Kayaking

I have mentioned once or twice just how much I love living in Austin :) This weekend was a true case and point. Saturday, the non-profit that was started by elders of my church (Music for the City) had a neighborhood BBQ in the oldest housing projects in the country. They're called Santa Rita Courts and are located in Austin. We had food, live music, games and face painting. Tons of neighbors came out and enjoyed the beautiful day with us and each other. There was laughter, smiles and lots of chatting. The afternoon weather couldn't have been better and we all felt really blessed to be witnessing such a feeling of community. Colin and I then headed over to the Green Eco-Convention that is in town for Earth Day. We got to see all the newest equipment in the fight to save the earth from the disease that is human consumption. From there, we met up with a few of Colin's friends at the Thai Festival in the Buddhist Temple. We watched Thai dancers, listened to a karaoke singer and sampled an array of ethnic food. Just as we were ready to head out, a friend of our group led us into the temple itself and we got to pray and burn incense. What an experience!! It could not have been a more eclectic, Austin type of day!!

Sunday after church, I headed back to get Colin and we met up with another friend of his to go kayaking. We enjoyed time out on our portion of the Colorado River and made friends with turtles and a swan. We watched an odd game of water volleyball via kayaks (still unsure how it worked) and people watched as is a norm in Austin. We topped off the Austin Weekend Experience with lunch at Chuy's...an Austin Tex-Mex staple.

I love Austin!!!!!

Music and Beer and Bikes, oh my!

As with most Austin past-times, my last weekend consisted of a couple of planned events, a few unplanned ones and was brought together with a ton of laughter. Saturday was the block party that my city group has been planning since the night I joined them. We got to set up an event that allowed all the neighbors to come and enjoy each others' company! There were musical acts who volunteered their time to come, everyone brought food and even in what turned into a crazy storm people came out and enjoyed each other! Friendships were made, conversations were had and lots of smiles were seen. Katie is a young up and coming singer-songwriter. She is from Alaska originally and like me is new to Austin. Her voice is ethereal and her sweet nature can be heard in her words. The fireman's 4 beer is a local favorite and the rain barely slowed us down!

Sunday after a great service, a group of us from church had lunch and then went to cheer on a fellow church member who was completing the ridiculous bike race from Houston to Austin. It's a 2 day event and we were able to watch her cross the finish line!! I snapped this photo of a group of bikes along with some of their crew. It was an exciting time, with tents of bicyclists getting massages, families laughing and everyone just enjoying another Austin day.

Easter Weekend

Friday

After getting off work early to get my car back (hooray!), I scored on a parking spot downtown and hung out at Starbucks. I perused online and chatted with the friendly staff until my friend Amy came to pick me up. We headed over to Walton's for some grub, which is always a good time. We got done just in time to get into Momo's, where we were meeting our other friend Sarah to listen to a fun swing band. The place has a rooftop patio, which made me happy! We listened to the band and watched some people dancing. Amy wasn't feeling great, so we left a bit early, but I still didn't get home until after midnight!

Saturday

Sleeping in is really an awesome ability. I got sleep, lounged around, made brownie cookies for my date later that night and then went to the mall with my roomie, Michelle. We shopped for needed items and each got what we went there for, which makes for an excellent shopping day! The weather was gorgeous, so we decided to lay out (each in our new tops) as soon as we got home. I am now a professional lay-er-out-er, so I stayed out for over an hour. The breeze was just right and the sounds of the day were relaxing.




I finally decided I should head inside and get ready for my date, which I did. As soon as he was done with his fun work day, we met up downtown and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D!!! What a movie! I never liked the first Alice and was prepared to be a bit bored (save Johnny Depp, whom I adore). On the contrary, I would even have enjoyed it without Johnny (although I do prefer it WITH him!!!). The plot is different and way more interesting than the first movie and the visuals are perfectly Tim Burton. Johnny's random scottish accent is pretty fantastic too!

When the movie was over we tried to have Wahoo's, which apparently closes at 10 on a saturday night. LAME. We went to Opal Divine's instead...which is also pretty fun. I had a Pecan Porter and pulled port sliders. Yum. After that we walked around downtown and tried not to get stepped on by the huge crowds in town for the Austin Relay.

All in all, a pretty great evening.

