Posted by: Liz | July 15, 2009

Houston Project!

Hi all!

I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday.  I am so thankful for the wonderful week that is happening so far!  Some great things have happened.  First is that I passed my first Microsoft Certification Exam!  This may not sound like a big deal to most people, but I have been studying for this thing for forever (and mostly outside of work) so it is a HUGE load off of my back to be done with it!  I kinda almost cried when I saw my score because I was so happy. :)   But sadly, I am not certified in anything yet, because I have to pass not one, but two tests before I really have anything to brag about.  But when I pass my second exam, I will be a certified Microsoft Technical Specialist!  (I can feel all of your excitement) :P

So on to the more important happenings:  HOUSTON PROJECT!  Houston Project is a mission event that Houston’s First Baptist Church puts on every summer.  We go to ten different sites all over the city and provide free food, games, worship, VBS, and bible studies for children all the way up to adults.  Over a thousand people from our church have volunteered this year!  My sunday school class and two other classes got together and are hosting at a new site this year, a Spanish-speaking church called Iglesia Bautista del Redentor (which means Baptist Church of the Redeemer).  It has been awesome so far!  I have loved watching the little children get so excited about the skits and songs, watching the teenagers playing games and listening to the interesting guest speakers, and seeing the adults from the community getting involved too!  We would all really appreciate your prayers; we have two days left, tonight and tomorrow night.  Please pray for everyone’s safety, that even more people would come, and that God would move in the hearts of those who don’t know him yet!

Have a blessed day!
-Liz

Posted by: Liz | July 7, 2009

Be back soon

Hi everyone! I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but things have been a little hectic lately. I’m nearing the finish line of studying for a big exam, so after this weekend I should hopefully have some more time to write!

Oh, and also please pray for Houston Project, which starts next week! If you live in the Houston area and want to get involved in an awesome mission event, give me a holler! I’ll help you get set up. :) Here’s the link if you want more info: http://houstonproject.org

-Liz

Posted by: Liz | June 24, 2009

Go Catapult Systems!

2009PartnerOfTheYearSo, the company I work for, Catapult Systems Inc, is a Microsoft consulting company, and we have just won a pretty awesome award from Microsoft: the 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Award for Custom Development Solutions, Web Development!  Which means out of ALL of the Microsoft partner companies in the entire world, they chose us as the BEST at building web applications this year!  That’s a pretty huge honor.  Another reason why I’m proud of where I work.  Way to go guys!  Here’s the link to the full article.

Posted by: Liz | June 11, 2009

Camping, treasure hunting, and big spending

Howdy everyone!  Happy Thursday.  I am currently at the office having my lunch, and I felt like blogging!  So I’ve got a few things to catch yall up on, so I’ll start with our camping adventure that happened a few weeks ago! 

So as I may have mentioned before, this was Branden’s and my first camping trip together, so we were super pumped.  We’re hoping to make this a family tradition.  So anyway we drove down to Huntsville on Friday night, and our campsites were right by the water and also right next to a fishing site (which I know Greg was happy about!) :)   We met up with the Matterns, Perots, Coopers, and the Rodrigui.  We set up camp and hung out, did some fishing, walked around, and made smores.  Mmmm smores…  Saturday we all got up when the sun came up (it’s pretty much impossible to sleep late while camping) and did something that at least I had never done before, called ”geocaching”.  It’s basically a treasure hunt that is monitored online.  So you go to this website and look for “caches” in your area, save the coordinates, and then use a GPS to go traipsing around wherever the cach is hidden until you find it.  In our case, that meant climbing through the back woods of Huntsville State Park.   Ohhh yeeeeah.  And then once you find the cache, there is usually a log book that you can sign, and then you can take stuff out of it and put something in to replace it.  We actually found three different ones!  It was really fun and I recommend trying it with a group of friends.  I think this is the website we used: http://www.geocaching.com/  For the rest of the day, we fished, played games, went for walks, kayaked, cooked fajitas, and dodged the rain by setting up these amazing tent-like pavillions that some of us brought (thank goodness!)  We were able to still hang out in the evening even though it was raining.  Sunday morning we all went home, some of us left early enough to go to church, but others of us decided we were on vacation, dang it, we were going to take it easy (guess which category Branden and I fell into?) :)   So all in all it was a great weekend and we can’t wait to do it again.  Thanks to Jana and Greg for organizing our trip!  I feel so blessed to have so many great friends who love the Lord and have so much love for life!  Here are some pics from the weekend:
Explorers
We’ll find it! 
Geocaching
Geocaching!
Lady explorers
Lynn, Jana, Ashley, Jenny, and me
Perots
Joey and Jenny
Lynn&Liz
Lynn and me
Men on a tree
Manly men doing manly things
Jumping
I totally jumped, dang it
So since the camping trip a few weeks ago, Branden and I have been spending our weekends working on our house!  Our latest project was to replace the tile floor in our bathroom.  The tile itself wasn’t ugly, but it was starting to come up in a few places and I was tired of stepping on gravel every day!. So we finally picked a company and a tile that we liked, and they installed it a couple of weeks ago!  (No way were we going to do that ourselves!)  (I have some before and after pictures, but I’ll have to upload them later when I’m at home.)  I really like the results, and once we vacuumed all of the dust out of our house, we were able to enjoy it!
 
