Church, home schooling, MOPS and more.

Service last Sunday was perfect.  It felt like Pastor Marty was speaking right in to my heart.  His mission currently is to get people serving the Callaway area, planting the Callaway campus and loving people.  He talked about how people can help get the campus up and running, and said that if you could commit to helping launch the campus to write “callaway campus” on the back of a connection card and turn it in. So I filled out another connection card, turned it over and wrote “Callaway campus” in big letters on the back.  HELLOOOO that’s what I moved here for.  Silly Pastor, don’t you know??  I couldn’t help but giggle to myself a little bit a couple times, because everything that has brought us to this point is a very big deal to me, but to everyone around me, I'm just another person in the room.  I’m not complaining about that either, I like it that way.  My short time in Children’s ministry was nice.  My passion is not Children’s ministry.  I definitely do not think that God called me all the way to Callaway, Fl. So that I could serve in Children’s ministry, but I do know that it is a good way to meet people and start getting connected, and I needed to start serving.  I also don’t want to be sitting around, being picky about where to serve and do nothing.  God says to do whatever we do full heartedly (Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. Ecclesiastes 9:10) and that is what I intend to do with Children’s ministry.  For right now, I feel that is what I’m being called to do, whatever the bigger picture is, will come later. So I sat in the toddler room with a couple that has been serving in that room for about 3 years.  They were very nice and I even met a woman whose daughter was in the class that took my card and wants to do a Thirty-one party (which I desperately need to get going on).  I’m looking forward to really starting in a mixed age playroom next week, just for kids who are there for 2 services. 

Monday night Sara and I attended a local home school group meeting.  Other Christian home school mom’s getting together to have a discussion group.  They are reading a book called “The mom you’re meant to be”, it’s a Focus on the Family book.  Listening to the girl who led the discussion read some quotes from the book and shares her struggles with us, I was so uplifted.  I really felt like that was exactly where I was supposed to be. I was really interested in what each one of the women had to share and I was thankful for the wisdom from the women in the group, some had been home schooling for a long time and some for only this school year.  By the end of the night I was feeling connected to these women and a little disappointed that we wouldn't be meeting with them weekly.  

I also had my first MOPS experience this week.  I know there are MOPS groups in Utah, but I had never gone to a meeting and didn’t really know what it was all about.  Tuesday we joined one of the women from the home school meeting and sat in on a MOPs meeting.  I really liked it.  I thought it was great to again be sitting with other women who were passionate about the same things I am and had the same goals as far as being the best wife and mom they can be.  It was great and I again felt right at home.  The talk led me to look for a blog from a woman named Ann Voskamp.  One example that the woman shared was that Ann talks in one of her blogs about how to be a better wife by giving your husband 4 minutes a day.  Here’s an excerpt from the blog:

1. Four Focuses

Four times a day focus on the love you vowed. When I leave the marriage bed, leave the front door, when  I return to front door, return to marriage bed. These are the four critical archways of time in our day. Touch or whisper a sweet nothing when passing through these gate points, and we walk into hours of closeness. It’s the focus that makes old love fresh love.

2. Four Embraces

Four times a day, embrace. Embrace fully and hold each other’s eyes. That’s all. Repeat four times daily. The one flesh breathes best when the skin pores are close; connected.

3. Four Affirmations

Four times during the day, thank him.

For working faithfully, for hanging up his towel, for putting gas in the van, for making this heart skip a wild beat. Look for the ways to thank him and watch how he moves closer.

I often find myself asking for God to show me ways that I can love my husband more and it is something I hope I never stop doing.  I have done similar things before and haven't really made them habitual but even if the variations of the actual tasks that I do ebb and flow in success, I still know that my marriage is my most important relationship next to the relationship I have with the Lord and should continue to be something I work on for the rest of my life.  

Thank you for continuing to read my updates.  There is almost daily excitement right now, so there are lots to share but I’m sure not too long from now things will be slowing down.  On Sunday and Tuesday our small groups start and I’m really excited about that.  One is a fun group, families’ getting together to fellowship, play games and such and the other is a spiritual growth group for married couples and we’ll be going through Love and Respect.  

Florida Living.

