{the blog is moving}

This blog has moved to kelliflores.com. You can click on the logo to the left, and it will take you right to it. Hope you enjoy!

{and wonders of His love}

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

{the patience and perspective}

As holidays go, I know that the time for thanks has passed and most have moved on to anticipating Christmas' arrival... myself very much included. But I don't feel like I'm yet done with the "thanks" portion of the holiday season, and tonight, I felt like sharing why that is.

I have, for many many years... for at least a decade... been a Nichole Nordeman fan. I love her simple and beautiful voice and have loved the evolution of her music, but moreso than anything else, I love that she is, in my eyes, a modern day poet. And I love poetry. The words that she sets to music have always been true and real and thought-evoking. Tonight, I revisited an old song of hers called "Take Me as I Am". The words tell a simple story of God's unconditional acceptance of our pitiful and constant state of unworthiness. And in one verse, she laments the fact that she does not have "the patience and perspective of a man like Job". I can remember listening to those words years ago and thinking, why in the world would anyone ever want to experience what Job did?

But I heard those words again tonight, and I was astounded at how differently they tugged at my heartstrings. They hit me directly in my gut, because for the first time, I understood them from a place of experience. And don't take this to mean that I feel in any way that I've gone through what Job did... I certainly have not. But I have experienced difficult times. I have been through times of deep sadness, times of questioning God's plan, times of doubt, seemingly endless seasons of waiting and defiant moments of shaking my fist at God crying "it isn't fair". But each of those periods of my life, whether I deserved to or not, ended with seeing God's faithfulness abundantly in my life.

From time to time the question is posed, if you could go back in life, what would you do differently? And everyone always says "nothing", and I suppose for the most part, that is true. I can of course pinpoint a few mistakes that I would definitely work to avoid if I had another go-round, but when it comes to the difficult seasons of life, I would take them all over again. Because those are the seasons that have allowed me to grow and that have afforded me the opportunity to see His love, His forgiveness, His mercy and His unfaltering faithfulness to His promises in the realest of ways.

So tonight I am thankful for even a small part of the patience and perspective of a man like Job.

{we're bona fide coloradans now}

Why are we NOW officially Coloradans, you might ask? Because the first snow has come and gone, and we weathered it like pros... that's why. Granted, it wasn't exactly a winter wonderland around here. But I'd venture to say we got an inch or more, and even more importantly... I drove... in my car... WHILE it snowed, and lived to tell the tale. I'll update when we get a heavier snow and let you know how that goes. But for now... victory.

We have been surprised by how much we like Denver. Of course we figured we would like it, but I don't know that we anticipated how quickly and easily we would settle into life in what is proving to be a fun, laid back and overall great city. We live in a great area of town where we're close to everything that you want to be close to, but still a short drive to some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen in real life. It's just lovely here.

Maurice is doing great in school, though I will admit that grad school is keeping him a smidge busier than I would have hoped. I can remember I time in recent history when the only time I saw him for 3 days was when he was asleep. I would wake up and head to work before he was up, and by the time I got home, he was already working hard in the office and I would fall asleep hours before he was done. I guess such is the lot in life for the wife of an architect. To be fair, I was warned well in advance of the long hours they put in, and one of Maurice's most admirable qualities is his talent and hard-working attitude, so who can complain.

I got a great job working at a public relations firm in downtown Denver, and am loving it so far. As most of you know, jobs were one of the things that had us a little nervous in this whole moving situation, but just as I suspected He would... God abundantly showed His faithfulness to His promises to us. I am loving my job, it's keeping me working hard, and I have great coworkers that I'm forming fast friendships with. I am daily aware of how blessed I am to have a job.

And how time has flown... Thanksgiving is right around corner! A small part of my excitement is knowing the turkey time is coming, another small part is knowing that Christmas is following close behind, but MOST of my excitement is because we have family coming to visit us. Ashlie and Marty will be spending the whole week of Thanksgiving here with us, and Stefanie and Adam and the kids will also be up that week to visit both us and Adam's family here in Denver. We are so excited to get to spend time with all of them, and to play with Sofia and Judah. AND... I get to cook my first Thanksgiving meal, and I'm honestly pretty pumped about it. It finally gives me a reason to use some of our fancy wedding gifts that I've looked so longingly at for the past year or so :)

So that pretty effectively brings us up to date! And even though surviving the first truly cold and snowy days may make us Coloradans... we will always be Texans first and foremost.

