Kyle & Holly Lerman

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

Wow... well let me just say...we are so behind on posting on our blog! Our hope is to be better at this! :)

But in the meantime... Happy Thanksgiving!

Kyle and I were so blessed to be able to host Thanksgiving at our house this year. We wanted to host last year but we moved the week before Thanksgiving, so we told everyone last year that we would host in 2010.

Our guests included Kyle's parents, Sandy's mom and dad (Kyle's grandparents), my parents, Sam and Amy, and a friend of Kyle's.

Kyle and I were about to put the turkey in the oven when my parents arrived. So they helped us rookies get the turkey properly ready---Thank you Mom and Dad!

Just as the turkey went in the oven we discovered a little problem... a plumbing problem that is. Both showers and both toilets were backed up with water. Kyle's dad came over with his 25' plumbing snake and try to fix it; all the while my dad was trying to find the sewer clean out. After a few hours of this it was time to call for help---Roto-Rooter. John, from
Roto-Rooter, showed up a little bit before 3pm just after we made a trip to Kyle's grandparents house for a bathroom excursion. While John and his supervisor Horacio, were finding the blockage and the clean out dinner was coming together nicely. Their magical camera found the blockage----and guess where it was.? Right at the clean out! Thank you Lord for answered prayer! John was able to clear the blockage and make sure our clean out was accessible. We finished dinner right as John was leaving.

And then came dessert! Holy Moly...we had Chocolate Pie, Lemon Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Peach Cobler, Cheesecake (for mom's birthday) and snickerdoodles. From dinner to desert, the food was amazing! Before dessert we sang "Happy Birthday" to my mom and watched her open her gifts.

Kyle and I wanted to keep the Lerman tradition of watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation." It was so much fun sitting in our living room with our family all laughing and enjoying the evening together. It really warmed my heart! It was a reminder of just how thankful I am for them.

Here are some pictures from Turkey day (courtesy of Momma Lerman). Hope your Thanksgiving was a blessed time of family and friends as well!

With Love,
Holly & Kyle

Happy Birthday Mom!

Dish up people!

Thanksgiving Spread

Our Thanksgiving Table

Our First Valentine's Day (as a married couple)

2010-02-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

This year was our first time celebrating Valentine's day as a married couple! It was a great day!!!

Our day started off with church (great way to get the day going), and it was so awesome for me in a couple ways, not only for the obvious reason! The first is that my sweetie pie brought me flowers to church!! So--I was the only girl at church with flowers from her beau! He is so sweet and thoughtful! He just amazes me. The second way that church was awesome for me is that I could actually hear Kyle playing the piano this time. Normally I have a really hard time hearing him if at all. So that was quite a treat! Whoever ran the board Sunday did a great job.

After church we headed to our local Red Robin. It was very yummy! We both really like Red Robin, especially now that we can figure out how to customize our meals since we are on our diets! The music was awesome in Red Robin too--no Kyle was not playing :(.

After Red Robin we went to our local bowling alley. Now... I can never recall bowling, so this was my very first time! And I really enjoyed it! Kyle did a great job, especially not having bowled for so long. We played four games and my scores were (in order from start to finish): 80, 88, 54, 50 (do you see a pattern?!?!). Kyle did great his scores were: 107, 118, 111, 131. It was soo much fun; I am looking forward to doing it again!

After bowling we went grocery shopping to prepare for a nice evening with Kyle's parents. We made them dinner and dessert, and since we have the big 'ol TV we had them over for the season premiere of Amazing Race. We all like the show so it was a good excuse to get together.

I could not have asked for a better Valentine's Day with my love! It was so much fun and just a great time spending it together and with family.

Valentine's Day a year ago was the day we settled on getting married at Lake Natoma Inn in Folsom. It was a very special day last year as well.

There will be more updates to follow, as we have a new member of the family: our dog Scout; who we have not properly introduced yet on the blog.

Love n' Hugs,

Holly

Christmas light disaster zone

2009-12-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

For those who haven't seen yet, here is what our Christmas lights looked like in front of our house:We woke up this morning (which is a little breezy), and found our decorations looking like this:What a mess! I put it all back together as best I could, but I'm hoping the next big gust doesn't come and knock it all down again! So far so good....

Our new house!!!

2009-11-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

We finally got the keys to our house this afternoon!!!

Holly and I are so excited about getting our new house and can't wait to move in and get settled. It is a great place to settle in and raise a family - a nice house in a nice, quiet neighborhood. We are very thankful that God gave us the patience to wait until we finally found the right house for us.

