Birthday Weekend!

We celebrated Shawn's birthday yesterday evening along with his classmates and a couple of my friends.  We had such a good night eating potato soup, chatting, and watching Home Alone, the original classic.

This morning, Shawn and I woke up early and went to the Auburn parade.  It was small, but lots of fun!  He sported his new Mountain Hardware Jacket that his lovely wife gave him and I thought he looked too cute not to take photos of:)

                                  This is Aubie, the Auburn Tigers mascot.  He rode in the back of a convertible for the parade!  Aubie has won 6 mascot national championships!  He's really great and funny:)

Shawn took this photo of me! I'm training a good second shooter!

These are the unicyclists.  They were amazing. The man on the left was actually jumping rope!

The firemen were tossing candy canes to the crowd and Santa rode on the firetruck with them!

        Jericho will stay nice and still when he is gonna get to eat some people food! I used some tortilla chips to bribe him.  I think he's a good-looking dog!

Bohanan Update:

   A Big Merry Christmas to all you who are interested in the comings and goings of the Bohanan family.  This Christmas season has been a challenging one for Shawn and I.  We are both givers (and spenders) and having a strict budget makes it very difficult to give (and spend, haha) like we want to! I have to take this opportunity to thank the Lord for providing for us in such a great way though.  I have a job that takes care of our bills, puts food on the table, and allows us to have a little bit of fun now and then....although the Bohanans don't really need money to have fun!  We are VERY happy sitting at home watching Harry Potter and making fun of Professor Snape saying "Exx.....peli..armus!"  I'm also thankful for the little bit of business I have gotten for Jaclyn Bohanan Photography.  I've had a blast learning and working in my spare time and seeing the potential for what I'd like my business to be in the years to come.    

    I actually got to buy my 1st lens with my profit from my business, so that was super exciting.  Now of course I have a wish list a mile long, but I have to remind myself that my wish, our wish, to become debt free is a lot BIGGER than my wish for new stuff.  Because the dreams I have for debt free-ness are HUGE.  I have dreams to form a non-profit, to raise a family, give to others, and take my kids to Disney World!  

   I guess for anyone on this trip, the journey gets rough....last night I had a break down because I'm not happy in my job and in our situation right now.  When i think of working at this job for 7 more months I want to ball up and cry (that's pretty much what I did last night).  But, what I read in the Word this morning helped me a little, and I'm sure as I meditate on it, it will begin to help me more:

               

           "I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; 

        I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exult in you;

        I will sing praise to your name, O Most High."

                (Psalm 9:1-2 ESV)

I can't really give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart when I am continually negative about my situation and angry at where the Lord has placed us.  When I recount all His wonderful deeds in my life, even in this moment alone, they are too many to number!  It really puts things in perspective.  Maybe the thankfulness post was a little late, but I want to be thankful.  I have a husband who loves me, a job, an awesome chocolate lab (who, by the way is learning to turn the light off), a wonderful family, and most importantly, a Savior who came as a little baby to be God with us.  I'm so thankful that God is with us---that He's with me right where I am... that He hasn't deserted me or my family.  I'm thankful that when i lack faith, He draws me close to Him.  I'm also thankful that this little portion of our life in Auburn is making it possible for good things in the future. It's making it possible for many with Autism and their families to be blessed by my husband.  This portion of my life has brought me a couple of good friends in Auburn that have made this journey a little more bearable and fun at times (a.k.a. when I'm not at work) I'm also thankful that this portion of my life has brought me to see my husband's 25th birthday.  I pray that I will see 25 more!

