So far...

So it's been a little while since I've updated here.  It has been a little crazy and disorienting, but good none the less.

- We are currently staying with some friends in their spare bedroom.  I move this weekend and B will follow in a couple of weeks

- When I say move, I mean move in with my parents (for a little bit)

- We are working on more permanent living situation in the mean time

- This will be my last week to work here in Birmingham!  This whole process has been a little bittersweet. So many things have happened for me here and I have many fond memories that will go with me.  I'm sad to be leaving some great coworkers and friends, too!  I know that will be the hardest part!

- I am, however, looking forward to starting this new chapter in our lives and seeing what God has in store for us!  There is definitely a level of nervousness and anxiety as I start a new job and start getting incorporated into a new community, but I'm excited as many things have fallen into place already!

- We have a lot more things coming up!  This brief stay our friends house has been a fantastic respite before more craziness comes our way!:). A lot of it will be fun and excited, but trying to balance new jobs for both of us, weird nomadic living situations, and trying to secure a permanent place to live and all that entails means lots of thought and prayer (as well as being wise with our finances)!

We are hoping for a seamless transition and I am hoping my first couple of weeks of work go well.  I will be fighting the dreaded traffic and driving an hour each way!  This makes me a little nervous, but I do have the audio books of Narnia downloaded and intend to get some "reading" in!:)

A sign...

For instance, this sign is in our front yard.

 And this is what you would see if you walked into our house, signs of moving...

And then, of course, there are those signs that spring is finally trying to peak its head out!

I've been hoping my day lilies would bloom a little before we left...they look like they are on the verge, but still more than a few days out.  So, I think I will miss them this year.

But, yes, we are moving!  Movers come this weekend and we are in full packing mode (which means we are living out of boxes and suitcases)!  It's been quite a whirlwind and if everything goes as planned, this house will no longer be ours starting Tuesday.

It has been a bittersweet week with everything going on.  I turned 29 (yikes!) and started packing up the last 3 years of my life!  This house has been a great place to call home the last 3 years and I will miss most everything about it!;)  I came into it with a good friend as a roommate and will leave it with a husband.  We celebrated our first anniversary here...spent many evenings on the porch watching a storm roll in or just swinging on the porch swing (when the pollen wasn't raging).  We had fun combining two different lives of "stuff" into one living area.

Now we are on the hunt for our next humble abode.  Honestly, this has proven to be the most frustrating part.  As both of us work a lot, it has been hard to find time to look and currently the housing market is doing wacky things.  We are trusting the Lord that He has something out there for us, it's just a matter of timing (which is true for everything)!  We struggle with feeling homeless at times and definitely feel the stress that comes with being in limbo.  (We are staying with some friends until we can relocate and we are soooo thankful for their willingness to share their house!!!)

So, at the moment, we are trying to focus on the task at hand and leave the rest in His hands.  This is proving to be hard as we like to have plans and know what is going to happen (who doesn't), but we also know that God has provided for us thus far and He will continue to do so.  Patience...it's a virtue...that is usually a repeat learning process for me...:)

Providence, Part 2...

We are seeing more and more that God is moving through our situation and lives.  I have been quite stressed about the whole job issue for me once we move.  It has been a little scary knowing that we will still be relying on my salary once we move and not know for sure that I could transfer.  Blessedly, I have gotten verbal confirmation that they will indeed transfer me!!  I was expecting to transfer and float for a while, but after finding out they would transfer me, they also told me they would probably have a store for me to go into as well!  I have been quite floored by all of this and so grateful!  The icing on the cake is the store I will most likely go into is in the general area we are hoping to live in!  Couldn't have asked for a better placement!

Also, our house went on the market last week.  Talk about nervous!  We are in overdrive clean mode and trying to get the dogs out of the house every time it is shown.  Amazingly, we had 5 showings last week and all of the seemingly went well according to the feedback.  Now we are just praying for that right person or couple to come along and decide this is where they want to live.  It's an odd feeling knowing random people are walking through your house and all you can do is hope that they see what you saw when you bought it!  I am reminded, though, that God indeed has a plan and I know he has a time for this house to sell.  In the mean time, I've turned into an OCD neat freak and organizer...pray for my husband!;)

Colorado

A couple of weeks ago we trekked (flew) to Colorado for a conference.  Of course, we managed to fit some skiing in!  There was a decent sized group of us that went and we had a blast! 

