getaway in may

it was so wonderful to escape to ludington, mi for a few days in may. we left on monday, came back on wednesday, and enjoyed our free hotel stay, thanks to airmiles. they even upgraded us to the whirlpool suite for free!

we picnicked and hiked in the state park, played board games, watched movies, enjoyed uninterrupted dinners out, went to a couple thrift shops, and slept in until 7:30 (that's sleeping in for us these days!). both mornings, jeremy brought me coffee and breakfast in bed. what a treat.

it was so good to have time away with just the two of us. (and so nice that my mom and sister watched the kids for us!)

ludington state park... our favorite michigan destination. we've made lots of good memories here over the years!

the bugs

oh the bugs!

living in the south has given me a whole new perspective on bugs. thanks to the mild winter and the muggy weather conditions, the bugs here are enormous, and they are everywhere! i don't think i have ever seen bugs this big. seriously...bugs in the midwest are like the little puny cousins of the bugs down here.

there isn't a single trip to the outdoors (even walking from the back door to the van) when love does not find some sort of bug. it makes me happy to see her so excited about the them. the world is truly her classroom as she holds and examines bugs. it is fun to watch.

 a (dead) eyed click beetle we found on a walk

there are tons of cicadas here, so we can always find exoskeletons outside. we have also found several live cicadas, and some dead ones too.

 cicada

hardwood stump borer beetle, i think

one afternoon love and i went out to water the plants on the front porch, and there were two HUGE beetles on the porch. thanks to a google search, i believe they were hardwood stump borer beetles. love immediately went over and picked one up and was thrilled to have it crawling on her hand. if i would have looked more closely, i would have seen that it had large pinchers, but i didn't, and it pinched her finger. she shrieked and waved her hand around and it let go. i thought she would be traumatized, but she recovered quickly and it has not dampened her enthusiasm for bugs one bit.

discovering the beetles

and seconds before the pinch... :(

i don't mind most of the bugs very much...the beetles, ladybugs, cicadas, and various insects. i share love's excitement when we find a bug, even if i really find it gross, because that's what mamas do (although i mostly leave it up to love to pick them up and hold them). i also think it's so cool that she loves bugs so much, and i don't want to influence her or dampen her enthusiasm for them. for the most part, she is really gentle in handling bugs, and we talk a lot about how to treat them kindly and respectfully.

...but the cockroaches. oh, those really get me. since living here, i have {unfortunately} learned all kinds of interesting (?) facts about cockroaches. i now know that they can run 3 mph, live without their heads for three weeks, and even survive for a while by only eating the glue off of postage stamps (can you believe someone actually wasted moments of their life figuring that out?). it's more than i ever wanted to know about cockroaches. we have encountered a few of them in our house and now i am paranoid about them. every time i walk into a room i do a quick cockroach scan, i wear shoes in the house at all times because i am terrified i will step on one with bare feet, and i have all our food carefully stored in hopes to deter them from wanting to make our house their home.

i have fears that one will crawl on me while i am sleeping...fears that were only made worse when i found one laying on it's back twitching RIGHT NEXT TO my side of the bed.

i think what really gets me about cockroaches is that they can run so fast, and the sound of their little feet running across the wood floor...ew, just ew!

i think we have had seven(?) cockroach encounters since we moved in. three were right after we moved in, so i figured they probably came in while we were moving in.

then there was the evening we were sitting on the couch watching a movie. jeremy was rubbing my back and we were relaxed. and then jeremy stopped rubbing my back, sat up a bit, and said he had to "take care of something a minute". i immediately knew it was a cockroach. sure enough...just on the other side of the room. jeremy stood up to get a big shoe, and before we knew it, the roach ran right under the couch i was still sitting on. i jumped up immediately, and i will even admit that i ran across the room and jumped on a chair. jeremy moved the couch, the furniture around the couch, and the couch cushions, but we never found the roach (it must have gone in the vent that is right behind the couch). seeing a cockroach and killing it? slightly traumatizing. seeing a cockroach, not killing it, and knowing that it is inside your house somewhere? ten times worse. ew, ew, ew. and then several days later it happened again (maybe the same one?). now we ALWAYS sit with a big shoe just within reach, just in case.

