Merry Christmas to our families!

Merry Christmas to you all! Although we can't be with you all in person, we took these pictures to express our greetings to you. Online Christmas greetings...they are the best we can do for now!
Hi family...I wish we were in Baltimore sitting in Erica and Pete's wonderful home holding the precious Alina Beth and catching up with you all. Have a wonderful Christmas together.


We love you guys, and we so wish we could be there to open up the couple's gifts and santa presents with you guys. Have a Merry Christmas!

Last night was the Christmas Eve service at church that Matt planned and played for. he asked me yesterday if I would join him, and gladly I piped in my alto voice. One woman remarked that I was looking awefully jazzy. Ahh....such touching words to my soul!!! :-) Call me vain or just a "wanna-be Diana Krall" ...but I loved being up front and singing with Matt. This is my reinactment with a remote control standing in as a microphone. I am a complete dork, I know.

Ipods and Cookies!

On Tuesday the suspense got to be too great for me to handle. So, after Matt dropped off his last coursework at the post office to officially complete his seminary degree, I gave him his birthday present (a week early)! He loved it...the new video ipod!!! Thanks to all you family members who pitched in to make it a special 30th year present! I took some shots of him enjoying the goods...this is his impression of the ipod commercials.

We have been having a pretty ordinary week leading up to Christmas. I am so thankful to be staying here, even though it is going to be so sad not to be with my and Matt's families. We are just so thankful that we can have a peaceful (and fully conscious) Christmas together. After the drama of last Christmas when I was hospitalized, I consider it a privilege to be alive and with my husband. We are so thoroughly looking forward to coming in February, though, to meet Peter and Erica's baby girl Alina Beth and Ben and Megan's girl Evelyn--our two beautiful and special nieces. Auntie Alina and Uncle Matt cannot wait!!!

I also had a great time hanging out last night with a friend from church named Rachel who is a very fun and incredibly bright 11 year old. We made gingerbread and sugar cookies together. Then we started writing a story together about two Narnian horses named Veronica and Luke. We are going to write the story in a journal, each taking turns with the journal every week and adding to the story. God has really been answering my prayers for relationships with people whom I can be blessed by and whom I can bless. Rachel is definitely one of them.

We are going to church on Christmas morning, and then we are having lunch with our pastor and his family. I am looking forward to that! It will also be fun to spend Christmas morning with Matt. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Send me some pictures of your celebrations, if you can, and I will post some pictures of ours!

The OTHER woman in Matt's life!

So I caught them in the act! I found them cuddling, and I even found Matt serenading her!! And yes, it's official, Matt and I are going to be those parents that send out pictures of our children all the time! :-) We have spent the last week feeling like new parents, doting over the needs of our new dog. We have gotten to know our local pet store workers so that now they look at us and can remember exactly what kind of dog we own! It is interesting how much having a new pet is like having a new child...we have to remind ourselves that we need to spend time alone. In Matt's words, she is like a vacuum...a love vacuum. And even though we haven't quite figured out her personality, and even though we think she might have a slight case of doggy depression, we are so thrilled with her!

Play me a song, you're the piano man...

My last few posts have been full of pictures about things all around me, but I have realized there has been a decided lack of pictures of Matt and myself. As I was contemplating this, Matt tells me that Mimi (a friend of ours that Matt worked with) told him that she wants to see more pictures of him on my blog. So, Mimi, this one is for you...and all of you who agree with Mimi. I wanted to show you guys a picture of Matt's piano performance debut. As many of you know, an ordinary weekend in July 2004, an extraordinary man picked up a book on how to learn piano in a flash. That man, my one and only husband, learned to play the piano that weekend; and he has been a playing fool since then. Tonight was the first time he performed in front of people. And he wanted me to make sure to tell you all that he "played for 30 minutes in front of 200 people"! He did really well!!! He started playing when there were 10 people behind him, and he finished with nearly 200 crammed in the room. Such talent this young one has!
Today we went on a hike on Bishop's Peak, a nearby mount in San Luis Obispo. We went with some new friends in the church. It was really fun, and Matt and I are so excited to do many more outdoor activities like this especially now that we have a dog with a huge need for activity!
The next picture of him is at our Christmas party that we hosted at our house Thanksgiving weekend where the youth helped us decorate our Christmas tree and watched Charlie Brown. I thought this was a fun pictured that captured him in a moment of laughter and enjoyment during a game we were playing. The third picture I took of him when we went to San Fransisco in October. By the way...in the first picture, he is making his typical "playing" face. That is the face he makes whenever he is playing an instrument. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures of Matt!
P.S. He is turning 30 on December 27!!!
P.S.S. Mimi we expect you and Jessica to visit us next summer, no excuses!