The first night we were in the mountains, it started snowing and continued to snow through the next day (~12 inches total).  Those that had experience on skis loved the fresh powder, for those of us (like me) that had never been on skis it was a bit tough.  Lets just say I fell a lot and probably should have really hurt myself on some of the falls. 

About midday, I decided it was in my best interest to rest and recoup.  The next day was incredibly better- still fell a lot but got more confident and felt comfortable enough to tackle another day on the slopes.  Blessedly my husband and some of our friends were really good and were able to help me through a few runs and proved to me that I could indeed stop without having to fall over!:) 

Since 2 of us had to leave a little early to come back and work, we took the morning and went snow-shoeing.  Quite awesome to see some of the view and tromp through some super deep snow!  You could definitely tell this southern girl does not see snow like that very often!  I loved it.  We even braved the cold one evening and sat in the hot tub (sadly, it was not snowing at that time).

Overall, it was a great trip with great people!  Lots of laughs and lots of fun!  It was just what we needed before all the chaos started.  I truly believe getting away when you are in the midst of huge life changes and stress is key.  Yes, the stress is there when you get back, but hopefully you come back refreshed and ready to tackle it.  I believe it is also important for marriages to separate from the stress, even if it is only for a short time.  You tend to see things differently when you've had some non-stressful time together!:)

Providence...

This year continues to throw us surprises.  We have been incredibly blessed in such a short time!  To start from the beginning though...

B started hard core job hunting last fall.  We had several interviews spaced out throughout the fall and none of them produced an offer.  A couple of these interviews were awesome and we both had great feelings about them.  Therefore, when no job offer came, we were pretty disappointed.  One in particular seemed absolutely perfect.  We felt the door had been opened at this particular location and waited somewhat patiently to hear back if there would be an offer.  After a couple of weeks (and an election), the door was closed on this opportunity.  We struggled some with this one as we truly felt God moving during the interview process.  (Just prior to us hearing that they would not be able to make a job offer, I had prayed that God would clearly shut doors where we did not belong.  There was a sense of peace as I let go.  It is hard to explain, but I distinctly remember one Sunday in church thinking, maybe this isn't it...maybe we need to let go of this one...)  Once we realized that this was not the place for us, the search continued and the prayers continued fervently.

The holidays came and went with not much headway and discouragement set in.  Trying to be an encouraging wife can be tough when so much is out of our control.  I continued to trust the Lord that He was sparing us from things we could not see and that He had something even better out there for us.  During the holidays, we also received a couple more "no's" or "not yet's" and frankly, some of them were baffling and handled strangely.  We struggled to not let this consume us, but there comes a point where it is always in the background.  The need for the future was surely there and it started to feel like time was just passing by while we stood still.

Then B was contacted out of the blue by this group asking for an interview.  He had sent out a ton of resumes to many, many groups in the fall whether they had job postings or not.  He honestly did not even remember sending this group his resume it had been so early on in his hunting.  And here they called him out of the blue.  They wanted to set something up soon and things fell into place for the interview to take place last week.  Leading up to the interview, it became rather apparent that they were pretty serious about B.  We continued to pray.  The interview was fantastic!  The group is awesome!  And they made an offer within a couple of days! 

It has amazed me to see God moving so evidently during this process.  From the disappointments to the continued hope that His plan was unfolding before us.  He was indeed saving us for something great!  Though it is hard to explain, this interview felt so different than the other ones for me.  There was a huge sense of hope and ease, but also this massive amount of nervousness as if we were on the verge of something huge.  Through the discouraging times and frustrating times, we have seen God's hand work ever so quickly, when it was His plan and timing.  Just after the interview, on our late night drive back, my constant prayer was that we would hear something quickly and that the excitement we both felt would be His affirmation to us that we were following His plan.  God could not have made it more obvious!  There were many things throughout the interview day, just prior and just after, that were so reaffirming!!

