Change

I'm typing this from my phone so forgive any typos or craziness! I'm rarely on my computer these days...especially not long enough to blog. Partly because I'm busy/tired and partly because it's slowly dying.

Life update in bullet points:

•Hubs headed in a new direction with work. He's still seeing clients (not as much) and he started a non-profit ministry. It's slowly getting going. He stays super busy with it, laying the foundation.
•I now am a toddler teacher at a local child care center. With the change of business came a change in finances. My working helps us pay bills and allows him to focus on growing and building without so much pressure. I'm in my third week and liking it so far. The ppl are great to work with and of course, the kiddos are super fun! It's only about 5mins away so it's much less tiring than my last job with the 1.5 commute each way.
•We are still foster parents but don't have any placements right now. Hopefully any child(ren) we get will just be able to go to childcare where I work. It's not ideal but our hearts are still very much feeling like God wants us to be foster parents.
•We are really hoping to downsize/minimalize this year. Obviously, this will help with rent cost and utility bills but also we both really don't like the feeling of being "tied down" by stuff. I am very much suffering from wanderlust right now (I'd hit the road again in an RV any day!) and so I'm aching to at least move and have a change. I have serious issues with staying put for too long...I'm weird. I'm obsessed with pinterest-ing "small spaces".
•I'm turning 30 this April! and running a 5k (big deal for me) the day before my birthday to celebrate. I'll start training next week. I'm excited and nervous...about the 30 and the 5k!

Guess that's it for now. I'll try out this phone blogging more and see if I'm any better at it this way. Hope you all are well and enjoying 2013 so far!

Summer in a Nutshell

How has summer come and gone already?! I haven't posted in oh.so.long. and I've realized I've totally been slacking at taking pictures too. *sigh* Almost no documentation of a summer gone... Ah well, here are a few shots and my summer in a nutshell...

After about a year of planning, me and five of my best pals went to the beach! (you can read more about them under the 'my girls' tag) We hadn't all been together in seven years, I think. It was the most wonderful way to spend summer vacation! We had SO.MUCH.FUN. and it went by way too fast! Hopefully we'll be able to plan another trip soon and not wait another seven years before we're all together again!

Also? One of the best pals (Austin-Lee) is a photographer so we had a best pals photo session and the shots are gorgeous! It's ok, you can be jealous I have such hot friends. ;)

~*~*~

Towards the end of summer My Count and I joined a group of new and old friends and did a hike up Mt. LaConte. We stayed in an awesome rustic lodge up top.
 

A group of them have been going every year for, I believe, 20 years. It was great to be able to join them! Mt. LeConte is in the Smoky Mountains National Park...so bear country. In all their trips they had never seen any bears though so I felt safe enough.
 

However, I did take our bear mace just in case....and it came in handy. We didn't have to use it but we were followed by a huge bear for at lease a mile on our hike down! I don't do well with bears. It was very scary! She was WAY too close for comfort but thankfully she never got mad and we didn't have to mace her. She was one of three bears we saw on this trip!...I'm not sure I believe the "we've never seen any bears" line they used to get me to go. ;)

 It was a beautiful place and made me want to live in the mountains in a little cabin. Somewhere without bears though (of course).

The whole gang.

 

~*~*~

If you follow our foster blog you know we have our first placement! He's a handful of joy! Keeps us busy and entertained and is the main reason this blog has been so quiet lately. :) 


Guess that's about it for the summer. It's been fairly low key but it's been good! I'm so excited that fall is here! I hope it stays around for a while and we have plenty of opportunities to enjoy it.

He Always Provides

As I was walking back from our garden this morning I saw this little blue robin's egg and I thought, "Oh! Blue! I can link up to You Capture!" And I thought, "new life! I can link to unwrapping His Promises"...but then I thought of Matt 6:26 and realized I really need to be writing about trusting in God to provide because we're in that season...and have been for quite some time.

Somehow they fit together though. New life and trusting God.

We're still waiting to hear back from our agency on whether we will be approved to foster parent through them. In so many ways that will bring new life to our family. Through the lives of the little ones that we will be blessed to care for and through the new chapter of our life that will be born when we add children to the mix! Our hearts are ready and waiting but we trust in God's promise to provide...in His way, at His time.

In other areas we're learning to trust also. When one of our main sources of income took a nose dive this past January...all we could do was trust that God would provide. He did and He continues to! God has been in the midst of it all. Teaching us lesson after lesson about giving and helping others-giving money, giving time, sharing what we have...showing us His promise to care for us when our trust is in Him.

It's been tough in our struggles to let go and believe the promise that He will always provide but we're learning. And through the struggling and the waiting He has grown us and shaped us. And despite ourselves and all the problems we come with, He loves us unconditionally and He provides everything we need. And so much more! So we're learning to rest in His promises as we find peace and joy on this journey...right here, in this moment.


~*~*~*~
Post linked to:

{life}

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside”  -Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Summer is flying by around here (like this whole year has!). It's been extra hot and I'm loving being outside everyday. Mostly working in the garden or sitting outside reading. 

After several visits from rabbits in our garden and trying everything to keep them away (pepper sprinkled around and on everything, hair everywhere, building a bigger box, spraying "invisible" fence around the garden, etc. etc. etc.) we finally built a real rabbit fence around it all.

 So far, so good!We haven't had any little visitors eating our plants of digging up our radishes. Yay!!

 For some reason everything is taking a lot longer to produce than it did when we lived in the country. But we finally have flowers on several of our squash, cucumbers, and zucchini plants. Woohoo!

 

 I picked our first batch of okra yesterday and we're going to try this recipe. mmmm

 As most of you know my parents and youngest brother have been missionaries in Honduras for the past 2.5 years or so. Well my baby brother (who isn't really a baby anymore *sniff*) graduated and came to us at the end of May. :) He is staying with us for the summer while he gets a job and begins a new chapter of his life--working, living on his own, and figuring out what he wants to pursue as a career. It's been so fun having him here and spending time with him! I took his senior pictures a couple weeks ago. Isn't he handsome?...ok, hot. :)

This pic is submitted and linked to Black and White Wednesday

 Here's an Intsagram photo from this past weekend.

We've been able to enjoy some camping trips this summer...there is nothing better then sitting by a campfire in the woods! We LOVE it! We camped Friday night and then spent the day by the pool. It was the first time we'd spent time at/in water this summer and it was grand! Our class at church is reading Radical, by David Platt....it's a challenging book but SO good. You should get it if you haven't read it. 

I noticed a new bush with flowers on it behind our garden this morning. Isn't it just lovely? I love that God sprinkles blessings everywhere for us to enjoy!

I hope you're summer is going well and that you are enjoying all the fun summery things this time of year brings. Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully, I really will get better at blogging more often! :/

This post linked to:
Seven Clown Circus-Wordful Wednesday
like Christmas every day-Black & White Wednesday