Apples, Apples, Apples Everywhere!

I had the great joy and hilarity to go apple picking last week with my pastor's wife Pati and our friend Alison and her two children, Connor and Gillian. We had so much fun! We had one tree to pick clean and between the kids continually climbing the tree, Alison trying to go farther than the ladder and Pati would allow, and me dropping lots of apples on Gillian's head, we laughed so hard we almost cried. Plus I came home with about 10 gallons of apples! So now it's an adventure to use them all. Andy bought me a apple peeler/slicer/corer and it works great, so it'll be far less time consuming to use them all up. It seems like we'll be eating apple product all winter...mmmm...yummy... On Sunday I went to Teri's and she and I made lots and lots of applesauce/butter and cut a bunch up for pies and crisp! Yummy! Here are some fun pictures Alison and I took, evidence of how far I climbed up into the tree and then even had to still use the apple picker to get the tip top ones down, but they were the best ones! The adventure being the plastic bag I was using broke at one point just as Gillian was climbing below me. Poor child, she got showered in apples, but she laughed too and then told me she would tell her dad about it...hopefully he sees the humor too!

Catch Up

So it's only been over a year since I last posted something, but I'm definitely at a better place to be trying to keep up with a blog now. It's hard to believe where life has gone the last year. Not too many physical changes, we're still in the same house, the same town, the same jobs, but we've sure done a lot of growing in our marriage and personal lives this past year. I'd have to say while the first year of marriage was the most challenging to learn about each other, the second was definitely a time of learning to make those differences work and growing in Christ enough to put the other person first instead of trying to change those things. So it was an interesting year in our marriage but not one I'd trade for anything. But I'm sure glad to be experiencing the third year now! It's looking to be a great one! I love that marriage keeps getting better and better. It's kind of like your favorite recipe, it's always good, but you can keep trying new ways and portions to make it better. Okay poor analogy for God's great design, but it's where my brain is.

So for a brief update about our lives. This past summer was spent traveling a lot. Some of it was by bicycle, some by car. Andrew bought me my first road bike this summer, and I'm proud to say I put over 1,000 miles on between my two bikes. I got to do a bunch of group rides, which are very fast, and my first race, which was great! It's great to have something we love to do together and seperately. August found us traveling a lot by car! We spent 4 out of 5 weekends gone either at weddings, camping with friends, bike race, and family stuff. It was fun, but kind of crazy and we were glad to be home for a whole weekend when it was all said and done. This fall we've been enjoying being outdoors hiking around our local state parks and Andy's been enjoying the tomatos from our very small attempt at gardening. We made a few trips down to see his family and hopefully we'll have everybody here over Thanksgiving.

It's been an amazing last month for us as a couple and in our relationship with the Lord. I'd been praying so hard for God to kind of just shake us up (in a good way) a little bit and get us focused back on Him. He did that in ways I can't even explain but some of it was through some new friends we made who minister up North. Our church has been such a source of growth for us. Andy's involved in a "Men's Fraternity" group that meets every Thursday morning at 6 and he's been applying this so well. I've been in a Bible studay on Thursdays as well that's definitely challenging me to be a Godly wife and woman. I've also been getting poured into by several older Godly women in our church who are challenging me sooo much! It's so neat to see what God is doing in our hearts and therefore in our marriage because of us seeking Him. We're excited to see what God has for us and where He leads us from here.

So that's a quick summary of our lives. Hopefully I'll be keeping up with this more regularly and maybe even getting Andy to post some!