The Randomness

Hey all! This is my first blog as a 27 year old woman. Yikes!! My birthday was yesterday, and I appreciate all of your warm wishes on my special day. I'll blog about birthday surprises after the weekend when I've loads to tell.

Well, if you recall, I wrote a bit about Foster's Grill not too long ago and the suckness of it's Asian chicken salad. Well, I ended up chatting with someone in corporate who was quite nice, and he promised me free food for my bad experience. Cool, I thought. He told me, though, that our local guy would want to do the honors and would be ticked if he wasn't involved, so Brad told me to expect a call that day with news of free goods. Well, that's been over 2 months ago and no call and no free food. I think I'm officially done with those guys.


But, last weekend a star was born. We were starving after working out and were like where do we want to eat. We decided on Longhorn. We never lose there. Mmmm....but the wait was a shocking 25 minutes, and we just couldn't do it. We noticed a place when we pulled in to the parking lot that at first glance looked like a mechanic shop or car place but upon closer inspection realized that it was a burger place, The Counter- Custom Built Burgers. Would they have something besides a beef burger?? Wow, we decided to give it a go, and it was simply amazing! You can do beef, turkey, chicken, veggie and they even had a lamb burger! 15-20 cheese options, ridiculously amazing topping choices as well as sauce options. They bring it out to you on this large white plate and there is your gourmet looking burger in all its glory. Sweet potato fries were pretty much to die for, as well. They even have burgers in a bowl. (pictured below)


We picked up on a huge California vibe and upon visiting the website, I confirmed our suspicions, but they are growing and could be coming to a city near you!! It is pricey for burgers, but Will and I were talking about the fact that quality costs more sometimes. It was totally worth it. Did I mention an apple pie milkshake? Yeah.

So, this will probably be the briefest blog ever written by me, but I just had to share with you what happened last Wednesday.

So, I was dropping by the school, after work, to pick Will up for a little hang out time before church responsibilities. There he is waiting and immediately I get excited, of course. There is also a kid waiting for her mom or dad to pick her up. Will is about to open the door when I hear, "That's Sarah?", in this completely shocked and border-line condescending voice. I'm thinking, "What"? Then he opens the door to get in, and she puts one hand on her hip and says dramatically, "What the heck?".

I am left stunned and feel like developing a complex over this 9 year old girl. Will then explains to me that she is a very strange kid, and he would completely expect her to say and do something weird like that. Oh, the power of children, though. She had me wondering what in the world was wrong with me. I mean, most of the kids adore all that is me.

Anyway, I thought that was comical, and I hope the feel of it and the humor of the moment was captured. Love you all and hope you are well!!

Hollywood has a great way of seeing human desire and fulfillment as supreme. These feelings/desires supersede all else, and they draw you into a story where you are expected to want the same for these characters, even if it means abandoning commitments or promises.

A perfect example of that was in the film that Will and I watched recently; "Spanglish". Every story has an antagonist and a protagonist. In a lot of stories the antagonist is perfect in their role. There is very little redeeming about them and their protagonist counterpart shines by comparison. I felt this story had a sea of antagonists of varying degrees.



This was obviously not what the writer wanted anyone to think. It's clear who the heroes and supposed victims of the story are intended to be.

Family breakdown; A chef husband who worked long hours, a neurotic wife who was obsessed with perfection, an overweight daughter, a son who garners no real description, and an alcoholic mother in law. Enter Spanish, single mother housekeeper. Her earthy and natural beauty plus good deeds toward the members of the house put her in the perfect spot to be adored.

Long story short, Sandler ends up having an emotional affair with the housekeeper which results in an evening of shared feelings, kissing and an admittance of love. All the while the wife is having an affair; a full fledged one. But, because she's been painted as not so likable and because her affair is full on affair style, it's meant that you pretty much loathe her.

With the love expressed between Sandler and housekeeper and the way these characters have been set up, it is intended that you sympathize with them, feel sorry for them and wish for them to be together. There was an obvious conscious there, but they bathed this affair in beauty instead of the destruction that it always is.



We saw the opposite of this yesterday in Fireproof. While the cast was all volunteer and at times that showed, there was an amazing richness and heart in the story, and the moments that were important were very well done. I encourage couples to go see it before it leaves the theaters, which will probably be soon.

Peace out! Love you all!

