Summer Time....

Summer has gone by so quickly and it's so easy to let time pass between seeing or even communicating with family and friends.  We thought the summer would be fairly relaxing and slow, but it's proving to be busy as ever...but in good ways!  We even thought Benj would be traveling quite a bit, making for another hard summer of being apart, but that's not the case either (praise the Lord)!!!

Instead, here are some recaps of the past few months and we are so thankful that God has provided such wonderful people in our lives to share it with!  He is so good to us and we pray that we are able to show others His love and overwhelming presence in our lives each day.

>We were able to take 10 days to visit family in Tennessee and Ohio, and be a part of a friend's wedding!  Benj was able to visit right before vacation while he and his brother were working around that area and I was able to go home for my grandma's funeral and be with family during such an important time in all of our lives.  She meant the world to all of us and helped raise us, God was so good to provide a way for all of my siblings and cousins to be there together!

>Spending time with Benj's family here is always a joy, especially when these babies are involved!  Never a dull or quite moment in our home and that's the way we like it :)  Benj is still playing and writing music!  And I even learned to shoot a gun!

>We've had tons of time together and with friends that we love.  It feels more and more like home for us!

>And despite the heat (in the 100's for weeks in a row), summer has been great for us and we'll try to enjoy it before the cold comes!  It's already starting to be cool in the mornings and late evenings, but the afternoons are still in the 90's.  We have picked up cycling again and are excited about our new bikes :)

Spring is here....almost

We have been busy little bees around our house now that it's getting warmer!  We purchased our first lawn mower and trimmer, not a fun purchase but exciting nonetheless!  So while Benj is trying to get grass to grow in our little yard, steph is gardening and decorating the house, and baking a lot!

Here's a quick recap of the last couple of months....

I got an awesome bread maker for my birthday from Benj and a group of friends!!!

Shan and I celebrated our birthdays together!  Love her!

I haven't purchased a loaf of bread from the store since February, I feel so domestic :)

We were able to do some hiking when the weather started to warm up and we realized how out of shape the winter makes us.

Happy Easter......Easter spent with Nat, Shan, and the kids was so nice

I have been digging up the endless amount of terrible plants and weeds so that we can actually have some yard space...almost done

And a wonderful friend bought me my first flowers to plant, although I may have already killed them

Almost done with the garden bed around the house and as you can see in the background, Benj is becoming quite the mechanic, saving us tons of money by doing it all himself and with a friend from work!

Can't wait till it's done so we can plant some pretty flowers!

This is the view from our back porch...love the sunsets here!

I have made more cake (birthdays and showers) in the last two weeks than I had in the last two years!

And finally, I am attempting to sew some curtains and decorate our room after living here for 6 months!  

Church...

It's been a while since we've last posted so we figured we would play catch up a bit.  It's been getting warm here in the North West, but once again we are expecting snow.  Nothing compared to the East, so we will welcome it but we are more than ready for spring to come...I want to start my garden!

After the holidays we quickly got back into the swing of things with friends, family, work, and church.  We are a part of Trademark Church in Nampa and love our church family there!  Our church only gathers every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month.  We are made up of several different missional communities we call "Gospel Communities" that meet throughout the week to live, serve, and learn together.  Each community is very different from the others, but we all love gathering as a larger group on those Sundays!

It was our intention with the New Year starting to begin again with a small group of friends and as we prayed for God to grow our Gospel Community, several others joined us and we continue to look to invite others as well.  There are 9 of us so far (all in our 20's) and we are learning how to be family and do life alongside each other.  We do our best to have dinner with everyone at least once a week, we have fun together, call on each other for help or to help meet the needs of others around us, and to pray and learn together.  We also serve together at church when it's our turn as a community.  We look forward to what God is doing in our group and for those we interact with each day!

This past Sunday we had the excitement of celebrating two baptisms!  Our pastor's son and a young lady who has been a part of our church for the past year or so.  It's amazing to hear their stories and to see how only God can transform lives.  Another church let us borrow their baptismal and we celebrated afterward with a big dinner!

Christmas in Idaho...

This year we spent Christmas in Idaho!  Though we missed our family in Ohio very much, we hope to make a trip there very soon.  Thankfully we have wonderful friends, Benj's brother and his family live near by, and his parents were able to spend the entire month here too.

For Christmas, we had so much fun going to see the lights, shopping, baking, and just spending time with friends and family.

I made caramel popcorn and Benj made green salsa from the tomatoes in our garden for gifts.  I also had fun making jewelry and crocheting winter hats for gifts as well!

