quarter of a century

I just celebrated my 25th birthday and it was so fun! I woke up early that morning before everyone else and I went on a walk to the lake by my house... gorgeous!

Then Sarah, Tifah, Sarah and I went and got sushi to take up flagstaff mountain. I LOVE to eat outside but it was totally windy and cold out. My friends were great sports....


That night was my birthday party and we had so much fun! My sweet friends came to Trilogy Wine Bar to celebrate with me and it was so encouraging. I just felt really honored that people would drive from south denver, fort collins, and greeley for my birthday. After living in Boulder for 2 years, I am so thankful for the awesome friends I have here! All I wanted was for my friends to meet eachother and at one point I looked around and everyone was talking with people they didnt know before they came. That made my day! Here's some pictures from the night! And I got to wear my red dress ;)

in case you didn't know I'm cheesy

This is really cheesy and will only make sense if you know me....So today I had a soundtrack moment. It was kind of a crazy day and I was sitting at Saxy's working at my computer thinking about the thousand directions my life could go in every second. (tiring huh?) I was sitting at those tables against the windows staring outside and kind of also ease dropping on the people sitting next to me (oops!) I had my headphones on and John Mayer's Stop This Train came on. There is a line towards the end where I guess John is talking to his dad and his dad says "don't stop this train, don't for a minute trade the place you're in..." and I was hooked :) If someone had come up to me to talk I probably would have repeated the line to them with alot of conviction, which probably would have scared them.

The song reminded me of earlier this morning.... Kate and I had gone for a walk and we were talking about how when life seems to catch up to us, in a single moment we feel desperate and convinced the God is all of a sudden not in control. How silly and forgetful can we be? Like all of a sudden, at that exact moment, He decided not to care or something. I'm really thankful that God's existence and nearness isn't based on my feelings. Today I read through Ephesians 1 and was just struck by God's full understanding and delight in what He does for us, even in our major lack of understanding and moments of disbelief.

Here's some Ephesians 1 for ya :
"In Him we have redemption (deliverance and salvation) through His blood, the remission (forgiveness) of our offenses (shortcomings and trespasses), in accordance with the riches and the generosity of His gracious favor, which He lavished upon us in every kind of wisdom and understanding (practical insight and prudence), making known to us the mystery (secret) of His will (of His plan, of His purpose)."

and I digress....

I don't know if you experience this but I feel like every time I go home to visit family, within a few days, I have turned back into the typical youngest child, teenage version of myself. My friends and I always talk about how this year will be different and we will all of a sudden act like adults all the time around our families. We grow in it a little bit every year, but we inevitably fail in one way or another. Like this year at Christmas my brother threw a fire cracker popper at me because I walked in his room (which I actually still think is funny) and I had to apologize to my sister because we were having conflict and I told her that her reasons were "stupid" and at one point I also threw in the word "foolish." How old am I?

Coming back from home always makes me really thankful for Jesus. I mean, literally the Lord sees the ways I am not loving, prideful, or disengaged on a daily basis and He still chooses to love me and claim my life as something worth redeeming. This past week, I have been even more confronted with my lack of deservedness (is that a word?) than I have been in a while. After stepping out of working with Crusade for a season I was honestly a little nervous to go visit some of my students and old staff friends who were in town for DCC. It had been so long since I had seen most of them, but when I finally got there, I got to see people and meet people that are so loving and kind. I just felt really loved on and honored to be around them. There is something that makes you feel kind of exposed about the way Jesus chooses to show He loves us when we feel least deserving, but I guess that's part of the beauty and offensiveness of the gospel - I can't do anything for it but respond.

oh by gosh by golly

I'm back in Boulder from a great break at home! Here's a recap of Christmas holiday 07'...I'll post more pics as I get them :)

Adam taught Sarah and I how to slack line...or how to attempt to slack line :)

The fam on Christmas day
Brooke and SarahOur Kayak race... I almost ran into my dad so I lost
My Papa and Sarah sporting their new crocs

Happy New Year!

yablonski family 5k fun run for...(dot dot dot)

I'm feeling a little tradition savvy so all Christmas break I kept trying to get my family to start an annual 5k run out at our ranch. Nobody really took it seriously so we came up with all kinds of random stuff to run for. For exczema awareness, osteoporosis awareness, vegan awareness, etc... However on December 31st sarah and I decided to actually run it. We were running along the road toward the barn and all of a sudden I thought I heard something rustling behind me. I thought maybe Adam had tried to sneak up on us on his bike and startle us. So I turned around to see what was there and to my surprise there was a herd of 30 longhorns running after us about 20 yards behind. I stopped dead in my tracks in shock and yelled at Sarah to stop to. But the Longhorns kept running toward us. Luckily Sarah was not as freaked out at I was so she started shooing them off and they eventually stopped. Then out of breath and a little scared we both started laughing and had to break from running. But don't worry we finished! So this years 5k run was THE YABLONSKI FAMILY 5K RUN FOR LONGHORN STAMPEDE AWARENESS.





I tried to recreate it the next day but I couldn't get the cows to run after me again...so here is my lame attempt.

...trying to get the cows to follow me

I actually got scared again when the big one started picking up speed....so this is me running for real.

the culprits.