Bishop Bonding

Brandon, Jill, Joshua and Aby came to visit last week to celebrate Ryan’s birthday. They were here Wednesday night through Saturday night.

As always, our time was filled with games, laughing, playing with the kids and just making precious memories.

On Thursday, we visited Lifeway and Archiver’s. Archiver’s is this wonderful scrapbooking store. They don’t have a location in Nashville yet, so Jill loved getting fun scrapbook supplies while she was here.

That night we made dinner and ate some of the Triple Decker Chocolate and Raspberry cake I made for Ryan’s birthday. (It wasn’t a week old—I waited to make Ryan’s birthday cake until that day since we were in Chicago on his actual birthday.)

Jill and I drove to the Gap Clearance Center near Cincinnati on Friday. For those of you who don’t know, the Gap Clearance Center is an amazing place. It’s where they send all the clothes that are leftover at Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic. Stuff is marked down wicked cheap. I spent $21 and got a huge bag full of clothes. Scarves and hats for $0.25, shirts for $1.99. It’s great! I am one of those people who doesn’t like to buy anything unless it’s on sale and I’m getting a really good deal. This is totally my kind of store. The last time I went, I found cashmere sweaters for Ryan for $9.99!

It does require some patience, though. You may not find two shirts a like, so you have to do a lot of digging to find what you’re looking for. Anyway, it was fun, and Jill was equally excited about her good deals. Before we left to go home, we stopped at Chipotle to get lunch for ourselves and for the boys. Unfortunately, Louisville doesn’t have a Chipotle yet, so we savor it every time we can get it.

While we were shopping, the boys took Joshua, Aby and Wally to the park. Wally finally got to play with a toy he got for Christmas. It’s called a Chuckit or something like that. It’s this stick that picks up a tennis ball (so you don’t have to touch the slobbery ball) and throws it really far for the dog to fetch it. Ryan and Joshua also played on the playground together.

On Friday night we had a...umm...interesting experience at Uno Pizza. Our waiter was pretty rude and there were several hairs in our stuff. No wonder they received a B rating for sanitation. Nevertheless, we had a great time. We headed home and played Sequence, ASAP and Killer Uno.

I had to work on Saturday, but we all met for dinner after I got off. It was sad to see Brandon, Jill, Joshua and Aby leave to go home after dinner, but we’ve already made plans to see them next month. Thank you, Lord, for placing us closer to Brandon and Jill during this time. It is such a blessing to be able to cultivate our relationship with them on a regular basis.

My Sweet Husband

I just have to take a few minutes to dote on my husband. He's perfect!

Ryan is one of the most caring people you will ever meet. His heart for knowing others is incredible and unlike anyone I've ever known. Those of you who know Ryan have experienced the love he pours onto others. He genuinely wants to know people--their hearts, their experiences, their struggles.

He does such a good job taking care of me. One of the things lately that has made me fall deeper in love with Ryan is his attitude when I get home from work. When I walk in the door, he's typically busy fixing dinner. Ryan will kiss me and tell me to go upstairs and take a few minutes for myself. No one else may be able to appreciate this gesture, but at the end of an 11 hour work day, it's nice to change clothes and unwind right away. This is not to mention they fact that he's so sweet to try and have dinner ready for me right when I get home.

My husband has a wonderful sense of humor. He keeps me and everyone else laughing. We live in such a serious world full of responsibilities and stress, so I think laughter is one of the best things we can do for ourselves.


Ryan is such a godly man and has such a focus of discipleship and encouraging others. He is also brilliant and absolutely excels at everything he does, including seminary.

He is a servant and does whatever it takes to lighten my load, even when it means cleaning toilets. YUK!

It is said that most men stop romancing their wives once they get married. Well, Ryan is the exception to this rule. He is constantly thinking of ways to make me feel special. He is very thoughtful in planning weekend trips, birthday gifts, etc.

There is so much more I could say, but I will end this with a short prayer.

"Father, I praise your name for your love. That you would love me enough to send your only Son to die for my sins so that I might spend an eternity with you is beyond my comprehension. However, your love for me hasn't ended there. You created a man more perfect for me than I could ever possibly imagine. Ryan is my perfect complement, and I thank you for designing us for one another. Please continue to bless our marriage and our love so that it may glorify and honor you. In your precious and holy name I pray, amen."

Wally

Ryan and I have been thinking lately about how blessed we are to have our sweet dog. Wally is the perfect dog, and we recognize that we're spoiled with him.

Wally is a dog of many names. His Christian name is Steve Walter Bishop. However, he goes by Wally, Wally Bear, Bear and Osito, which means "Little bear" in spanish (we're training him to be bilingual).

A few things we love about our Bear:
1) He loves to lay on our bed with his head on a pillow just like we do. He loves it even more when he's able to do it in between me and Ryan. It's pretty cute with the three of us laying in bed resting.

2) He knows that "Night night" means it's time for him to get off the bed and go to sleep.

3) He rings a bell that hangs from the backdoor when he needs to go potty.

4) He absolutely loves kids--especially babies. He takes on a very nurturing role with babies (like Lady did in Lady and the Tramp). He gets very worried when they cry and loves to lay near them when they sleep. He doesn't care when kids pull on his ears or when they hit him or fall on him.

5) He doesn't run off when he's not on a leash.

6) He LOVES to cuddle.

7) He's gentle yet playful. He also knows when it's time to stop playing and just relax.

8) He's smart. Aside from knowing "night night", he also knows "no", "sit", "off", "down" (to lay down), "go potty", "stay" (We test this by making him sit and then putting a treat about a foot in front of him. He can't get his treat until we say, "Get it!"). And his latest trick is "shake", which is absolutely adorable.