since moving here, i have learned that there is something here even worse than just a plain old cockroach...there is the palmetto bug. it's like a gigantic cockroach that can fly. thankfully, we have not encountered any of these in our house (i don't know if i would survive such an encounter!), but we have seen them flying around our lights outside. the first week we were here, jeremy was doing laundry (which involves going out our back door and walking under the carport to the storage closet) and a huge bug was flying around out there. huge, as in, the size of a small mouse. jeremy walked back and forth with a big piece of cardboard ready to swat the thing if it attacked him (i giggled, but only because i was inside looking out the window!). since then, we have both decided that it is not worth it to do laundry after dark. anyway, once we learned about palmetto bugs, we knew that's what it was.

i don't have any photos of cockroaches, and never will. i also should really stop doing online searches to identify the bugs we find because then i have to look at photos of tons of giant bugs that we haven't even seen yet! eek!

how we found our house

let's see..where to start.

originally, jeremy and i planned to take a whirlwind trip to our new city to find a house to rent, about two weeks before we were scheduled to move. though it wasn't glamorous and was mostly going to be filled with business-y details, we had decided to also call that trip our 5th anniversary trip.

due to a variety of factors beyond our control, about a week before we were going to leave it became clear that the trip was not going to happen. this was sad (we were really looking forward to getting away together!) and stressful (how would we find a place to live? and how would jeremy get the things done at the hospital that were required before his program starts?).

the day after we officially cancelled our trip, i woke up with weird, excruciating back pain which i have never had before. seriously...it was terrible. i told jeremy that it was some of the worst pain i have ever experienced...and i have given birth naturally to a 10 pound 10 ounce baby in our dining room, so that is saying quite a lot!

anyway...jeremy ended up staying home from work that day because there was no way i could take care of the kids. while he was home, i came across a house for rent online that was exactly what we were looking for. jeremy immediately called, and after many phone calls back and forth, verifying through a variety of means that it was not a scam (and that it didn't smell like cats), and wondering if we were crazy to be renting a house that we had only seen photos of, we secured the home as our own. (and maybe we were crazy...but we were really out of options at this point). it just all felt right and we were very thankful to have this major detail taken care of.

and oddly enough, the back pain gradually lessened and was pretty much gone a few days later.

the house has all the things we wanted/needed in a home plus more. our must-haves were: rent that equaled or was below what we budgeted for, 3 bedrooms, central air conditioning, and a backyard. things we preferred/wanted but were willing to compromise on were: a dishwasher (we've never had one!), within walking distance of a park, a ranch style, and close to the hospital where jeremy will be working (in our weeks of looking, we only came across one house that was close to the hospital - the hospital is downtown and there's just not much housing available there - so we were willing to compromise on that one). anyway...the house has all of those things! it is exactly what we had budgeted for, has three bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, central ac, a fenced in backyard, a dishwasher, it's all one level, it's within walking distance to two parks, is in a great neighborhood, and is only two miles from the hospital! it also has a fireplace, an ice maker, a garbage disposal, wood floors, and a front porch.

the house also has some great neighbors. our retired neighbor next door is a very sweet lady. she bought us dinner our first night here, often comes out to talk to me over the fence in the backyard, and has several cats that like to sleep in our front yard and keep our kiddos entertained during the day. our neighbors across the street are becoming our friends. they have a four year old boy and will be having a baby in july. we met them the day we moved in and they invited us to their church several times. after visiting three other churches, we visited theirs and loved it and have decided to attend there. they came over the other night and we sat on the front porch and talked with them until it got dark. it all felt so neighborly to me, and i appreciated it so much, especially since that would never have happened in our old neighborhood.

so...it seems that God planned for us to live in this house all along, and really has blessed us with more than we had hoped for or imagined. it's really amazing to me when i look at how it all came together.

