new pregnancy pics

We forgot to post the 25 week pic; so here it is...









And here's the current pic at 30 weeks...

A new update... 2 months late.

I cannot believe it has been 2 months since we last blogged! Time is just flying by! So many things going on, so many things to look forward to. So, let's just jump in!

Dave and I went to California to spend Christmas with his family for a few days. It was so nice to get away and see everyone again. The morning before we left, we had an ultrasound and found out that Baby Johnson is a boy! We are so excited to meet the little guy.

We took the ultrasound pictures to California to show Grandma and Grandpa Johnson and Aunt Angela who were all very excited to get a glimpse of the little guy. Everyone was also very excited to see my belly which is much more evident there is someone else co-existing within me than last time I saw them.

We had a very relaxing Christmas Eve and Day and we got my favorite gift so far for the baby. This is from Aunt Angela and it makes me giggle everytime I look at it:

When we left Kansas, we left just in time to miss a blizzard that hit the Midwest later on that afternoon. This unfortunately made for some delays getting back into Kansas City, but only by a few hours. There was quite a bit of snow in our driveway when we pulled in and Dave jokes that he got a workout shovelling all of that snow later that day. The one thing about the snow here is that it is pretty light and easy to shovel if you do it right away. However, if you wait a day the sun shines down and melts the snow during the day, but then it freezes overnight as the temps drop. Needless to say, after a few days of not being tended to, we had quite a bit of ice under the snow that made cleaning it up much more difficult.

Ok... Dave here... my turn, my turn...

Then, so many things happened in January for Eastlake Lawrence. We started weekly services on the first Sunday in January. We started a series called DNA: What Makes Us... US. We were averaging about 90-100 peeps a week. Then, after the second week in Jan, we sent out our mailer to 45,000 households advertising our new series called "10 Things I Hate About Church" for Jan 24th. The mailer advertisement was about a week and a half early, so people saw that we were already meeting and decided to check us out. So, we were about 140 people in the middle of Jan.

So, for the week that the mailer advertised, we had 270 people show up to check us out. And, everyone seemed to say that they had a good time and that they were coming back! SO COOL! Then, the next week, we had 250 people show up. Most of those people said the same thing: that they felt welcome and confortable, and that they wanted to come back.

Now, for Super Bowl Sunday, we had 253 people show up!!! No drop in attendance at all. SO CRAZY!! God is really doing something here. I think that this shows us that Lawrence needed something like this; and that God is going to do a great work here. I am just so glad to be a part of it.

Last week, we also launched our first Growth Group session catalog. We have 7 groups available to join. Within 3 days of the catalog going out, 2 groups were full; and the others are filling up as well.


Now for some more baby info: On Feb 1st, we had a third ultrasound for baby Johnson. Doc said that everything still looks great and that there is nothing to worry about. We feel so blessed so far. Also, a friend from work needed to get rid of some baby stuff. So, she gave us a bunch of cool swag. She gave us a swing, bouncer, car seat w/ 2 extra bases, excersaucer, highchair, and other very gently used items. Most of these items still look very new.

Then, we found out that the infant car seat was recalled due to the handle breaking. Further, Becky saw that Babies R Us was doing a promotion that if you brought in a used car seat, highchair, etc, you would get a 25% coupon on a new item. So, we got a travel system for only 150.00. WOW!!!

That's pretty much it for now. Please continue to pray for us in Lawrence. God's doing big stuff here, and we want to do the best we can. Thanks

December 2009 Post

Hey all,

So much to talk about. There's a lot that's happened since our last blog. So, here we go:

ECC LAWRENCE'S CONNECT EVENT
This was the Sunday before thxgvg. We met at our pastors house for God's heavenly food: Bacon, biscuits and gravy, eggs, etc. We all had a good time. And, we met some people we hadn't seen before. We had about a little over 40 people that came, which was a few more than the last connect event in between monthly services. I was really glad to have this connect event b/c it was 5 weeks in between actual ECC services for this time.

THANKSGIVING
OH, there's so much to be thankful for!!! I have the best wife in the whole wide world. She is so perfect for me. I am thankful for having a job in this tough economy. I also really enjoy the branch I work at; the people are great(that's not to say that I didn't like my prior branch, :) still miss you seattle!). The church plant that we moved to help start is going GREAT!!! I wouldn't want to be on any other team doing this. God really has put the people that need to be here for a reason. I could go on forever, but I wont bore you with too much more...
So, we hung out at home on Turkey Day till about noon. We were able to sleep in, I went for a 5mi run while Becky rested. Then, we went to my Aunt's house near Liberty, MO. They made an AWESOME dinner. I, of course, gorded myself to so much good food.
Then, we were able to make it to our friends Matt and Emily's house for desserts. They had a blueberry/banana cheesecake, pumpkin, apple cobbler and ice cream, etc. As you can tell, we had a good thxgvg with fam and friends.

ECC LAWRENCE'S 3RD MONTHLY SERVICE
Another service went on w/out a hitch. OH YEAH!!! I can't stop saying that we are blessed to be apart of this launch team. We have the BEST volunteers. They are so ready to help with a smile on their face. They get there before the sun comes up, and they're there till noon-ish. And, they continually ask what they can help with next. I know that God is going to grow this church if people keep coming that have these kinds of servant hearts.
Well, we had about 104 poeple for this service. Which is GREAT, still. The church planting books still say that normal would be about 60-80 in attendence at this stage. So, on Jan 3rd, we start weekly service with our DNA series. This will be talk on why we do what we do, and what we are trying to create at EastLake. So, if your any where near Lawrence, I really implore you to come and check us out then!!!