We’re also working on replacing our door knobs from brass to satin nickel (thanks for the hookup John!), and then this coming weekend we’re starting the process of having our countertops and backsplash replaced!!  Yippee!  The countertops are definitely the project I’m most excited about.  (Side note:  Lest anyone think that Branden and I normally drop serious cash like this, we have been saving and pondering for months and months, and everything just seemed to happen all at once!)  So, yeah, we’re not the big spenders that I’m making us sound like. :P  Unlike this guy:
 
obama_ballin
 
(My favorite is the guy on the left with the stack of cash on his head) :)
So this weekend Branden, Branden’s dad Ernie, and I are going to demo the kitchen, which means we are ripping out the sink, current countertops and at least part of the tile backsplash.  Ourselves.  Am I nervous at all?  Maybe a little…  But fortunately Branden is handy and Ernie is Mr. Fixit himself, so I think we’ll be okay.  I guess the hard part will be not having a kitchen for a week!  Tonight we’re going to enjoy our last real meal.
 
Anyway, I think my post has grown long enough, so I’ll stop it here.  I hope everyone’s having a great day!
 
Love,
Liz
Posted by: Liz | May 13, 2009

Camp Anawana

campingHi everyone!

I know, I’ve been horrible for not writing in so long.  But honestly with working over 8 hours a day on a computer and studying in the evenings on a computer, sometimes writing on a computer any more than necessary (even if it’s normally enjoyable) can become a chore!  But I’ve missed you all and I haven’t checked most of my friends’ blogs in ages either, so I feel completely out of the loop.  So now I guess it’s time to catch up!

Today I am by no means going to try to tackle a summary of the last several months, but maybe soon I might give it a shot.  Today, it’s all about the short entry.  So here it goes…

This week Branden and I are preparing for our first official camping trip together!  Woo hoo!  We have both been camping several times on our own, but never since we’ve met.  We’re so excited!  We’re going with a few friends to Huntsville, which is a whopping one hour north of us.  Branden has bought a tent (well, two, actually, the first one was way too big) and now I’m coordinating with the girls about our food for the weekend.  I can’t wait to get away from home!!  Jana is trying to get us to come up with a camp cheer and Jenny is planning campfire songs. :)   We’re totally going to cheese it up.  The main things we’re praying for is that it won’t rain and that it won’t be too hot.  Right now there is a chance it will be both.  Which could make for a very cranky Liz, but hopefully I’ll be able to rise above the discomfort.  If I can survive camping in a snow storm in Canada, then I should be able to handle camping in 90 degrees in Houston (hopefully).  I’ll be sure to update more and share some pictures!

That’s all for now!  Hope everyone is having a great day so far!
-Liz

Posted by: Liz | February 1, 2009

Happy anniversary, Erin!

