. I'm continually amazed at just how on fire for God that all of you are. It's refreshing and wonderful, and I love you all.

And lastly, there are going to be a lot of friends that I'm going to miss. I hate that it took me up until the last semester to make friends like Jessica, Julio, Sara, and all of my other friends from class. I'm going to miss so many of the people that I hung out with while we were supposed to be studying. Hahaha!

 Like I said before, if I missed anyone, it wasn't intentional and we would both be here forever if I tried to thank everyone in Baton Rouge, and I would have to start a new blog if I wanted to add all the people in my hometown, Guatemala, and everywhere else all over the place. But this post needed to get posted.

Now, it is time to move onto the next chapter, getting married to the Chavo. It's going to be the cause of a lot of new situations, which will lead to new posts. But it will be good. And I'm sure in the month before the wedding, I will come across something blog-worthy. Maybe posting pictures of my little brother in his graduation cap and gown, or pictures of me clicking my heels with my diploma, or posting "stuff they don't warn you about when planning a wedding". But I can almost guarantee that it will be entertaining.

Thanks LSU, for the good times and the bad, I will miss the wonderful people that made you great. I hope we will still keep in touch. Of course, the last time I made the joke to someone that "I hope we keep in touch, but not like in summer camp, where we promise to write every day, but we never do," we decided to get married June 16th. I guess that happens.

Today is weird. Everything is weird.

I have been gone for so long that I no longer know how to post a blog! Blogger totally revamped their... everything, and i have no idea what to do anymore. So let's hope that this works.

Most of the people here know that Chavo and I have been engaged since September, and the people that know me in real life know that I'm also graduating in 2 weeks. So let the games begin! Anyway, enough excusing myself for being an absentee blogger.

Today is my little brother's senior prom. Let me tell you how weird that is. Today's my little brother's senior prom!! I'm literally looking across my bedroom at a framed yearbook picture I have of him in kindergarten. He's going with his girlfriend of maybe forever (a yearish? I dunno) and it's really cool.

And then, he is graduating high school! My baby brother is graduating high school and going into the army! You can't even fathom how proud I am of him. Not just that he is going into the army, but he is making real scary, adult decisions. He's graduating from high school, and I couldn't be more thrilled for him. I know he's super-ready to be done with high school. Aren't we all?!

My parents' house is subject to many changes right now. Their son is graduating high school and going into the army, and their daughter is graduating college and getting married. We're both moving away. And what are my parents' doing whenever they have an empty nest? They're going on a vacation to Alaska! They're getting ready to go on a ton of adventures together, and I hope they send me postcards so I can put them on a bulletin board and talk about how cool my parents are.

The house looks almost completely different than it did a year ago. Every time I leave the house, they've done some sort of improvement. As we speak, there is a stranger laying tiles in my brother's bathroom. The front door has been painted 2 or 3 times. My bedroom furniture is all gone. The guest room is totally different. The "children's den" is now a media room for my brother to play videogames to his heart's content. The front bathroom has a brand new ceiling, since my brother tried to put in a gravity-powered elevator (he fell through the ceiling while going into the attic, and that'll be a story told at every Thanksgiving for the rest of forever). The whole house looks different, and everything is changing.

But it's a good kind of change. I feel good about it. Little brother is doing what he wants with his life, I'm doing what I want, and my parents are doing all of the things they said they would do together. I'm so excited for what God has in store for our family. It's going to be so awesome!

In 4 days, Chavo is done with school.
In 7 days, all of mine and Chavo's things are getting moved into our apartment.
In 13 days, I'm done with school.
In 19 days, my brother is graduating from high school. I'll be the nutball with the cowbell at the ceremony.
In 49 days, Chavo and I are getting married.
And in 59 days, my little brother is leaving for Ft. Benning, GA to do his army thing!

What am I doing? Sitting here, writing this blog! I have to go get ready!

A Most Ingenious Paradox!

It's Midterm Week, and y'all know what that means (or, at least you should by now): it's time for me to procrastinating studying for about an hour and write a blog! It's going to be kind of a Lulu, I think. I almost through a Mississippi-hissy fit because this blog has been rattling around for about a week, and when I opened the "new post" window, I forgot it. Yeah, I almost flipped the table. Luckily for me (and the rest of this cafe that I'm sitting in), I remembered as soon as I closed the window.


Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. Matthew 24:9

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. John 15:18-19a

When I lived in my safe little hometown firmly cinched in the Bible Belt, I had no idea what these verses meant. Nobody hates me. Why could anybody hate me because I'm a Christian? I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just going to school and to church like everybody else in this little bitty town.

And then I went to college.

Now, I have had entire conversations with people who I thought were cool, heck, entire friendships with people that I thought were cool, until they found out that I go to church... After they find out I go to church, we usually have one more conversation that goes about like "So are you a Christian? How could you? You can't tell me how to live my life. I won't let you judge me!" Yet just before that, we were friends. I never judged them. I never even gave them so much as an idea about what to get for lunch at Chickfila, much less spiritual guidance.

What did I do?