(oh, and p.s. jeremy and i still ended up getting a 5th anniversary trip to ludington, mi...and it was even better than our original plan of coming to south carolina. we didn't have to find a house or deal with moving details, so we could relax and just enjoy getting away together!)

five years...better and better.

it's our fifth anniversary today.

i have such clear memories of our wedding day, and our dreams for our future. on that day, i imagined where we would be five, ten, thirty years into our marriage. now, here we are, five years in. things look so incredibly different than my dreams on that day five years ago.

i didn't picture some of the challenges we would face as we established a home together, the difficult days in the transition of becoming husband and wife, or the pain we could cause each other in our selfishness and anger.  i didn't look ahead and see that sometimes it would feel like too much...that we would want to give up on the covenant we made with God and each other.

i certainly didn't imagine that two of the dearest people at our wedding that day - my dad, and jeremy's mom - would have gone to be with Jesus. i didn't imagine the depths of grief that we have gone through separately and together...the day i kicked in all of the lower cupboard doors in our kitchen shortly after my dad passed away, the hole jeremy punched in his dad's garage after his mom died, some of the screaming fights we had when we forgot we were really on the same side because we were both blinded by the excruciating pain of grief.

i didn't picture us feeling forsaken, lost, depressed or lonely.

i didn't imagine the struggles jeremy would face in his pursuit of a career. i didn't imagine that we would still be on the educational track five years later. i never imagined jeremy working at a gas station, or more recently, a cabelas store. i didn't imagine him losing a job in an unfair/unjust way. i didn't look ahead and see all the tears and anxiety we would encounter as we searched for our purpose and place in this world.

the reality is...those things all happened. we have been through all of that and our marriage has faced some very difficult days and seasons.

and yet, there are other things that i never dreamed as well...

i didn't picture all the beauty that could come out of the challenges in our marriage. by God's grace, those times when we have wanted to give up on our marriage have become refining moments where we look our sinful selves in the face and realize how badly we need the grace of God in our lives.

i never imagined the closeness we would find in the grief we share for our parents, or the nights we would lay in bed weeping together. the day i kicked in all the kitchen cupboards...jeremy took me in his arms and held me while i cried, because he knew. and when he punched a hole in his dad's garage...i did the same for him, because i knew. and those screaming fights we had often eventually ended with both of us in tears, on the same side, aching together for the people we lost.

i didn't picture that we would find so much comfort in just having each other during lonely times, or that we would find community in sometimes seemingly strange places. i didn't picture jeremy willingly and cheerfully going to a job he wasn't excited about just so he could provide for our family. i didn't realize how proud of him i would be and how happy i would feel when he found a job that was a great fit.

i never, ever pictured us moving to south carolina.

i didn't picture times when we would look at our bank account and wonder how in the world we were going to make it...and then we would literally see God provide for our needs in surprising ways.

i certainly didn't picture these two little kiddos we have brought into the world. what amazing little combinations of the two of us. and parenting together is a whole other experience.

so...here we are, five years later. the honeymoon is long gone. we have been living real, raw life for quite a while now. this is what it's all about...the day in, day out, life together, committed through the good and the bad, the better, and the worse. we've been tested, and we still have lots to learn, but we are in a good spot.

it's been five years, and our love is deeper, truer, and more real. the honeymoon might be over, but i can still catch jeremy's eye across a busy hospital cafeteria and get butterflies in my stomach when he winks at me. and now, five years later, behind the wink and the butterflies, is love that has been strengthened and deepened. i wouldn't trade that for the honeymoon any day.

this marriage thing? it is so, incredibly difficult, and yet, so beautiful, wonderful, and amazing all at the same time. it is such a gift from God...a way to be refined and made more like him while loving and being deeply loved by someone who represents his love for us.

it gets better every year. it really does, and i am excited for our future. i hope we have at least fifty-five more years together...but even that wouldn't be enough. jeremy, i love you with all my heart.

the big 3.0.

i turned 30 on sunday! of course, it also happened to be father's day and jeremy's dad was visiting, so we had quite the weekend of celebrating over here!

