The Beginning

Hi!

You'd think that since I don't have a job yet that I'd have time to update you guys on our life here, but things have surprisingly kept me busy this last month.  When I first filled out our family calendar, this is what it looked like:

But as each new day approached, it has been filled with house organization, cleaning, errands, job hunting, filling out job applications, taking Kyzer to the park, and last minute hang outs with some of our new friends.  

This first month has been a fun blur. Fun because we've gotten to meet a lot of great people, join an awesome church, explore our mountainous side of town, and make big kid decisions. But a blur because I can't believe we've already lived here a month! Actually it feels like 6 months with all the changes we've gone through. 

We had to start budgeting. Womp!

We bought a car. A CAR! Who are we?? Adults?!

Andrew's 2012 Mazda 3

Now that we live in a legit house, there's much more responsibilities that we didn't even think about before moving. Hint: a yard! And not only do we have lawn work, we have a beast of a lawn. 

The first time Andrew cut the grass he had to split up the work into two days. And considering this has been the weather lately:

he's only had to cut it once since being here. Thank goodness. But I like having a large lawn for this guy:

AND because it leaves room for a lot of creativity. My dream is to eventually have a small garden of my own and I love that I have the space to do it. There's even a plot already established that a previous owner used as a garden.  But until then, I'm enjoying some of the plants that were already growing in the backyard.

except Kyzer has eaten almost all the flowers :/

Andrew loves his job! He says he feels like a secret agent. He has a badge that he has to wear around his neck at all times and to get access into the building. He gets to work with very important clients building high security mobile apps.  I'm just so grateful he comes home everyday happy! He may be tired (it took him some time getting used to the long hours), but he's satisfied with the work that makes him tired. 

about to walk in on his first day! :)

We still have so much to share with you! I just didn't want to overwhelm you today. :)

In summary: we are very happy, Andrew loves his job, I am still looking for a job (please pray for me!), we love where we live, we can't believe we are adults, and we are grateful for God's kingdom.

October Ups and Downs

October is a long month. 31 days if you hadn't been keeping track. That leaves a lot of room for things to happen. And oh did "things" happen to us this month. You may have noticed that I haven't updated the blog since earlier in the month. My mind and self have been lost in so many things this. I'm not going to bore you with the stories of the bad things because God has taken care of them and there is no need to complain. 

In short, my car = dead transmission. Andrew and I = car-less for over a week, super stressed, and trying to figure out where money will come from. However, God is a faithful father and didn't let us down. 

We have wonderful friends and parents that support and love us. We thank so much our friends that let us borrow their cars or gave us rides places. And we are SO grateful for our parents making phone calls, knowing people that can help us, for generously donating money, and for letting us use their car temporarily. We have the best people in our lives. Even though it was hard, we were never not taken care of through this tough month. 

We thought losing Andrew's car taught us about faith and gratitude. HAH! We had no idea what God had in store for us. But He definitely took care of us.

Now lets forget about the bad and talk about the good things that happened in this month.

1. It's without a doubt Fall outside! My favorite season of the year. I went out for a walk and picked some colorful leaves to frame. These are just a few of the gorgeous finds I made outside our condo.

2. We've been absolutely loving our CSA produce baskets we get every week! I never want to go back to grocery store produce. Farm fresh is the way to go! These are just a few items from the basket we picked up today. 

The trend has been eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, radishes, and all sorts of greens. This week we got a GIANT sweet potato (not pictured here), fresh garlic, lettuce, and chard (that's what's in the bag). I've found that I LOVE radishes. Simply sauteed with their leaf greens. So simple and yummy. And of course the tomatoes are to die for.

3. I got a letter from my dear friend Lisa. She moved to London back in August and I miss her terribly. It was so nice to hear from her and it was a great encouragement in the midst of all the discouragement.

4. I had an awesome thrift store find to go in our home. I am never able to get out of the house except for school and church with Andrew needing the car every day for work, but one morning I had "car freedom" for 2 hours. 2 HOURS! I can not tell you how excited I was. So with my two hours I went.....thrifting!

$5 dollars. This shelf made my 2 hours of the month worth it. 

(That's our guest book on the wall and one of these days I'll get it framed.) Along with gaining a new shelf to set up in our house...I was able to unpack 4 boxes that same day.

Still got this much to go....

5. My birthday! I'm a mere 23 years old now. My birthday was the 27th but since it feel on the first day of Fall break for school. I decided to "celebrate" my birth this extended weekend. :) Since Andrew and I are on this  spoiled "we only eat farm fresh foods" kick, we went to dinner at Farm 255. DELICIOUS!

And I got some fun gifts that I've been wanting for a long time. 

[And a rain jacket :)]

These running shoes have the Nike + feature so it will record my distances and help me train for any future races. So legit.

So in summary of this long month and this long post, the month of October has shown us how blessed we are.  Blessed more than we will ever know. 

Sorry for such a long post! Had to make up for not posting anything all month. Love you all.