Zach relaxing in the warm Montecito sun!

In case you haven’t heard, Michael Eaton (my brother-in-law) has recently released a documentary companion to Christian Smith’s Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. It’s getting rave reviews on Amazon.

If you’re interested in this sort of thing, here’s the DVD, and here’s the book.

I pray to Jesus every night and try to go to church as much as I can.

–Barack Obama

A few weeks ago Zach and I headed up to the cabin for some relaxation with fellow newly-weds Jason and Cindy. It’s more accurate to say Cindy and I relaxed while Jason and Zach spent the better part of Saturday afternoon getting Z’s car un-stuck! Driveway conditions aside, we had a great time!

I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but I can’t believe how fast our engagement is going by!  We knew once we crossed over from September to October that we’d be on turbo boost, but this is incredible.  We’ve gone from stressing over the big stuff, to checking off to the never-ending list of minute details.  We spend a lot of time pouring over our collective calendars trying to figure out how to get it all done.  The bigger challenge for me is trying to keep it all in perspective.  I know that the “problems” that I’m faced with today are problems that I’ve been praying for since I was a little girl.  It’s easy to lose sight of the end goal when you’re wrapped up in earth-shattering decisions such as ”What color should we frost the cupcakes?” and “How exactly are we getting from the church to the reception?”, etc. etc.   None of those things really matter when you get down to it.  What matters is that God has given me the love of my life, and on December 31 I will walk down that aisle and he and I will become husband and wife. I can’t wait!