We still have many things yet to be done, some of which make my stomach clinch to think about them.  But I am reminded that God has orchestrated this entire life of mine.  He can handle the big things and the little things.  And He has definitely shown His love and grace in ways unimaginable and has shown us that He does indeed have better things in store for us.  Things that we would never expect ourselves!!

New Year

I wish I could say I remembered the beginning of this year, but it's already slipping away from me!  We had some friends over to watch football and as all of the had to work the next day, they couldn't stay until CST New Year.  But we did watch EST ring it in!:)  Then of course, we had the traditional pork, greens and black eyed peas on New Years day.

The next couple of weeks sped by somewhat uneventfully as we worked and B continued the job search.  Those couple of weeks were definitely a needed reprieve after Christmas.  Then January hit us like a ton of bricks.

My dad has been having neck issues and needed surgery to remove some severely degenerative disk.  He had this surgery on the books for mid-January and I made plans to be there the day of the surgery.  Though a fairly invasive surgery, everything went well for him and he continues to recover slowly but surely.  The surgeon was glad he had gone ahead with the surgery and the disc were causing narrowing of his spinal chord and would have eventually caused major problems if not corrected.

The day prior to dad's surgery, my uncle had a stroke and was rushed into emergency surgery.  The last couple of weeks have been very difficult for him as he will progress and then have a set back.  The initial stroke seemed to have done some damage, but considering the severity of the clot that was removed, his speech and mobility was miraculously still intact though somewhat affected by weakness.  A few days later, he had a second stroke and a second emergency surgery.  He has been monitored very closely and is currently back in the hospital with an infection.  We would covet your prayers for his healing and comfort for my aunt and cousins.  Every day has been a different day with different challenges, some expected and some not.

The Sunday after my uncle's strokes and my dad's surgery, we had an incredibly sad call.  B's uncle passed away late Saturday.  He had been battling a very aggressive form of throat cancer for quite some time.  We were able to shift things around so we could attend the funeral and celebrate his life.  He touched so many people and had such an impact on everyone's life.  It was heart warming to hear so many funny stories about this incredibly brave man.  He was definitely loved by all who met him and never met a stranger!  It is incredible to think about all he went through these last couple of years and he never lost his fighting spirit or his humor.  He took his illness in stride and continued to live his life to the fullest and loved his family and friends at every opportunity!

We continue to learn daily that God will provide for us in ways we cannot even imagine.  He sustains and encourages us while guiding us in His path and plan for us.  I have struggled some the last couple of weeks trying to make sense of everything, but I realized that would be futile.  I am waiting on the Lord and trusting that He will give exactly what we need and nothing more than we can handle with His help.

Christmas, part 2

After Christmas with my side of the family, we ventured back home briefly for a little work and then traveled to B's family.  It was a bit of a whirlwind of a holiday in general due to our somewhat conflicting work schedules, but so is life!:)

We had a great time (despite me getting sick) and had quite the family gathering for Christmas dinner and gift exchange.  Lots of laughs and stories were shared and by the end of the evening, lots of dogs were worn out!  The gathering took place at B's uncle's farm and all the dogs that came were in heaven!  We had a great time sitting by the outdoor fire places watching the dogs play and catching up with everyone!  Again, pictures may be the best way;)...

A little intervention and redirection

Tons of good food and a few tacky Christmas sweaters;)

Singing the 12 Days of Christmas...quite funny!:)

the "kids"

Christmas time...Part 1

Since it's February, I think I should start updating some!

Our first Christmas will be be shown in pictures!  The patter of little feet and arguing siblings woke us up on our "mock" Christmas morning.  B and I couldn't quite figure out what the older 2 were arguing about, but it seemed to be a game of "one-up."  We opened presents, played with said presents, cooked, laughed, got a couple of games of sardines in (B won the prize for the best hiding place), and had lots of fun!  It was quite amusing to see the kids open their gifts, they were done much quicker than the adults to say the least!

Redefining bed-head

A form of animal torture, I'm sure

This was a huge hit and quite funny to watch as they learn how to play

Love this kid...he is a monster, but so sweet and cuddly!!

She was so excited to have matching pj's