Sunday

EASTER!! I awoke early and headed to church to help the children's ministry set up the crafts. We correctly anticipated a larger attendance for this particular Sunday. There was standing room only in our cool church venue of the Highball (a bowling alley/fun zone type place) and everyone was having a great time. Jonathan's sermon was about the difference between Jesus' death on the cross and the death of all Jewish martyrs that were crucified. Namely that Jesus is the only to have risen!

After helping to tear down, a group of us went to one of the families' homes to have a potluck and enjoy each others' company. We ate and laughed and drank and held babies and shared stories and swapped info and just really had a great day together. The sun kept peeking out at us, but the rain stopped just in time for us to set everything up outside AND allow the kids to play out back (thank God). The food was yummy, the company was fun and the weather was warm. A pretty awesome afternoon!

Easter evening was 4 1/2 hours of doing my taxes. No comment.

Salvation Point 5

The final point of the argument is about who remains saved. Preservation of the saints to a Calvinist is guaranteed. For an Arminian, because you must choose Christ of your own accord in order to be saved, you must remain choosing him until your death in order to remain one of the saved.

One of the main questions amongst our group was this: if Calvins are correct, then how are there people who are saved (or claim to be) and then live really sinful lives, appearing to have "fallen from grace"? The Calvin would answer that one of two things has occurred. Either the person was never saved to begin with or they are indeed saved and will come back to Christ after going through whatever turmoil they got themselves into. If you are one of the chosen people, you will eventually come back to Christ before your death. It may be at the last breathe, but the chosen are never lost.

I would say after these weeks I have realized I pull more to the Calvinistic perspective. I do believe (as does my pastor) that we have free will when it comes to our lives and decisions we make; but I believe that when it comes to salvation there is no way to "earn" it. For the most part, we are all God's chosen people...we are human and will sin often, but that is what humans do. We can see proof of our salvation when the desire to follow Jesus' lead is stronger than our desire to sin. Sin will still win sometimes, but if we feel the pull in our hearts to do better then eventually we will!

I have really loved each of the classes I got to take. The last class, my pastor came in to do a Q&A session and while naturally it wasn't long enough, he was able to clear up several questions. I really got to see why I love going to this church so much and the real love of all people that he has. It is such a refreshing feeling to get to belong to a church family AND have all of my beliefs supported. THAT, to me, is a true Christian. Christ loved all. So should we.

SXSW 2010

For those of you who aren't aware (as I wasn't until my decision to move to Austin), SXSW stands for South by South West. It is a week long music and interactive media festival that shuts down traffic in downtown Austin and brings in hundreds of bands and entertainers from all over the world. There are the big names, like this years' Muse, Stone Temple Pilots, Cheap Trick, etc whom all get to throw a full on concert at one of the cities massive venues. The rest of the bands get a half hour each and rotate all day long for the length of the festival. Most bands will play 3 or 4 different venues during their stay at what locals call "South by". So last night my roommate Michelle and I headed out into the craziness...these are our stories.

Driving into downtown was easier than expected as we meandered down Guadalupe and decided to grab a parking spot at a lot fairly close to everything. We parked, made sure to have everything we needed and walked first to a bar called The Ginger Man. I had heard a lot about it so wanted to check it out, plus it served food and we were both starving. In the standing room only bar, we got to watch a band from Spain while eating empanadas and drinking good beer. Great start to the night!

From there we wandered down 4th street and decided to keep moving as there weren't many people around that area yet. We ended up on 6th, which is the main thoroughfaire in Austin and popped in and out of several bars to listen to various bands. We listened to one purely because the drummer was HOT and ended up being invited to their next performance that night.


Michelle wanted to see the situation with Muse, so we headed over to the venue and I got a few pics of all the people waiting to get a glimpse of them as well as pics of their tour bus. No tickets were to be had, which suited me fine since I could honestly chew my arm off if forced to listen to even one of their songs.

The time went by quickly and we discovered it was time to walk over the bridge to see Cheap Trick! We made our way through the crowds and I got a free hug and then we watched the bats flying out from under the bridge. The venue for Cheap Trick is outdoors, so we got a bad shave ice and positioned ourselves as close as non-ticketed people could get. Cheap Trick was probably a pretty great band in their day...but one song in and Michelle and I were done. They played their big hit "I want you to want me" only three songs in, while I was in a massive line for the port-o-potties, so we met up with our friends and left.

