(the bloggy version of our Christmas card)

…and they shall call his name “Immanuel" which means, God with us. (Matthew 1:23)

2009 brought with it many changes for our little family,
but throughout it all God has continued to remind us that He is with us in our daily lives.

He was with us through deciding to sell our home
in the midst of a failing housing market,
And provided a buyer quickly so we
would have money to move with.

He was with us as we said goodbye to friends and family
to move across 4 state lines to Fort Worth, Texas,
And has provided both our families
opportunities to visit.

He was with us as Mike began classes at Seminary
After 7 years out of the studying environment,
And brought him through his first term.

He was with us as we struggled to find jobs in our new
home town even when it felt like it wouldn’t happen,
And provided both of us with new
jobs which we enjoy.

He is with us as we wait on our daughter, Jennifer,
to become fully formed within Becca’s body ,
And He is providing health, energy, and
resources to fend off our worries.

He has been with His people throughout generations,
And provided His son, Jesus,
as the way of salvation
for those who will receive Him.

Merry Christmas!

Trusting Him to be with us through many more blessings!

Becca and Mike
(and little Jennifer)

Christmas time is here

i made this wreath in preparation for Advent...


and bought some nativity items...


...one them our Christmas tree this year!


i also made a new wreath for the door....


...and found enough items leftover to make a mistletoe sprig!



and our music for the first official day of Christmas is...
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Jewel - Joy, a holiday collection
Over the Rhine - snow angel
Andrew Peterson - Behold the Lamb
Sixpence None the Richer - Dawn of Grace
Bela Fleck and the Flecktones - jingle all the way

Enjoy the season!

somehow we both just always knew

as we've begun preparing for this little baby, i've always kind of laughed when people would ask me "what do you feel like its going to be?" (girl or boy) but somehow, i've been thinking this entire time that we'd have a daughter. its not that i always grew up waiting a little girl first. honestly, i loved having an older brother so much that i'd always hoped i could set up the same kind of beginning in my family.

however, as the weeks have added up...i'd become more and more worried that if this one turned out NOT to be a girl, i'd have to reset my mindset and start thinking "boy" because i've just felt pretty certain that we'd have a daughter in april.

Mike has had the same feeling. As we talked about potential names, we found a girl combination we loved rather quickly, but kept changing the boy names around and just not settling on anything.

(really good news is...i was right and dont have to worry about having loved a son as a girl for the past 4 monthsand worry how that may affect his future...or have to pick out another name!)





in April we will welcome little Jennifer Mikaela Springstead to the outside world!

(please note: i am not saying we had any knowledge from another source to lead us to believe she is a girl before the visual evidence. i'm just saying i'm glad we were both correct in our guesses)

Trust

My faith is being stretched so much in everything involved in our moving here. We knew that we'd be here jobless in a hurting job market. We also knew that while we'd made the decision to move in a bleak housing market, our home had sold within days...proving that God still does more than all we ask or imagine. We moved here with the knowledge that we had that house money to carry us through this first semester. sometimes having the money makes faith seem much easier. Then, once we'd arrived, we discovered another turn of events....our pregnancy.

that put us here: miles from "home" and family. jobless. about to have all kinds of medical bills. and then another person to care for. we knew we could make it through one semester with what God had given us. But did we trust Him with carrying us through the unseen?

Now its November. the semester is rolling to a halt. I've been to seven or eight job interviews but applied for a far greater number than that. Mike has had to cut his classload down just to barely keep up. It has begun to feel that we were in over our heads.

This all began to really feel burdensome to me last night, as I was thinking about what Christmas would look like this year and if we'd get to see family at all. My answer has been lately "If i get a job, We might not have time to go see family due to scheduling, but if i don't have one by then....we might just have to move home during the holidays....before we are too broke to make the trip."

At what point do we say "enough" and go back where we started?

I keep having to be reminded of how quickly God sold that house....