Hello everyone!  I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday and are looking forward to watching some football tonight! :)   Branden and I don’t really care who wins (or I guess at least I don’t care) but we are both excited to kick bach and watch some football and (hopefully) entertaining commercials while we munch on chips and salsa and the oh-so-delicious velveeta/salsa dip. :)

So for those of you who don’t know, yesterday was a significant day in my family because it was the eighth anniversary of the day my sister Erin went to be with the Lord.  She passed away on January 31, 2001, which was the day before her 17th birthday.  She left behind a family who loved her dearly, as well as a group of awesome friends and an entire high school and town that loved her.  She was an amazing girl, filled with life and energy and a perhaps a small dose of sassiness. :)   She loved the Lord and wasn’t afraid to walk her talk, and would call you out if you weren’t doing the same.  She had a huge heart and treated everyone with love and respect.  It was an honor to be her sister and I can’t wait to see her again in heaven!  Here are a few pictures of her (sorry for the quality, this was before anybody had digital cameras)…

family-in-galveston

Our family in Galveston: Mom, Grandma, Erin, Dad, and me

 

erin-evan-at-beach1

Erin with Evan, who was her boyfriend at the time.  Evan is still very close to our family and has married a wonderful girl.

 

liz-erin1

Erin and me holding some of our little cousins (Sarah, and maybe Molly?)

So yesterday Branden and I went over to my parents house and spent a nice evening with them and my Grandma.  We had a great dinner and played board games, which is something we all really enjoy doing as a family.  Each year gets a little easier, although we will always miss her.  We like to think that they’re having a celebration for her in heaven too, to celebrate her homecoming. :)   We are so very thankful that Erin had trusted Christ as her Savior, so we know that our separation from her is only temporary, and we will see her again one day!  And that gives us a huge comfort.  If you ever want to know more about the faith that we have in Christ, just give me a holler and I’d be happy to talk with you about it!

Happy Superbowl Sunday guys! :)   Peace out-

Posted by: Liz | January 13, 2009

Hehe

So I’m using some 3rd party software on a project at work, (which means another company wrote it). And so I was looking through the code and I came across this comment:

tool

It’s nice to find things that make you smile at work. :)

Posted by: Liz | January 11, 2009

Honestly…

Happy Sunday morning everyone! Now, you might be asking yourself, “Why is Liz posting on a Sunday morning? Why didn’t she get her booty to church like everyone else?” Well, the answer to that is that my sweet husband woke up sick this morning, so we are playing hookie today. So I’m happy to stay home with him and blog instead. :) But I won’t dare leave the house until after lunch, lest anyone mistake me for a heathen. :P (Just kidding). I am a little disappointed to miss Pastor Gregg’s sermon this morning, because he is starting a three week series on The Birds and the Bees. I’ve heard some women (like Beth Moore) teach on the subject before, but I can’t remember ever hearing a sermon by a senior pastor about sex before. Kudos to him, though! That can’t be an easy subject to preach on. Especially when our congregation is so large and diverse.

So, my dear friend Jana has tagged me, which for all of you less familiar with blogging terms, that means she has challenged me to answer a question that has been passed around. That is great with me, because that provides me with material to write about! :)

So Jana’s tag is for me to share 10 honest things about myself. And since this is the Ramseys’ blog and not just Liz’s blog, I will extend these 10 honest things to include Mr. Ramsey as well. :)

1. I am a Martha. If you don’t know what I mean, then click here. At any time of the day, I can easily come up in my head at least ten things that I need to do, whether its things to buy, clean, write, organize, make, cook, you name it. I literally haven’t been bored in years and have never been without something to do. It’s a challenge for me to sit and relax and do nothing. Usually I do okay with this state of Martha-ness, but this often leads to stress and me burning out.

2. Branden, on the other hand, is very much a Mary. I am so thankful for this, even though at times I can’t for the life of me understand him. :) He is very content to let things be, and to do something fun or relaxing instead. He is for sure a hard and honest worker, but he is more at ease when not everything is put away or organized or checked off from a list. We balance each other out very well. I help him remember to clean up after himself, and he helps me to stop and smell the roses.

3. Branden and I can communicate without using words. We have developed an entire vocabulary of noises that we use to get our points across. But don’t ever ask us to demonstrate because we’ll act like we don’t know what you’re talking about.

