Celebrating Firsts

Today, marks one year since Luke and I got married! It's hard to believe that a year has gone by. We've celebrated a lot of  "firsts" this year:

• Getting married
• Going on a honeymoon
• Living together (which, yes, also means sharing a bed with someone of the opposite sex for the first time)
• Luke getting his first full-time job
• Me becoming a pastor's wife
• First Christmas together under one roof
• Moving from Huntington to Columbia City
• My first winter commuting to work
• Bats in our house (Now, after four bats total, Luke can officially call himself an expert at bat extermination!)
• Experimenting with a lot of new recipes and cooking for more than myself
• Grilling on our own
• First mission trip as leaders
• Luke seeing my crazy hair in the morning (which he commonly refers to as weasels)
• And...too many more to list

This week, to celebrate our first anniversary, we are going to try to add some more "firsts" to our list by traveling to some states we've never been to: New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. We're hitting the road today for VACATION!!!

I am so thankful for someone to share all these "firsts" with. God truly blessed me when he brought Luke into my life. Looking forward to many more years together as one!

Surviving the Heat

I hope you have been surviving the heat lately! This excessively warm weather has definitely made me extra thankful for air conditioning. Luke and I have been sleeping downstairs on and off throughout the last week because there is only one air vent upstairs, and it's not in our bedroom. However, many things have held us over while we're waiting for the heat to subside, including 4-H FAIR SHAKES!! It was so nice to be able to walk to the fair last week and enjoy a little ice cream.

We've also noticed that the outside critters have been taking a break from the heat too. A couple of days ago, I found this little guy taking it easy in the tree with his nut. I couldn't help but snap a couple of pictures. I've never seen a squirrel relax like this! It must be hot.

Kitchen Makeover

Luke and I came home from the mission trip to a GREAT surprise! Anne and Mom spent the week painting our kitchen cabinets (in addition to checking our mail, watering our flowers, and mowing our yard)! I think they deserve a raise! As much as I loved our maroon cabinets (strong sarcasm intended!), I am very pleased to see a clean, sleek white kitchen! The before and after pictures are below, along with a couple of "progress" pictures mixed in along the way. The yellow-ish (applesauce cake) wall color was just leftover paint from Mom's kitchen,so we technically only had to buy the white paint. The transformation is definitely worth noting. THANK YOU ANNE & MOM!!!



BEFORE (Move In Day - February)




PROGRESS!
(Taken about 2 weeks ago after painting walls yellow...I was tempted to paint CC Eagles on the wall with these colors!)



AFTER (the finished product!)



 

Let's have a side-by-side look, shall we?

  




 
 


 

 



 

And just for kicks--what else would we do to the kitchen if money wasn't an object, and we owned this place? Off the top of my head....Gut the kitchen, install new cabinets and counter tops, and definitely new cabinet hardware!! A girl can dream, right? But hey, this works for now! I do love the sink and flooring, so the white cabinets definitely help pull all of that together.

This will probably be the last big home project we complete for awhile. I'll just keep saving pictures of things I love and storing them away in my "rainy day" to-do list.



More from Tennessee

Well, we made it back safely from our mission trip in Tennessee! Luke and I are now well rested after taking most of yesterday to catch up. It's hard to believe that Luke is done with mission trips for the summer. Where did June go? It's been a whirlwind and yet so rewarding! I shared our favorite "Yay God" moment from the trip in my previous post (Tennessee Mission Update) so if you haven't read that yet, be sure to! It is definitely ironic because we go on these mission trips to serve others and impact other lives, but so often we are the ones who come back impacted the most.

My second favorite highlight from the trip was on Thursday when we were given three hours to focus on ATL (Ask the Lord). We were given $50 as a group and were encouraged to ask the Lord how he wanted us to use the time and money. This exercise really stretched our students and was a great way to finish out the week. I had five girls in my group. We started out by going to a nearby Christian bookstore to buy a small pocket Bible and some bookmarks with encouraging sayings. We then spent time praying and asking God to show us who He wanted us to bless. The girls have become so much more open and willing to pray out loud since we left! It's been amazing to watch their progress. We started our morning by visiting a nursing home. There, we talked with several residents and even prayed over some of them. Most of our time there was spent with Charles Tony, an 84 year old man, who was at the nursing home visiting his wife. It was clear that our time with him greatly lifted his spirits.  See the picture below of Charles and our girls:

Charles with his ladies!

After we left the nursing home, we spent time in the van praying individually, trying to find the right person to give the pocket Bible to. After praying, we felt that we should go to Arby’s and pay it forward by paying for the car behind us. We pulled up in the drive-thru line, and the car that was originally behind us pulled away, out of the drive-thru. We knew, at that point, that wasn’t the person God had in mind for us to bless. Behind that car, was an old, beat-up rusty blue car. In the car sat a man who was probably in his mid-twenties. He looked a little rough around the edges and was smoking. As we got closer to the window, we felt butterflies in our stomach as the time came for us to pay it forward. Just as we were talking about the “butterflies” in our stomach, two doves flew right in front of our van and landed on the ground next to us. (Yes, doves! Truly a gift from God!) From there, it all fell into place…

At the window, we asked the lady working to place the encouraging bookmark, note, and pocket Bible in the bag with the food in addition to letting us pay for the man behind us. She willingly agreed. As we drove off, we talked about how difficult it was not to stick around to see his reaction, but we left trusting that God would take care of the rest.

We had an amazing trip and are greatly encouraged knowing that the students we took are only in middle school. Our prayer now is that God will continue to draw them closer to Him throughout their teenage years and the rest of their lives--that this trip would only be a launching pad for all that God has in store for them.

Thank you to each and every one of you who partnered with us financially or in prayer! Your prayers were definitely felt this week!

I've included a couple pictures below from our trip:

The Whole Group Before Leaving the Church on Sunday, June 26th

Luke and I at the Cumberland Gap (a pit stop on the way to TN)