God is faithful.
1. we haven't run out of money yet. He never promised we'd have more than enough. having the house money was more of a blessing than most get in these circumstances. I have certainly been taking that for granted.
2. I have been approved for Medicaid (being jobless and pregnant helps that become a simple process, i suppose) which means most, if not all, of the medical bills will be covered.
3. I received a call back this morning from the director at a job which i interviewed at over a week ago, explaining that she's been very busy with state and corporate inspections..so she is just now getting around to making my reference calls. She wanted to know that i'm still available before she made them. (not hired yet...but at least they like me and are pursing me!)
4. minutes after the job call, I began my morning devotions. (I've been reading in Genesis, then looking up a passage in the concordance on the word "Glory")
I'd left off last time in Genesis..chapter 15..where Abram is doubting that he could possibly be made great when he still is childless. Abram was looking at his circumstances logically and humanly, just as I have been. God reminded Abram of His promise and made a new covenant then and there. It was in that passage that Abram was commended for his faith. Just after Abram's moment of doubt and practically accusing God of being a liar, He still had faith. He was considered righteous.
And then guess what my "glory" verses included? Philippians 4:19..."And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

i feel sometimes as though my faith is so small...yet i do have faith. and everyday I wake up believing that God will carry us to whatever He would have us do. yet, i still try to work out all the details on my own understanding....

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.

boy or girl?

almost time for Dr. visit number three! tomorrow we're at 18 weeks. today we're siting on the couch coughing and sniffing due to a bit of a cold.
This Thursday we'll get to see our little one again on screen...and hopefully discover which little springstead is: boy or girl. Everyone's trying to guess....which do you think it is?

2nd dr visit

I'm sorry guys! i never thought i would go so long between entries! today I went to our 2nd dr visit. 14 weeks! start of that 2nd trimester. this visit was quick. ask the nurse some questions, check bp and weight, pee in a cup (all my life i've had difficulty with this), hear the baby's heartbeat (which was much easier to find this time), make next appointment.

our next appointment will be the 18 week sonogram...and we'll get to find out if we're having a boy, or a girl springstead! I can't wait to see this little one again! That appointment is one week before thanksgiving day!

I have a job interview at a local coffee shop this afternoon, and my parents and sisters are coming to see us this weekend! otherwise, no other news, really. I'm feeling good!

1st doctor visit

Monday morning we had our first visit with the new doctor. I am very happy with Dr. Irwin's helpful staff and friendliness! They were very focused on making sure all of our questions get answered...which is what they are supposed to be focused on! When we went in for the exam, since it looked on paper that we were right at ten weeks, the doctor began by listening for the baby's heartbeat. It was very nerve-wracking, because he hunted around for what felt like an eternity trying to find that little heartbeat. Without that heartbeat, the only proof I had thus far of being pregnant is my home pregnancy test and the obvious lack of cycle. A lot of what-ifs entered my mind in those few minutes as the doctor searched. He gave up on simply hearing the heartbeat and switched to the sonogram machine to find it...which was much quicker and with much releif, we got to see our tiny baby...whom we weren't supposed to get to see till another visit or two! Little Springstead does indeed have a healthy heartbeat, and we were told that it does look by size and everything to be exactly 10weeks, and everything appears to be going just fine. Praise God! Since this was not the scheduled sonogram, we didn't get any pictures of it. Honestly, it wasn't very clear anyhow...so for now rejoice with us that there is a healthy little baby being formed in our family and mark your calenders for April! The “due date” is April 19th.

Recently we have.....

(written sunday september 13th, 2009)

shopped for and found a new (previously leased) sofa! (we've been without our own comfortable living room for a couple of months now. It immediately became simpler to unpack the rest of our things now that I had a vision for what our living room would look like. I moved furniture to proper locations on Wednesday, the sofa was delivered on Thursday (another benefit of buying from a furniture store instead of getting something from a yard sale or thrift store is that we didnt have to move it..and not having a truck or friends that we know have a truck...that came as a huge benefit!) and I was able to hang some of our pictures on Friday! It finally feels comfortable in our living room! Mike and I are both slouching on the couch now...while he studies and I write this entry. It is so NICE to have space to be comfortable in our home!
The past week also brought a lot less of the fatigue i'd been feeling (which helped the room-arranging along greatly!) The last time I took a long nap (like i'd started to think would be the trend for the rest of my pregnancy) was last sunday! I've mostly stopped feeling so queasy too, my friend jennifer elliot suggested that I take the prenatal vitamins before bed to sleep through the nausea. Seems to be working a lot better. Is till have some bouts with feeling icky...but not as long and not as frequent.
Speaking of pregnancy...we got our insurance all lined up and I have my first doctor appointment next monday! Those weeks of waiting and not knowing how long we'd hbave to keep waiting were difficult...but thankfully, everything seemed to be going normally as far as we could tell. I mean, God's been doing this baby-growing thing for centuries....He doesn't really NEED a doctor to tell me He's doing in correctly this time. Trust trust trust.
I'm about 9 weeks along now...and will be 10 weeks when we get to go to the doctor. Isn't that the age the choose-life people said those baby-footprint pins were supposed to represent? And the little plastic babies they had too? It makes me smile to realize that the little springstead is that detailed already. Eyelids and fingers and toes and beginnings of fingernails....and so much more going on in there! God is not a procrastinator. If I were making this thing on my own, a lot of those little details might accidentally get skipped or at least put off till the night before the due date. Glad i'm not doing this on my own! (our poor child would never survive!) I love you, little springstead!

