First Season in California

Today marks 5 months that we've lived in California.

I cannot believe the opportunities we've had to grow in these last months.
We immediately got involved with South Bay Church. I have been given several projects to work on and have interned here since September. After this internship is over, I plan to start volunteering with another non-profit to continue to gain more experience in my field. John Mark and I also joined the student ministry leadership team.  Before we came, there were weekly Bible studies and a few student ministry events, but our awesome team has played a major role in making Ignite Student Ministry into a program! It has truly been a growing experience and we are thrilled to be a part of this from it's beginning stages.
After months of applying to what seemed like everywhere and job hunting, I was finally able to start my job with REI in October. I am so grateful to finally be working after over a year of unemployment. I am really enjoying it. Even though it's retail and my hours are always different, I feel so blessed to be working and feel like there is a lot of opportunity to grow in the company! I hope to stay with REI for a while!
JM's job has thrown us a few unanticipated curveballs, but for the most part it is a good job and has given him some time to still be active at South Bay. Unfortunately he has worked most weekends and has been given some weird hours, but we are happy that he so far has not been deployed away from home.
It definitely was a culture shock when we moved here and life is not quite what we were expecting, but we are in a good place in our lives right now and we are just trying to take everything in while learning as much as possible. The Bay area pace of life and traffic is a lot to get used to, but we've been able to take some incredible hikes and day trips and there is still so much more to explore!
We miss our families like crazy!! I believe this is the longest I have ever gone without seeing my family, but we know this is just another piece of our life journey! I really struggle with looking forward to the next step in life rather than living in the now, so I am really trying to acknowledge this incredible opportunity we have in this season of life. But to be honest, it's really hard to not look forward to moving closer to family. Thankfully, the Redwines will be here for Christmas and we are so excited!
Thanksgiving was my first holiday away from family - JM had to be away a few times when he was underway. We planned on just staying home, the two of us and having our first holiday alone. But some of the staff at South Bay invited us to join them for Thanksgiving. We decided to go and it was an awesome day with our church family! All together there were 5 families - 10 adults and 9 kids! We are all transplants to California and thousands of miles away from our families. It's incredible to do life with these people!
God is doing big things in our hearts and lives and this new season is seriously just insane!

Finding Fall

We had the lovely opportunity to go to the Shenandoah Mountains over the weekend.

We did the same for Memorial weekend as well.

This time we decided to stay only Friday night so we could get back for a 20-something age group on Sunday after Church.

If you notice in the photo reel, we have no tent on our campsite.

We arrived Friday evening to set up camp.

JM pulled out our box of camping supplies and had a strange look on his face.

I knew that look and what it meant.

There's about to be a pause, an explanation and plenty of laughter to follow.

It has taken me a while to get to the laughter point so soon,

but the longer I am with JM, the more I am prepared for the unexpected!

I used to get mad - usually quite angry when this kind of stuff would happen.

"Well," I said: "we don't have a tent do we?"

And we both looked at each other and laughed.

I was going to ask him all the checklist questions when we were leaving,

but I also don't want to always check up on him.

We knew there was no rain in the forecast so we had the rain fly - that JM had mistaken for a tent -

and used it to lay on for the night.

It was an awesome night.

We watched the sun set, ate a taco dinner and sat by the fire for hours.

We ate graham crackers and chocolate for dessert because I forgot the marshmallows.

The moon was bright when we went to bed 

but early into the morning it went behind us and we were able to see so many stars huddled above us.

The sky was covered in Milky Way Galaxy goodness!

Although we were a little early for prime foliage, there were enough leaves that changed to capture some lovely fall images on our Saturday morning hike.

After some photo-ops and a picnic lunch on an overlook,

we headed to Charlottesville, VA to spend the afternoon walking around and people-watching.

"Picnik Show"

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My first Cruise

I got to experience my first cruise this past week. We left out of Jacksonville, FL - so JM and I had time to visit an old roommate Jessica and her hubby Russ! It was lovely! So on to...

Cruising

We took a 5-day Carnival Cruise to Key West and Nassau where we went to Atlantis!

HERE WE ARE

 Leaving the port in Jacksonville:

Snorkeling in this deliciously smooth water:

Watching beautiful sunsets:

Sharing a dance at the Captain's dinner:

Smiling with my beautiful sister-n-law Jessica:

Enjoying some peaceful time with my birthday gift:

So,

We had wonderful food, delicious desserts, kind service, chocolate covered key lime pie, fantastic shows and over all a wonderful, resting and peaceful vacation with family!
(Wish you could have been there too)

The End.