This college that I go to, minus the safe-haven of Christian friends that I retreat to, is very vocal on why they hate Christianity. I've never heard such hatred about any other religion, not even Islam. Everyone's afraid that if they hate on Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc, they'll be labeled as "rascist" or some other ridiculousness. Christianity though, is safe to hate on. I mean, we persecuted first, right? We had the Crusades and all that stuff... killing tons of people in the name of God CENTURIES ago. Nevermind the fact that there are terrorists of another religion (that shall remain nameless because know they're RADICALS and don't represent that religion as a whole) killing tons of people NOW.

We're hated because we're judgemental. We judge people for everything they do. We're hypocrites, but so are they. We're flawed, but so are they. We are hated for the same reason that people hate themselves. Except this time, people blame our flaws on a higher power that they don't believe exists but we know does exist.

It's a paradox. Christians are hated because we hated first... But, the thing is, I don't hate anybody. I never killed people in crusades. I used to judge people and it is an active responsibility to not do that, but tell me you don't judge people. It's a universal problem to try and make yourself look better by tearing others down in your mind (or out loud). I don't sit in Free Speech Alley, calling girls in shorts "Jezebel" and telling college students they're going to hell. I have never burned a Qu'ran.

I'm not perfect, but you hate me for reasons that you cannot articulate. However, allow me to do that for you, using the very doctrine that you hate. With that, I'll go back to the verse I left off with:

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.- John 15:19

If all the Christians in the world stopped being all the things that the world hates us for, hypocrites, haters, judgers, proselytizers, screaming sign-wearing crazies, the world would still hate us. It would find a reason. But here's the kicker, God doesn't like haters and judgers and hypocrites either! We still have to stop being all these things, but not because the world hates it, but because it's not BIBLICAL! It's not Christlike! Christ was hated and that guy was perfect! We are called to be Christlike, but that does not mean we will not be hated along the way.

And so, lift your head, you little Christian alien. You are not of this world, so stop acting like it! Stop waiting for the world to love you as much as it loves Lady Gaga and start living for the God that loves you so much that we cannot possibly understand it.

 Live for Jesus, but understand that it comes with a price of having enemies of the world.

I can't believe my eyes!

I've been trying to think of a blog for a few weeks now. I'm on my way to my parents' house from school, about 40 minutes out of town, and I thought of one. And considering that I have to write it down:
a) before my battery dies
b) before I realize it's stupid
c) before the McDonald's workers realize that someone is sitting in their parking lot, jacking their wifi.
I'm going to do it now.

In light of all the crazy things going on right now, with wedding and life and school and such, I decided to take a mental health morning. So, I sat on my couch in my pajamas, watched TV, and played on the computer for about 2 hours. Just 2 hours of whatever.

Don't ask me how it happened, but I ended up watching old youtube videos of the Maury show. Yeah, I ventured THAT far. If you've never watched the Maury show, just go to Walmart in sweatpants at 3 am, sit on a bench, and squeeze your head really hard for an hour. Oh, and every once in a while, yell "you're not the father!"

The videos in particular that I was watching was of a 15 year old named Victoria, who was made pretty popular by that show. She was bound and determined to have a baby, having unprotected sex hundreds of times with dozens of different men. Yeeeeah.

Anyway, I just got to thinking about 15 year olds that think that they want kids right then. I thought about why there are some crazy girls who CHOOSE to get pregnant before they even have their driver's license. It's sad. Most of them just want the love that they think a child can give them. Its just really sad.

But then I got to thinking, "Why is a 15 year old getting pregnant so crazy? There are cultures where that is practically the norm. Wasn't Mary around that age when she was pregnant with Jesus?" Before you go screaming at me about the horrors of teen pregnancy, chill, that's not what I'm talking about here. The thought of a 15 year old having a baby is about as wonderful as me covering myself in roaches and running down Interstate-20, in my not-so-humble opinion.

But what would the Maury show look like in another culture? What would those episodes be called, instead of "I don't think my husband's the father" or "I'm in the 9th grade and I want to have a baby!"

"My daughter wants to wear jeans!"
"I want to be monogamous!"
"My son wants to marry from another tribe!"
"I don't believe in spirits!"
"My daughter wants to wait until she's 25 to have children!"
"I want to marry for love!"
"My son is happy with his wife's terrible dowry!"
"My daughter won't abort her unborn daughter to have a boy!"

What would that audience look like? Would they scream obscenities like on the Maury show? Who would they side with? What would happen if we believed it all?

The only culture we should be following is the one we're called to follow, God's. Anything else is worldly garbage, just like the Maury show.

I love you just the way you are.

Hey y'all. I know, it's been a while. I kind of got to the point where I didn't want to post because I didn't want to remind everyone that I hadn't been posting and had been somewhat of a disappointment. I promise I have a semi-reasonable excuse for my absence, but I cannot promise that I'm going to be posting more than once on this lovely February. We have officially started the wedding invitations, and they are leading me to becoming a "Bald is Beautiful Bride" because I'm about to pull ALL my hair out. The only thing that has stopped me is knowing that the Chavo probably wouldn't love me if I lost my red hair... Just kidding... I hope.

I've typed two blogs and hated them both. I'll come back when I think of something something semi-reasonable to post.

Mucho love-o!