swbts (“swibbits”) ..so far

class taking:
though not “the student” in our family, I have started a few classes. I'm temporarily/permanently a member of the handbells group. Temporary...because if/when I get a job, odds are I wont be able to rehearse with the group anymore on tuesday and thursday afternoons. Permanent...because the director likes me so much, she hopes i'd still be able to ring concerts with the practices we've already had behind us...even after I get hoped-for job.
I'm also in the “wife of the equipping minister” class. A class which meets on tuesday nights geared toward new ministry student's wives. It covers many aspects of being in a ministry family...from personal relationship and time with God...to caring for your family...to hosting church family....and on and on. It is taught by the school president's wife. I really feel as though I “get” her (she's more organized than me!). And I also feel very blessed to be able to learn from her life experiences. We have to give a 3-5 minute presentation about something I know how to do and how it relates to ministry life. I'm thinking of doing it on rearranging furniture, actually. Its something i've used a lot when I really want to change my home but cant afford to buy new things. It also helps when you're moving to a new place....so you know where the big furniture goes before you get there...so it doesn't have to be moved around with all the other unpacking. Totally helpful for students wives in small spaces with small budgets! (thanks mom, for teaching me about graph paper models!)
I had also intended to join the Masters Chorale as a community member...but they meet on Monday nights...and so far every monday night for the past 2 or 3 weeks i've been feeling kind of yucky with pregnancy stuff...so mike's had to join that without me. i'm okay with it. I'd rather start off this way, instead of getting into the group, paying for music, and then finding myself not feeling up to concerts down the way.
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church hunting
last night there was a fair on campus to introduce new students and their families to several area churches. Free chic-fil-a and a lot of information about churches..which is good, because in our three weekends here, we have honestly run out of churches we could find on our own! Its not that there is a shortage of churches, it just feels like they are a little more hidden around here. I'm glad to be armed with some information on some of these before we enter their doors. Maybe I wont be so full of questions as we visit these...and can pay more attention to what is actually going on...instead of wondering if its even an SBC church and what sort of activities they have and so on.
Tomorrow night at the RAC (recreation and activities center...aka..the gym) there is a meet and greet sort of thing with swbts members of an area reformed sbc church which a friend of mine (from handbells) is a part of. I've got the most information on their church...probably because holly gave me a big handful of their stuff as soon as she saw me at the fair:) i'm particularly interested in meeting this congregation,. That little presbyterian part of me is very interested in it! We'll see, through.
People at the different church booths kept asking us “what are you looking for in a church?” and my answer is simply “the place where God wants us.” can't think of any better reply...because that's it. Truth in teaching and practice is a must...but size is variable. Music style is variable...as long as its where God wants us. Honestly, I have to be careful not to let those personal preferences get in the way of what God might be leading us to. I don't want to just be comfortable someplace...i want us to be challenged to be a bit uncomfortable if it is necessary to be in God's will.

