House Update

The house has been coming along quickly!  I drove by last Friday morning and the brick was about 1/3 of the way finished.  By Saturday, they had almost completed bricking it!!!  It's going to slow down soon, but I'm looking forward to it getting finished!

Front of house

Back of house (Lake View)

I love that the number is IN the brick!!!

The house weathered through a multitude of storms yesterday.  I think its going to be pretty sturdy!  Now, if we could just sell the condo... 

A New Adventure: Race Day!!!

As if Matt and I weren't doing enough, we have spent the last 12 weeks training for a 5K.  We have been a part of the Run for God program at our church, where we have trained with a large number of fellow church members. 
Here is our group shot:

I have attempted running/walking the Liz Hurley Ribbon Run for the past 3 years- each year beating my time, but not yet running the whole thing.  This was Matt's first 5K experience.  He did an INCREDIBLE job finishing with a time of 27:30!!!  My time was 44:42- which was around 3 minutes off my time from last year.  I still couldn't run the whole thing, but I was happy with that due to everything that I have dealt with throughout training.  Matt has been my biggest encourager all the way to that finish line.  I'm so thankful God gave me him.  I had planned on this being my only 5K for the year, but we're all discussing running a few more that are coming up to keep ourselves going until the next Run for God training program begins in March.
Here is a pic of Matt & I before the race:

We have been all about "adventures" in our relationship.  So, this was OUR first 5K together.  What a great adventure it was!

Our New House...

They broke ground on the new house about 2 weeks ago.  Since then it seems to be going up rather quickly... ok, scratch that, it doesn't just seem to be, it is!!!  It's hard for us to keep up and get pictures as it goes by, but i thought I would share where we were at with it on here as well...
                                          

                                                               This is our backyard!!!

                                                                       October 1

                                                                        October 2

October 5

October 7

All that was done in less than a week!!!!  I drove by yesterday, and was like "WOW!!!  It actually looks like our house!!!"  I'm excited!!!

We are still waiting on his condo to sell, so it's not really ours till that happens, but we're trusting God to sell it at the right time.

Wedding Mayhem

It has been a crazy month since we got engaged.  Two days after, we lost the house we put the contract on, which brought us to a place where we had to decide to let it go and pull his condo off the market or let them build a new house on a different lot.  We opted to go ahead and build.  Crazy???  Yes.  We are.  : )  So, we've spent the last month previewing, researching and FINALLY choosing everything for it.  When completed, it should be an absolutely BEAUTIFUL house with a great view ON the LAKE!!!  We are so excited!  It's so much more than either of us ever dreamed we could have.  God is so good!  They should break ground in the next couple of weeks.  Now we are just trusting Him in the sale of Matt's condo.
Needless to say that because of all of this, we have been wrapped up in house plans and haven't had much time for wedding plans.  However, after 3 weeks of scheduling difficulties, we have finally chosen a date.  JUNE 18, 2011!  Now to get everything else going...
It's an exciting time, but also a busy one for us.  We have a lot to juggle and the strength to do it all is solely coming from God.

He Popped the Question!!! :)

August 15 was planned to be like any other Sunday.  I went to church and sang with the choir.  Matt made faces at me from the piano.  Ate lunch with the fam then headed to home to get my house ready to show.  I was pretty excited about SWAT starting back.  I sure have missed seeing all of those kids on a weekly basis.  It was during SWAT that things took a bit of a change...
I helped register new students then sat in the rehearsal for a little while.  I sang on praise team that evening so I had to leave early for rehearsal, which normally isn't a big deal, but Matt requested me to come back in around 5:50 for sponsor prayer time.  I thought that was odd, but he is always trying new things, so I just let it go.  I made it back in the room right at 5:50 and he asked me to get all the sponsors in the room.  So, we lined up in the front of the room.  Matt asked Jess to pray over the sponsors, but asked the kids not to leave because he had one more announcement.  After the prayer, Matt says, "You kids know I love you right?"  After some loud screams from the kids, Matt goes, "Well there is someone in this place right now who I love more than you guys.  And I need to ask her a question."  The kids were all SCREAMING!  I am stunned.  Matt turned and looked at me and said "Are you surprised?"  The next thing I know, he is down on one knee.  He takes my hand and tells the kids to be quiet.  He says "I have loved you since the day I met you and God knew that we would be together. I am just so thankful that you are in my life.  Will you marry me?"  Then, he asked me if he could kiss me.  So, we had our first kiss in front of everyone. 

It was a perfect night.  One I'll remember forever.  We even have video (which I probably shouldn't mention how many times I have watched it). I am so glad God brought him into my life.  I can't wait for all of the "adventures" we will have together.

Generation Rising- 2010 SWAT Choir Tour

"I will sing of the Lord's great love forever; with my mouth I will make Your faithfulness known through all generations." Psalm 89:1

It's hard to believe we've almost been back from the 2010 Choir Tour to New Orleans for a week. We took a total of 109 people- 85 teens and 24 adults. It was such a blessing for me to watch God work in the lives of each of these kids and have Him work in my life. The kids performed a total of 9 concerts. The final concert being the Homecoming concert at Whitesburg on Sunday night. We participated in every kind of mission project you can imagine. The concert at the correctional facility I would say goes down as the most interesting. We did quite a bit of prayer walking, cleaning, and other random work projects. We picked up trash in Covington, LA. I got to go with the senior girls to help at a crisis pregnancy center too.