First we walked to a stage in south congress at the advice of a friends' date which turned out to be a waste of time. Michelle and I grabbed a pedicab so we could try and see the band that invited us to their later performance, but when we got there they were behind schedule and I didn't want to miss HoneyHoney. We walked along 6th street again and Michelle had to run back to grab another friend so I wandered along laughing at the people and made my way to The Tap Room at Six. It's a lounge within another lounge...and the people were at fire capacity when I arrived...they looked like sardines.

While waiting outside, I ended up getting to chat with Ben, one of the singers of the band HoneyHoney and figured I couldn't get in since I didn't have one of the cities SXSW badges. After the band began setting up, the parents of another band member began chatting with me and ended up bringing me in with them!! So I got great pics of HoneyHoney and rocked out with all the other fans. I had seen them in Florida two years ago when they along with Matt Nathanson opened for Lifehouse. What I love is they are from LA, I am from LA, I have seen them twice, but never once in LA. That's rad, right?

With my purpose for the evening out of the way, I headed up to dance with Michelle and her friends at the bigger lounge, but they were ready to go. We walked loudly to Cheers and had shots and beers. We were meeting up with other friends of friends and I chatted with a bunch of them while Michelle and her friends danced. We ended up walking to Katz, an Austin institution that serves food 24/7. We shared bagel sandwiches, french fries, fried pickles, eggs benedict and 1lb turtle cheesecake. That's normal, right??


All in all, the evening had been a blast and a total success on seeing who I went to see! The energy of Austin was alive and well throughout the night and the characters we got to experience were nothing short of Venice Beach quality. Good times!

Lady Antebellum at Rodeo Austin

What a night!! Amy and I decided to meet at my work so that we could take one car. We headed out at just before 6, knowing we had plenty of time for the 8:45 concert time on our tickets. We decided on Suzi's Chinese food and I ended up getting sushi, which always makes me happy. The desserts were lacking, so we decided to head to the Rodeo to try and find something there. As we approached the fairgrounds, we saw the line for the entrance we needed to take and just started laughing. It was basically an entire block long...which in Texas is FAR.

After over 40 minutes, literally, we finally got to the front and paid, but then had to wait behind cars in order to actually turn into the parking lot. So much for spare time! We made it into the fairgrounds no problem and Amy saw some old students of hers as we walked around trying to find dessert. Everything seemed rediculously overpriced, so we decided to go wait in line to get in, even though we still had about a half hour. Good plan. This line was even longer than the parking and was about 6 people wide as well. We made our way to the back and had a smoker in front of us, a group of teens behind us and later a group of scandalously-clad college aged girls who tried to cut the line once it started moving.

We ultimately made it into the arena and were quite literally standing on the dirt that the rodeo had just taken place on. We positioned ourselves next to the stage and the concert began pretty quickly. As a new country fan and even newer Lady A fan, I hadn't heard more than a handful of their songs before, but each of them is so cute and talented it didn't matter. I had a great time and had fun taking photos and videos of the night. A few are here, but check out my facebook and you can see more!

Salvation Point 4

My goodness does time fly. This week we discussed resistible vs. irresistible grace. This is to say that while both sides believe that God asks all people to come to Him, one side believes that He can be resisted based on our will while the other believes that if we are to be saved, we will also feel an internal call which we will neither be able to nor desire to resist.

Confused yet? Good! Confusing = questions = thought. Thought is good. After reading as much as we had time to on this matter, I came to the personal conclusion that grace is irresistible. This is based not just on scripture (as if that's not enough), but also on my own experiences.

The day that I visited Bethlehem and really felt the presence of Jesus with me where He was born, something shifted in me. It is not something I could have taken or left, not something I was offered and not something I had any control over. From that moment everything about my feelings and decisions has changed. I immediately went back on board our cruise ship and was able to read and understand parts of the bible that had for my whole life sounded like gibberish. I felt intensely and personally connected to Jesus. And I felt an even stronger presence of the Spirit with me every moment. I always felt I was never alone, but this is a much more intense feeling. At no time have I ever even considered whether this is something I could say, "Um, no thank you" to. It's a feeling, an energy, a gift. It happened to me, through no will, request or acceptance on my part.

I do believe that others experiences could be different than my own. I believe God shows Himself to us in the way in which we will recognize Him. For me, and my understanding, His grace given to me was irresistible. And much appreciated!