the good life

o my goodness!  where do i start?!  i have been overwhelmed by God's goodness and His love for us.  He truly knows the desires of our hearts, and as we align ourselves with his will, He blesses His people.  We prayed for quite some time for a young adult pastor job for john, a house, and a baby, but above all, we wanted God's will and His timing for it all.  The waiting game was really, really hard...continually trusting day after day that God was hearing our prayers but was waiting for the right time to answer them.  i caught myself a number of times doubting that God cared enough to answer.  i am thankful for a husband who challenges and encourages my faith to grow deeper and stronger. 

on monday, while john was at the closing, i was directing the movers where to put stuff in the house.  within 30 minutes of being at the house, one of our next door neighbors came over to introduce himself and gave me a couple of flowers.  so sweet!!  he actually came back again that night and brought a fruit basket.  jill tarr (who we were living with) came over and cleaned our 2 bathrooms, living room, and part of the kitchen from top to bottom.  she was a life-saver (i'm not a big fan of cleaning).   our other next door neighbor came over after her kids got home from school (they go to our church), and she gave us the spare key the old owners let them have (they'll probably be getting it back :-).  she also gave us the blooming glen mennonite family recipe cookbook, which apparently is a tradition in blooming glen to give your new neighbors when they move in.  so cute.  john spent the evening ripping out the nasty, old contact paper out of our kitchen cabinets.  we spent the night here because we had our bedroom room furniture all set up (which is now our guest bedroom furniture). 

waking up tuesday morning felt like waking up on christmas morning...i was so excited to see what i could uncover (unpack).  i started removing the wallpaper in the living room in between doing loads of laundry.  jay, one of the guys on the senior leadership team at calvary, stopped by and gave us some cookies.  so sweet!  one of john's coworkers and her husband came over that afternoon to help.  debbie helped me finish cleaning out the cabinets in the kitchen, and we unpacked as many kitchen boxes that we could find.  it was like a treasure hunt unpacking boxes of wedding presents (mostly serving pieces) that we didn't have room for in our condo.  i hadn't seen most of that stuff in almost 5 years!  rick's job was to break down empty boxes and packing paper and put it all in the attic.  john pulled down wallpaper in 2 rooms, which actually came down very easily.  another one of john's coworkers brought us dinner, as well as another friend.  like we've said before...the people here are incredible. 

my goal for wednesday was to find a home for everything in the kitchen.  i was successful, and let me tell you, it feels sooooo good to have my kitchen organized.  it actually makes me want to cook maybe.  :-)  i also organized all the boxes in the dining room into categories so that i have a relative idea of where stuff is located.

thursday, we woke up to snow.  it was awesome!  it stuck to the ground for a couple of hours.  it resembled louisiana snow.  it comes down, it sticks, it melts a few hours later.  we went to the grocery store to get appetizers for the thanksgiving meal that we were sharing with the Sparling family, and people were walking around in lightweight jackets while i looked like a freak in my huge down winter coat.  anyway, thanksgiving dinner was great, and the Sparling family was super welcoming and friendly.  the fuller rotel dip went over very well!  so did the cowboy caviar dip...thanks GB! we came home, and in about 30 minutes, john had all the wallpaper in the master bedroom pulled down.  i love the way he randomly gets inspired to do something and just knocks it out. 

today has been relaxing so far.  we got our cable and internet installed.  i had lunch with sarah parmer.  i, then, went 3 doors down to the ryan's house (they go to our church also!) to borrow their steamer to try that out on removing wallpaper. so, i think i'm gonna go try it out right now!!!

awesomeness.

hey everybody!  this is john.  God is really, really good.  i've been especially overwhelmed this past week at how perfectly He works:  

emily is staying busy with pregnancy, and it's exciting!  she's feeling quite good today, actually.  pre-parenthood is pretty awesome, so i guess full parenthood must be even better.

friday night i had the chance to speak at the gap, a young adult bible study hosted by a family from calvary, and it was great!  wonderful people.  we have a great young adult community, and i'm enjoying getting to know them.

