We are here!

On Wed, July 14th at about 7pm, we arrived at our new home---Port Orange, Florida. After over 25 hours total of driving, we finally made it. We were exhausted, but excited about this new journey.

First, we arrived at church and met up with the youth. They are SO excited to have a youth pastor---Jake is going to be amazing, and I will support him in any way I can. :) We then met a bunch of members of the church, hugged and shook lots of hands and talked with many smiling faces.

Then, we headed over to our new house (furnished vacation home). It was so nice to be "home". We unloaded our stuff, and realized that we decided to keep WAYYYYY too much stuff in our home instead of storage. Oh well, I'm sure I'll "need" a bunch of it at some random moment in a few weeks.

Yesterday, a bunch of folks from the church met us at our storage unit to help us unload the u-haul. It went SO much faster with 10 people unloading. Their help was amazing! And as much as I'm convinced KC's humidity truly is awful, the humidity here is actually even more intense. But fortunately, we have the ocean to help cool us off (which Jake and I enjoyed yesterday afternoon). Yessssss.

That's our little update for now. In short, we've experienced amazing people, amazing church, amazing scenery, and amazing seafood. Looking forward to continuing our life here :)

Being Patient with Today

My mother, like all good mothers, is constantly pregnant with good advice. As our wedding date moves ever more close I have in mind a great piece of advice my mom would share with me when I was young.  Mom was always quick to advise me not to wish my life away. This advice seems to carry a special weight to it these days. It is difficult not to think about what comes next when so many big events await. Our wedding is in two weeks and we move in four, and as the days come and go it is easy to live only for those dates. However, in doing that the normal days are missed.

As I began to write this blog I was sitting on the grass at Youth Front West in the midst of Jr. High Camp. God created everything I could see - the grass, the sky, the trees. I could feel the wind and the ground and the bark of the tree as it pressed against my back. As all of good creation eased itself into my senses I was reminded of mom's great advice. If I were to live only for tommorrow I would miss all the special blessings for today.

Daisy day!

First of all, this blog is going to be about daisies.

Second of all, it is my first blog ever, so you're talking to an amateur here folks.

Third of all, gardening is awesome. I love flowers, growing vegetables, anything to do with gardening. I might not have the greenest thumb on the planet, but it is definitely not for lack of trying. I had an herb garden last summer. RIP herb garden. Got infested with little gnats/fruit flies/the most annoying little creatures on earth. But, back to the love. Seriously, I WAS the president of the nature club when I was 8. Granted, this was a club, started by me, in my own backyard. But we had 4 members. And it was my backyard, so of course I was prez. We tried to grow a lot of different kinds of plants. I distinctly remember strawberries and some sort of squash that took over the yard. I digress. The point of this is that I love gardening and flowers. So, how lucky am I that I have found someone who loves to give me flowers? He doesn't give me flowers all the time, but every now and then, in the perfect little unsuspecting moment, he surprises me and I get the biggest smile on my face.

Two days ago, Jake surprised me with beautiful yellow daisies when I got home from work. He even planted them in our Royals popcorn tub and jimmy-rigged this contraption to let them sit outside on the windowsill of the loft (and even though the worry-wart inside of me wants to think it's going to fall 5 stories down, I know it's not, because that is one SERIOUS contraption that is not going anywhere). They are beautiful and full of buds and thriving in the window. I love these daisies and the man behind them. :)

Fourth and final, I am going to try to figure out how to post a picture of the flowers for the blog world to see. You'll be impressed, you know it (by the beauty of the flowers and the beauty of my ridiculous technological skills). Get excited!!!

Bookshelves

Jenni and I are finding that the closer the wedding date gets the more cluttered her loft becomes. I suppose this exemplifies the rhythm of life. As a way to de-clutter and be creative I made a set of crate bookshelves. Jenni and I arranged them this afternoon and we both feel that creativity gives us space to breathe in the midst of clutter. This is one way to handle the transition of merging our stuff together.