A pumpkin patch & 3 Krispy Kreme Burgers....

This past Friday was the epitome of Fall!  I took our after-school group on a hay-ride and to a pumpkin patch and then.... Josh and I went to the North Carolina State Fair with some friends in the evening! How much more Fall can you get than that?

Here are some pictures of our kiddos at the pumpkin patch :)

Then....
The State Fair was an adventure!   Something I think we will commit to once a year.... and it will take our stomachs that long to prepare for the food! Josh and I had.... a candy apple, a chocolate-covered frozen banana with sprinkles, Cheerwine (can't get more Carolina than that!), a Krispy Kreme Burger (thanks to Paula Deen), and french fries w/ vinegar! ...   Here are some pictures from our time!

Mitch & Alyson with their first course of the night...

 Gus started the Krispy Kreme Burger epidemic with our group!

 Josh & his Krispy Kreme Burger!

 Brennan & his Krispy Kreme Burger! (notice.... no wife has taken part in any of this!)

 Our group :) 

Fall is here!

Wow, we have not blogged in a long time!  It has been about a month but so much has happened...

Josh is heavy into classes, and I have started my new job!  I work for the YMCA, specifically the Outreach program which serves underprivileged, low-income children and their families.  It has been so neat to see God work in the short month I have been working... just to see His plan in drawing people to Himself and have Him affirm that this is where He desires me right now has been a blessing.  It has been a huge transition for our family but we really feel the Lord is teaching us so much through it and growing us to His glory... not to mention Josh and I both get free memberships to the Y!

Here are various pictures from a few weekends over the past month!

Towards the end of September, we helped put on a tailgate for college students from Summit @ NC State

 Yes, we had catered Chick-fil-A...

 Alyson and I :)

Out to dinner at Vivace for Hope's Birthday!

Labor Day!

      A quick update on us: Josh is two weeks into his seminary classes... he's really liking them, while also feeling overwhelmed...but getting adjusted.  I got a job (yay!) as an Assistant Outreach Coordinator with the YMCA here in Wake Forest, I have orientation on Wednesday.  We have just felt super humbled and blessed by how God has provided for us over these past four months in NC!
     With life getting busier by the day, we decided to get up to Stephens City,VA to visit Josh's parents while we could.  So we packed the car, along with Hope & Kent (Josh's sister and brother-in-law) and headed north Friday evening.
    It was definitely one of those vacations that you need another vacation to recover from! ...but a good exhaustion, a fun exhaustion!  One of the highlights of our busy weekend in northern VA was the Nationals game... they played the Cardinals Sunday afternoon...and yes, Strasburg pitched which was such a treat for us! Here are some fun pics!

Josh's First Day!

Josh's official first day of class as a graduate student :) 

Closing Remarks from Summer :)

And as quickly as summer comes, it goes... but we are excited :)  Last week Josh had orientation, and this week he starts class full-time!  We moved down to the area back in April, thinking we'd have time to adjust as things were added to us... like transitioning, friends, school, jobs, etc... but now we laugh because we are about to get slammed with a lot of these things all at once!

Josh starts school, we are helping out with the college ministry at The Summit this semester, we are helping out with the membership class at The Summit this semester, Josh is co-leading a small group that starts next week, I had a second-round interview with the YMCA, and am waiting to hear back this week..
ALL at once! Ah!  God must constantly laugh at the plans we try to make ourselves...

Here are some various pictures from the past few weeks!

Our friend Will from college came down for a quick visit!

 We are such rookies... but here are a few veggies from our "garden"

Bell Pepper

 Tomato 

Yesterday, we had Thanksgiving (in August) with 3 couples that go to our church & live in our neighborhood! :)

 Emily & John's fried turkey!

 Our spread!

Preparations...

Can you believe that July is o-v-e-r? We are having a hard time grasping how fast this summer has gone!  We spent this past weekend, preparing... for the Fall.  Lucky for us, the fall will not bring with it 7 days a week of football :)  But, we probably will be just as busy!

Josh starts class in exactly two weeks, and because of the grant money that we so graciously received, he will take a full-load of 12 credit hours this semester towards his Masters of Divinity in Expository Preaching. We are super excited :)  So, in light of all that, we decided that maybe we should move his desk out of the far recesses of our guest bedroom, and downstairs into prime space!  We spent Saturday morning rearranging our family room so that we could fit his desk in, and we are just so thrilled with how it turned out!  Josh says he is more 'motivated' now that his desk is all set-up... hopefully that motivation lasts until December :) 

We also are day by day preparing for the potential of my job.  I started the interview process last week with the local YMCA in Wake Forest, for a position I applied for back in (May!!), that I just long for.  I would be the Assistant Outreach Coordinator, working with youth in under-resourced and under-served communities around us.  I had a phone interview last week, and should find out this week, if I will move on to the next round.  Please join in us in praying for this job, as we really feel that it is a desire God has placed upon my heart!  We should know more by Wednesday!

