Surprise!

A few weeks ago we celebrated my sister's 35th birthday with a surprise party at which she was proposed to by Michael and then we had a wedding ceremony!! That's right...it was all a surprise to her. Michael and my mom did all the planning without her knowing about it. It was wonderful and she looked beautiful. She loved every minute. We are so excited for her and Michael! Congratulations Sis and Happy Birthday! We love you!!

my techie

At some point this weekend Dave was doing something on the computer and I was asking questions...mostly why questions.  His final response to me was "I am a techie".  It was funny and I responded that I love that about him.  There are many benefits to being married to a computer geek...last night he was able to import our old blog into this one.  Most of the posts are there now, just a few need to be tweaked to work right.  They all come across as being posted by me, but I tried to put his name next to some of them in the subject line.

Thanks hunny!!  You are my favorite techie.

let's try this again

so it's been months and months since I last wrote a post and a few faithful readers have expressed their sadness...hard to believe. but like most things in life, i will choose to believe them and try this thing again.

we've decided to switch to blogger because it's nice and user friendly :)  dave really likes wordpress, but he has lots of experience with it and i do not like paying $10 a year for the domain name when this is free.  i like things that are free!!  plus i recently discovered that for $10 a chicken can be purchased for a family in africa!  just $10!  i was really convicted when i read that because a chicken brings so much to those families.  so we have decided to put our $10 to use for a better cause.

the last several months have been challenging. lots of changes going on in my life and lots of wresting with God over them. i can say it's been growing. i'm learning to trust Him with my circumstances (again), release my unfulfilled longings, let go of my plans for our future family, make margin in my life for Him daily (or trying to do so daily), lay lots of unmet expectations at His feet, trust Him with some challenging relationships, and so on... The big picture in this all is what I am learning about God and what He is trying to teach me about who He is and how He loves me.

a few months back i came across 1 corinthians 13:4-8a. those well known "wedding verses" about love. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." when reading these verses I realized that God was trying to tell me that is what His love for me looks like. i've never really read those verse that way and since i've struggle so much with understanding and believing that God loves me, it has helped (when i will meditate on it) to see the ways that He is so faithfully loving me as He promises.

2 Years Together

Tomorrow we celebrate 2 years since our first date! And in a week we celebrate our 1st anniversary!!  It's hard to believe that it has been a year since we both said "I Do".  I am loving it!

Seattle trip

Recently Stephanie and I took a trip to visit our friends Eric and Heather in Seattle, WA.  We packed up our things, boarded the dog and made the long trek out west on a Thursday afternoon.  Friday we headed out to Crystal Mountain for some snow skiing and great views.  We even were able to catch a glimpse of Mt. Rainer.  Our plans for Saturday included a much anticipated trip downtown and specifically the Pike Place Market.  There were so many things to see and eat.  We spent most of the morning exploring all the mechants and then made our way over to the Space Needle and then stop at Kerry Park for some great views of downtown and the bay and finally a drive by of the Freemont Troll.  Of course the trip wouldn't be complete without some good seafood and Salty's on Alki island didn't disappoint!  We splept in on Sunday since our legs were not used to so much activity and said good bye to our friends and of course our new friends Bowser and Romper.

Thanks Eric & Heather for an amazing time!

no shave November (by dave)

Several of us decided to partake in No Shave November.  I went for 10 days and had a nice beard going.

Of course it was only a matter of time before a.) I got sick of the scratching and b.) Stephanie couldn't stand to kiss me anymore while I had a beard.

So I decided it was time to shave.

As you can tell Stephanie thougt it would be fun to document the process!  And this is what happened...

Need I say anymore!

is it a flower? (by Dave)

Today for lunch I had a Satsuma orange in front of me, having never eaten one before I was curious.  I began to peel it back in my usual methodical way and then sat it down on my desk.  I took one look and saw this.

It almost looks like a flower doesn it?