33 weeks and counting

it's been two weeks now since we found out about our little springstead. i'm about 7 weeks along, by our calculations. (we haven't gone to a docotor yet, because we're waiting to hear about our insurance approval.) In just two weeks i've already had so many adjustments to make regarding how I plan my days and how I eat. I can't just say “i'm going to the store and to run these errands tomorrow” because I have no idea if i'll feel up to all of that when the day actually comes. I've had to learn to make tentative plans, and leave room for rest before classes or other commitments. This alone has been a huge change for my list-making mentality. I'm used to being able to schedule my life and accomplish my list and then some on a good day. Now its a good day if I get one thing on the list done. I've started making lists of things to do if I have a good day...or a good hour. I see it as very good training for when I actually have the little springstead in the outside world to fit into my plans. With a baby I might not always get my lists completed, but learning now to rejoice in a little accomplishment will help that not come as a shock in 7 or 8 months. (Mom, you're a list maker...tell me how you adjusted to this!)
i'm also being reminded of lists I should be making...like if I had been writing down everything I eat and how I feel everyday...i'd know if what I eat for breakfast has a bearing on how well I feel the rest of the day. I'm testing that theory now. I had a good day today...so eggs will be considered “good.” cereal is iffy..because I had cereal yesterday and felt awful most of the day. I have had more good days then awful...so that's promising.
I started writing letters to the baby....explaining where we are in life now and just before finding out about him/her. I don't know if its something they will ever want to read, but it will at least be a good record for me....a clear telling of this chapter of our lives.
its amazing to think about just the little ideas and glimpses of what this childs life will be like with us and as they grow into adults. i often find myself looking down at my not-yet-growing belly and saying "i love you, little baby."

job hunting

during the first hours of our drive to fort worth, I was surprised to receive a call from the seminary's office of human resources, in response to one of the several applications I'd submitted with them. Because I was driving at the time, we set up a phone interview for the following morning.

The next morning we were in Caledonia, MS...which on and off again reception for cell phones, so mike and I went to a coffee shop[ in Columbus (a few minutes away) where we could look up the job description again, and I could also be available to receive my interview call.

Upon reviewing the job description, I still honestly couldn't tell you what all the job entailed....it looked involved.

20 minutes later, my interview was finished. The phone conversation had gone well, and I had been asked to come in for a face-to-face interview with the HR director. Of course, since we weren't IN fort worth yet, that interview had to wait 5 more days...till monday.

On Monday I located the office for the interview, spoken with the woman I'd been interviewed by previously, and waited to meet the director.

The interview went fairly well, I thought. I was told I was the final of a few interviews, so I'd know later that afternoon either way.

That afternoon while I was in the grocery store I received the call back from the HR office. Strangest non-hire call ever. They said they liked me, liked my background and wanted to find me a job which would fit me...though they had found someone better suited to that position. He told me to keep applying for seminary jobs and their office would also keep their eyes out for something for me, and if I hadn't heard from them about any in a few weeks, to check with them again.

I guess when the job you interview for is in the human resources department, it is almost like interviewing for a job placement office and instead getting put into their potential outside hires pool?

At any rate, I spent about three hours online saturday morning applying for jobs...child care jobs, administrative assistants, secretary jobs, office assistants, receptionists, etc...I'll check back on those lists in a few days to see if anything new has come up. For today, I'm just waiting.

Home, sweet home

I've missed about a week of updates....so in case you were wondering: our things arrived on schedule, Friday Aug 14th.

I've since then, gotten three out of four rooms set up (bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen)
The bedroom was mostly setup, except that until about two days ago, we still had suitcases all around for our unputaway clothing.
the kitchen was the biggest task...14 or 15 boxes of things and not sure where they'd all go. I'm very pleased with how it turned out...but I don have pictures of the finished product yet.
the living room is the catch-all room for now...and since we haven't gotten a couch or shelves yet...its not a room we'd get very comfortable in right now anyway.

I hope to find a good deal on a couch at a thrift store...but if it gets to be too long waiting on that deal, we might look at buying something new from Ikea or someplace else affordable (any suggestions?)

Monday night....we loaded/packed/crammed as much as we could into our two small cars...remembering to leave room for ourselves and our overnight baggage. We came to realize that more should have gone into the moving cubes than was sent...but it was too late...cant change the past...so we fit whatever we could, and stored the rest at my parents house. (with what we'd previously decided to store, as well.) somehow in spite of leaving things behind...we managed to pack our tent and sleeping bags...which is interesting..considering that in the two years we've been married..and the two years we dated before that...we've never gone camping either together or apart. I think the tent has been used about twice in its lifetime. We owe it a camping trip here in texas, I suppose.

Tuesday morning... found more things to pack and/or leave behind. Crammed more stuff into holes and tiny gaps than michael thought possible. Said goodbyes to my family...and began our drive. I in my car, michael in his car. I carried my music and one lonely houseplant to keep company. Michael had himself and some music. The weather was great most of the day. Clouded up and showered a little beginning in alabama. As we entered mississippi the rains came down fairly hard..but by then we were on slower roads anyhow. I did take a few interesting pictures through the rainy windshield, but those are on my phone and I dont have a way to get those on the computer as of yet. We detoured up to the columbus area to visit family for a day before our move. Had diner with michael's parents and then fell into bed quite sleepy (and ill-adjusted to central time.)

