Christmas Tunes

so it is the weekend after thanksgiving. it's the official weekend to decorate for christmas and to start listening to christmas music. so in honor of this long held tradition, i will share one of my favorite christmas songs..."don't shoot me santa" by the killers. let the christmas season begin!

Jesu Uyakuzandza

so sunday night i watched the amazing 2-hour teaser movie for the new season of 24. it was awesome. it was also set in fictional country of sangala, africa (i'm assuming supposed to be a hybrid of uganda, rwanda, congo circumstances and events). but anyway, the children's voices made me smile. it took me back. maybe because they were south african and that is where i had the privilege of being (swaziland being so close, they sound the exact same). but anyway, it reminded me of this: kwethu, my girl.

jesu uyakuzandza from Rebekah Ytterberg on Vimeo.

2 Fantastic Years

well, it has officially been 2 years. i can hardly believe it. sometimes it feels like forever and sometimes it feels like it has flown by. either way, it's been awesome because i've been livin' it with my best friend. yay for us!

I Miss Friends

so i was just surfing the book of faces and i saw that a buttload of my friends were tagged in a bryan johnson photo album. i'm clickin on through expecting it to be my friends that work for bryan (and because i enjoy fun photography). then i come across this picture. 4 of the people i hold dearest to me in the world (among others). and i haven't seen them in months :(. 

i miss living near friends...agggghhhhh! thursday canNOT come soon enough!

Farewell, Encounter

tonight is the night. encounter comes to an end (on this side of the world) after 7 years. for those of you who don't know, encounter is the weekly meeting of grace campus ministries in auburn, al. my sophomore year of college, i started going with my roommate carol. the next 3 years, i enjoyed one of the greatest communities God put on this earth. upon graduation in '06, david and i went to work for grace. for 2 years we worked with our friends who became a family. we will miss encounter. it provided something for the campus of auburn that was not there before, and i'm afraid will be sorely missed.

in honor of the awesomeness of encounter and what God did through it, i have compiled a top 8/bottom 4 and a montage of pictures...so on with the first...

top 8:

1. learning what grace was really about

2. meeting david...and coming up with bogus "events" to tempt him to hang out

3. mine and carol's cupcake fight (back when encounter was small enough that we provided snacks for everyone afterwards)

4. leading 21 college students to swaziland and meeting some of the most amazing people i have ever had the privilege of knowing

5. getting so hot in the middle of december (back in the au chapel) that you would be dripping sweat from jumping to crowder tunes (hey! it was '03)

6. ice cream socials at the crayola house

7. counting the donations the night invisible children came

8. waffle house after encounter

bottom 4:

1. all the awkward moments that happen when 12 people share one office and one bathroom (which happened to be behind my desk) - this really could be a top 8, though :)

2. the summer that me and courtney were the only staff in town for girls (there is a reason we had desk jobs...awkward)

3. the day we rode our bikes to the office and almost died

4. getting home from encounter at 11:30pm and getting up at 3am to drive to phenix city every week of my internship

matt and josh @ a softball game...josh was just a wee thing

the aforementioned cupcake fight

ahhh, my husband

karen, me, hanna, carol, diane, and erin: 2004

encounter fall retreat: 2005 - i think...whichever one jason morant played

passion '06

remember caleb's baby shower?

josh took this picture

oh the band trips...

did i mention the band trips?

swaziland with kriek and dennis

walking home in swazi

in honor of the happy couple getting married on saturday!

our last encounter...

despite what the freshmen might believe, this is and always will be the encounter drummer

...

what are your encounter memories?

Annabelle

(i know, this is a little long, but its nostalgia) let's back it up a few years...in college, i lived with the most awesome people ever. for three years, i lived with my sister liz. my genetic sister...not that sorority crap. jamie, who always made us laugh and was always the person to vent to because she would get just as mad. mandy for a short, awesome, period of time - the lifelong best friend. and then there was carol.

how do you explain carol? i don't even know. carol is one of the smartest people i know (currently getting her phD at vanderbilt). but when it came to every day life, you had to ask "how did she come up with that decision?" however, had it not been for carol, i would not have had half of the awesome experiences i had in college. she was my weed (in that, she always convinced me to let go and have fun). anyway, i digress... 

