our 2nd anniversary

today we celebrated our 2 year anniversary! I can't believe that it's been 2 years, much less, I can't believe that we are about to have a baby after being married only 2 years! Of course, I wouldn't want it any other way!

Mike and I took 2 days off to spend together, and it has been great! Yesterday we went to lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, California Dreaming, and then we just did some running around, we bought our recliner that we picked up today, and I sure do love it! :)

Today we went to the beach {my fav thing to do of all time} and it was just wonderful to lay on the beach all day! We walked down to the banana cabana for lunch and tried the famous macho nachos, and oh my, they were delicious!

It was so nice to just relax and enjoy eachother's company these past two days without any agenda! :) I think being out in the sun all day wore me out, I am about to crash and it isn't even 9pm! :)

These past 2 years being married to Mike have been so wonderful! It's hard to believe that we've been together for 5 years and married for 2 years! It feels like we've known each other forever! Mike is definitely my best friend, and I love sharing life with him! :)

I can't wait to see us continue to grow together in the Lord, and enjoy parenting Maggie Claire together! I'm so blessed to have such a loving husband that I know will be an amazing daddy to MC! :)

I love you Mike Surratt! Thanks for being so great! :)

"We love because He first loved us."

1 John 4:19

I can't believe it!

It's already our 1 year anniversary!

Yesterday(8/3) was mine and Mike's 1 year anniversary! It's so funny to look back on one year ago as we were preparing for our wedding, and getting so excited about decorating our apartment! This year has been so great, and I feel that Mike and I are growing in our relationship everyday! It's been such a fun year, and I honestly can't believe it's already been one year! :)

For our 1 year anniversary we stayed the night in Savannah after we were at Brock (Mike's cousin) and Janet's wedding. We stayed in a pretty sweet hotel with a jacuzzi/whirlpool in our room!

Here's how our schedule went on our anniversary:

• We started the morning out with some delicious Chick-Fil-A minis :)
  
• Went shopping in downtown Savannah, and went driving by the river
  
• Drove to Hilton Head
  
• Ate at Fuddrucker's for lunch
  
• Went to the beach in Hilton Head
  
• Drove through Beaufort
• Got home and rested for a little bit
• Mike's parents took us out to dinner at Olive Garden (my fav restaurant)
• Last but not least: Cut our cake from our wedding... (It wasn't that great)
  

Here are some pictures from throughout the weekend:

Valentines day and LOVE!

Since tomorrow is Valentines day, I decided to do a post about some things that I love!

Here we go!

• Sweet tea, Mt. Dew, Cherry Coke
  
• blonde bobby pins


• list pads!
  
• my nephew Jack


• funfetti cake with rainbow chip icing


• throwing any kinds of parties!


• Penelope from SNL


• painting


• scrapbooking


• anything with polka dots or monograms on it!


• glitter


• Seacoast Church


• blonde haired babies!


• any red heads!


• taking pictures of everything


• pizza, Olive Garden and moe's!


• Baking sweets


• Most importantly my HUSBAND and his sarcastic self, which makes me laugh!
  

Today Mike and I are celebrating Valentines day because tomorrow we are going on a ski trip with the youth group! So much for speninding time together on our first married Valentines day! It's ok though, today I made pizza for lunch and put the pepperonis on the pizza in a heart shape! Tonight we are going to Olive Garden (my absolute favorite restaurant) and using our gift card that we got for Christmas! YAY! I'm so excited. because Mike and I are on a budget we decided to get eachother some of our favorte drinks! I got him a six pack of bottled Dr. Pepper, and tomorrow morning I will be getting my favorite drink from Starbucks; which is a strawberries and cream frap with no whip cream! I am so excited, because I don't ever go to starbucks due to the hi prices! Yay for Valentines day! :)

my life as a minister's wife

Most of you know that of course, I am married to a youth minister, which I think is the most amazing thing EVER. I never thought that I would have married a youth minister, even though I have always wanted to marry a pastor and be a pastor's wife! When Mike and I met, I knew that we would get married and he would be in ministry, even though he didn't say that when I first met him. After a while, he finally changed his major to Youth Ministry at CSU, and I just knew that I would LOVE to be a youth pastor's wife.