Here are some photos if you haven't seen them yet: http://picasaweb.google.com/lwsweb/6895EscalloniaDriveOrangevale

The big moving day is Saturday the 21st. Can't wait! :)

"Date Day"

2009-09-26T01:30:00.000-07:00

Every Friday night, if we don't have other plans, Holly and I have our "date night." We alternate taking turns choosing what we will do each week, and this week it was Holly's turn. Since she had a furlough day today and I rearranged my work schedule to have the day off today too, she got to plan activities for an entire "date day" today!

So we started off for IKEA in the morning. On the way down, Holly showed me the old apartment where she used to live with her cousin:

By the time we got down to IKEA, we were hungry and decided to stop for lunch. I know lunch sounds like a boring subject to read about in a blog, but there is a funny part to this, so bear with me. Holly has been craving Chinese food (which I don't like) for a while, and we came across one of these places right by IKEA:
Fortunately for me, good food was not far away, and there was one of these right next door to Panda Express:

After lunch, we made it over to IKEA. This was my first time ever going to IKEA, which is a favorite place of Holly's.

IKEA turned out to be a pretty neat place. Personally, I think it would be more fun to go shopping there with a specific type of item to be on the lookout for, but today we were (supposedly) just "window shopping" with nothing in particular planned to buy. We did find a couple of little items to pick up by the time we headed to the downstairs part of the store. This is the point where I showed my ignorance about IKEA. Just when I thought we were going to escape while spending less than $5 and mentioned that we were about done, Holly informed me: "Oh, we're not done yet!" How true that was. We wandered around for a while more and picked up some more items (some of which were my idea). I still consider it a victory that we managed to leave with less than $75 worth of merchandise today!

One of the purchases was this neat bookcase, which was marked down to only $25.90 due to damage on the back of it (see pic of the damage below):We wondered if the bookcase would even fit in the car (that's right - we took the car instead of the truck), but we decided to go ahead and buy it and give it a try anyway. After several attempts to get it loaded in, we finally succeeded in doing so. However, unfornately, the only way it would fit was with every seat in the car except the driver's seat folded down! So I proceeded to drive all the way back to Orangevale in rush-hour traffic on I-80 to unload the bookcase myself and then drive back while Holly went back into IKEA to kick back with a soda and do one of her favorite activities - people watching. (By the way, it took nearly an hour to get back home in the traffic! Ugh!)

The rest of the day was quite nice. We ate dinner at Sol Azteca in Folsom, which was a first for both of us. It is good authentic Mexican food and a lot of food for the money.

And what "date day" would be complete without a trip to Costco for some frozen yogurt you ask?! Well, today turned out to be that day, because by the time we made it to Costco to pick up some photos Holly had printed there, we were way too full for any dessert. Oh well, next time!

Despite the crazy fiasco at IKEA, today was a very enjoyable day! We topped it off by watching one of our favorite movies, "Bolt" (which we saw in the theater on our first date together!) and part of "Twister". Thanks for such a fun day, Sweetie!!

Yes, we are still alive....

2009-09-22T19:44:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how it's been nearly a couple months since our last post, I guess it is time to give an update on what is going on in our lives, so here goes....

We are all settled into our little (648-square-foot) one-bedroom apartment in Orangevale. The search for a house continues, and we currently have an offer on a short sale house in Orangevale that we are very excited about! My photos are here, and the MLS listing is here in case you want to check it out. As excited as we are about this house, we have learned from past experiences putting offers on houses, the market is very competitive, and we certainly have a long way to go before we will get those keys to our "new" house. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek God's will in our housing situation, and thanks for all those prayers already lifted up!

About a week and a half ago, our family went to Oregon to celebrate my granddaddy's 75th birthday. It was a lot of fun, and it was great to get the whole Lerman family together again! While we were there, Holly and I went to a really cool car show in old town Florence (yep, you guessed it, I have pictures!!). My mom just posted about the trip on her blog, and you can check out her write-up and photos here.

Last Friday evening, our church held a "music blast" night to kick-off the CD release of our own singer Mary Alviso (visit her web site here). Bill Walsh and some of the members of his band and other musicians from our church played first, and then the band Sam and I are a part of (Scarlet Chord) played numerous songs. We had a lot of fun praising God, and Mary sold quite a few CDs, making the night a big success. Photos here.

And now for a praise report...Sam just found out today he got an engineering job at ADM Associates in Rancho Cordova!!!!!! I understand it is a temporary, part-time job, but that is an excellent start, and I know he must be very excited to finally find a job in his field and right in his own back yard!

We'll try to keep our blog more up to date. We are heading to the 3-day walk in San Francisco a week from tomorrow. As Holly wrote in a previous post, we are working on the lunch crew feeding the walkers as they pass through our station! It is going to be a blast, and we are looking forward to it! Now if you'll excuse me, my wife is almost finished cooking us an amazing spaghetti dinner, so I will sign off for now. Thank you for keeping us in your prayers, and you are in ours! God bless.

