Before I explain that, let me just fill you in on what's been going on around here in the past few months. Bear with me, I think this is going to be the record breaker of long posts. Since we've been in a state of waiting for months now, we've just continued on with business as usual.
First of all, Derek graduated and we spent the weekend in Madison. (I know, that's not really "new" news...but for the sake of documenting I'm still posting about it!)
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| Our littlest souvenir! |
We're all really proud of Derek and all his hard work, and appreciated my family and his coming with us to celebrate! It was a fun weekend; Madison is a cool place!
In other news, it has been raining (more accurately, storming) here almost daily for pretty much the past three weeks. Of course, the first storm was the one that finally ended our tree. For those of you that know us, we've had a love/hate relationship with that tree since the first month we lived in this house. Every year we've lost a sizable portion of it, but since it never damaged the house we decided to leave it up since the quotes to remove it were not in our price range! However, that particular storm was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. And so...
You see, not only did the storm make our tree peel like a banana, it also pulled the electrical service from the house. (Basically, a repair that would require more than just the power company coming to turn us back on.) I will fully admit that, after assessing the damage, I turned to Derek and said that this wasn't fair. After all, of all the years and times for this to happen, spending thousands of dollars on tree removal was not what we wanted to do right now--we're supposed to be saving money, not spending it! Plus, we knew that with no real damage to the house insurance wouldn't be covering it. After the initial shock and panic I won't say that we were okay with it, but ultimately we concluded that things happen.
But.
Less than an hour later, my friend Jenni called to say her dad (a retired electrician) was willing to hook our electric back up the next morning so we didn't have to call an electrician. Then, since a tree removal service was already in the neighborhood working on a lot of other trees, they gave us an awesome, awesome price. We actually got the tree removed and the electric working again for less than our homeowner's insurance deductible! Amazing, and an answer to prayer. Instead of thousands, it was less than one thousand.
A few people commented to us on how God worked everything out to our favor. True. I would like to counter or add to that to say God was in control the whole time. He had it all planned out, and we just needed to trust him for whatever the outcome was. Thankfully, yes, it did work out the way we wanted, but ultimately it was more an exercise in faith for us to lean on the Lord no matter the outcome. After all, as little Lindy's picture on our fridge says "God keeps his promises." He is always faithful.
In the meantime, Derek's family bought a camper, so we were invited to go camping with them. It was...an interesting experience. Before we left we discovered our tent was actually growing gross things, so we threw that away. Thankfully, we didn't need to buy a new one because my parents gave us their old one that can probably sleep an army. However, there was rain in the forecast. It didn't stop us though.
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| Our "we're totally ready for this camping thing and it's going to be so fun" faces. |
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| Fun 'til it wasn't. |
It didn't stop us until the next morning, because after approximately sixteen hours of rain our tent was surrounded by a moat. I'm all for sticking it out...but when everything is wet, it's time to call it. Would I call our first camping experience a success? Yes. We are still married.
Seriously though, it was nice to camp with the family, even if it wasn't exactly what we had all hoped it would be.
And..... now that you're caught up, this is what we did tonight.
We realized that it's time to actually get our butt in gear, since July is fast approaching. We can now officially say our home study will begin (or continue) on July 15. Since we've lived by the "life goes on" motto, we suddenly realized that we have a lot more to do around the house, classes to take, etc. After going to Menards tonight (super fun date night), we stood in front of the "child-proofing" section and came to the conclusion that we have no idea what we are doing. So, we bought the basics--fire and carbon monoxide alarms (because ours have been broken for...?) and outlet covers. If anyone knows what else we will definitely, 100% need, please, help us out. Tell us, so we don't look like the fools we felt like standing in that aisle.
Now that I've successfully talked your ear off, and most likely lost your interest 1000 words ago, we just wanted to thank you all for your prayers and support thus far. We will be really getting things moving in the next couple of weeks, so we would appreciate the continued prayer. We will continue to keep you updated on the goings on in our lives!