sunday, i got to teach in the main services at calvary, and it was a great experience!  lots of encouragement.  after church, we went to lunch with friends at a restaurant, then had dinner with friends at the home of another friend.  i really love the people here.

yesterday (monday), after a week of paperwork and preparation, we completed settlement on our house, and all of our stuff arrived from the storage facility, so we are officially moved in!  we spent our first night there last night.  it's a wonderful feeling to be settled...now we just have to unpack everything, take down wallpaper, pull up carpet, and enjoy!

thanks for reading!  we love you!

quite time for an update, i suppose :)

ok, where do i start?

um, first, the rest of the trip to germany was grand.   we went to giengen to the teddy bear museum, then we went to ulm to see the tallest church in the world.  getting back home to the u.s. was almost as much of a fiasco as it was getting there.  our flight from stuttgart left over an hour late, which made mom & dad & me miss our connecting flights.  so, i got home 2 hours later than originally scheduled, but it really wasn't THAT big of a deal.

all of our inspections and everything have gone through well on the house, so we are closing monday, november 22nd mid-morning.  then, my full time job will start - removing wallpaper.  haha.  i think it might be fun.  for the first 3 hours at least.  i don't believe i'll be posting any pics of the house til i get it updated to the 21st century.  :-)

and i guess the most exciting thing of all is that i found out that i am going to have a baby, which was something i was a little concerned might never happen.  how little faith i had.  i guess all it took was living under someone else's roof and moving over 20 hours away from all my family and friends.  haha.  whatever it takes, i suppose!  i had my first ultrasound on tuesday and got to see the baby's heartbeating and legs flutter-kicking.  it was adorable and totally surreal.

june 13th is the due date right now.  i can't wait!

for the past weeks i've been feeling pretty yucky.  constant nausea and very low energy.  just a couple of days ago, i started feeling better.  yesterday was interesting...

10:00 - bowl of fruit loops and milk
10:45 - slice of bread with butter
11:30 - 2 chocolate chip cookies
1:00 - pb&j sandwich
2:30 - 3 tomato slices with mayo
3:15 - vanilla ice cream with choc syrup
4:00 - vietnamese egg roll

i promise i won't post every day what i eat.  i was just totally weirded out yesterday by myself.

so, in a nutshell, for the past couple of years, we've been waiting for a new job, house, and baby, and we have all three in a 2 month period.  i feel so blessed.

austria

the hills were alive for sure.  :-)

we took a 4 hour train ride south to salzburg.  the train was nice, and we had 2 sets of 2 seats facing each other with a table in between and 1 more seat across the aisle (florian went with us).  we stayed in a hotel right there in the thick of things.  it was perfect.  we found random places to eat the whole time, all of which were very good.  we explored some gardens, some really old churches, and a massive fortress at the highest point in town.

the 2nd day we were there, we took a 2 hour train ride over to hallstatt, a small town nestled in the alps.  this town really just didn't even seem real.  it was like it was out of a fairy tale.  we took a ferry across this lake from the train track to the town.  we really just walked around & ate.  the scenery was gorgeous.  slept on the train ride home.

the last day in salzburg, we slept in, checked out of the hotel, did some christmas shopping, took a bus to the train station, ate lunch at burger king (at my request), and took the 4 hour train ride home.  florian, becca, mom, and i played kniffel for a good chunk of the time on the way home.

this morning, becca had to go teach some english classes, so we slept in then went shopping and met back up with bec.  we got some chinese for lunch.  i started feeling bad (and sleepy) so i took the train back to bec's while mom, dad, and bec shopped some more then took a short trip over to a big pumpkin festival.  i took a 3 hour nap that was much needed.  hopefully i'll be able to sleep tonight.

tomorrow we'll take a train over to giengen.  teddy bears were apparently invented there by this woman, and there's a museum there (mom is a teddy bear fan).

going home in 2 days.  i'm ready to see my john boy.  :-)