Almost here!!!!!

2009-07-31T01:40:00.000-07:00

Well, the big day is finally TOMORROW!!!!! All the wedding plans are wrapped up for the most part, and we're pretty much down to picking up some last minute items, transporting wedding decorations and such down to Folsom, and getting ready for our honeymoon.

Holly and I have received such tremendous help from our friends and family in putting together our wedding, and we greatly appreciate it!! Our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner are this afternoon, then we get to decorate our reception room, and then try to get some sleep before the wedding Saturday morning. Our combined bachelor/ bachelorette party on Wednesday was a lot of fun. For those out of the loop, we went to a Sacramento Rivercats game with family and friends, and we had a blast! We give our thanks to Sam for setting up the event for us! And due to a mistake on the part of the Rivercats organization, we will be getting free tickets to another game in August, so we can do it all over again!

I can't wait for tomorrow, when I get to marry the most special girl in the world, the one God brought into my life to be my wife! I know that He will bless our marriage the same way He has blessed our relationship thus far - day after day, year after year, and decade after decade. I like the advice Billy Graham gave to one particular engaged couple - it is brief and to the point, and it is excellent relationship advice for anyone: http://www.seattlepi.com/graham/267116_billy12.html

Take care, and we hope to see you at the wedding!!

Crewing @ the Breast Cancer 3-Day

2009-07-15T12:18:00.000-07:00

For those that may not know, I participated in a 3-Day Breast Cancer walk last September. The walk spanned 60 miles in one of the most fun places--San Francisco. I walked about 45 of the 55 total miles and I loved every minute!! It was such an amazing experience that I wanted to be a part of it again this year. After telling Kyle about the event he was eager to join me this year.

We made the decision to Crew (aka: volunteer) at the event this year. We filled out our forms and have officially been assigned to the Lunch Crew!! I am really excited about this opportunity--Lunch is the half way point for the day and from experience getting support and cheers from the lunch crew was soo helpful in keeping me going the rest of the day.

We have been in email contact with our group leader, and we are in the process of choosing a theme for our lunch area. I voted for 50's diner theme!!

We are both excited to be a part of this event and honor those that are close to our hearts who have been affected by this evil.

Being crew members we are not required to raise money, but each of us has set a goal of $500 to raise for the cause. If you feel compelled to please pick one of the widgets to the right and donate. Even if it is $5 that would be awesome!

My friend Laura has offered to organize an all day scrapbooking day to benefit our crewing efforts. We are looking at holding this event in late August. Wish us luck!!

We will definitely keep you posted on the event, and thank you for your support!!

Always,
holly

Road Trip!!!

2009-07-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

Holly and I are heading up to Oregon tomorrow to visit my grandparents this weekend. Look for some photos next week! Happy 4th!

(Posted from my phone.)

House Update

2009-06-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

As most, if not all, of you know, Holly and I were in the process of buying a house in Orangevale. After much prayer, considering the price of the house, and considering the cost of the likely repairs/upgrades it would need in the next several years, we decided to back out of the deal and keep looking. We feel that the house God has in store for us to buy is still out there, and that we need to be more patient and keep looking.

This process of cancelling the contract also left us with an opportunity to change realtors. Without going into detail or being rude, suffice it to say that our previous realtor was not the right one for us, and was not a very good one in general in our opinion. We were not treated right and felt like we could not trust him. Thus, we are feeling relief that when we re-start the process of looking at homes (hopefully this weekend), we have the priveledge of doing so with a different realtor, someone who comes with a good recommendation from a trusted source this time.

Our house hunting thus far has been a true learning experience for Holly and me. We are learning exactly what needs and desires we have when it comes to a house and a neighborhood in which we want to live and raise our future kids. But more importantly, we are learning to be more patient and to seek and trust God's guidance more as we wait for Him to show us what He has in store for us. We are also learning to prioritize our activities more, and we have made it very clear to our new realtor that we will be putting our wedding planning first and looking at houses when something that we really want to see comes along. As much as we would like to be constantly searching for a house, we need to not stretch ourselves so thin and to get our priorities in order. Cancelling our contract with the house also means that we will almost certainly not own a home by August 1st, so we are now looking for an apartment to move into together when we are married. We are still excited to find out what our house will be and can't wait to find it and buy it, and are awaiting God's word and timing to put everything in place!

(I posted another blog entry this evening in addition to this one, so be sure to scroll down below this post or click here to see the blog entry about Spirit West Coast also!)

