Great Weekend!

David, Adrienne and Noah came to visit us this weekend. They came Friday afternoon and just left. On Friday we went out to the pumpkin patch to take pictures of Noah, and then we just hung out and watched 16 Blocks. Great movie! Today we went for a bike ride which was fun until we had to turn around and ride into the wind. Yuck! It was worth it though 'cause Adrienne and I got to talk for a while, which I really enjoyed. It was so much fun to play with Noah too. He is such a cute and handsome baby and very talkative already! I was so excited when Tim told me they were going to visit and even more so that they were going to spend the night to give us more time to hang out. I love having company over, especially family. It's so much fun to hang out and get to know each other better. I'll hopefully have some pictures to post of this weekend later.

Tim and I also got to go to the 55+ cookout tonight which was fun. They invited Tim to do the devotional for the evening, so I went along with him. Every time we meet a new group of people in our church I am so thankful that God brought us here. It was sweet too, I scrapped up my hand on our bike ride today, and when the ladies noticed it they took me and doctored up my hand. I loved it! :) I also met a sweet lady who is 85. We sat and talked for a while about her family and us moving up here. I love meeting older people. It is so nice to be surrounded by people of all generations.

What a Wonderful Day!


Today was great! I really enjoyed every minute spent with Tim. We relaxed this morning sleeping in and taking it easy. Then after lunch went to the main part of town for some craft fall fair or something going on. Our youth were selling baked goods to raise money for our Belize mission trip next summer. So we got to chat for a little while with the two girls manning the table.

Then Tim and I went for a bike ride on the bike trail that goes through town. The bike trail I have been told goes from St. Cloud to Fergus Falls, a total of 185 miles. Tim and I only did 5 then turned back around to our car. We did make it to the next town though! :) The trail is gorgeous right now with all the leaves changing colors. The trail has trees on both sides sometimes down in a hill, and at parts it goes between lakes which is gorgeous having water all around. Hopefully we'll get a couple more good weather days for more bike rides before it gets too cold.

After biking I cooked us dinner while Tim cleaned up. What a good husband! And then we picked a few apples from our best apple tree and I made apple cobbler. The topping was more like biscuits that the flaky cobbler I'm use to, but it is still good! We'll have some more after lunch tomorrow.

Our apples are great right now for cooking, and I want to use them for the holidays to make sweets for family, but I'm not sure how long the apples will be good for. I need to find out if I can freeze the apples after I peel and slice them and then get them out when needed, or what I can do to have them for the holidays.

Happy Birthday Dad!


Yesterday was my Dad's birthday, and Tim got to talk to him first! I was bummed, but it was nice to see them chat. I can't wait to see my family in December. I think about it all the time. I think I'm starting to get home sick again.

I started my new job, but am not sure how long I'll stick with it, I'm not as interested in it as I thought I would be. I'm glad to be back in an office, but I am still looking every night for a subbing position to do even though I can't right now with a commitment to this job. So I've gotta talk about it to my recruiter and see what to do. I really do want to use my teaching license while I have it, and look into teaching more. We'll see. I'm still really confused about what I want to do. I just read my last blog and I said that I couldn't wait to change departments at the business, but with 8 straight hours a day of only data entry, I really miss then fun of problem solving with the machines.

Small groups on Wednesday went really well. I really like my group of girls, and my co-teacher did the lesson and did a great job. I am excited to see what all God does with us. Afterwards I went for ice cream with one of the girl's families. It was nice to visit and talk with Julia more. She is such a sweetie and fun to be with.

I need to get some sleep. I got up at 6 this morning to exercise before work, and then I started nodding off at the end of the work day. I knew it was really bad every time I would look down to see what I needed to enter and my head felt very heavy like when you start nodding off in class or something.

An Early Morning

It's a little after 6 and I am up for work. I can't wait until I move departments at this company. Right now my job has such random hours even though when I was hired I was told it was for 8-5, which this morning will start a little before 7 and will be over before lunch. And I only got off by 5 my first week of work because I made plans assuming I would be done by five. If I had something going on in the evening I would leave at 6, which is earlier than everyone, and if I didn't have anything going on in the evening, or wasn't just tired of work then I would leave by 8:30.

I was amazed when my alarm went off this morning. I was a little out of it trying to figure why someone was calling me, but realized it was my alarm. And I couldn't see anything in our room 'cause the sun hadn't even thought about coming up. Right now there is barely light outside. These long nights and short days during the winter might take some getting use to. In the summer the sun would have already been up.

And it's a chilly 40 degrees outside right now. I'm glad it's a Friday 'cause I'm wearing a big comfy sweatshirt.