4. This is probably true of most people, but I value family a lot more now as an adult than when I was younger. I wish I could remember why I was so embarrassed as a kid when my parents were around. Why didn’t I know how kind and funny and smart they were? For me, it was nothing extraordinary to spend an afternoon playing with my sister or going to Tyler to visit my Grandma and visit with the cousins. Now I wish I had another day to see Erin and Billy face to face here on earth. Fortunately I know I have an eternity to spend with them in heaven, but the memories I have of them are extra special to me now. I get super excited when Branden and I make plans to drive 40 minutes to Tomball to visit my parents. The thought of one day having a family of my own also thrills me.

5. I have a huge amount of hair. I do pretty well at keeping it under control, but there is a ton of it under there. Every time I go to a salon, the person doing my hair will comment, “Oh, look how much hair you have!” This is usually followed by them calling someone else over to also observe how much hair I have. It will also take this person three times longer to cut my hair than their average customer, so I usually feel oblidged to tip them a little more. Branden also has very thick hair, so our children will probably look like Cousin It.

6. My dad, Branden, and I all share the habit of analyzing everything. We can’t just look at something and end it there. We need to debate how it works, why it’s there, who made it, etc.

7. My dad and I are also alike in that we get lost all of the friggin time. We have no sense of direction whatsoever. It’s dangerous if the two of us run errands together because we’ll completely forget where the car is. Our family got my dad a TomTom for Christmas, though, so at least there’s hope for one of us now. :)

8. Branden’s super power is falling asleep on commmand. It doesn’t matter what he was doing prior to going to bed, or what he ate, drank, experienced, thought or talked about beforehand. Once his head hits the pillow, he’s out. Not only this, but if something wakes him up in the middle of the night, no big deal, he’ll just go right back to sleep. I am completely jealous of this fact.

9. Most of my dreams involve me flying. It’s usually not a Superman type of flying, but it usually involves me flapping my arms and legs, kind of in a swimming motion. I guess my brain finds it too bizarre to dream about flying without propelling myself in some way. That would be weird, right? :)

10. Branden is fantastic about making stories funny. I can talk about an event to someone with a fair amount of animation, but Branden can tell the same story and he’ll have everyone laughing. I like that he can do that. :)

Whew! Thinking of ten things was harder than I thought it would be.  Time to go find something productive to do now (see #1).  Tootles! :)

Posted by: Liz | January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Gosh, I can’t believe it’s 2009. Life has been busy the last few months, so in an effort to not keep yall in the dark, I have pulled together a little collection of photos for your viewing pleasure. :) Enjoy!

Branden and I finally went on our anniversary trip to San Antonio! (Stupid hurricane delayed it a month!)

alamo

 

Ashley had a panty party! (Left to right: Shelley, Jana, Bonnie, Me, Ashley, Abby, Jenny)

ashley-party

 

We played flag football with our Sunday School class

flag-football

 

Aaron and Ashley (a.k.a. the Rodrigui) got married! (I didn’t get any good pics of them so I stole this picture from a girl on Facebook, I hope she doesn’t mind!) :P

rodriguez-wedding

 

I turned 27 and we celebrated Thanksgiving with the fam

birthday
thanksgiving

 

Partied Christmas style with the Sunday School class (Clockwise from top: Lynn, Me, Becca, Liz H, Jen)

blueprints-christmas-party-1

blueprints-christmas-party-2

 

Went to Mary’s wedding in Dallas (Second pic: Branden, John, and Josh)

marys-wedding-1

marys-wedding-2

 

Built Gingerbread houses with friends (Branden was disappointed when he found out you couldn’t actually eat the house. :) Fortunately we had plenty of snacks there!

gingerbread-1

gingerbread-2

 

Celebrated Christmas!

christmas-2

christmas-1

christmas-3

christmas-4

christmas-5

 

Learned that Grandma has rhythm!

christmas-6

 

Rang in the New Year with some Rock Band! (We especially like the 2nd pic with Aaron singing) :)

nye-1

nye-2

nye-3

nye-4

I hope you all had a great 2008 and I hope that 2009 is wonderful for you as well! :) More posts soon!

Posted by: Liz | November 30, 2008

We’re still here! :)

Hi everyone!  So I know I haven’t written in a long time, but things have been pretty hectic lately with work and the holidays.  Just wanted to let yall know we’re still alive and I hope to get back into the blogging world within a week or two.  If you could remember me in your prayers, I’m taking a certification exam for work, possibly this week.  Thanks!  Love you all!  Be back soon! :)

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