Weekdays, Weeknights, Weekends

My dad, two of my brothers, one of my sisters and I went on a boat ride with my dad's coworkers! We got to see several sites in DC  from a water perspective! :) 

Joshua chillin out, maxin, relaxin all cool... :) (catch the reference? hehe)

Washington Monument

The Memorial Bridge. I've driven over it before, but it was only while riding under it in a boat that I realized that the bridge is literally a memorial!

The Kennedy Center. Lots of good times here with the Favorite.

Hanging out, enjoying the ride. Little Mister got to drive the boat for a little while. He was really enjoying that :) 

Daddy caught the "boat fever" :) 

We were over by the airport so we saw and heard lots of planes overhead.

Erin's just enjoying the ride. :)

The former Presidential yacht, the Sequoia. Pretty snazzy, eh?

Little Mister (#33) is playing freshman football at his high school! He's on offense, taking a break at his first scrimmage.

His school was the visiting team, and they definitely won, woohoo!

Helping a fellow teammate off the field.

Kinda dark, but I went to Africa Day at a friend's church. There were South African's there too, which made me happy :) It was nice to see everyone all dressed up in their country's cultural garb and hear the music and eat the food... :)

Went out to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant with a friend and fellow student from Howard U! We've been friends since freshman year. It's crazy how much time has flown by!

Yeah, we pretty much destroyed every last bite....except for what I put in my take out box, lol.

Mango juice, yummm.

I love nights out, especially when they involve friends and/or family, and food :) 

Can't Keep My Eyes Off of You...

Ever heard the song "You and Me" by Lifehouse? (The title's a line from the song, fyi!) The song is about five years old, but ever since the first time I heard it (and I don't remember when that was!), I was in love with it. Just the sound, and the lyrics, all of it! There's a part of the song that really stands out to me, and it goes like this:

"What day is it, and in what month? The clock never seemed so alive..."

Today when I heard the song (on Cold Case of all places!), I couldn't remember the lyrics as clearly since I hadn't heard it in a while, so off to google I went. I read that line and just started thinking, Wow! I can totally feel what this song is saying here. I mean, it's already MARCH! Over a week into March at that. Just yesterday I was writing out my goals for 2010! "The clock never seemed so alive.." So true! 

I can totally relate this song to other areas of the world and life in general too. I think about the earthquake in Haiti, then Chile, then the landslides in Uganda, the killings in Nigeria, then add to that all of the other things that daily plague nations all over the world: starvation, AIDS, ethnic cleansing, persecution, and so much more; with all of these things occurring, I just can't help but think of the Bible. (Yes, it is possible for a secular song to make me think about the Word! lol)

When I read Matthew 24:3-9, and then look at all of the stuff going on in the world today, I realize that all of these tribulations are only the beginning, and Jesus' return is imminent! Time is passing by soo quickly (see the correlation to "the clock never seemed so alive" now?), and I want to make the most of every moment that the Lord is giving me, making sure that He is honored from the time I wake up in the morning 'til I lay my head on the pillow to sleep at night (well....actually that's usually the morning too since I'm semi-nocturnal hehe). James reminds us in the Bible to always keep our lives in a right perspective:

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 

Well, if I'm only gonna be on this earth for a short period of time, I want to make the most of it, and the best way to do that is to live my temporal life fully surrendered to the One with whom I'll be spending my entire eternal life! I can't keep my eyes off of You, Jesus!