      As far as the finances go, its been tough.  It's tough to learn the discipline to budget- to tell your money where it's gonna go (especially when you don't have a lot!)  It's hard work to walk around the grocery store with your little ipod grocery app and calculate to the penny how you are going to spend your little dollars.  It's tough to make decisions like, "well, this week we can only have $5 spending money if we want to have money to eat with..."  It's tough telling friends I can't go out to eat, tough telling Shawn that we don't have the cash to buy new clothes, or that we'll have to wait another week before we get our oil changed.  But you know what?  It's ok.  It's called discipline.  Becoming disciplined in our finances has been a great thing for us.  Cutting off the cable has allowed us to spend more time together talking.  Staying at home instead of going out has allowed me to minister to my husband by cooking, sometimes cleaning, and having nice conversation.  I also realize that us learning where to put our money is different than having NO money.  There are so many in this world that just don't have anything.  They really do live on rice and beans (if they're lucky).  So, I will count us VERY blessed.  Blessed that we are young and in love...blessed that we have a roof over our heads...blessed that we have options for dinner....blessed that we have cars, cameras, and computers...blessed that we have friends and family.  I have a thick head, but thank the Lord He reaches my heart.

    If you've stuck around this long to read til the end, thank you for being a friend:) A very Merry Christmas to you and yours.  Be filled with peace and thankfulness for God came Near:)

----Jaclyn Bohanan (one day Shawn will write)

Big Day!

Hey all you crazies:)

   Today marks a great day in the Total Money Makeover road Trip.  Before I tell you why it's a great day, Allow me list out the 7 baby steps for you, so you can get a drift on what we are dealing with here:

Baby Step #1:  Start a $1000 emergency Fund
Baby Step #2: Pay off all debt (excluding your house) using the debt snowball
Baby Step #3:  Put 3-6 Months of expenses into savings- this will assist incase of a job loss or tragedy.
Baby Step #4: Invest 15% of household income into roth IRA's and pre-tax retirement
Baby Step #5: College funding for children
Baby Step #6: Pay off the house early!
Baby Step #7: Build wealth and give!

Ok, so those are the overwhelming baby steps.  Dave got the idea from the bill murray's movie, "What about Bob" Where Bob suffers from various phobias.  He takes "baby steps" to move him along in his life.  That's the same principle here.  The plan is daunting- overwhelming.  But, by taking baby step after baby step, it's actually doable and not so scary. I remember hearing about a girl who climbed mt Everest.  She said when you get up past a certain altitude, you can only take 3 steps and then you HAVE to rest because you are so oxygen deprived and exhausted.  She said that she would focus on something like a rock that was close-by- if she could just make it that far, she would be satisfied.  And then once she reached the rock, she would make a new goal.  She climbed Mt. Everest step by step.  I submit that Bills, credit cards, and student loans combined is our mount everest.  Maybe it's yours too. It CAN be climbed.
  So why is today so special in the lives of Shawn and Jaclyn? We completed baby step #1 for the 2nd time in our married lives!!  The 1st time our car engine blew up.  So, the fund was depleted.  But now, Can you say $1000 in savings??? WOW.  I know for some of you folks, that doesn't sound like a big deal.  Maybe you've been financially responsible your whole lives.  But this hasn't been my case.  It has taken hard work and discipline to achieve this baby step.
  Already, I can feel the stress lifting off of my shoulders.  I know that God is sovereign over the things that happen, but we must be responsible at the same time.  I know that if something should happen to my car now, that we have been responsible enough to save a little money to take care it:)
Praise God for His provision in our lives!!
   My hope is that you will get in on this success.  Get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Get mad! If you're young, why don't you do this now?! Change the rest of your life.  If you're old? Why don't you do this now?!  Value the time that you have left!  The rest of your life doesn't have to be spent being a SLAVE.  imagine mel Gibson as he shouts, "FFRREEEDDDDOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!!" on braveheart.  that's what i want. that's what you want.  What's standing in your way?  hopefully you have spiritual freedom in Christ.  We are not meant to live our Christian lives in slavery.  fight for freedom.

oops.

