my two cents...

Ok, since President Obama has so kindly thrown gay marriage back into the political spotlight, I thought I would weigh in on the issue. I start by saying that the opinions expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone.; they are not the thoughts or opinions of my husband, my family, my church or my political party- just me.

I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe he is my Savior and Redeemer. I believe he is the Son of God.  This does not mean that I hate people that don't believe in Jesus Christ. There are a lot of people in this world who don't believe in Him- and I don't wish them any ill, I am not scared of them, I don't think they need to be sent away to live on island with all other non-believers- they simply believe differently than I do. And quiet frankly, that's their right! and I love that! Freedom to believe and worship however we choose is one of the most beautiful benefits of living in America! So, if a piece of legislation were to roll through- that would proclaim officially that in the United States, Jesus Christ is forever to be recognized as the Savior of mankind would I vote for it? Absolutely not. Yes, I believe in Christ with all my heart- however, the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States grants us that great and beautiful privilege to practice any religion we want. Who am I to vote for a piece of legislation that would take that right away from someone? Who am I to say that Buddhists, Muslims, Jewish, Atheists, etc. do not get to enjoy the same religious freedom that I do? Denying someone their constitutional rights, is unamerican.

Now on to the topic of homosexuality. Due to my personal beliefs and the teachings of the church in which I grew up, I believe homosexuality to be a sin. It's not an act that I believe is acceptable in the eye's of God, no matter how common place it has become in society. Premarital sex, drug and alcohol consumption, and pornography are also widely accepted nowadays, I however believe these things to be wrong also. However, my views on these topics aren't nearly a scrutinized as my view on homosexuality. Just because I choose not support gay marriage doesn't mean that I hate the gays. It doesn't mean that I think they don't deserve to be able to spend their lives with someone they love. It doesn't mean that I am "homophobic" or that I think they are icky. I don't think they all have aids, I don't think they should be cast out, I don't think homosexuality is a disease or that it can be electrified out of someone.  It doesn't mean that I think I am better than anyone or that I pass judgment on them in anyway. Another thing I was taught in church "Judge not lest ye be judged-" and believe me- I have been no saint in my life time. The last thing I need is anyone judging the choices I have made- I have plenty of sins of my own, I don't need to worry about what other people are doing in their personal lives. And it certainly doesn't mean that I condone any mistreatment, bullying, or violence towards gays. For me, personally, what the issue of gay marriage boils down to is MY freedom of religion.

Who are you to tell me what I can and can't believe? Who are you to tell me that my beliefs are right or wrong? Who are you to snatch my constitutional rights out from under my feet and criticize me exercising my freedom of religion? My RELIGION believes homosexuality to be wrong. If legislation passes to legalize gay marriage- that puts my religion and many other religions in a pretty awkward place if you ask me. It is going to force churches that believe homosexuality to be a sin to not only recognize, but also perform gay marriages. Freedom of religion is a right guaranteed in the constitution-- the document doesn't say that I am free to worship how I please until my beliefs seem unfair or inconvenient to other Americans.

Like I said earlier, I am not saying that gays don't deserve to be able to spend their lives with someone they love. I have been in love, heck! I am in love in right now, and I have had the lovely opportunity to get married to the man I love. As I also mentioned before- it's not MY place to judge who you choose to love. I don't have to agree with it- and I will tell you straight out, right now, I do not agree with homosexuality, but I certainly won't judge you for it. There are plenty of straight relationships that I don't agree with either, but it's not my place to judge them either. It is naive to think that voting against gay marriage is going to keep gays from forming long term committed relationships. That being said, I don't think that gays should be kept from having civil unions and as far as government is concerned, I think civil unions should be afforded the same rights and "benefits" as marriages. I will still say 100% though that I am against gay "marriage" because of the religious implications associated with the term marriage and I will continue to vote against it. I am not trying to invalidate homosexual relationships- they are people, they are children of God, they have feelings too, and I believe they deserve just as much happiness, respect, and dignity as anyone else in this world. My stand is not against homosexuals, it is for MY religious beliefs and freedoms. I believe that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children- and that's my choice. I am not trying to convince anyone to agree with me- I am just stating my thoughts on the matter. All I ask is to let me believe how and what I want and do not vilify me for it.  You are free to believe and vote however you like, and I'll do the same.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

A lot has changed these past few weeks in the lives of Tarin & Nathan! So here's a little update on what has been going on.

#1- We are a one car family! Sorry, no picture for this one. We sold Nathan's Focus and are down to only the Corolla. We are taking the money we made from selling Nathan's car, plus the money we will now be saving from his car payment, gas, and insurance- and throwing it all at getting the Toyota paid off. Once that's all squared away, we are going to look into getting a truck for the business. So for now, Nathan has the car during the day and I get some daily bonus exercise by walking or riding my bike to work. Fun times!

#2- We finally did something to our front yard! It's gone from dead grass, dirt, weeds, and cat poop to this:

We laid sod...

...planted a tree! (which we picked out together at our local nursery...)

...planted a few shrubs...

...and flowers! I've been telling Nathan since we moved in that I wanted purple flowers in front of our house. So we've got these now- PLUS in the spring next year the tree we bought will be blossoming some beautiful purple flowers too!