and wow...30. my 20s are over. they were quite a decade. in the past ten years, i've graduated from college, bought a house, met and married jeremy, worked full-time nights as an RN, said goodbye to two parents, given birth to two kids, become a full time mom, and moved across the country. whew! i entered my 20s as a single college student and left them as a wife and mom. i hardly recognize the twenty-year-old me as i look at myself now. what a lot of change.

this last one, 29, was a hard year. lots of tears, questions, anxieties, and trying desperately to trust God's plan for our lives. on my birthday this year, i think i was mostly celebrating the fact that i survived this past year and hoping that this next one is better. even so, as hard as it is to say, i wouldn't trade this past year of life for an easier one. we have learned valuable lessons, seen God's faithfulness, testified to God's work in our lives, and grown closer to each other. at the same time, i do hope this next year will involve fewer tears and more laughter. so far, it's looking good.

after visiting a church on sunday, we came home for coffee, nap-time, cards, and a couple of gifts. after jobot woke up, we headed downtown for a father's day/birthday lunch. the dads shared a steak-for-two dinner.

we spent the rest of the afternoon at the zoo, with plans to come home for homemade birthday cheesecake. unfortunately, just before we left the zoo, jobot dislocated his elbow. the whole event involved lots of tears (not only from jobot), concerned parents, and a poor boy who couldn't use his arm.

we brought love and dad home and spent the evening in the ER. it was our first trip to the ER with one of our kids. (funny timing, as i was just saying the other day that we are probably going to be taking jobot to the ER quite often...such a rough and tumble, daring, climber that he is). before we went, i had already diagnosed him with a dislocated elbow (i just knew), but he was officially diagnosed after a med student and resident looked at him. some arm manipulations and screaming later, it was popped back into place and jobot was immediately back to himself again. we had taken him to the hospital where jeremy works, so we even got a visit from the on-call chaplain (a friend and colleague of jeremy's). ha!

sad little boy.

 all fixed and back to his old self! happy boy and happy mama!

jeremy works in the children's hospital and sees very sick kids every day. already this summer, we have both realized how easy it is for us to take our children's health for granted, and how it could just as easily be us sitting in those hospital rooms, wringing our hands and pleading for our child's healing. it is always hard to see your child in pain, even if it is something as simple as a dislocated elbow, and it gave us a tiny bit of perspective about what some people face every day under far more serious circumstances.

i ended the weekend thankful for good medical care and healthy children, and thankful for a fresh start on a new year.

here's to 30!

jobot is one!

on may 21, jobot turned one!

his birthday happened to fall two days before we moved, so unfortunately, our house and life were in states of chaos at the time. i was disappointed that the day wasn't more set aside just for celebrating him...instead we were running love to the homes of wonderful friends who offered to watch her for part of the day, packing boxes, and dealing with logistics.

grandma arrived for a visit in the afternoon, so that made the day more special. she brought some presents, which was nice, because all he got from us was a water bottle and two new sippy cups, and we didn't even wrap them. we did buy him a bunch of balloons, which is about the most exciting gift a one-year-old could have anyway.

we did have a little party for him the sunday before his birthday. we had four friends over, ate cheesecake, marveled over our boy, and watched him smash his smash cake. it was a good celebration, and i was glad we could celebrate with friends before we moved.

hard to believe he is one.

one year ago...it seems like just yesterday. the day he was born was a highlight of my life. and he was beautiful and perfect - all 10 pounds, 10 ounces of him! and then we found ourselves in the {challenging} transition of becoming a family of four. this little guy was so cute and sweet, and also cried. a lot. and it was so hot last summer. and he wanted to be held and/or nursing at all times. but boy did we fall in love with him quickly. really, how could we not?

 and now, a year later. the most handsome little birthday boy in the whole world (and maybe the biggest? seriously...he is the size of a two-year-old. he weighs in at 30 pounds and is off the charts for height and weight. to put it in perspective, i think love weighs around 36 pounds! he eats so much i can hardly keep up. i joke that soon i will have to make one meal for the family, and a whole separate meal for him, but it's probably not actually a joke! watch out, grocery budget!)

