Visiting Kansas

After 2 days of westward travel, Matt and Jessie and Mocha and I arrived in Kansas to visit with Becky and Tyler and Eve!! If only our new little one is as sweet and cute as Eve is!!



































Really the best part for me was getting to visit with Becky! It's great to know that friends aren't ever farther away ,than the effort you put into the friendship. I'm so glad we got to visit with the Riders!!

Headed out...

Here are some pictures of our trip out west. Just before we left to come out to CA we had a great visit at Matt's house with his Grandpa and his wife, and I had a baby shower!! I don't have any shower pictures to share yet, but I've included some of the Beardsley's visit and our trip.


Matt and his mom pack up our truck.













Great Salt Lake!

Back Blogs

Ahhh.... the joys of blogging catch-up. Well to avoid reliving the entire summer, (and just get to the stuff everyone is interested in like pictures of our place in CA, and baby updates) I am just going to post a few pictures and throw in some updates of what we have been doing since we moved back into the country. In July we got to visit with my family for the 4th of July. We went up to see them right after our housing search in CA and spent great time with family and visited the Baltimore Inner Harbor. We were in Harrisonburg for the night where we stayed with our wonderful friends the Karunakarans and went to a baby shower for Elisa Forshey, which Suprise! was also a shower for me hosted by Laura Carpenter. The next day we were off to the beach in South Carolina with Matt's family for a week where we concluded the fun at the wedding of one of the Beardsley family's closest friends, daughter. (I hope that made sense) Matt and I then had a short week in Asheville before it was time for the cross-country move. I'll stop there and let you enjoy the pictures from these events before going on. phew!

One Stamp

Hello All,

Yesterday, Laurie and I celebrated our first Wedding Anniversary! It's been quite a year.

We've worked together for the church, traveled together to several exciting new places, celebrated holidays together, said goodbye together to a loved one who passed on, and said hello to new babies together. We've tried to raise a cat together, learned together that we were going to have a baby of our own, moved internationally together, driven across the country together, and set up a new, California house together.

This first year has been a blessing for us both. We've learned so much, and have so much to look forward to. Thank you everyone who has supported us this first year!

Carpeteros

Hey Y'all,
Today, Laurie and I are chillin in the kitchen, with furniture piled around while the friendly carpet people give our house brand new, baby friendly floor cover. It's one more step to being fully up and running in our new West Coast Base of Operation. We're happy to say that the baby is doing A-OK. We've also found a really interesting church to be part of. It looks like even though we've left Chile, we're still on a Hot Mission Field. Check out All Nations Presbyterian Church at

http://www.allnationsoakland.com/

Thanks for reading. Many Blessings!

Here we are at the Bay Area B-B-Q Cookoff! That big billboard-looking thing in the background is one of Texas's booths. It was some good eatin!



And our cozy new livingroom. You can see the kitchen in the background... and snazzy new sofas of course.



Now, a few pictures from our big road trip a couple weeks ago.... geeze it's a big country... Thanks JEZ, You Rock!

Just a little tidbit!

We got a couch and loveseat today!! This is very exciting news for us because after long days of unpacking and doing other various undesirable moving duties it's either the floor or a kitchen chair, or on to bed so...... we've been dying to get some furniture! Well we were lucky enough to find a GREAT deal on some really pretty furniture. It's been showing in a model home so it is like new, but not new. Here is a shot of our new loot!!!
The table in the bottom left-hand corner is not ours, but both of the other pieces are. We are very excited!! Especially because we looked at something TWICE as expensive yesterday and not nearly as nice. So hopefully we'll be getting the furniture tomorrow....Matt and our friend Jamie are driving down to Union City to pick it up.

Today after our furniture extravaganza we helped Jamie and Lexie to unpack and move things around their apartment a bit. (They moved in this morning) We live about 20/25 minutes away from them and are so glad to have some friends nearby. Mocha especially has been missing Lexie since Chile ;-)

We are hoping to begin 2 of our most important jobs on Monday.....looking for some employment and looking for a doctor/hospital so please keep us in your prayers. Also we'll be looking for a great place to worship on Sunday. As for now we're enjoying settling into our new home and getting everything set up and put away.

Movin' into Martinez

Well here we are in Contra Costa County CA. Matt and I just got our public library cards and are making use of the free internet (eat that T*mobile) to do some catching up. We are hoping to have our internet tomorrow (Wednesday morning) and then we'll be in contact with everyone! Among other things we are working to finish unpacking (only a few boxes left!!!), find a doctor/hospital, get the rest of the utilities started (just phone remaining), and figure out where to put the 3 BILLION cardboard boxes that we brought with us ;-).

Matt's sister Jessie left on Sunday morning :-( but was a huge help to us. Actually, we literally could not have done it without her. Thanks Jessie!!!!! So.... after a few days of unpacking, broken up by returning our Penske truck, grocery and household shopping we're ready for some fun! In the next few days we're hoping to tour Matt's new school with one of the faculty members, talk with some doctors and visit with our friends Jamie and Lexie who move into their new house in North Oakland on Thursday!!

Please keep us in your prayers as we search for a good church, job(s) and finish preparing for this baby. BBB seems to be happy and healthy and we can't wait to meet him. If you are interested in sending us some welcome to your new home mail :-) our new address is:

4941 Thatcher Dr.
Martinez, CA 94553

much love to all our friends and family!