Wednesday morning... was rather laid-back. We went to a local coffee shop for a little while (for a phone interview which I will write about later,) drank lattes, and made facebook updates. Afterward we spent most of the day hopping around looking for people michael grew up with or worked with when he was in caledonia...to tell them “hi” and “bye” before the big move continued. Our last and very important visit was with michaels grandmother. From there, we continued down to brandon (outside of jackson.) the drive to brandon is when I really began taking the random on-road photos. When we arrived in brandon we met up with mark...who joined us for the rest of the trip...and stayed with paula (sis-in-law) and the kids.

Thursday morning... early, though not as early as we maybe should have...greeted by morning coffee: mike, mark, and I loaded into the two cars again. this time with mike and I in one car...mark driving the other. It was nice to have a traveling companion again. Two days of lonely car rides and a houseplant to keep me company was getting to me. On our way, we made a previously arranged stop, though a little later than planned... in rayville, LA to see my friend Deanna, we figured out that it may have been 11 years since we'd seen one another! Far too long...but we caught up a bit over breakfast at McDs. Good times. Still the same two girls..trying our best to do whatever God leads us to....we're both just a little older now. We vowed to meet again on another trip along i-20....now that it will be a regular holiday route for us. Upon leaving mcDs at 10am...mike and I realized that we would be hard-pressed to make it to SWBTS by our 3:30 housing appointment...knowing that the office closes at 4pm...but we pressed on (leaving mark very far behind us in the following car)...and traffic cooperated. I believe it was 3:37 when we sat down to sign lease papers. Praise the Lord! We received our keys, paid our rent, and opened the door of our new home. With the help of a few new neighbors, we unloaded what we had with us and soon decided to treat ourselves to our new favorite restaurant....vallartas mexican seafood. (amazing..amazing...amazing...and right across the street!) (they automatically serve water with lime slices...just the way I always order it!) I couldn't begin to describe how completely at home and happy I felt that night as we finished up our meal in our new city. i also found a grocery store and found my way back home afterward.

Friday morning...we awoke slowly and I began to sort some of our things out. I remembered that we would by now have a mailbox loaded with mail...and also realized that I had no idea where our box would be located. I wandered around our complex and found where our po box should be...but looking at the box labels, couldn't figure out which one would be ours. Our apartment is #204. our parking space is 18-b, and the post office boxes are labeled 1-A through 12-L and 1-M through12-Z.... not 204. not 18. I walked back into our apartment with a very confused look on my face and asked michael to come help me test our keys in all the boxes. Ours turned out to be 11-k. Makes perfect sense.....right? Now we've called uhaul about getting some hand trucks, i've paid a couple of bills, looked through the new Ikea book, and we're waiting to hear from the packing cube company about our delivery. I think my brain is still in eastern time...it feels like lunchtime should already by here..but its not yet 11am.

still to come.... getting our furniture from storage cubes. figuring out where everything goes. replacing bookcases which we didn't move with us. (ikea trip! yay!) possibly finding a couch and a microwave too.

the job hunt has begun

i really want to work on campus....so i can get to know the seminary family and be close to home. i'm not against applying for off-campus jobs, but if i can get something in that area, i'd be really happy. (the campus coffee shop has not posted any job openings as of yet)

i hope it doesn't look over-eager to have just submitted 4 applications to the online job listing at swbts....i figure each one goes to the person in charge of each individual office...so i should cover all the bases. im particularly excited about the conference center event coordinator job...i'm starting to learn that i thrive in that sort of atmosphere. i hope i said enough good things about myself in that application! i applied for a few secretary jobs on campus a few weeks back...but i didn't have a current resume to attach, and i forgot to add more than one past job (because you have to click on a button to get fields fo more than one job history...) here's to waiting!

i'm thinking i'd rather wait till we get to town to apply for off-campus jobs, so i can see how far they are from our home...and see the businesses in person first. i promise i'd be less picky and more "give me anything" if we didn't already have that house-money in our bank account. i like being able to be a little choosy and relaxed about this.

how our house went from "on the market" to "under contract" in less than one week

once we'd found out that we were officially heading for seminary life, we had to begin the daunting task of getting our townhouse ready to sell in a declining economy while we both worked a little over full-time. i will not say that the prospect didn't make me more than a little bit nervous. God will provide.