Anyway, Wally is a huge part of our lives, and we're tremendously blessed to have him.

These are a few pictures of Wally as a puppy.

Celebrating in Chicago

For Ryan's birthday, I took him to Chicago to celebrate. It was about a five hour drive, so we left late morning on Saturday and got there early that night. I had gotten lots of suggestions from good friends about what we should do in Chicago and where we should eat.

We stayed at the Palmer House Hilton, which I booked on Priceline.com and got a wonderful deal. (There's a place on the website where you can enter where you want to stay, including where in the city, what you want to pay and whether you want a 2-4 star hotel. You enter the price you want to pay and it searches to see if any hotels will accept that price. No one accepted our initial price, but our next offer worked out.)

That night, we walked around the streets of Chicago (bundled up in our winterwear) and ate dinner at Giordano's, which is a restaurant famous for it's Chicago-style pizza. It was so good, and we were stuffed! After dinner, we walked back to our hotel, where we ordered dessert from room service and opened Ryan's presents. The streets were beautifully lit with white Christmas lights and we even saw an ice sculpture (you don't find those outside in Texas!)

On Sunday, we ate breakfast, and then walked down the Magnificent Mile (a long strip of stores, restaurants and malls). It was cold again, but still no rain or snow. We ate a small lunch and then headed back to the hotel to change into nicer clothes.

I hadn't told Ryan, but I surprised him with tickets to the Broadway show Wicked. It's the story about how the witches in The Wizard of Oz became good and evil. We loved it! It was so much fun!

After Wicked, we had dinner at the Signature Room, which is on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building. It was a beautiful view of the city, and the food was wonderful. Ryan even got a special dessert since we were celebrating his birthday.

When we finished with dinner, it was raining pretty hard, so we decided to take a cab to the hotel, instead of walking a mile and a half and getting drenched.

On Monday morning, we ate at a fantastic restaurant called the Orange Restaurant or something like that. Ryan ordered Green Eggs and Ham, and I had Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. It was so good, and we were extremely full. It started snowing while we ate breakfast and continued the rest of the day.

We gathered our stuff back at the hotel, checked it with the bellhop and ventured out to enjoy our snowy Chicago day. We first headed to Buckingham Fountain, which I'm sure is more beautiful when the water is actually on. You can notice the lack of water in the background of this picture. We walked around the city in the snow, loving every minute of it. That is except for the fact that somehow my feet were soaked.

We went to Gino's East for lunch, which is a rival for the Best Chicago Pizza. It was incredible. I know I've said that a lot, but Chicago has great food. We walked around a little bit and headed to Ghiradelli's for some hot chocolate and a cookie sundae. It was terrific as well, especially for sweet treats lovers like us!

It was getting late, so we took a cab back to the hotel, loaded our car, ran a quick errand and headed out of town. It was snowing pretty bad at least half of the way home, but we made good time and got home safely.

Ryan and Trent's Birthday Party

For those of you who don't know, Ryan turned 29 this past Saturday. Trent, a guy from our Sunday school class, also celebrated his birthday on Sunday. To celebrate, Kristi (Trent's wife) and I planned a birthday party for the boys on Friday night.

It was pretty last minute, but we sent an Evite out to our Sunday school class. A few couples were able to make it, but unfortunately, a lot were out of town because of the holiday weekend.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Trent knew about the party, but it was a surprise for Ryan. I worked until 8pm on Friday and had told Ryan to be ready to celebrate when I got home. Everyone had been told to come to our house at 8:30, so I rushed home and told Ryan to wait downstairs as I hid one of his birthday presents and changed clothes. To occupy himself while he waited he walked around a bit and then stood looking out our front door. He saw some people pull up, and, not wanting to look weird, he stepped away from the door.

To his surprise, the Keunes arrived, followed by the Borns, Hunters, Travis Abraham (Megan was sick) and the Watsons. He was confused for a bit, but once I filled him in, Ryan was excited.

Kristi brought over a wonderful peanut butter chocolate cake, two cherry cheesecakes and Fudge Tracks ice cream. YUM!

We played some games--ASAP, which Dan won, and Balderdash, which Jen won. Jen won by coming up with quite an interesting, jaw-dropping definition of "waldheimia". We were shocked and couldn't stop laughing.

It was a great night celebrating Ryan and Trent.

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve this year, Ryan and I went over to the Ostrander's house to play games with some other couples from our Sunday school class. The Borns, Hunters, Cooneys and Emily Pellowe were all able to come (Todd had a wedding that night). We had so much fun. There was an amazing spread of food to snack on. The girls talked for a while, and the boys played a card game called Shoot Your Neighbor or something like that.

Then it was on. Boys vs. Girls. Family Feud. Good times. It was a DVD version of Family Feud, and it we played it twice. The first time, the game ended in an exact tie. I'm not quite sure how that happened because each team receives a random amount of points each time they win a round. Anyway, we had to play a tiebreaker. And, of course, the girls won. We dominated! The boys were really cute, though. They never quite got the hang of adhering to the time limit allowed to determine their answers. I love this picture of Ryan plotting with the boys. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We talked for a little bit more and then rang in the New Year with some sparkling cider.

Before the night was over, we engaged in a game of Killer Uno. This is a game that requires fast thinking, even faster reactions and is one that gets extremely chaotic in large groups. It was so much fun and was a great way to ring in the New Year, with good friends and good memories. (Thanks, Trent, for taking these pictures.)

Bishop Christmas Card 2006

Our primary laptop recently died. As a result, we had a hard time getting everyone's addresses. If you didn't receive a Christmas card from us this year, we apologize. Here it is for those of you who haven't seen it.