We’ve been in our new home for over a week now.  The days on the road and the preparation to get here is all just a memory.  It almost feels like this past week has been the way our life has always been.  It feels like home.  For the first couple of days, we spend a lot of time unpacking and organizing, but now we are in a lull, waiting until we can start the next big project, which is to convert the garage into Sara and Zach’s bedroom, we’ll start that project next week.  Until then, we’re looking for jobs, doing little household projects (Sara mostly) and hanging out with the kids.  On our first Saturday we took a drive down the coast, just Steve, Allie and I.  We drove through Tyndall AFB and into Mexico Beach, so we stopped for lunch at a little diner, then walked across the street to the beach and walked along the beach picking up seashells and playing in the water a little.  Then we got back in the truck and continued South down the coast through Port St. Joe and into Apalachicola, when we got across the bridge to the East of Apalachicola, we decided to turn around and head home.  It was about 70 miles away from home at that point, so it was a pretty good little drive, on a nice sunny day.   We definitely saw some other turn offs and things we’d love to explore some time, if we are able to take that drive south again.  I love getting in the car and driving with no agenda in mind, I remember doing that with my mom and dad when I was a kid.  When we got home from our family drive down the coast, we left Allie with Sara and Zach so that Steve and I could go on a date.  We went to Panama City Beach and had dinner at Schooners and then we went and bought Allie a bike.  Steve was eager to put it together and the first thing out of Allie’s mouth on Sunday morning when she saw a pretty purple princess helmet laying on our bedroom floor was “did you buy me a bike?” So we fed her breakfast and then let her meet her new bike, the dragonfly.  OOOOH boy, she was so excited to see that bike and by the end of the day she was pedaling like a pro.  Sunday, after introducing Allie to her new bike, we went to church and signed up for a small group for Steve and I to go to together.  I’m really looking forward to making some connections and start getting involved Northstar activities.  I also signed up to start helping in Children’s ministry, you’ll hear about my first day in Children’s ministry in my next update. 

On Wednesday was our first big day at the beach.  We decided to take advantage of a beautiful 70 degree day.  I wasn’t sure the water would really be warm enough to get in but we suited Allie up anyway, even if she was just going to play on the beach.  When we go there, the first thing we did was walk on the pier.  It goes out pretty far and we were really surprised that as far out as the pier goes, we could still see the ocean floor.  The water is a beautiful emerald color and very clear.  As we got down to the beach, Allie was full of excitement about getting in the water.  She wasted no time before she was soaked, and even I walked in as far as I could with my pants rolled up as high as they would go.  I had my camera so I had no intention of getting in the water but the end our visit to the beach I told Steve that I would be bringing more appropriate beach clothing the next trip to the beach, I had felt a little tied down to my camera and my jeans, and wanted to take advantage of the surprisingly warm water.  I’m curious what the water temperature actually is.  I know it’s not bathwater warm yet, but it’s not at all the icy Pacific coast water I experienced last August. 

Thursday I talked a little about suspending my facebook account for a bit so that I wouldn’t be distracted by it.  However, I began adding a few people from Northstar and now I’m feeling like it could be a good way to get to know some of the people at my new church, so I’ll be praying about it and we’ll see how it goes.  I do know that since I realized I was distracted by facebook, I’ve been on about half as much, so maybe I just needed to refocus. 

Friday was a bit chilly, but the Sutton kids had been asking to go to the beach, so Sara and Zach invited us to join them and we spent a bit of time with them playing in the water and completely ignoring the cool breeze.  I don’t know how that works, but it didn’t bother any of us that it was cool and cloudy.  Zach found out that he can throw peanuts into the air and seagulls catch them.  Pretty cool trick, until there’s 50 birds circling around your head….  The dogs liked it though; Boston continued to jump at them and run around under them, just waiting for one to get close enough to catch.  Boston even swam a little, once because he was forced, but then he followed me out into the water by choice.  Steve went pretty far out to investigate something we saw in the water, probably a couple sting rays, we knew it wasn’t a shark because as close to the surface as it was we never saw a fin, so there was no big worries about getting eaten.  After a couple hours of that, we headed home.  But first we stopped at our favorite bike selling source, a Kmart down the street that is closing out everything.  It’s where we got Allie’s bike and we agreed that once our federal tax return was deposited into our account that we would go ahead and get our own bikes, so Friday was the day.  I knew I wanted a beach cruiser, I’ve been asking Steve for one for a couple years now and in the beginning stages of talking about moving to Florida, I jokingly told Steve that I would only move to Florida if he’d buy me a beach cruiser.  So the first one I picked out was the lowest priced one, but after sitting on it for a second and seeing that it had been a little abused in its time on the rack (confused face), we went with the next one, which happened to be a pink Schwin, with a men’s counterpart in blue.  So needless to say we rolled out of there with matching beach cruisers.  I think Allie was more excited than I was and she even offered to teach me how to ride my new bike.  I am surprised at how accurate the statement “it’s like riding a bicycle” is.  I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to ride the bike, that my weight and lack of experience would keep me from enjoying my new ride, but after my first 10 minutes or so of getting comfortable on my bike, I’m now pretty confident, but not enough to venture out of our neighborhood just yet.  Maybe in a couple weeks, Steve and I can take our pretty matching bikes down to Mexico beach or something.  If we do, you’ll hear all about it I’m sure.  