i spoke to my realtor friend, Delane, to get the ball rolling and figure out exactly what all we needed to do to get our home sell-ready. Delane assured me that our house was in a good neighborhood and that the summer is the best time to try to sell property such as ours..and that on average these things turn over in about 90 days. (the day i spoke with her was exactly 90 days before classes began!) God will provide.

we returned from our seminary visit at the very end of April. i had an appointment to get my wisdom teeth removed the following week...which the dentist decided to do in two sessions...so i had one week of recovery at the start of may, and another at the end of may.
needless to say...i wasn't able to get a whole lot of cleaning out and packing done during the month of May....God will provide.

i hunkered down and got the house into a really good look by mid-june., gave away our cat (she isn't allowed in student apartments)..and listed the house on saturday, june 20th . (remember...we're planning to move to Texas in August and pay for school, rent, etc...without a job in place as of yet) God will provide.

a few days went by without hearing a peep from other realtors to show the place. my prayer through this entire process had been that God would lead the right person to our home at the right time..and no one else who viewed it mattered. God will provide.

on wednesday june 24th i recieved a call that we were getting our first viewing. i had a few minutes before work, so i quickly went home and straightened up a little bit extra, prayed that i wouldn't get discouraged if this wasn't the person for our house, went back to work and waited. God will provide.

when i got off work i recieved a call which confused me. "the realtor who showed your home left a contract on your table for you to look over" i honestly thought delane was telling me that they had lost something in our house and just wanted to be sure we got it back to them....it took a second for the clouds to clear and for me to accept the reality that this first viewer wanted to be the buyer! God will provide.

When i got home, i looked over the contract and just couldn't contain my excitement and disbelief (Lord, help me.) They wanted to pay exactly what we were asking and the only thing which wasn't what i would call perfect, is that they wanted to close the deal in just 4 weeks! Thankfully, it was Wednesday, so i was able to take my excitement to church and get the people of God praying and praising with me. God will provide.

Before the night was over we'd renegotiated the close to 10 days later, which gave us that much longer to get packed and out while working. in the midst of praising God for the provision of our buyer, i began to worry about how we would pay for our moving expenses. in that very moment of worry, i came home to find that Michael's parents had offered to cover our moving truck or whatever we chose to use in our move. we were able to move our things out on the 25th, clean the house the rest of the following week, load our relocubes and send them off....and close on the 31st. God certainly does provide!

we're pretty much nomads for now

i've been thinking of starting this back up....journaling and such....especially with our move on the horizon. i feel like it would be both good for me, and good for those who would read it...to keep in on the things which are going on in the life of myself and michael as we begin our life in Fort Worth.

i posted about this in my facebook notes, but i'm pretty sure it never made it into my blog...so i'll update everyone real quick: After much prayer, in April of this year Mike and I visited Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and began the process of enrolling him in their MDiv program. We feel very much that this is where God is calling us to go for now and will follow Him wherever He leads. Mike was accepted into the program and now we are on our way!

a week and a half ago we loaded everything up, packed most of our belongings into a couple of relocubes, moved out of our townhouse, and into my grandmother's house with whatever wasn't being shipped off ahead of us in the cubes. we've been living out of suitcases ever since.
we have almost another full week to go in this...and it hasn't been so bad..really. i love that it puts us so close to family. grandma's house is next-door to my family's house....so we kind of stay at both places.

since then, we have cleaned out and officially sold our house, donated a lot of things to thrift stores, almost completed our days at each of our jobs, and nearly gotten the items we are storing in mom and dad's attic packed away. we also got this new computer! (a necessity for the seminary student in the family)

(i had a list of all the "last" things i will do this week...but it was kind of depressing..so i took it out)

next tuesday we'll hit i-20 and be on our way. we're actually not scheduled to move into our 520sq ft apartment till that thursday...but we chose to leave a day sooner so we could see Mike's family a little before school begins.

I'm sure if i'd let myself think about it, i would get sad about leaving our friends and family here in the Augusta area...but right now I'm just so ready to be done driving, done unloading our things, and done living out of suitcases without my own kitchen...i want to begin setting up our home and getting to know the community and the area we'll be in for the next several years. it all feels like a great unknown adventure from here...and considering that i know the One who knows the paths this adventure will take us on and He is leading the way...i'm not scared one bit. just very excited to be in it as it all unfolds...