I talked to my parents and Katelin yesterday. I love talking to my family. And they made the decision to come up and visit Tim and I for Christmas! I am so excited and can't wait! For about a month now our church has been advertising for a Christmas musical every week, so I am already eager to decorate with all of our Christmas things. We didn't have many things to decorate with last year being our first Christmas married. But I hit up all the after Christmas sales and have quite a few decorations for this year. What fun!

Alright, time to head out the door.

Here's Whats Going On

Tim and I at the Twins/Rangers game in Minneapolis.

I have been deciding what to do career wise. I want to be flexible with my days so I can support Tim in youth ministry. So I was stuck between finding a permanent job or do substitute teaching and find a part time job for the evenings.

Well, today I had an interview for a different department at the company I am hired out to right now. The position is for an administrative assistant. So it's actually an office job which I'm excited about! Leaving the interview I was thinking it went well, but wasn't too sure trying to guess the vibes I was getting by the people in the interview. I admit, I was pretty intimidated because I was interviewed by 4 people at once for a 3 month temporary position. I haven't gone through an extensive interview before for any temp work. It didn't take long to hear back from the temp agency about the verdict if they wanted me or not...they decided to hire me. Now it's just a matter of time of when I switch over from my current position to the new position. I figured I might as well try this out because it is definite work every day for the next 3 months, and it could possibly turn into something permanent, but I get to try it out by going through the temp agency first.

I am exhausted. I have been trying to teach myself how to keep our house clean...mainly the kitchen. I need to catch up on laundry, it's all clean, just not put away. Anyways, I am trying to train myself to have the kitchen clean before I go to sleep and tonight is the 2nd night in a row. I had the day off today so I cooked a lot. I cooked an apple crisp from the apple trees we have and baked a simple lunch for us, but the downside of liking to cook is all the cleaning I have to do.

Tomorrow we start up confirmation at our church. I am really excited 'cause I'll be co-teaching one of the 8th grade girls classes. We've got 6 girls so far, and I can't wait to build strong relationships and teach these girls about Christ and the basics of the Bible, and to learn a lot myself.

I am absolutely loving married life. Tim and I have been getting along really well. We are just having fun together, and it's nice getting to participate in his ministry, and everything is very exciting with the school year starting up. I am helping Tim in the 7th and 8th grade Sunday School class, and will help out Sunday evenings for youth group, and then Wednesday nights for 8th grade girls confirmation.

Tonight it is suppose to get down to 35 and tomorrow's high is 64. Burr! It's only September! I am not ready for cold weather. I was wanting to work out today, so I tried to go on a bike ride, but after only 5 minutes I was tired of the wind and my hands were getting very cold, so I turned around to come home and to my surprise I was already riding with the wind and I was miserable, so then it took me even longer to get back home fighting against the wind and thinking that the first part of my bike ride was pretty nice. So I got out my work out videos and am thinking I'll have to stick with those 'til next June.

Labor Day

I really enjoyed having today off of work. Tim and I slept in 'til around 11 then had lunch with our neighbors/land lords/ youth volunteers/eye doctor. :) We had some great home made food and enjoyed visiting with them for a while. God has really blessed us with John and Ruth.

Most of the day we relaxed around the house. I finally sewed my dress pants which I've been meaning to since we moved here and I borrowed Ruth's sewing machine. Today was the first day I used it, now I'm working on a quilting project. When I first borrowed the sewing machine I went to Wal-Mart and bought all their cute fabric scraps under a dollar for me to practice on before sewing my pants. I really enjoyed sewing so now I've got a project! :) I think what kicked me off with sewing is that I've been reading "The Girls of Lighthouse Lane" series by Erika Tamar and Thomas Kinkade. The stories take place in 1905 when girls learned to sew at school and such. It is a great series that is so much fun to read. Theres another more mature series by Thomas Kinkade and Katherine Spencer that I will start probably tomorrow.

Okay, the rest of our day. I called and talked to my Mom for a while which I loved. I've been feeling a little homesick again. I really want to go to my parents for a little while and visit. Talking to my Mom helped, I felt like it has been a long time since I've talked to my family. Then Tim and I went bike riding for a little bit and then came home and grilled some real beef burgers. I don't know if we've ever grilled beef burgers, we buy turkey burgers which are a lot healthier and don't taste any different, but it was just nice to know we were eating beef. :)

Oh! Tim and I started our budget on the 1st. So far so good. We've already saved money. We went grocery shopping yesterday and were cautious with everything we got, looking at the cost per ounce they stick next to the price sticker and also going with store brand items instead of name brand. We bought just as much as usual for our one month groceries, but came out saving over $100! So that extra money will go towards paying off debt. I'm so excited!

Alright, I've procrastinated making our lunches for tomorrow and going to sleep long enough. Good night!