Now, I am in love with pastor's wives, and any wife of a ministry leader. I just think that people don't give enough credit to PW. Lately, I have been reading Holly Furtick's blog and it is so encouraging. She is one woman of God who is a great example of being a PW who really fulfills the role. Then I was realizing that just about all of my friends are wives of men in ministry. I have so many friends around me who live just about the same life as I do being at church all the time, and loving it. Sometimes, it seems to get a little tiring, but we are all there to pick each other up. One of my best friends Christina Harris, is also a wife of a middle school pastor, now I realize why we are such good friends, we relate with each other. Plus, I just think she is awesome and I look up to her so much with her role as a PW. Some other amazing pastor's wives that I know and absolutely ADORE are Sarah Chalk, Jenny Miles, Many Santos, Sarah Bolin, Sara Smith, Cyndy Morris and Selina May. I see a little bit of myself in all of them. Also, I didn't even name the PW's that are related to me that I just love: Debbie Surratt, Sherry Surratt, Dee McGarity, Jenny Surratt, Lisa Surratt, Jenna Surratt, Jenny Mayer, Jess Ray, and Bethany Singleton. Anita McCart and Allison (soon to be Rankin) are also PW or soon to be that I hang out with and love.

So, as you can imagine, I am always at church. Last year when Mike and I were first engaged, I decided to use my time wisely while being at church all the time and volunteer in the nursery. I absolutely loved it, and a few months later I was asked to come on staff as a part time nursery worker on the weekends. This meant that I would work 2 or 3 of the services out of 5 of them on the weekend, and occasionally a first wednesday. I have been doing this for about 10 months and of course, I love it. There are 6 nursery rooms at Seacoast church LPR on the "0-24 months" hallway, and you will normally find me in one of them on the weekend, loving all those kids whether they are babies, crawlers, or walkers. :)

My favorite part of being at church for every service is this:
Whichever service I am not working in the nursery (which is normally the 9:30), I am upstairs in "the attic" where the middle school service is held. I get to see my husband speak, and act crazy with all the students that come to Nitro. I love it, and I have realized lately that my most important role there is Mike's wife. I am there to support, encourage, and help him do whatever is needed. Lately he has given me the duty of doing a part of the service on stage called "Tell Me Something Good". It's pretty fun, and most imporantly I feel that I have helped Mike with his job as a middle school minister!

In two weeks, I will be going on a youth trip with my husband for the first time as the "youth pastor's wife". (What a way to spend our first Valentines Day as a married couple huh?) I am very excited because I just love hanging out with the students just as much as he does! We will be traveling to Lake Junaluska in North Carolina for Lift, the ski/snowboard/tubing winter retreat. Mike told me that we are taking over 220 people total with all the campuses. I'm looking forward to joining my husband in ministry and seeing what God has planned for this trip!

This is me and my minister husband whom I will always love!
:)

New Blog: here are some starting thoughts

As most of you know, I recently got married to my wonderful husband. I had a "bride blog" before this one, but I decided to start a new blog with my new name just to make it easier for me! If you would like to see my old blog, with my wedding updates on it, here it is: http://www.hilaryisthebride.blogspot.com/.

I am almost done with school, exactly one more year left for me, and believe me, this is the most exciting thing (besides getting married) that will happen to me! Well, maybe not the most exciting because I would like to have kids in a couple of years, so that will probably be more exciting, but you get the point! Graduating College for me will be a big deal!

I'm a big countdown person, I like counting down the days until birthdays, Christmas, or any other special holidays or events that will happen! So, speaking of countdowns, here is my first one: there are 27 days until Christmas!!!

Since this is my first year of being married, I told my mother-in-law that I would like to cook a casserole for the big Thanksgiving meal tomorrow! I cooked a broccoli casserole and some rice krispie treats! My apartment was smelling so good tonight!