Spirit West Coast Trip

2009-06-09T22:17:00.000-07:00

Background: For those of you who don't know, my brother Sam and I both play in our church band (at The Gathering Place in Folsom). Sam plays the bass guitar and I play the keyboard (that's the 'keys' to all you musician types out there!). ;) Anyway, within the past year or so, some of the people in the church band have formed a group called Scarlet Chord that goes to various places and plays Christian music. Since I moved back to the Sacramento area, I re-joined the church band and also started playing with Scarlet Chord as well.

Spirit West Coast: The first major gig for Scarlet Chord came last month when we were invited to play at the big Spirit West Coast (SWC) festival in Del Mar (near San Diego) on May 22-23. This is a
3-day event that features some of the big names of contemporary Christian music as well as small no-name bands (such as ours!). The Del Mar version is held in May, while another SWC concert is also held in Monterey each year later in the summer. We played Friday and Saturday down at Del Mar. Here are a few of my pictures of the venue, followed by a few photos borrowed from Steve Alviso's Facebook page that show our band playing on stage "Operation Worship."

The Spanish architecture at the San Diego County Fairgrounds in Del Mar is really amazing! Here is our stage (in the lower portion of the image) with a beautiful building for a backdrop.

From the Newsboys concert on Friday evening.

Scarlet Chord checking out another performance from a high vantage point.

I'm guessing that the people in our group who went swimming in the ocean when we went to the beach were wishing that they had read this sign before going in rather than after!!

Scarlet Chord

Austin, Sam, and Mary

Austin and Sam

Kory, Mike, and me

SWC Monterey: Well, the good news is that Scarlet Chord was just invited to play at SWC Monterey this summer! The bad news is that it is July 30-August 1, which includes the weekend of our wedding! That means that not only can I not make it, but neither can Sam, since he is my best man. So Scarlet Chord will be without their regular bass and keyboard players this summer. Perhaps we can move the wedding to Monterey to accommodate the band?! Or, on second thought, maybe the band can wait another year and we will just proceed with the wedding as scheduled. Either way, SWC was a lot of fun, and I hope to get the opportunity to do something like that again sometime!

Race for the Cure Photos

2009-05-15T17:28:00.000-07:00

A few days ago Holly talked about the Race for the Cure we did in Sacramento last Saturday and mentioned that we would have photos posted soon. Well, I survived my first week working in Sacramento, and I FINALLY got the photos posted! You can click on any of the photos for a larger view.

Our team made up of people from Holly's work at Sac State:

We wore pink signs on our backs in honor of those people in our lives who have been affected by breast cancer:

A portion of the approximately 20,000 people involved in the race:
Just about to cross the finish line:

We sure did have a blast!

If you want to see some more pictures, I have several of them (including these ones above) here: http://www.outdoorsphotos.net/misc/race.

See you next time!

The Weekend..

2009-05-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

Hi all! We wanted to write and share with you our events of this past weekend!

We kicked off the weekend on Friday with our real estate agent, Kevin. We took a gander at four houses in the Sacramento area.

Saturday was a beautifully early morning! We participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure that was held at Cal Expo. We were a couple amongist 22,000 others! The 3.2 miles were a blast, and it was a great way to kick off Mother's day weekend. While on the walk we honored and remembered those in our lives who have had breast cancer.

Our walk was followed by an awesome breakfast at the Gold Miner in Folsom. Awesome food--Great recommendation Kyle! After breakfast we did our own things: Kyle had band practice at church until nearly 6pm, and I spent the afternoon with my folks and grandparents in Ione. The evening wrapped up with a great message from Pastor Phil--about Mary (Jesus' mom)--an amazing Mom!

Sunday we celebrated the mom's in our life! We spent the morning with my grandma and my folks in Mt. Ranch, and then it was on to Folsom to spend it will momma Lerman and grandma Moss. Along with the rest of the gang: Kyle, Sam, Amy, dad Lerman and grandpa Moss. It was a really enjoyable day--rounding it out by a game of Yahtzee (goooooo TEAM Holly & Kyle!).

We also were very excited to be celebrating Kyle's first weekend back home! It is just such a blessing that he is here and here to stay! :) **Welcome home my love, and I am praying your first day at the RFO is awesome!**

Thanks for stopping by, and we hope this finds everyone well! (please come back for pictures from the walk!!)

Blessings,
Holly

Welcome to our new blog!!

2009-05-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Thanks for taking the time to check out our brand new blog. Ahhh, there's nothing quite like that new-blog smell!!

I know the title of this blog (i.e., Holly's new last name) is a little premature, but we are building this blog for the future, and besides, we are less than 3 months away from our wedding day now! :)

We are looking forward to sharing with you news and info on what is going on in our lives! Potential topics to look for in the near future: house hunting, wedding plans, and other adventures. Of course, you never know when some of my photos might just creep into the blog too! (For those of you who may not know me that well yet, photography is a favorite hobby of mine.)

Thanks for stopping by! God bless.