IT'S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE CHRISTMAS
We, this means Becky did most of it, started decorating for xmas and Hannukah the weekend after thanksgiving. We don't have too much decor, but I think it looks great. Then, Sat we went to Home Depot for our tree. We got a 8ft Noble Fir. I normally like douglas', but this Noble was perfect.
Funny to say, but this is the first year that we actually are fully decorating the tree. We never really finished the 2 yrs before. But, I love the way Becky decorated it. I put the lights on, and Becky did the rest. So, here's a pic:










20 WEEKS

Becky here- Well, I am officially halfway through my pregnancy! I cannot believe just how fast time has flown. I definitely am looking more and more pregnant which is just an odd thing in itself. You spend years anticipating what it would be like and then, just like that, you are the pregnant one! I have not had any major issues except sinus congestion which I have found out is due to the increase in estrogen and blood flow. It could be much worse and so I choose not to complain.
We have begun to do some research on all the basic needs like car seats, strollers, etc... and will probably go register once the holidays are over. I am looking forward to that but I don't think Dave necessarily looks forward to going "shopping" and not coming away with something. :)
Our next ultrasound is coming up on December 23rd. Because of my history with elipespy and the meds I have to take, we have been scheduled to have more tests than the usual. This will be my third ultrasound and we will find out for sure what we are having. What a great Christmas gift, huh? Just so you are warned: although we will let everyone know what we are expecting, the name will remain a secret until this little one is born. There have to be some surprises in life.

Well, I think that is about it for now. We wish you all the very best during this holiday season and hope you are able to spend it with family and/or friends. Please know that we miss all our friends and family not in the Lawrence area. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year to all!!

Eastlake Lawrence's Second Monthly Service

So, this past Sunday was our second monthly service. IT WENT GREAT! We have the BEST volunteers!!! We arrived late Sat night to find out that we could not get into the school to setup until 6am Sunday morning. And, everyone didn't skip a beat, nor grumble about coming to help just to turn around and go home. This also meant that we had a great deal less time to make sure everything would be ready in time.
So, we went home to turn around in the morning to set everything upat 6am. I felt like it went so much better this time because we had at least some knowledge of where to start or what to tell people to help us setup. Setup went great, and we got everything up and ready in plenty of time.
Lots of people showed up and it looked like everyone had a good time. We had 110 people show up for this service[which is baller, as Jason would say)]. The books on church planting say that expecting about half of your first service to come back for a second service is normal and good. This is also b/c you have some well wishers come out to "fill a seat". This means that we would have been happy to have about 65-70 people. Further, our pastor Matt posted his blog about this on Oct 28: "I think it’s entirely possible to have 110 attend our second monthly service. In fact, we’re preparing for more!". I don't really believe there are too many coicidences with God, however, that's neat!
Anyway, our next event is the "Connect Event" on November 22nd. We are pretty excited about it. We hope to see more people show up.

Have a great day!

15 Weeks

We are so excited to be able to tell you that we have hit 15 weeks in pregnancy. Becky is starting to look pregnant. She's definately past most of the morning sickness, which was really light for the first 10-12 weeks. Most of the sickness was from our 45min car rides to and from work.
This past Wednesday, we had our first ultrasound of Baby Johnson. IT WAS SO EXCITING! We could totally see it moving around. It was twisting and turning a bit. We could also see it's arms and fingers moving(so cool!!!). The doctor gave us an a-ok status on the development of the baby, and we get to go back on Dec 23rd for a more in-depth ultrasound.

Church for the Rest of Us

This past 6 months has been a whirlwind of activity. There have been lots of ups and downs; but, God has taken care of us, so generously. Ever since we decided to join the launch team headed to Lawrence, KS, God has totally provided everything that we need to do his work. Here’s a little history about our launch.

We started with nine. Matt and Emily Cox - the pastor and his wife, Ryan and Tiffany – Operations and Follow-Up, Beth – Kids, Heather – Teams and Production, Jason – Video, Becky – Kids, and Me – Sound. This team is AWESOME. I am just so proud to being a part of it. We get along together so well. Everyone has their part, and we are all great at it. I feel like we all have the same vision and we are all on the same page. My favorite part is that everyone has their role, and no one steps over each other’s role or agenda.

Since we’ve moved to Lawrence in the last couple months, the team has been preparing for our first service. We were making sure how and what everything needs to look like to make sure that our vision came to be what we want it to be. We’ve been meeting and hanging out at least once to twice a week to plot and plan this journey, and to just bond together. It’s been a great time!

So, this past Sunday was Eastlake Community Church’s FIRST service in Lawrence, KS!!! We had about 130 people come check it out. It was so awesome. Everything went off without a hitch! Everything was setup in time, volunteers made everything happen, and everyone had a good time. Here’s what some people said:

“It was one of the best church experiences that I have ever had."

"First church my husband and I have attended together that we both felt "at home" and excited about attending another service. Also loved that we felt our young children will be safe."

"There are a lot of very friendly people."

"Everyone was welcoming and seemed accepting of everyone."

"It felt good to feel like I wouldn't be judged upon appearance."


My favorite part was the volunteers that made this happen!!! I can’t say it enough. They totally did not know what to expect or what it was going to be like. And, they made it look like they’ve been doing this for years. Everyone was ready to give a helping hand anywhere, and they all did it with a smile and a cheering heart. Volunteers, YOU’RE AWESOME!!!

Our next service is on November 8, so feel free to come and check us out.

Exciting News!!!

We have some very exciting news to share with you all... On or around May 2, 2010, we will be expanding our family by one new member. WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!!! We told family right away, but decided to hold off telling friends until closer to the end of the first trimester. Since I (Becky) was already planning on being in town for a doctor's appointment during that time, we figured we could tell many of you in person. Unfortunately, I had an unexpected death in the family (sooo glad I was home) and I needed to be with family.

Anyways, just wanted to let you in on the big secret and we will keep things updated as things progress.