Introducing Keller!

Meet the newest addition to our family. Yesterday we had no idea we would come home from our trip to nearby San Luis Obispo with this beautiful new dog! She is a four year old German short-haired pointer. We originally went down to San Luis so that I could get a haircut at our friend's house. Brian and Sally have a beautiful pointer and we were loving their dog. We have been toying with the idea of getting a dog for about four years now, but we never felt like it was the right time. Now that we are at a place that we know we will be staying for a while, we have been feeling like a dog was more of a possibility. As we sat in our friends' home petting their dog, we asked if they knew where the local pound and humaine society were located. One thing led to another and you fast-forward to 4 hours later... we are driving home with the first family dog. Keller could not be a more perfect dog. I feel like we were so fortunate. She probably had excellent owners in the past. She is crate-trained, potty-trained, she sits, doesn't bark hardly ever unless there are predators, she is super friendly to visitors, and she loves to just sit in her regal pose next to us as we go about the house doing our work. It was really funny because I was the one really pushing to go get a dog, and as we walked into the humaine society Matt turns to me and says, "Oh, don't get too excited because we probably aren't going to get a dog." I just smiled because I knew he would be the one talking me into a dog by the end of the trip. Sure enough, we finished signing the adoption papers and he turns to me and whispers, "I think I love her already!" It was golden! Anyhow, we wanted you all to meet her. She is our newest companion, and I am thrilled because she is going to be my new running buddy! I really feel like Keller is just another reminder to me of God's love and care for us, his children. Matt and I are really excited to be moving into this phase of our lives in caring for a dog. She will and has already begun to add a lot of fun to our lives.

A new heart

I love my Sunday school class. I teach the 3-4 year olds, and I have so been enjoying watching their curious and eager minds soak up information all around them. The past couple of weeks we have been talking about how our hearts have all been stained because of our sin and we need more than just band aids to fix the mess. We need new hearts...and they were so excited to learn that God gives us new hearts because of Jesus. Today we all climbed under the table (somehow hearing a story under the table as opposed to sitting around the table is much more attention-grabbing) to hear about how Jesus died to give us new hearts. Three of them folded their hands and asked for new hearts. I have no idea what the eternal significance of their little mumbling prayers were, but it was so cool to watch them earnestly ask for new hearts. Such a joy to be with these children! This picture is from a few weeks ago when we learned about parents and obedience. I brought in some of mine and Matt's clothes for them to dress up, and here they are sporting "mommy and daddy" clothes.