Happy Saturday! Well, we've caught another mouse since last post and are currently dealing with another. They just don't get it. They will perish! Silly mice.

Well, I would like to devote the next couple paragraphs to just how amazing my husband, Will Troutman is. Let me start by saying that the following would not have needed to be done for me to still consider him a great husband, but they were done, so they need to be referenced.

Let me start with last Sunday. I had had a rough Saturday emotionally, and I cried a lot. Well, that crying left me with a migraine on Sunday. I stayed at home, under the covers, while Will went to church. He stopped at the store on the way home for some things (including ginger ale for me) and as I was greeting him, I noticed a bouquet of flowers in his hand. He bought me flowers!! He bought me lilies. My 3rd favorite flower, because the didn't have my 2 favorites (peonies and tulips). I squealed. How sweet! Here's a pic of the beauties.



Secondly, Will's day off is Wednesday. I knew he was going to try to catch up on some rest and what not. Well, he totally cleaned the bathroom. Like, sparklingly clean. I love to take baths, so he especially worked on the tub. It glistened. There he was in his tired state after having cleaned the bathroom waiting for me when I got home. How amazing???

And, thirdly. Let me just say that I cannot stand titles, tags, DMV type offices. I or Will have been into our title place now 5 separate times and every time we've needed something more or different. Why they can't tell us all of that at once is beyond me. Well, I had just finished up 2 stops at the office and come out with nothing, feeling rather frustrated. Will knew of my irritation and upon my return home, he had some Ben and Jerry's yogurt out for me with spoon! Yeah, so I'm telling you, the title of my blog is not an exaggeration. It's the truth.


Marriage isn't bliss one day after the other and there is certainly work involved, but I love my husband beyond words and feel like the most blessed woman on planet earth. I have married my best friend. The hottest best friend ever!!!

Hello Friends! It's been a good 3 days preceded by a very interesting weekend. Will and I had a relaxing weekend planned with not too much going on.

Friday evening we made salads with grilled chicken and sat down to some House and relaxation. After House we switched to a little Fable, which by the way is a super awesome x-box game. Yes, I am a girl who enjoys her video games. Will happened to be playing at the moment and after slaying a group of bandits, I noticed that he was looking suspiciously around our apartment. "What's wrong?", I asked. "I thought I saw something", came his reply. My mind goes straight to a giant spider, roach, other horrible insect. He saw a mouse!

After getting out the flashlight and looking around, we thought it was his imagination until we heard scurrying in our pantry shelf. The shine of the light revealed a tail sticking out of one of our boxes of goods. Dang it! A mouse! Then came the debate. Was he still in the basket? If so, could we grab it off the shelf and haul it and it's contents onto our tiny deck? After much deliberation, we decided to go out and get mouse traps. 10:30 finds us at Kroger getting multiple sticky traps.

Our place looked like a mouse barricade. Didn't hear or see anymore of the mouse that night, and we went to bed tired and annoyed.

Saturday night around midnight, we are lying about to drift off to sleep when we hear a noise, a squeak, if you will. Up out of bed, we each searched the multiple traps until it was found on the last one. The tiny, little mouse was stuck to the pad, and I automatically got sad and my heart went out to the struggling vermin. I won't tell you how it was disposed of. After which, we went to sleep.

4 AM, jolted from slumber by the neighbor dogs barking their heads off. What in the world? After lying there, listening, we decided to get up and shine our light over to them. Unbelievably, there was a possum on the fence and their electric collars wouldn't allow them to get at it. So, they just sat there like morons barking. And the possum wouldn't freaking scurry away already.

So, Will tried to throw tennis balls at the possum to jolt it. He was like a stone possum. Then he went outside and tried to scare him off. The possum didn't leave, but maybe Will scared the two giant dogs, because they stopped barking.

Creatures were abundant this weekend. But,we still have traps, little mouses, so I'd advise not to return to the Troutman home!

Wednesday night, 10:26PM, Will is playing Halo with some friends via the Xbox, and I'm here next to him starting this blog. First off, the music for Halo is super sad, so now I'm all depressed and not at all sure what to write about. All that comes to mind is of the melancholy. My horrible salad comes to mind. I'll talk about that.