Panama City’s Mardi Gras celebration was on Friday and Saturday so on Saturday we loaded up Allie and Jeremy and headed to the St. Andrews area (old Panama City) for the parade.  It was a little chilly but it was fun to people watch the locals and wait for the parade to start.  The floats were fun to look at, and there was so many beads being thrown out that I wasn’t even trying to get them and they were hitting me on the head and landing on my lap.  Jeremy had a great time and filled his backpack full of beads.  Allie didn’t really want any part of the waving and asking for beads, I think she just didn’t get it.  We scream and yell and they throw us beads….don’t you send me to my room for that?  The parade was over pretty quickly and we headed over to the festival.  The first thing we saw was the food, which we had no intention of buying, until we saw the sign that said “fried gator on a stick”.  Well being newbie’s to the area, how could I pass up the opportunity to try gator?  We got 2 sticks to share between the 4 of us.  It was pretty chewy, a little fishy and tasted kind of like chicken.  Figure that one out.  After Allie had a short ride on a pony we decided to just head home. 

That’s how it’s been and I’ll try to update a little more frequently so that the updates are not so long, also as we get more settled, I’m sure we won’t be filling so much of our time playing.  Let’s hope not though. 

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention.  The bugs are ruthless.  I have some small itchy bumps but Steve is covered head to toe in itchy welts.  For some reason he has had a horrible reaction to them and he can’t stop scratching, which is making it worse.  Please pray that we figure something out to keep him from getting bit.

I've added some pictures but they are not in order, for some reason, the blog doesn't allow me to put them in here how I want like it used to so I'll just add captions.  

The gator on a stick sign.

Our Saturday night dinner date location. 

Some of Steve's bites. 

Allie seashell hunting on Mexico beach. 

Steve eating Gator on a stick.

Mexico Beach

Ayden, Allie and Liam riding their new bikes. 

Allie on the pier at Pier Park.

4 fish we saw from the pier. 

Allie playing in the water. 

one of the Mardi Gras floats.

Steve and I's matching beach crusiers. 

A five day, 8 state, drive across country, 2,028 miles, a suburban carrying 2 women, 4 small kids, 2 dogs and 2 cats, a dodge ram carrying 2 men and 2 kids, towing a really packed trailer.  It was a lot of fun and a little scary, but we made it! God definitely gave us favor on weather conditions and behavior from the pets.  It was shocking how easily the pets traveled.

Day 1: Farmington, UT – Moab, UT.  We left Farmington at about 5:00 and got to Moab at about 10:30 PM.  This was the most night driving we did and it was probably our worst driving conditions, which wasn’t that bad.  Just hills and curves the whole way from American Fork to Moab.  We only stopped once for a potty break so it went pretty fast. 

Day 2: Moab, UT – Albuquerque, NM.  We got a late start in Moab, leaving at about 9:30 AM and got in to Albuquerque at about 7:30 PM.  We saw a pretty cool arch and Ayden (who is a “why” kind of kid) said “Mommy, who did poke that hole in that rock?” Sara answered “God”.  We had a pretty good day of driving and got into the hotel early enough to relax and hang out for a bit before falling asleep.