{... and add to that list}

So it would appear that I left someone off the list yesterday, who has something truly exciting in their future. My photographer extraordinaire friend, Tom Campbell, is going to have some of his photos featured on the October 10th episode of "Extreme Home Makeover". Normally, I would find news like this to be pretty surprising, but such is not the case with Tom. He's had the opportunity to photograph more than a few high-profile figures in recent years, and is an outstanding sports photog, so it was only a matter of time before the world took notice! So check him out on "EHM", and check out his photography at www.thomasandpenelope.com, and at www.thomasgcampbell.com. My links aren't working, just fyi... so be a dear, and copy and paste.

{i'm about to shamelessly plug my friends and family}

So now you've been warned.

It seems that there's been some exciting developments in the lives of some friends and family, and I'm just plain too excited to not share them all with you.

My cousin Hannah is one of those people so artistically inclined that you want to roll your eyes, but you just like her too darn much. Her scrapbooking days opened the door for her to foray into making all sorts of greeting cards. How would I describe these cards? Cute, chic, fun, unique, inventive, trendy.... take your pick. I love them, and I wouldn't be writing about them if I didn't know you would love them too. For those of you who may be in the Ft. Worth area, her cards are being sold at a boutique in Burleson called Abernathie and Fritz. The rest of us non-forthworthians can find them online at www.bananahannah.com.

Kristen Minor. You've heard about her before and odds are you'll be hearing about her again sometime in the future. We've all seen those Dos Equis commercials talking about the most interesting man in the world... well Kristen is easily in the running for the most interesting woman in the world. Last year, Kristen and her husband Matt took a trip across North America in their sidecar-toting motorcycle. Their journey roused so much interest that it was covered in the San Antonio news. They began an appropriately titled blog that chronicled their journey at www.bugsonmyface.com. Their passion for photography has now turned them down the underwater photography route, and being the fearless adventurers that they are, what did they do? Move to Bonaire, of course. They've now begun documenting their new home and photography on the same blog, and believe me when I say, it is a worth-while read. I've checked in and caught up on their life a few times since they left, and when I look at the photos they've taken, the whole room just gets sort of quiet. In my head, I can hear the enya-esque music from the underwater exhibit at seaworld. Truth be told, every time I read their blog, I'm reminded how indescribable God's creation is. I'm proud to call Kristen my friend.

And in news of friends of long ago... this just had to be shared. Before we left San Antonio, I was driving down the highway on my way to work one day and had my radio on KLove. A song came on that I hadn't heard before, but I liked it. I might have even said out loud, "I like this song." The DJ announced afterwards that the song was "My Help Comes From the Lord" by a band called The Museum led by Ben Richter. You can imagine my surprise at hearing this, since I went to school with Ben Richter back in my Castle Hills days. We hadn't kept up all that well, but I was so proud that an old friend of mine was using his talent for God, and to see the success that they were having. They have an album out that you can purchase on itunes, and as a closet music snob... I would recommend you give it a listen. AND... they had the opportunity this past Sunday to sing the National Anthem at the Kansas City Chiefs game. You can't tell me that's not cool. You can watch said performance at www.youtube.com/themuseummusic. Ben Richter and I sat together in world history in 10th grade... and I'm not saying I inspired his musical creativity, but I probably did. You're welcome Ben Richter.

So that's my exciting news to share in with my friends and family. I'm proud to know such talented people.

{why i love denver so far}

- I remember what August feels like in Texas. Today in Denver... high of 83 degrees.

- 3 Crate and Barrel locations to choose from.

- 4 parks within 10 minutes of where we live.

- Everyone's in great shape. It's inspiring.

- If the Rockies hit 7 or more runs in a game... you can get 4 tacos for a dollar the next day at Taco Bell.

- The visibility of mountains from anyplace in the city.

- Fat Sully's Pizza (see last post).

- The availability of hiking locations to work off all the pizza.

- Minimum speed limits signs.

- The fact that even though I already don't like the mayor, I can still make fun of the fact that his last name is Hickenlooper.

- The easy-to-navigate layout of the city.

- Farmers Markets.

- The fact that I know we've only begun to discover Denver.