A Season of Change

Well we are finally re-emerging into the blogging world after a three month hiatus. The real reason for a lack of updates has been a broken camera. It seemed hardly worthwhile to update without picture of Emma, which we know is why you all check in at all! Along with that has been a hectic few months. As some of you all know, we had been wrestling for awhile with the decision of whether or not to stay in Missoula, working with InterVarsity at the University of Montana. We spent a lot of time this summer praying, listening, talking with friends and family, and just waiting for a direction from God. After a particularly meaningful time of praying with friends, we felt the confirming nudge from the Lord to commit to staying on with InterVarsity in Montana. We decided to make the commitment to be here for the next few years. It was a big decision, deciding to continue to fundraise our income (especially with me cutting back big time with my work at our church) and really settle here for the time being. It was such a hard decision because we both would love to live closer to our families. As an outward symbol of an inward commitment, we began to look into buying a house. God began to move and after a chain of miraculous events, we bought a house at the end of September. October was a whirlwind of painting, house improvements, and living between our apartment and our house. My parents came to visit a week after the move into the house. Then followed Brendan's preparations to co-lead a track on prayer at our fall conference. Which leads us up to now. Here we are, exhausted homeowners. We were not prepared for the stress of moving quickly, having a baby who had a hard time adjusting to a new place, a baby who does not sleep well, as well as our own stress in the changes in life. We are finally settling in. Pictures to soon follow.

Emma update: Our little high energy gal is her old happy self at last. She began officially crawling in the middle of September after a month of doing a pilates/inchworm kind of move. She is the proud owner of eight teeth- six on top, and two on the bottom (why that way I have no clue!) She is super busy and zooms around the house destroying tupperware drawers and bookshelves. Packing was insane with her, I would pack a box, and she would unpack it right behind me. She loves to laugh and has the best giggle that sends us all rolling. We needed someone around here to lighten us up! She learned to climb the stairs at an IV retreat in September and we had to get baby gates as soon as we moved into our new place to keep her on one level. She loves being read to and also loves when her daddy plays the guitar for her. I caught her sitting in the guitar case last week while he serenaded her. She loves dogs and eating dirt from one of our plants if I'm not careful. We love this baby who is growing up into a little girl.

We are posting a couple of pics my parents took when they were here a couple weeks ago, that's all we have, unless anyone knows how to get pictures off a camera phone! We had to buy a disposable camera when they were here because I dropped their digital. Bad luck with cameras I guess. Anyways, we'll update with more pictures of Emma and the house soon!