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!