Bits and pieces of my life

I have had a lot of thoughts about this new blogging world. I have talked with a few bloggers and viewed their sites and found different motivations for people to blog. For me, I have wondered if it will just be an artistic outlet, and how personal will I let it become. I find my most compelling reason to have this blog is so that I can share myself with those of you who are not around me day to day. So I want to share about the last few days, which have brought me to the realization of how much I need Jesus. Working at Starbucks has proved to be more of growing experience than I anticipated. I sought out this job as a sort of break from the last 21 years of driven educational pursuits. But as most of us learn at some point in our early adult years, we never stop growing and being stretched. It has been challenging to justify to myself and others why I am serving coffee at this age, stage, and "degree earned" position in life. I desire recognition and glory and identity. For so many years I was "the good student striving to reach some goal." Now I am serving coffee and then coming home (to wifery, laundry, cleaning, and cooking) five days a week. I feel "identity-less" in many ways. What further frustrates me is going to work and having teenage supervisors condescend, mistreat, and generally make me and my co-workers feel like we are idiots. I have been so frustrated with these things these last few days, coming home in tears wondering who I am and what I am made for.
Many of you know I have struggled with minor depression when in Saint Louis, and while I feel the Lord has graciously delivered me from that, I still know that there are going to be days or groups of days where I will continue to struggle with myself, others, God, and my future. But, as I sat on the couch yesterday trying to fight "the cloud" of depression, I realized just how much of a mixed blessing depression can be. I am relatively independent and self-motivated. I achieve most goals I set out to accomplish. I move at a fast, American, self-motivated pace. Having times of personal struggle with depression are moments where I come to realize my felt need for Jesus. They are markers and reminders in my life where my need is so evident. So, as much as I feel like I am wandering in this new stage in my life or looking for an identity, I am thankful for the reminders that I am not on this journey alone. I don't desire to sound to overly-simplistic in this last thought, but I wanted to take a moment and highlight the goodness of God in the midst of my struggle.

Besides knowing my spiritual and emotional struggles, I want to give you some snapshots of my life here. One way that I want to do that is to take you on a tour of my home. I am a visual person, and I love to see people's homes and meet their family/friends. It helps me put that person in a context when I can see who and where they live. A home also says a lot about a person, at least mine does. Pictures are the best that I can do until you all make your way out here. Sooo....welcome to my house. I am letting you in through the blue front door. First you will see my diningroom with our fantastic table and hutch that we got for an amazing deal in Saint Louis in the classifieds for $150. It may seem so cheesy and also a little tacky to bring that up, but this table is more to me than just a great deal! It is a big, 8ft. long reminder to me that God cares about providing not only my necessities but also the desires of my heart which, I admit, are oftentimes vain. But I am also really inspired by beautiful things, and when living on a budget, it is sometimes easy to think that budgeting and beauty cannot co-exist. But over and over God shows me how they can live together in harmony, and it is actually fun and creative to live like this.
On the other side of of our dining room is our living room. Both dining room and living room are one great room which is nice when we have people over. We can all be together in that one room. From the living room you can see into the kitchen. By the way the house was painted for us by the church in the months prior to our arrival. Talk about a warm welcome, they asked us to pick out the colors, and then they painted it to our liking. So Matt and I went bold with the colors since we are only going to be in this house 1 year.
So we went with a red kitchen. I love it! Next we move to our bedroom which is also off of the living room. I went with more neutral colors in the bedroom to create a more soothing environment. So these pictures should give you an idea of where I live. I hope you enjoyed the tour!

This Florida Girl can build a fire!

I had a great thanksgiving weekend! Amy Ruth has been here since Tuesday. We spent Tuesday afternoon showing her the beautiful sights of San Fransisco. We ate at our absolute favorite chinese restaraunt, the House of Nan King. It's been so fun to have Amy Ruth around again, just like old times in Saint Louis. We have had some great conversations and good times with the three of us together and all of us in relatively healthy places lives, ocmpared to our time together last year where we were all really struggling with school and life. So nice to all be healthy and enjoying life, together.

Thanksgiving was a joyous day. Amy Ruth and I got up for a Thanksgiving jog, and then we hit the kitchen hard making the 22 lb. turkey, stuffing, sweet potato rolls, custard pie, and many other goodies. Around 2 pm, Brooke and her family arrived for the festivities. The preparations lasted probably another 2 hours or so, despite my goal to be completely done and relaxing by 1:30 pm. Ha! At least I am conquering my idealisms in the kitchen early on in life. Once we got all the food on the table and all ten people seated around our huge table (one of God's blessings this year), we said grace and I was able to reflect on all of God's goodness in my life. Looking around the table, I was reminded of God's gift of friendship to me. I had friends from college, Saint Louis, and now California all seated around me and representing the different stages of my life where God has provided community for me. I am so thankful for my own family who, being absent from my table was something I felt throughout the day. But my friends are absolutely who I want to be with if family can't be there. I did get to talk with almost everybody except Dad. (Happy belated Thanksgiving, Dad!). After eating, Brooke's siblings and Amy Ruth, and I all crashed on my bed for a quick nap. Six of us in all were squeezed together like little children, except we are all anything but little children. It was such a comforting feeling to relax and enjoy friends' company. After the nap, we cleaned and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special.