Day 3: Albuquerque, NM – Wichita Falls, TX.  Our plan was to get up early, have breakfast, load up and then go to church at 8:15 at Sagebrush Community Church in Albuquerque and then hit the road as soon as church was over we’d get on the road.  We all felt like it was better just to get on the road so we had breakfast and headed out at about 8:30 AM.  The plan was a little different for who would be riding in what vehicle.  Zach and Sara wanted to drive together and Steve and I wanted to drive together.  I was really excited to ride in the truck and we had Jeremy and Allie in the back seat.  After stopping for gas and praying for our travels, we got going.  At first when we got on the freeway, I was just enjoying the ride, excited for our day and the trailer started to wobble… and then as we picked up speed it wobbled a little more, and I got a little nauseated, and then my heart started to race and I started asking Steve why it was doing that and what was wrong and asking if he needed to go slower.  He told me that the trailer was really heavy and it wants to go faster than the truck, which definitely did not make me feel any better.  I completely knew that it had nothing to do with the way he was driving it, I just wanted it to stop.  So when it didn’t stop I started to cry, finally telling him “I don’t know if I can do this”, we were only about 20 minutes on the road.  So I called Sara, more embarrassed than anything and asked if we could pull over and go back to the way it was.  I was still crying, but then I was crying because I couldn’t just deal with it so I could spend some time with my husband and worried that he would think I didn’t trust his driving.  Thankfully he understood why I was having a problem and didn’t take it personally.  So our day went on.  We had some stops for bathroom breaks and gas but mostly it went pretty well.  For lunch we stopped at a truck stop that had a dog run outside and inside there was a vintage car museum and even a chapel, which I thought was pretty great.  That was probably my favorite stop.  We got into Wichita Falls at about 9:30 PM and pulled up to our hotel a little disappointed.  At this point we had stayed at the Moab La Quinta, which was really nice, then the Albuquerque La Quinta which wasn’t quite as nice but still totally fine, this La Quinta was in a shady area of town and had outdoor room access, which was something we didn’t want to do, but we were tired so we stayed, and we did survive the night.  The room was clean and we had Texas shaped waffles the next morning – that’s pretty awesome. 

Day 4: Wichita Falls, TX – Monroe, LA.  We left the hotel, got gas and picked up new Redbox movies for the kids, getting out of town at about 9:30 AM.  A few hours into our drive, we stopped at a rest stop to let the kids run around and take bathroom breaks.  This was where I had my first run in with fire ants.  That was not fun.  I was standing there, taking pictures of the kids and felt a couple little stings on my foot; it felt like I was standing in a thorn bush.  I looked down and saw tiny little biting things on my feet.  I got out of the grass and stomped them off my feet, but for the next few hours, they stung pretty bad.  When we got into Shreveport, LA we decided to stop for dinner.  The first exit we got off turned into a just a detour as both Sara and I’s inner white girl came out.   I expected to see some different stuff in the south, but this was a bit much, so we drove to the other end of Shreveport and pulled in to the mall parking lot for our dinner stop.  We ate in the food court and let the kids play on the little coin operated rocket ship and cars while we figured out how much longer we wanted to drive that night.  We made it in to Monroe at about 9:30 PM.  It didn’t really seem like a bad area of town but even though the hotel was outdoor room access we stayed anyway.  We realized getting in to the rooms that it wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for.  Sara and Zach sent Natalie over to our room so she wouldn’t have to sleep on their dirty floor and we got out of there too early for breakfast the next morning. 

Day 5: Monroe, LA – Callaway, FL (HOME).  We left Monroe at 6:30 AM and by the time we got into Vicksburg, MS at about 9 AM it was time for Starbucks.  We had made it our whole trip without getting any Starbucks and it was long overdue.  Sara and I pulled in a parked and Zach pulled up next to us, but we quickly realized that getting the trailer out of the parking lot was not going to be a very easy task.  We spent about 20 minutes at Starbucks because the trailer had to be backed up and then pulled through the drive-through.  It was probably more embarrassing than anything.  We got our coffee and snacks for the kids and got back on the road. The day went pretty fast.  We saw a lot, we crossed over the Mississippi, saw a lot of bayou’s, went into Mobile and saw what once was probably a very popular resort hotel, completely trashed and abandoned, probably due to a hurricane and as we got further south, it got greener and greener.  We drove along the coast from Mobile all the way home and saw a lot of white sand and beachy stuff.  We had to stop at the Gas company so Sara could sign her paperwork to have the gas turned on and then we were home by 5:30 PM.   

Getting into the house, I was so blessed by how the house was cleaned, stocked with food, furnished and ready for us.  The kids ran around and saw their rooms and then we unloaded the trailer and ate dinner with our friends.  I’m still amazed at how God has provided for us each step of the way and I hope that I’ll have more to share very soon.  Thank you to everyone who has helped us and also for the people who shipped boxes.  One of the Sutton’s boxes had already arrived when we got here.  We are planning on going to the beach on Thursday, so I’ll try to take some pictures and share some with everyone.