Someone pointed out to me that I haven't blogged in over a month. And it's true. And sad.
For a while nothing really changed. Then a lot changed and a lot happened and we were really busy for a couple of weeks. I've tried to document events though so now I can catch you up! I also had to wait to get our camera program back onto Doug's computer after it crashed :/
We found a place to live! We didn't really expect it to happen so soon, or to have the money to be able to move out. But God has provided for us in big ways. We love our new place. It is smaller than our first place, but the view makes up for it. Plus our bedroom is bigger than our old one. It actually makes our bed look small! One big change has been that we don't have a dishwasher, but it's not that bad at all. I did take before/after pictures when we moved in but we haven't quite finished moving in so I don't have all of the after pictures.
We had to get a new table because our old one was too big. The new one is the perfect size for us though. We also got a DVD bookshelf so that we'll have more room for books once we cut down our bookshelf to fit (our ceiling is 8 feet, our bookshelf is 8 feet 2 inches...). We also had to buy a fridge since it didn't come with one!
We painted on our move in date. We had some help from our friends Elyse and Allison and also my dad came and helped us. He's good at the edging so I was really thankful for his help. Then the next day we got all of our boxes out of my parent's garage with the help of our friend Andrew. We also met the problem neighbors that day. But everyone else we've met has been really sweet, we just happened to meet the problem ones first. Lovely.
A few days later we moved our bed and our clothes over and had our first night in our apartment. Doug came home with some lilies (my favorite) and a piece of cake, the kind at the grocery store where you buy one slice. This has become kind of a unspoken gesture for us. When we got married, we decided not to save the top tier of our cake (because that's kind of gross) and instead, on our anniversary, we bought a slice of cake to eat together. There have been several times where one of us has brought home a slice of cake as a treat to share. When we got married we learned the symbolism of the bride and groom feeding the cake to each other. It symbolizes "I will take care of you." (Also one among many of the reasons that we didn't smash it into each other's faces). So even though we don't say those words, the gesture is still there with a slice of cake.
We settled in over the next couple of days. Lots of unpacking among hectic work schedules. We had our friends over for our first movie night and carved pumpkins. We carve pumpkins every year with our friends so it was a fun tradition to continue. We also decided that the next time we go to a pumpkin patch will be when we have kids (ironically cause we feel too poor now). It was a fun date, but when Vons sells pumpkins with a buy one get one free promotion, it's just too good to pass up.
Carving on the balcony
Doug was te first one to be done. He didn't even have a printed out stencil to follow! He just sketched it out and carved it (it's a character from the movie Nightmare Before Christmas)
Working hard on our pumpkins. We really do have a creative group
As usual, I was the last one done (I don't count Sammy cause he carved 3!) It always takes me so long to clean them out. Probably cause I pick out the seeds at the same time. Or I'm just really slow. At least this year I was doing a semi-hard stencil.
My pumpkin! You can barely even tell that I tore his head off on accident. Luckily James knew what to do (he's the pumpkin carving king) and we toothpicked his head back on
Our groups pumpkins. Skull pumpkin, pumpkin centipede (based on a movie...don't google it), James' mutant ninja turtle (also not a stencil!...pumpkin carving king), bat, dragon, oogie boogie man, and a traditional jack o' lantern!
Then we watched a scary movie. Not usually my thing, but it's October, and better in a group. Unfortunately Doug has a high tolerance when it comes to scary movie, while I have a pretty low tolerance. I have too much of an imagination, especially when I'm home alone at night...
This is the only picture that I have for a before/after picture. This is our bedroom. This was right before we painted it...
And this is after, with all of our stuff. The painting that we had hung above our tv is now in our room. We were storing it in there and thought it went so well with the room that we hung it!
Wednesday night we had our first official meal on our new table. It was just hamburger helper, but it was goood. Then we had friends over again for another scary movie (that one I had seen though so it wasn't so scary).
It's been a bit cloudy ever since we moved in so we hadn't been able to enjoy our view that much. Last night at sunset it was so clear, so I finally got a picture of our view. Kind of hard to make out the difference between the islands and the ocean, but you get the idea
This morning it was clear again so I got a picture of our day time view. These pictures really don't give it justice though!
Now we get to see where else God is leading our life. It has been an adventure and I am so excited to see what comes next!