 Here are a few photos of our new family room and of Josh's desk anxiously awaiting the semester!

A Week of Praises!

This week has been a week of praises all around! Most of you know that back in January when my mom had a complicated number of surgeries, my dad lost his job... it was a whirlwind... and they have really spent the past six months re-cooperating.  It has seemed like an uphill battle, my mom slowly getting better, only to need another surgery this fall... and my dad applying for countless jobs and coming up empty handed.  Well, praise the Lord, because on Thursday, July 12th my dad became employed again!!... and it all was truly better than we could have asked or imagined.  He will be holding a similar position to the one he lost, but will be working for Snyders-Lance (good-bye Frito-Lay!)... my parents did not have to move, and along with the job came a pay increase and a company car.  Truly awesome! They are so excited!

On another note...
Josh's brother, Chris, and his wife, Liz are expecting a baby boy! Their due date was July 16th, so we have spent this past week in anticipation.... anxiously awaiting Baby William!  Friday afternoon we received a call from Josh's mom, that Liz's water broke and they were at the hospital... a little over 12 hours later Baby William arrived.  

1:45am Saturday July 14th, 2012! Baby William! 6 lbs 9 ounces, 19 inches long!
What a day of CeLeBrAtIoN it is! What a week of Praises!

"Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!" 

Psalm 106:1

On our way to the hospital!

 The new Dad!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope you all had a great holiday week! Nothing new here, Josh still landscapes and mows grass daily in the ridiculous 100 degree heat... and I still am a 'lady of leisure'.  This past 4th of July (the actual day) Josh had to work (maybe one day we will have paid vacation/holidays)... so I went to the pool with Hope and a few girls.  We then bounced around to 4th of July celebrations and ended up at a couple's house from our small group at church.  We had an awesome meal, and then our own private firework display done by a family member in their (wooded) back yard.  Needless to say it was adventurous and hilarious, but if you know me I am not a lover of loud noises or danger... both of which are present when fireworks are set off 15 feet in front of you.  I could take or leave you July 4th (sorry America!). 
For the weekend after the 4th, Josh and I went to Lake Norman, N.C.. My aunt and uncle live there, so we celebrated Friday through Sunday with 25 members of the Sullivan family=wild.  The weather was awesome and the water so warm.  Here are a few pictures from our time!

Josh, Michael and I... missing Bub :(

Jet ski Time!

Lake Football

TJ & Ashley's dog 'Finley'

 Josh & TJ

  

Dilemmas...

    Our current dilemma.... wanting people to see and know what life is like for us, yet hating Facebook! Our solution, a blog? We will see how it goes.  If nothing else, it gives me something to do all day.  A quick update on us:  Four months ago we really felt the Lord moving us to N.C., particularly to Wake Forest, just north of Raleigh.  God moved super fast, and opened tons of doors, and here we are.  We have lived here for a little over two months and just love it.
...Oh yeah, and the reason we moved was so that Josh could start his Masters of Divinity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary... and, so that we could join a solid church :)
   Josh has started his first class, "Baptist History" which he is taking online, just to get his feet wet and prepared for the Fall.  He is also working... manual labor, Monday through Friday... needless to say he is constantly exhausted.  The job has been a huge blessing in our time of transition.  A board of trustee member for Southeastern hires seminary students to maintain his land, consisting of four houses, a pool, a fairway, pond, you name it... it is exquisitely beautiful, a picture of the South.  They keep Josh busy.
     I continue to job search... my days consist of little structure, usually spending time reading in the morning, on the computer looking for jobs, a mid-morning jog, lunch, cleaning... nothing super exciting.  It has been a time where I have just had to be content in the Lord, trusting that He has things under control... and He knows our situation.  For some odd reason He doesn't want me to work right now, which has been somewhat of a theme for the past year... and yet, I continue to fight it!
Anyways.... as the first post of our 'blog', here are a few pictures from our past two months here in N.C.!

Our new house :) 

and...after just a short month of feeling settled in our new house, we celebrated our 1 year anniversary AND our washing machine flooded our house... here are those lovely pictures :)

The floor of our hallway... missing.

 We recreated our actual wedding meal :)

 The boards of our hallway floor around our dinner table!