This year, with our church family, we did Christmas a little differently.  We learned about and participated in the Advent Conspiracy.  I won't try to explain it, but if you visit www.adventconspiracy.org  you can find out why and how we celebrated Christmas this way.  We did our best to give homemade gifts and to simply be more intentional about spending time with the people we love so that more of our finances and efforts could go to giving to those in need (specifically to Clean Water, and International Justice Mission).

We thank God for how much He provided during such a typically stressful time of the year and we are even more thankful for how much He gave himself for us!

Walking through the lights in Caldwell

Some wonderful friends gave Benj an accordion for free!  He's so excited to learn a new instrument :)

The Litters at our church for Christmas Eve

I made my favorite Caramel Popcorn!

And Benj made Green Salsa from the tomato garden in the back yard

We had a bowling night for our Starbucks Christmas party....Love these people!

We are getting tons of snow and it's' not melting at all...not loving this kind of cold too much but it's pretty :)

Seattle....

We love taking road trips together and most of the time they are quite pleasant.  None have been as terrible as this one though!

We planned a trip to Seattle to see a friend, and really, just to get away before the craziness of the holidays began.  We really needed this vacation.  We didn't have the money to fly back east for Christmas because they hike up the prices so much that it should be considered robbery.  And because we had such a nice weekend away last year about this time (McCall, ID), we figured this would be a nice gift to each other instead of buying a bunch of gifts we don't really need.  

We had an invite from a friend to stay on his family's boat, so we accepted and budgeted to use our money on gas and some eating out.  As we began our trip north, the day was beautiful, and we estimate only 8-9 hours.  Right as we approached the last mountain pass before Seattle, it began to snow....harder and harder.  We were okay until we got to the base of the mountain and every car had pulled over to put chains on their tires and did we have chains or four wheel drive? NOPE.  It was dark by now even though it was around 4pm and we had to turn around, drive all the way to Portland, and up to Seattle through that route.  Better safe that sorry.

Thankfully, we found a nice hotel on hot-wire.com at an excellent price and we stayed in Portland, OR for the night.  Probably the best decision we could've made.  We had a nice place to stay and were able to sleep in and continue our trip to Seattle the next morning (only 2.5 hours from there).  

While we were there it was wonderful.  Our friend, Steve, and his girlfriend took us to eat at the space needle, then we went to see someone they knew play live music at a place downtown.  The entire day was a lot of fun and though it was cold, the weather was great.  The next day we spent most of the morning and early afternoon at the Pike Place Market.  We tried a ton of really good food and yummy treats while we were there and had a wonderful time together.  That night we ate at a really good seafood restaurant and just enjoyed relaxing a bit.  

On the way home Sunday morning it started out a little rainy, then continued to get worse as we drove. So for about 80% of the trip we were tense and driving slow because the roads were so bad.  Snow pack roads most of the way caused us to get home after 11pm and we vowed to never drive during this time of the year again.  

Overall we had a wonderful time in Seattle and it was fun since it was my first time being there!  Next time, we will go in the summer :)

Salt Lake City, Ikea...

A couple of weeks ago, we took a trip to Ikea in Salt Lake City, Utah!  I was especially excited because it’s not only a new State and city I’ve never visited, it was also my first trip to Ikea.  We had been saving for this trip so that we could get some furniture and household items.  Nat, Shan and the kids hauled a trailer for their things and we were able to fit everything in our own car!  We were so thankful to be able to stay at Shannon’s uncle and aunt’s home a couple of hours outside of Salt Lake.  They were very generous to allow all 7 of us to invade their space for a weekend! 

If you’ve never been to an Ikea, it’s an experience in itself.  It’s fun and stressful all at the same time!  Thankfully I was prepared for the day with nothing else on my mind, but as soon as we arrived and saw so many more things than we found on the website, it was really pointless to have a shopping list to begin with.  We basically went with a budget and got what we could within that.  

Overall, we had beautiful weather, safe traveling, and a fun time away from home.  We are extremely thankful that our home is coming together, and we are enjoying opening it up to friends that we love having over.

Taking a pit stop on the drive down

Such beautiful weather the entire weekend!

Yay, Ikea!

Benj was ready to leave after being at Ikea for over 4 hours!

Cade LOVED all the quality time with Aunt Alayne

Love these babies

Thank you Uncle Tom and Aunt Alayne for a great weekend!

Nolan making uncle Benj laugh