On Saturday night we had a wonderful time with the youth group. We had the youth group over to help us decorate our Christmas tree, drink cider and eat holiday pastries, and watch the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. They each brought a picture of themselves and put it in an ornament to put on our tree. Now we have our tree already up and it is full of the faces of new friends in our lives who we know will continue to become a big part of our lives as the years go by.
So why did I title this entry "this florida girl can build a fire"? Well, can you believe I built my first fire tonight? It was very thrilling to watch it take off and develop into a roaring fire. What can I say...I have never built a fire before so this was
really exciting for me. I hope you are all well,
I have gotten many emails from you guys...please know I have gotten them all and really appreciate knowing you guys are able to read about what is going on. I hope to email you all back sometime this week. Also, I changed the settings on my blog so anybody can comment, so you no longer need an account with blogger to comment. Just click on "comments" and type away!

A time to play

The Lord Your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you with his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

I had an excellent weekend. I spent a few days last week working all over the house, accomplishing many things on my long list of things to do. I gave the house an all over clean, and I painted my office a delicious green color on a whim Saturday. It wasn't exactly what I envisioned, but I am still pleased with the overall transition. Color really is important to me. Now I can feel inspired in my office and not bored by the washed out, gray panelling.
I also went to the coast yesterday with Brooke, Linda, and Maggie. Both Linda and Maggie are friends I have made here. We had such a great time. We took our cameras and have a wonderful time taking pictures of each other. It is so fascinating how people change once they get behind a camera. Some people become more alive and flirtatious, while other people I have photographed become nervous and uncomfortable. Here are some of the highlights of our adventure.
I have realized how much I need to take time out from my busy life to play. Yes, that's right, run and jump and play like a five year old girl. Each of us women really needed this yesterday, and I think these pictures show how much we enjoyed playing. This may sound wierd, but I
honestly feel like I am worshipping God when I play. It is an act of faith to leave the cares of our
lives in God's hands and play like a kid.
I love the verse I listed at the top because it speaks to me of God's tenderness for us. His love lets me live carefree. It also speaks of his playfulness in that he will sings loudly over us. I hope that no matter how busy my life becomes I always take a little bit of time to be carefree.
Tomorrow our dear friend from Saint Louis, Amy Ruth, is coming for a whole week and we are going to have our thanksgiving feast with her and Brooke's family. It will be wonderful, but definitely incomplete without my family. I do miss you guys, especially around the holidays! Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope to post pictures of our feast for you all to enjoy!

Good Intentions

Two pairs of earings, a cool leather watch, a pair of jeans, a red handbag, and a brown chenille wingback chair are what I have to show for my "adventure to the coast" today. Matt and I set out with every intention to make it to the Pacific today, but one thing led to another and we ended up going thrift store shopping in Atascadero (a town next to us about the size of Paso Robles). It all started when Brooke called us to see if we wanted to meet her for lunch, and we said yes. That is where our journey took a detour. But all in all, it was a great one! I love having Brooke only 4 minutes away. Anyways, I promised a picture and here we are after lunch today---a picture of the coast will have to wait for another day!

Headed to the Coast

I just wanted to write a quick note before Matt and I take off to the coast today. I had an early morning at work today, serving up foamy lattes, and when I came home I greeted my husband with a "We should drive down to the coast today!" He is game for the adventure, and so we are headed out in a few minutes, and I just wanted to share my excitement. I love getting away from Paso Robles because I feel like I can breathe when I am in a bigger place, whether it be the nearest city of San Luis Obispo or the coast which is huge and majestic. It gives me a chance to breathe in deeply and not feel like I am trapped in a small town. While I am glad I live here, I am still and will probably always feel like a city girl deep down inside me. I am taking the camera, and I hope to get some good shots of our adventures. I hope to share about my trip when we get back. Bye for now.