After writing my huge post about the money Mirror, I felt so encouraged!  I felt pumped up like shawn and I could beast this budget thing, always make the right decisions, and pay off exactly what we put our hearts to.  Well, the next day, Shawn and I went grocery shopping.  Well, normally I do the shopping, or I write a specific list out for shawn and gets exactly what's on that list.  We had friends come into town yesterday, and we needed food really bad, so we decided to knock it out real fast together.  MISTAKE.  We ended up picking up lots of stuff that wasn't on the list, we bought TWO bags of rice accidentally (I picked up one and Shawn picked up one), bought too much meat b/c our communication obviously wasn't working, bought one bag too many chips, and bought a thing of drano that we didn't need b/c we ended up finding out the shower plumbing problem was just a surface one.  I gasped when I saw the total.  How could we have gone over by so much?  I used a few coupons though, so that was a good thing I thought---Until I started checking the receipt on the way home.  They did not scan my coupons in!  I begged shawn to turn around (we weren't far away at all) but he wasn't having it.  He was hungry and wanted to get back to the house I guess.  So, After being super angry, discouraged, and saddened by our lack of communication and planning, I tried to get over it.  I opened up our Excel budget and wiggled our money around until it all made sense and we were still in the green.  No "blow" money this week, for sure.  That's ok though.  At least we have 2 bags of lays potato chips and two bags of rice to see us through:)

  Lesson Learned: if Fail to plan, you plan to fail.

"For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? “Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish."  Luke 14: 28


Take the extra 30 minutes, make a meal plan according to your budget, STICK to it, and for heavens sake, don't bring your hungry husband to grocery shop with you:) 

Adventure...

The money mirror.

The past week I've been trying to figure out how to update our family blog.  I KNOW every LOVES photos, but honestly, in the life of the Bohanans, there's not much going on right now.  I work about 10.5 hours a day, and Shawn is with his nose in the books most days.  so, photos will be few.  But, if you are craving to see at least what I've been working on, feel free to stop by my photography blog here.  I'm currently doing a 30 day photography challenge.  I'm on day 7 today.  

  Since I won't be updating our blog with photos very often, I wanted to write about something that is affecting our lives in a HUGE way.  If you've followed me on Facebook, you know that Mr. & Mrs. Shawn Bohanan have begun our journey on the Total Money Makeover trail.... For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, it's the book by Dave ramsey about finding financial peace and become debt free! P.S., you can get the book cheaper on Amazon:)  

  There are many reasons why Shawn and I have begun this journey and I'd like to share a few with you:

   1.  The borrower is a slave to the lender (Prov. 22:7)  We don't desire to be a slave to ANYONE except for Jesus Christ.  We DO desire to be servant-hearted to everyone though. There's a difference.  How many times have you thought, oh, I can't do this or that because I have to pay bills next week.  Or, how many have thought, i'm NEVER gonna pay off my student loans. They will rule me my entire life.  Or, i will ALWAYs have a car payment?  or maybe an emergency hits and you HAVE to Max out your credit card because you have no money saved?  Prime examples.  It's time to break those chains and take back our Lives.

  2.  We want to Give like no one else-

  A great motivation for us to become debt free is so that as a couple we will be able to invest in the Kingdom of God financially.  Sure, we can definitely do that now!  But, our resources are most certainly limited.  We yearn for the day when a friend of ours says, "I'm raising support for the mission field", and we're able to write a HUGE check.  We want to be able to invest in our children's lives, in our church, and be able to pour out blessing upon blessing because we have been financially responsible.  

  3.  It's God's Money-

   What are you talking about? I don't see God sitting at that desk for 10.5 hours working to get that check!  It's my Right to be able to spend my money on whatever I want. I deserve it. I earned it.  (have you thought this)?

  WRRROOOOONNNNNGGGGG.

Who gave you that job? Who has kept you healthy enough to go to it every day?  Who has placed you in the United States or wherever you are to be able to have the freedom to work?  GOD HIMSELF. "every good and perfect gift has come from above, from the father of Lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." James 1:17.   We are just stewards of what God has given to us. Does the Lord want you to be intelligent and diligent with the resources he has given you? Absolutely.  So we are on our way to doing it.

