Still kickin'!

Hello? Hello? [tap tap tap] Is this thing on? Can you hear me? [loud screech of feedback] Oops, sorry about that.

Um, hi. :) I know it's been several months since we've posted anything new...to be honest, I haven't had the motivation. I've sort of been in hibernation mode this year, preferring to think things through quietly and privately rather than in front of the general public. Today, though, I suddenly felt like connecting to the outside world again, and I thought this might be a good way to begin. :)

We are doing well here in Texas. I think we've adjusted well and have settled into a decent pace of life; we are connecting well with other people and we are finding our own niche here. I think this might be the first time in our married life that we can say that! It is nice to feel like you belong to the community you live in. Nate is now a Manager at Macaroni Grill and I am working at a Starbucks, eagerly anticipating (finally) starting nursing school on May 12.

On a deeper level, God has been doing some major construction on us both this year...lots of healing, lots of learning, and, thankfully, lots of laughing at the realization of how silly and ridiculous we can both be! I sort of feel like we are at the point most couples are at right before or right after they get married; we are growing together, learning how to do this dance without knocking each other over. When we got married almost three years ago, neither of us understood how much individual growing we both had to do or how marriage would magnify those shortcomings, and it took two years of wrong turns and bad decisions before we saw what a mess we'd created. So we've spent much of the last few months trying to undo the damage we did in ignorance throughout our first two years together...it has been messy, but very, very beautiful. :)

We are excited about what lies ahead for us in the next few months--I am thrilled to start nursing school, and we are thinking about buying a fixer-upper down here and plugging our money into that instead of paying so much in rent. Houses are very cheap here right now; we are able to buy a good-sized home for much the same as my parents would have paid for their first home thirty years ago! Then, when I graduate next August, hopefully we'll be able to sell it for at least what we put into it. If not, there are several large universities in the area and rental property is in high demand. So that's something we're looking into.

*whew* Lots of changes, but lots of good. We thank God every day for the rich blessings He has bestowed upon us and the grace He has shown us this year!!