Okay, so driving home from work today I got so incredibly tired. The kind of tired that inevitably will turn to irritability. I was at that point from the time I got home from work to the time that I went to praise team practice. By God's help, I never went to the bad place and managed to come out of practice feeling loads better. The husband and I were hungry. Okay, where to eat...mmm...uhhh... We decided to try this joint called Foster's Grille. Burgers, chicken sandwiches, asian chicken salad. Wow, I thought. That sounds yum. What an unexpected treat from such a place.



Yeah, unexpected menu option is more like it. It was a far cry from a treat. The irritation came driving into my mind like a freight train, crashed and just laid there until it pretty much took me over. Evening wasn't ruined. God once again provided me with patience and the ability to breathe and know it was okay that my meal was lackluster.

I've been sick off and on since my return from Slovakia, so there was a lot surrounding my ruined meal. I go to the doctor on Friday. It's time I had a physical and just a general, make sure I'm okay time.

This was textbook rambling, to be sure. I hope it wasn't mind numbingly boring. Blessings, people.

It is difficult to fathom that we have already come and gone from Slovakia. It always feels that way, but you are shocked by it every time.

God was so good to me during our flights; especially coming home. The takeoffs and landings and all that lied between effecting me very little, and I am so grateful for that.

Well, our amazing students arrived on Tuesday evening and it was pretty non-stop until we arrived home on Wednesday night. These were some of the best english speaking kids I've ever had at a camp. We tested them as they arrived and placed them in classes late that night.

Will and I each had an upper intermediate group and taught in classrooms next to one another. Mine was a bunker style room and felt quite comfy vs. creepy, which was they way I thought it might feel. Will's classroom was the ping pong room; how perfect!

My class:


Will's class:


So, here's what a day at camp looked like.

6:30 AM wake up for 7 AM leaders meeting. We had a small devotional and prayer time.

8-8:45 AM Breakfast

8:45 AM Camp dance, morning announcements, etc.

9-11 AM English class

11:15-12:15 Initiatives- this was a time where there was some kind of activity with our english class which prompted conversation. This would generally be in Slovak, but the point was to get them talking and about deep and thought provoking topics.

12:30-1:30 PM Lunch

1:30-2:30 PM This was the time to hang out with students in a non-structured atmosphere and to relax a little.

2:30-4:30 PM Sports/Crafts- Will and I hung out with students and played sports during this time. We tossed the American football, played some basketball and one day Will taught a few kids the basics of football and we played a quick touch game. Super fun!

4:30-6ish PM Group Activity- I say 6ish because during this time where we played a group game with our English class, we usually played until we finished, which varied every day. We usually played for our dinner. Our class was barely last the first day but was first the next. These games were both physically and mentally grueling.

6-7 PM Dinner

7-8 PM Planning for evening program

8-10 PM Evening program- this consisted of the band playing a few songs, a video each night, icebreakers and an evening talk. These were awesome. Will had the privilege of speaking one night, and he did an amazing job.

10-12 E-Nite- We planned 3 of these and the Slovaks the other 3. We had a luau, a bonfire with smores and an international night. The Slovaks planned 3 awesome nights as well.

So, there you have it. A day at camp.

One day we took a 10 mile hike uphill with loose rocks. Yes, it was insane. The feeling of accomplishment when we reached the top was pretty substantial. The trip down was a little rough for my ankles, which couldn't not be wobbly, but I look back with fond memories.

Top of the mountain:



Awkward siblings:


The descent-we were at that tower:


After camp we had follow up with students in the park in Bratislava. We played sports, danced, talked and said our final goodbyes. That night we went to Castle Devin, which overlooked Bratislava. It was gorgeous. Really cold and I got sick as a result, but totally worth it.

Our team, last night:



Will and I both think of this trip as one of the best we've ever taken. It was amazing to do ministry together. It's something we've really never experienced together. This is my 4th trip to SK and Will's first. We were praying before we went that if God was calling us to ministry in that capacity that He would make it clear to us.

We had dinner with Mel and Amy Ellenwood one night. They work for Josiah Venture in Czech Republic. They met us at camp and just shared their story with us. We asked questions, they shared scripture with us and we prayed together. This was a powerful time. I tell you all this, to ask you to pray for us as we pray through this.

One of my favorite memories of the trip was the return from camp. Will, Laura and I rode back together, all crammed in the back seat. We danced to Under the Influence of Giants, laughed and just experienced the goodness that is the 3 of us together. How blessed were we to work with Laura and share in this experience with her. Love you, Laura!

This is really long. Hope you stuck around for it all! Love you.