4.  Money is a mirror

ok, this one I HATE.  Money is not bad.  The LOVE of money is the root of evil.  The thing is, wherever your treasure is, there your heart it also.  Straight from the Word of God.  How you spend your money REFLECTS (as a mirror does) what is really important to you.  Your attitude about spending money REFLECTS who you really are.  The greatest thing we have learned so far in this short journey is that we are SINNERS. I crave and crave and my material "belly" is never satisfied.  I get a new camera and two months later I want a Bigger, better one.  I NEED this lens and that lens.  I HAVE to go get new clothes, I NEED YOGURT MOUNTAIN NOWWWW!!!  I deserve to go to the movies and have a break.  I can spend MY money like I want.  It's MINE MINE MINE.  I don't care what my husband suggests, I don't care if my spending habits hurt him, it's all about ME.  (are you guilty of thinking like this?  I know I have been.)  

  The good news is, that if you have the Spirit of God living inside of you, you CAN bear the spiritual fruit of SELF CONTROL.  Guess what? You can bear the spiritual fruit of faithfulness.  Practice controlling your wallet and I guarantee it will increase your faith. 

5.  We want to give to our kids and our kids kids.

  It's no secret that Shawn and I want kids soon.  I'm getting older and that maternal nature is kicking in!  The thing is though, that I want to be able to provide for my children- Not only financially, but also spiritually.  I want to be able to teach them faithfulness and responsibility because they have seen it in their own parents. In order to do this, we must sacrifice.  YUCK. no one likes that word. Yuck, yuck, yuck!  We must DIE to ourselves.  ewwwwww. what a thought! We must be diligent.  Ok, jaclyn, stop with all the downer words.  I know, you probably hate me if you've stuck to reading this.  I'm just telling you what shawn and I are experiencing.  the thing is, that we can hold out now for something greater that will be in our future.  That's a biblical principle too.  We forgo participating in sin because we know that there's a greater reward both in this life and in the next.  Why not apply it to your finances?  We can hold out for the next 2 years in order to give Our children security and to be able to provide both them and their children with an inheritance.

I'm blogging about our journey to encourage you, my friends and family, but to also to provide us with some accountability.  Now all of cyber space know that the bohanans are serious about getting smart.  We've been on our journey hard for only a few months.  We've been piddling around on the road for about a year.  It's time to get serious.  It's time to seek the Lord and be faithful.  You think you're spiritual? expose your wallet and see what lies in your heart.  We did, and it was ugly.  But thanks be to God that He can make all things new.  He bear with us in our weaknesses.  He gives us victory in Christ Jesus.  How about you join us on this road?  try it for 30 days and see if you don't notice a difference in your spiritual life, in how you interact with your spouse, and how you feel emotionally about finances. (and no, I'm not being given commissions by dave ramsey;)  )

***as a tag to this post, I'd like to have you note that Shawn is in school, and not allowed to work in the corporate setting, although he is working hard with his schooling!  We are living off of my very small income.  We do have a blessing of some additional cashflow each month through a source that will remain nameless but VERY VERY loved.  But needless to say, we aren't living on much.  The thing is, that you can be responsible with the resources you have.  "he who is faithful with Little will also be faithful with much." Luke 16:10.

nice auburn stroll

I talked my hubbie into taking a walk with me, and last minute I grabbed my camera.  So glad i did, cause I got to experiment with some backlighting:)  Shawn hates me taking photos of him all the time, but he's such a cute subject! so is my pup, jericho:)

don't own a lens hood yet, but i really liked the lens flare here:)

so serious, but I love this one!

He toned down the cheesing to his normal smile and i got this beauty. dag um branch in the way! haha...

Hey Everyone!

