This past month Aaron joined the praise team at our church. On most Sunday mornings he gets to help lead the congregation in praising Christ. I am so proud to be the wife of a man who is honoring God with the gifts he has been given! It also reminds us of how thankful we are to be settled in one place so that we can feel wholly committed in our service, even for the future.
On Wednesday nights after choir practice, the praise teams practices around the piano with the band and I stick around to listen. It's an awesome worship hour. Aaron is on the far right. The picture is not great...I had to take it quickly and from the back so that I wouldn't embarrass him. :)

On Friday night we drove to Raleigh to visit Travis and Emily and go with them to the State/Clemson game. We had a fun time even though State lost. The stadium was packed in the beginning, but this picture was taken in the 4th quarter when the team was losing. Pretty sad.
Travis and Emily are committed fans. They have lifetime rights to these seats and they get season tickets every year. They haven't missed a home game in about 4 years!

As far as man-made things, the stadium was very impressive. It was a lot different (better) than when we had been 3 years ago.
The red looks so good to us! It's a good break from maroon and orange.Travis and Emily so graciously hosted us in their home. We loved her chocolate chip cookies and catching up with them.

We are driving to NC tonight...gotta see a Wolfpack football game this season! We haven't been to one since the fall of 2004.They are playing Clemson tomorrow. It will be fun to see how the stadium has changed. The best part about it is that we will be staying with Travis and Emily! Pictures to come soon...

Last night we loved having Sireesha to our house for dinner. She is from Hyderabad in the southern part of India, and she is here for 2 months for her work with GE. We met her last weekend at church. She is a believer! She has an amazing testimony, which she shared with us last night, and conversation with her is a huge encouragement. She does not take the Gospel lightly. She found West Salem (our church) through a search on the Internet. Very God-ordained, we believe! She is living very close to us in an extended stay hotel. We hope to see her much more in the next 6 weeks.

Bride is 2nd from the right.

On Sunday we volunteered to host Afterglow at our house. This is for the youth group at our church...after their teaching and worship, they usually go to someone's house for food and conversation. We had around 30 people in our house! We were glad to do it, although next time we will have more food (we served 100 chicken wings, a huge bowl of fruit, veggies, chips, 3 2 liter drinks, and we ran out after about 30 minutes!). When we saw we were running low on food, Aaron lit the charcoal and he (I mean, these 6th graders) grilled sausages for us.

Aaron planted this tree in our front yard a few weeks ago. He dug it up from his dad's land in Spring Hope. It has survived the heat and drought, and we look forward to seeing it grow with our family in the coming years.

I teach 3 out of these 4 kids. Maybe I will have Braulio, the 4th one, in my class in 5 years!

This week I have recovered an old CD friend...Indelible Grace. I have two of their CDs, and they have been the only things playing in my car the last few days. If you haven't heard their music, you have to go to their website and order some.

From the website: "Our hope is to help the church recover the tradition of putting old hymns to new music for each generation, and to enrich our worship with a huge view of God and His indelible grace."

an NC State bandana for Bow :). Kind of silly...don't know how long it will last.

We have had a very memorable weekend. Hope you have, too! Here's the play-by-play:

Friday afternoon we drove to Greensboro and checked in to our hotel, prettied ourselves up, and went to downtown for a nice dinner at Liberty Oak (thanks for the recommendation, Jonathan and Joy!). After dinner we went to see one of Aaron's favorite bands, UPhonik. Aaron could explain the kind of music better than I can, but I've heard him call it "Indie rock n' roll". Their website is here. It was an awesome night of live music. We highly recommend that you download their song, Help Me Out. It's great! We're sure it will make them really famous.

Then on Saturday morning we drove to Virginia Beach, VA for the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon. We went to the Expo on Saturday evening to get our bib #s and goodie bags, and then went to Olive Garden to load up on carbs. We got up at 4 am on Sunday to be at the start line by 5:30. The race started at 7:00. We ran separately, but the best part about that was that it kept me motivated to get to the finish line to see Aaron! It was a fun race. They had rock bands every mile along the way, and high school cheerleading squads were everywhere cheering us on with the general public. There were over 17,000 runners and everyone was spirited. It was a high energy morning, which made the race a little easier, but the last 3 miles were really difficult (I speak for myself only). It was a good experience for me to praise God in, though. I was very mindful of the health that He has given me and the ability to train and discipline (since March) my body for a purpose. Glory be to the Creator of these dwellings (bodies) in which He lives by His Spirit! Even though I am having trouble walking today, I am very glad I did it and I hope to do it again next year, or the next! Hope we have more participation :)At the Expo on Saturday. Lots of vendors, but we only stayed long enough to check-in and buy some t-shirts.Early morning before the race. The weather was perfect for it- not too hot and not too cold, with a great breeze.

So many people! There was a concert that night, but we opted to go out on a dinner/movie date near our hotel instead.

Aaron and I are still in Virginia Beach, VA tonight, so I don't have the pictures downloaded. We wanted to share our results, though! 13.1!

4487 Aaron Fernandez Salem VA 25 M 2:04:39 5292 of 17,009

9777 Lisa Fernandez Salem VA 24 F 2:14:34 7777 of 17,009