i made him his own little smash cake. the rest of us had homemade cheesecake and blueberries. yum. my dear friend becky was over the night before the little party and we made the crust layer of the cheesecake together. one of several sweet memories of our last week at our old house.

our little cake smasher.

and two goofy party animals.

balloons! what more could a one-year-old want?

this boy brings so much joy to our lives. he is funny and does things just to make us laugh. he keeps me SO busy during the day and always seems to be getting into something...he tries to play in the toilets, climbs in the dishwasher as soon as i open it, grabs things out of the dishwasher and throws toys in, goes from one room to another rearranging things. he is also a climber...climbing into baskets, onto furniture, it goes on all day. whew - i can hardly keep up!

he loves being outside and happily walks around chattering and picking up leaves and sticks. he eats dirt and always has a ring of dirt around his mouth when we are outside. the other day we were eating lunch outside in the backyard and when a fly landed on his hand, he brought it up to his mouth like he was going to eat it! ew! such a boy. he gets so dirty, i don't even know where all the dirt comes from.

he says a select few words, but is very clear about what he wants. he calls jeremy "daddu", which is just about the cutest thing we've ever heard. he loves his big sister and watches her closely, then tries to do what she does. he spends his time at home happily chattering to himself while walking around the house with various toys (that is, when he's not trying to get into something). he doesn't usually pay attention to where he is walking and falls or runs into things numerous times a day. lots of tears and bumps and bruises.

he is all done with bottles, as of the weekend before his birthday. he had some kind of stomach bug and every time he drank milk it would seem to get worse, so we held off the milk for a couple of days and then just gave it to him in sippy cups instead of bottles from then on. easy transition!

he takes one nap in the afternoon, usually for an hour or two and he sleeps all night from 7 pm to 6:30 am or so (at least one of our kids sleeps through the night!).

he loves the whole family, but i am happy that he loves his mama best. we all love him so much. he is such a little joy-bringer, and a delightful part of our family.

on the move...

We have internet at the new house, so I can finally post all about our move. I kinda disappeared from blog world in the midst of moving, so I have several posts planned to catch up on the past six weeks or so of our life.

Today found me caring for our little ones in the midst of a stomach bug. It came out of nowhere...I didn't even feel sick until I started eating breakfast and then it hit me. Unfortunately, this was also a really busy day for Jeremy and tonight is his first "on call" night at the hospital. Being on call actually means being at the hospital from 4 pm through the next morning, so it's really just being at work...I don't really know why they call it "on call". Anyway, I had a fever this afternoon, the chills on and off, and just felt pretty miserable. The kids did okay and I somehow got them fed and to bed. I am feeling a bit better, so that's good.

Let's see...writing about the move. Two-and-a-half weeks ago the moving truck was packed and waiting in our driveway and we were sleeping on our mattress on the floor in our empty bedroom.

Loading the truck on a rainy afternoon.

Yes, we will definitely be bringing these two with us!

Our dining room in a state of disaster.

Our last dinner in our house. Dear friends brought over dinner and we had a picnic on the dining room floor in our (mostly) empty house.

Love checking out the "Diesel Truck" (her name for it).

My mom came for those last couple of days to help us with the kids, the packing, and the cleaning, and she was so helpful with it all...even making us delicious meals out of the random odds and ends left in our fridge with only one pan, some olive oil, and salt and pepper (everything else was packed!). We also had an impressive crew of seminary men help load the moving truck, as well as numerous other friends who helped with the kids, cleaning the house, food, etc...

After a week of packing, cleaning, and saying goodbyes, we finally loaded the last few things into the moving truck and the van and then locked the door for the last time and drove away. I expected more sentimental feelings with leaving our house, but the reality was that by the time we left, I was so ready to be done packing and cleaning that I couldn't wait to get out of the house. (By the way, our house never did sell, so we are renting it, in case you are wondering.)