We had bus issues as well. It started with a cracked bus window on Saturday on our way to the camp in MS. Then on our way to the 2nd church on Sunday, I was very, very asleep and felt a thud. I opened my eyes to Matt turned around in his seat looking at me with his eyes VERY wide then we smelled this wretched burning smell. We had blown a tire. If that wasn't enough, Monday on the way to the correctional facility, the other bus got stuck pretty deep in some mud. Never a lack of 'adventure'.

I had a great evening devotional group. Maybe I should rephrase that. I had a "SPIFFY" group. I was paired up with our music minister, Martin, and we had 9 of the kids plus our team mascot- Gnomey. Each of the kids had such different personalities, but they all flowed together so well. I want the same group every year!

We read the book "Forgotten God" by Frances Chan. We learned about the Holy Spirit. It was such an amazing book. So often, we squelch what the Holy Spirit is doing. During the Wednesday night service, we saw the Holy Spirit move in an amazing way. God is so good!

We spent our "fun" day in New Orleans. We started on a 2 hour swamp tour, where I found myself holding a baby alligator. EW!!! Then we headed to Jackson Square for the big group picture and for lunch. The kids were given the option to tour St. Louis cathedral, get beignets at Cafe Du Monde or shop for souveniers. Matt and I were considered the "old people" as we chose to lead the group going to tour the cathedral. It was GORGEOUS! The next tour was of Mardi Gras World, which is where the floats are made for the Mardi Gras parade. It was a crafty person's dream come true. Holy Cow!!! It was so, so, so amazing! Such intricate detail! Papa Waller (our bus driver) took us to the 9th ward to see some of the damage. It was very sombering. Our last tour was of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Such a beautiful campus! The staff was super friendly. We even got to see the piano Jesus Loves Me and Just as I Am were written on.

I was completely exhausted by the time we got back. However, I found myself missing the kids a great deal. I really enjoy them. I can't wait for next year's choir tour/mission trip.

Getting caught up...

It's been so long since I posted, that I don't even know where to start. To summarize the end of the year, I went to the beach with Matt to see Sara. It was a great relaxing weekend. I needed it before worked kicked into full gear as we had "system enhancement" coming up. I went to several concerts by the Huntsville Community Chorus. One of the highlights of the fall was the Madison County Parade of Homes. Matt and I wouldn't visit any houses that were less than half a million dollars. Like either of us could afford that. The best one was the 2.2 million dollar house we saw out in Madison. It was HUGE and BEAUTIFUL! Both of us are obsessed with houses and HGTV house shows. I actually had to ban myself from the mls site for a while. We also had the Middle School County Fair where we dressed up as Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. "System Enhancement" at work came right after that. I was working 6 days a week and working 12 hour days. We had an early family Thanksgiving with Matt, the Adams' family, and Destinee's boyfriend, Chris. My family and the Adams' were all out of town for Thanksgiving, so I spent Thanksgiving with Matt at the Bandy's house then went back to Matt's to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie. After that, things really began to pick up because it was Christmas time. The whole first week after Thanksgiving was filled with Hanging of the Green set up and rehearsals. It seemed like there were concerts and parties all the time. We spent Christmas in Indiana with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was fun, but I was ready to come back and sleep in my bed. New Year's Eve, Matt hosted a party at his house, which meant I cooked. haha... It was really fun to just chill, watch movies and watch the ball drop. Now to start 2010...
Birthday week began and was the most marvelous week ever. I love the week, the month, etc. I still don't really care for cold. I was actually kinda dreading my actual birthday. It was on a Wednesday and that meant everything was super busy and rushed. I woke up and decided to make the best of it. I got to work to find that Stacey- one of the Executive Asst.- had picked up Chick-fil-a for breakfast for all of my bosses, him and our V.P. to celebrate with. Way to start things off with a bang! Yippee!!! Lisa and I celebrated with cupcakes. I met my parents for lunch at Cheddar's (super yummy) where I recieved my birthday gift (a GPS). After I left work, I stopped by my parent's church to see everyone there. I was headed to the church for choir practice when I got a text from Matt asking me to stop by his office before I went to the choir room. When I got there, he handed me a bouquet of (49) pink roses. I was so surprised. He also gave me a gift card to Little Rosie's. The plan was already to go out to dinner after choir, so I wasn't expecting anything else. He took me to Chili's, where we had the "DTR" or defining of the relationship. So, it was official... we are dating... It was a GREAT birthday! It snowed the next day causing us to get sent home early from work and a delay the morning after that. My family decided to celebrate my birthday on Saturday (1/9). So, Matt and I joined them at PF Chang's, then headed to my parent's house for cake and games. Kim, Rebekah and I did our usual girls birthday celebration. We did dinner PF Changs and a movie. The rest of January has almost been a blur. We've had 3 snows that have caused the credit union to delay opening or send us home early (very, very rare occurences). This was the first Valentine's I have gotten to spend with someone, so that was pretty exciting. We went to PF Changs then to see the movie "Blindside". Excellent movie! I guess that pretty much catches me up to the present. I'm planning on posting some of my scrapping, card making and other crafty things soon.