City Girl in a Small Town

Ahhh,
Here I sit in my little home office (Yes, I have my own office) listening to the delightful music of Karen Peris and enjoying a cup of coffee, thinking in utter disbelief that I am actually going to start this blog I have been dreaming about for months. Now that I have the entire United States separating me from all those I love on the East Coast, this blog is just one attempt to lessen the distance between us. Some of you may have been to California, but for most of you, my life is probably pretty hard to imagine. So I want to help you know me and the daily happenings by writing a little bit throughout each week. I know that I will probably be inconsistent with my writing, but I will make an effort to post at least two posts a week. If I do more, hey that is bonus!

I don't quite know where to begin with my life...I'll start with the beauty around me! California is so different than the East Coast. I am surrounded by rolling hills dotted with majestic oak trees. I am about 40 minutes from the coast in a little town called Paso Robles. The rainy season is in the winter, and after March, it doesn't see rain here again until November. So as you can imagine, the grass is golden-brown most of the time.
While it has it's own western beauty, I do miss the incredibly lushness of the East--- but I keep reminding myself that it is only grass, and God has blessed me with lush growth and blessings here in people that I struggled to find, especially during our time in Saint Louis. Some of the pictures here are ones I took of some friends at church. I have been trying my hand at photography, and I even was hired to do some senior photos. While I really find that I love and even need to feed the artistic longings in me, it is just a hobby at the time.


Within the first three weeks here I got a job at starbucks. I
knew I would immediately need something to get me out of
the house and meeting people so that this transition would be more pleasant and less "huge" than I imagined it would be. Getting a job has helped me to feel rooted here and has kept me busy. I applied for some social work jobs, but upon the interviews and even after receiving a job offer or two, I realized that I would rather serve people coffee and work with all different kinds of people at a coffee house than do any sort of social work at this point. All of the jobs I applied for seemed so exhuasting, and I realized I would probably have very little energy left to help with the Youth ministry or have relationships with people in my church. I find myself really being drawn to the idea of working at starbucks and developing an unofficial counseling ministry at my church. Walking through life with the people I know and love is much more the realm that I desire to use my counseling training. So, as long as the tiny starbucks paycheck helps pay the bills, I am off on an adventure of joy mixed with the reality of penny-pinching!


This was a great picture (with the Berkel Family) that we took on our trip to visit our east coast friends before we moved out here. Our journey out west was a very, very, very stressful one. Matt and I drove a huge moving truck filled with our stuff. The radio didn't work and neither did the cigarette lighter, which meant we had no way to plug in an any music attachments. 2200 miles driving with the sound of the wind beating against the roof of the truck overhead will drive anyone crazy. We discovered about 1 hour out from our destination that if we close one of the tiny side windows, the banging noise would stop!! Very ironic. Anyhow, Andrew, was so awesome to come with us and help drive our car and we towed the van behind us. Beside the bumpiness of that trip, our transition here has been nothing short of remarkable and full of kinds loving grace to us. One by one, blessings have popped up along the way during our move and in our transition here that have solidified in our minds that this is exactly where we need to be!

I hope you all enjoy reading about my and Matt's life. I am looking forward to sharing my heart and life with you all, and I am also looking forward to the quiet moments I can take in front of this computer screen and reflect of the goodness of God in my life. Until then, Goodnight all.

Love,
Alina

P.S. I would love to get comments from you all. If you have an account with Blogger, you can post one to this entry. It is free and it is easy to get an account. Also, there is no obligation to have a blog (I think, but check it out for sure).

Welcome to my new blog...

Announcing the arrival of "me" to the web. You have arrived at my newest endeavor to keep in touch with all those I love. This is just a test to see if I am on. I look forward to keeping you all in tune to the fabulous adventures of matt and alina.