#3 After muh deliberation and family text message poll, we decided to grow our family by one more... Yup! We got another puppy!!

Meet Duke.

It took us over a week to name the poor dog. Nathan and I couldn't agree on a name- so he was just called "little guy" for a while.

He has been quite the adventure too. We've experienced many new things with Duke that we never have before with the other two. For example, once we got Duke home, we discovered he had ticks. 8 ticks to be exact. And he shared them with the other dogs. So I learned how to remove ticks and had the privilege of giving all three of them tick baths. NOT so fun.

Also- Duke has a lot of fun puppy energy and PEES when he gets really excited. Yeah, the vet says he'll grow out of that and hopefully he does so sooner rather than later.

The people we bought him from said he was half lab half rottie- but the vet says he doesn't detect any rottie in him at all. Our vet suspects that he is a lab/border collie mix. Whatever he is- he's adorable, and we love him.

Another thing that we learned is that Dave gets really jealous of the new little one. After all, he did used to be the baby. I have been doing my best to give them all equal alone time and loves and cuddles- so since we took pictures of Duke we took some pictures of "Little Dave" and Buster- since I haven't blogged about them in a while either:

Here's a pic of all 3 of our boys all together! Maybe one day we'll get brave enough to try and get Nathan and I in the picture too.

And we'll wrap this blog up with pictures of all our puppies playing the front yard, enjoying our new grass!

girls only road trip! part 3

Alrighty, so here is the final chapter in our California adventures- Disney! We didn't have time and couldn't afford to take the girls to Disneyland but I just felt that their first trip to Cali just wouldn't be complete without at least a little Disney magic!

On Sunday night we headed to downtown Disney for dinner and to see the Disneyland fireworks.

While we at Downtown Disney- we introduced the girls to pin trading! They LOVED it. There aren't as many employees with pins Downtown as in the parks, but we found a few. One of them was busy when we came up to trade with him, but the girls waited patiently for a chance to look at his lanyard- which really paid off! Apparently, Mickey wasn't far away and saw how grown up and patient the girls were being, so he told the guy in his "special Disney ear piece" to let the girls take any pin they wanted without having to trade one of theirs! Lucky girls!


The girls had a great time, but it had been a loooooong weekend for them and they crashed hardcore on the way back to the hotel. Meoldy woke up about 5 minutes before we got there, screaming and crying because she needed to go potty but her brain was so tired that she couldn't make the words come out of her mouth. :( I felt so bad for her! Both girls slept super hard that night- which was good because the next morning we headed to Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel for a character breakfast!!

We immediately spotted a photo op in the lobby, with the goofy statue!

We got there a little bit early, so we popped into one of the souvenir shops, where Jessica bought Mel and Beth some Minnie Mouse ears! (You know a Disney experience isn't complete without ears!)

What else was awesome about the Disney portion of our trip? We met up with Aunt Amy and Aunt Lara!

They are so awesome! They were in Cali for Disneyland and were nice enough to bring us out some delightful Dole Pineapple Whip on Sunday night after fireworks and meet us for breakfast on Monday morning!

After what seemed like forever, it was finally our turn! The first thing they do is take you in to meet Mickey and get a family picture taken! This was the moment of truth- we weren't really sure how Melody was going to react to the characters... she doesn't have a very good track record with people in costume- including Santa- but she did great! Both girls loved it from the get-go!

Then it was time for breakfast!

The girls loved the bendy straws that came with their orange juice

And they gobbled up the kid friendly food...

... like the waffles shaped like Mickey! How cool is that?!

The buffet had something for absolutely everyone. Seriously, they had fruit, veggies, egg scrambles, potatoes, breakfast pizza, pastries, cereal, bagels, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles-- any breakfast food you could think of was there- and it was pretty delicious too!

Here's a pic of one of my plates- YUM!

All the characters were on the other side of the restaurant when we first sat down, which was kinda good because it gave us a chance to eat a little bit.

The first character that made it our way was Minnie Mouse!

Then, a little while later Daisy Duck came along!

TWO people at our table had birthdays within a couple weeks of a trip- Aunt Amy and Jessica both got special birthday pins, were serenaded a Disney style birthday song, and got a yummy Mickey shaped birthday cake!

The girls started getting a little impatient for the next character to come around, so we made another trip up front to see Mickey. He gave them a big hug and swayed with them to the music while I took their picture.

After that Melody and I took some silly pictures while we waited for Auntie Tarin's most favorite character...

....STITCH!

Stitch was a little stinker! He liked to cover people's faces to make it harder to take pictures of them.

Silly Stitch!

Stitch is the only character that I wanted pictures with. He is my all time fave good guy!

He tried covering my face too...

but I got a good one with him!

But then he started picking my nose! And then he ate it! Ewwwwww!
That really made the girls laugh though.

Pluto was the next character to visit us- and that was Aunt Amy's favorite! When they first announced that he was coming up she was super excited- so of course we had to stay for her to get a pic!

We all had a lot of fun- Thanks Nana and Grandpa for providing the cash for this super memorable breakfast. It was a blast for every single person there.

Before we hit the road and headed back to AZ, Melody and Bethany wanted one more pic with Goofy.



Notice Mel's little foot pop? Amy thought it was so cute, she couldn't resist getting her picture taken that way too!