  I know its been a long time since I've updated our blog.  I wanted to snap some photos of our new home and go around the university and take some photos, but I haven't had a chance to do it yet!  That'll be a good post to look forward to:)
  Shawn is having a blast at school in his program.  Let me tell you, he is pretty close to genius.  He got back a test last week and he had made a 100.  I didn't even know that was possible!! I was lucky to get "B"s in my classes:)  Shawn's off at a conference this week, so it's me and jericho at the house for a couple of nights by ourselves.  We're going to go to zumba (me, not the dog), watch some movies, lead music tomorrow night, and definitely eat some ice cream while shawn's not looking ;)
  The Lord was very good to provide me with a job, so I've been working about 10 hours a day at a korean company based here in the United states.  let me tell you, it's interesting being the minority around here...   The job is pretty dull, i'm praying that maybe God will provide me with something I enjoy, but for the time being, I'm very thankful for His provision in this manner.
  We've made a few friends here in Auburn already...Jericho has a best friend named Kolby who he's missing VERY much since kolby and mommy are in California for a while.  They love going to the dog park, swimming in the pond, running laps around the yard, and taking walks around the neighborhood:)
  I'm really trying to get starting the photography world, so if you follow this blog, go ahead on over to my photography blog www.jaclynbohananphotography.blogspot.com and follow me on Facebook at jaclyn Bohanan photography.  and btw, don't you love that my last name is bohanan?  I think my last name is awesome!  I was just thinking about how it didn't take me long at all to adapt to having a new name:)
   If you want to, pray for me this friday as I have my wisdom tooth (not too wise, cause I only have one!) taken out.  I'm pretty bummed about it, but it is an excuse to eat ice cream and sleep all weekend and be pampered by my hubbie!  Also, pray for shawn cause he has another test on Tuesday.  He's a genius, so i'm not too worried!  Thanks for your prayers and interest.  We love you all! Hope to post photos soon.  maybe everything goes well, i can get out this weekend and take some photos (if my mouth isnt too sore)  love you!

--jac

empanadas!

Ever since my time in Argentina, I've been searching for an authentic Argentine recipe for savory empanadas.  I stumbled upon an excellent one from LAYLITA   You can make these empanadas with pre-made tapas that you can buy from latina markets, but I didn't want to search and search for something that might not exist in Auburn.  So, I opted to make the dough myself.  I feel like the proportions were off a bit.  The dough didn't yeild as much as it said it would.  I doubled the recipe and got about 35 empanadas.  The meat, however, doesn't need to be doubled.  I learned that the hard way and ended up with a big bowl of leftovers!!  

  The empanadas took a long time to prepare from scratch, but the product was delicious.  I'd say one of the most authentic recipes I've tried.  You should give 'em a whirl!  

   I did all the cooking, but my wonderful husband showed up in time to put them together for me while I was rolling out the dough.  He did a superb job, don't you think?!  The empanadas were a hit with our young marrieds group here in Auburn!  The surest way to make friends quickly is to introduce them to Argentine delicacies:) 

saute the meat with onions, paprika, chile powder and cumin

Chop the olives (you can use slices too)

Hard boiled egg

put it in the middle

squish the edges with a fork to seal

then start rolling- pinch by pinch

here's the pre-baked product

And the finished product

tahoe, vegas and the hoover dam

As you can see, this trip was packed!  It's taken me almost 2 months to be able to post all the pictures from it.  I'm not sure if people are still checking the blog or not, but if you are, here are the pictures from Lake Tahoe, Vegas, and the hoover dam!  Tahoe was beautiful, vegas was super crowded and hot, and the hoover dam was huge! the photos from the trip are wrapping up, so keep checking in to be able to see the end.  Love you guys.

The famous bellagio cacino and fountain:)

The crazy, drunk mexican who supported me while playing the slots:)

it was so windy on this bridge!! Bad day to wear a skirt

The hoover Dam

The Redwoods

After our freezing trip to Crater Lake, we traveled down to northern california to visit the Pacific coast and trek through the redwoods.  The water was FREEZING and the beach was foggy, but we really enjoyed our trip to the coast.  We traveled through some of the redwood forest and I was just amazed at how big the trees were! Shawn had told me some stories about the humongous trees but I didn't believe it until I saw it.  If you've never gotten the chance to travel through that area, I would highly recommend it!  The pictures definitely don't do it justice.  Hope you all enjoy! blessings.

Freezing water! shawn pretended to get a blurry shot on the first one so I would have to stay in the water longer...punk.

pretty sure this is california's state flower

a sight I saw frequently- shawn fiddling with the gps

how beautiful is this bark!

oh my gosh.  have you ever seen a tree this big??

babe the ox:)

Paul bunyan! he's huge

this whale was found in the klamath river near the redwood national forest

the bark was like artwork

i hate this photo, but look how gigantic the tree is!!