carol was always doing something. so one year, she decided to coach an intramural softball team (she was also the captain of our intramural football team - jimmy jam jam flim flam kaboom - for three years...all of which we made it to the playoffs). at the end of the softball season, carol decides to have an old school "end of the season celebration and awards banquet" at cici's. perfect, right? to complete her awards ceremony, she went to the thrift store and bought "trophys" for each of her players. that fateful day at the mission thrift, she came across a doll. a doll that would change our collective lives forever. this was the creapiest doll you've ever seen in your life. it was too good to give away, so it became our "house" doll. and what that meant was that we took turns hiding it in various places to scare the crap out of each other: under pillows, in medicine cabinets, under sheets, in the shower, etc. 

well, then came the day that we moved out. so then it started appearing in suitcases to go on trips. it mysteriously arrived at weddings. even in a sleeping bag on a road trip. this is our story. she will keep us together. its been getting harder to scare each other and the opportunities are fewer. but the other day, carol got me. by sending an email entitled "thinking of you." i open it up and BAM! there she is...so please let me introduce you to annabell...

what crazy memories do you have of the people you love? 

Modern Nightstands

so...when we moved from auburn we sold or are in the process of selling everything because we had a lot of random stuff but nothing we were in love with. so now we are in the process of gathering pieces we love. we went to ikea on sunday to look for one of the following: nightstands, a coffee table, or a breakfast table. we left ikea with two lampshades and the decision to buy a new bed. as we laid on a chaise lounge in a mock bedroom discussing our current decoration theme, david let's it rip that he doesn't like our bed. 15 minutes later, it turns out his dislike for our bed is really referred hatred from the armoire that holds our tv (david is a complex man).

so anywho, we decided we wanted a new bed and we even picked out which one, but decided to hold off for just a bit on that purchase. but the decision to get a new bed didn't solve our dilemma of nightstands. but it did make it easier because the new style allows us to get ones that we really love. it doesn't unfortunately solve our dilemma of being broke as a joke. so....CHRISTMAS PROJECT!

in less than a day, david had discussed and debated with his dad and hopefully, if all goes well, we will have new custom-made nightstands after christmas. they are so psyched to work on them and most importantly, do it together. they love to build things. david is the ultimate engineer. and his sister is a real one, so that helps too. but, meet our new nightstands...

the great thing is that, by building them, we can lower them to make them fit the size of our soon-to-be bed (which does affect my ocd somewhat in that they won't have the whole perfect square thing going on...but oh well...)

Pre-School Quotes

yes, this is another kid story. what can i say? i'm with them all week long.

so today josh is dropping off charlotte and olivia and he says he has a funny story. (if you know charlotte, that's not all that uncommon). so he had been discussing with the girls that God loves them even when they misbehave. and he asks charlotte, "who loves you?" and she says "mommy and daddy and creighton..." and so he follows up with "that's right. but do you know who loves you MORE than that?" (God being the desired answer here). charlotte, apparently without hesitation responds "miss bekah!" 

that's right, charlotte. God...miss bekah. it's not the first time there's been confusion. ah, just kidding. but charlotte's awesome and i do love the kid...probably not more than her mom and dad, but a lot. here she is one day when she decided to play for about 30 minutes with the glasses from a mr. potato head. 

007

i can already feel my pulse racing...

Now You've Fudged the Bucket

for old time's sake, david decided to play this tonight. i started laughing so hard...maybe it was the wine. not sure. but anyway, it brought back great memories of my bro-in-law, jd who does this impersonation better than the guy who actually did the phone call. so anyway, if you haven't ever heard this, i don't know where you have been but i am so happy to pass it on. if you have heard it before, i hope it will make you laugh again.

Monday View

what? i really do. because of this. i get up and go to work, but because of some logistics with working hours, i can only work a partial day on mondays. so i get to leave at 1:30 and enjoy the rest of the beautiful afternoon. today, i chose to read. but with the balcony door wide open to enjoy the awesomeness that is fall...

Wilson the Roadie

once, again, i was looking through all my old pictures and i came across this one. back in auburn, i was a nanny for the two coolest kids. this is the oldest one. these were taken by jake upon returning to auburn from asheville, nc to do some recording. he's going to be a rockstar...or a hairstylist. i miss him. (and yes, he was still wearing his jammies). he also does a mean version of the auburn fight song. 

Caroline

is my niece cute or is she cute? (i bought her that shirt)