We drove for about three hours and spent the night with my Great Aunt in Indiana. A good time, good food, and good conversation were had by all. Friday morning we hit the road for a long day of driving. Jeremy drove the truck all day (there was no way I was going to drive that thing!). I spent about 8 hours total by myself in the car with the kids. It was quite possibly my most challenging day of parenting yet, and it will be a hard one to beat. We all survived and finally arrived at our hotel in Knoxville, TN for the night, where we found that the one bedroom suite we were expecting was actually just a normal hotel room. (Our entire family sleeping in one room = terrible night of sleep for everyone). Jeremy had not yet arrived at the hotel at that point, and I had just taken our kids out for dinner and then hauled all our stuff and our whiny kids up to our room by myself and I was in no mood for arriving to our room to find that it wasn't the suite we were expecting. In my state of exhaustion, I may or may not have kind of lost it on the phone with Jeremy at that point. Thankfully, he arrived at the hotel shortly after and we were moved to a different room that was a suite and was handicap accessible, which meant it had a huge bathroom. Love slept in the living room, Jeremy and I slept in the bedroom, and Jobot slept in the gigantic bathroom. {At this point, I should add that Jobot had developed hives at some point during the day...possibly from the stress of moving, or from the fact that I fed him strawberry baby crackers pretty much all day because that was the only way to get him to stop crying while we were traveling. Seriously...if he wasn't sleeping or eating in the car, that kid was crying. He is not a good traveler. I had new-to-us toys for him to play with and new books to look at, but he would not have any of it.}

We all collapsed into bed shortly after 10 and everyone slept all night long.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel, cleaned out the van (which was a disaster from the day before), filled up on gas, and headed out for a shorter day of driving. The kids handled the drive about the same as the day before...lots of crying, whining, and misery. Lots of me trying to ignore them because safety on the road was more important than their latest demand, and lots of me passing back snacks, books, and toys to the backseat when I could. And, again, lots of a crying Jobot with hives. Taking a long road trip alone with two kids ages 3 and 1? Not such a great idea. And with kids who are all stressed out because you have just loaded up their entire home onto a moving truck? It makes is even worse. We didn't have any other options though, so we did it and survived.

We drove through the Smoky Mountains on Saturday and arrived at our new (rental) house around 5. A hired crew of three really nice guys helped us move in, we met some of our neighbors, and one of our neighbors even ordered dinner for us and ate with us after the moving truck was unpacked. It was a nice welcome.

Jeremy had the first week off, so we spent that week unpacking, setting up the house, and cleaning (the house was filthy). It was exhausting, challenging, disorienting, and honestly, just pretty terrible.

Things are a bit happier these days. The boxes are unpacked, the house is mostly clean, and we sort-of know our way around. This moving thing, though...not easy.

Jeremy is really enjoying his program and is excited about what he is doing, so that is great. He is working at the Children's Hospital, which is what he was really hoping for.

We are looking for a church, and for friends. The days are long and boring for me because I don't have anyone to hang out with. Not boring in the sense that I don't have anything to do, because these two little people take quite the energy these days...they are both at such busy stages. Just, bored because I don't have any other Moms or friends to interact with. I think I am going to go to a Mom's group on Friday, and a relative of someone Jeremy works with called today to "meet" me over the phone, so hopefully soon we will have some friends.

A few photos from our days here...

Fun with the hose in the backyard.

I will take photos of our house and do a little tour post at some point, and also tell the story of how this came to be our house (pretty amazing). Anyway, that's all for now.

From our new home

Well, we have (mostly) successfully moved. I have a blog post started all about the actual move itself, but getting Internet service at the new house is proving to be one of the biggest hassles of this whole move and we still don't have it...so I'm writing from the ipad (it has temporary service) which doesn't work too well for blogging.

But, we are here. All the boxes are unpacked, the house looks like home (definitely doesn't feel like it yet though!), and Jeremy has started his chaplain program at the hospital. I hope to write more soon...there is lots to say about this place, the kids' transition, my own transition, our house, Jeremy's work, and the bugs (OH the BUGS), but I wanted to at least say that we made it to our new place. Hopefully soon we will have Internet and I can write more.