Gotta get my next B.Moore fix!

Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much I love Beth Moore?

I have just discovered this wonderful woman of God this last year thru a friend and the ladies' Bible Study at her church. Previous to that I had only read a book of hers that I picked up at the non-Christian book store, because I needed something to read and the title caught my attention. I told someone this last week as we were talking--I don't know where she (BM--yes, funny initials!) has been the last 10 years of my life or why I had never been introduced to her ministry. I feel like someone mean has been keeping a really good secret from me!

Well, I just have to say that if there are any ladies out there reading this who have not ever gotten involved in a Bible Study written by Beth Moore, you REALLY NEED TO. She has such a strong annointing from God and gives Scripture such a fresh look that she will show you how God's Word will literally change your life. I have been challenged in so many ways thru her teaching, her Bible Studies, and now, of all places, her blog! That's where I just came from and was just inspired to write a little ditty to point you in that direction if you hang out in the blog world. Here's the regular address for her site: www.livingproofministries.blogspot.com and here's a link or two to a few postings as of late that have really blessed me: The first one is to the 2009 Memory Verse Challenge, which I've joined and maybe you will too. http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/2008/12/anybody-game.html The second is to one from Thanksgiving time. Just examples peoples. http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/2008/11/grateful-heart.html
If you spend any time on the internet at all, as I see you do, it is really WORTH your time!
She has been such an encouraging word to me, and what I love about her so much is that she so often and so freely gives glory and praise to God for all that she does and all that is done thru her and her ministry. She is so geniune, so real, and so funny!

So last thought: as you know, we moved to Houston nearly a month ago, and those of you who know Beth Moore know she is FROM Houston....but many may not know that on TUESDAYS Beth Moore does a Bible Study here at her church for ladies from all over the city and all denominations and un-denominations possible. And when I found out we were moving here, naturally, I was SOOOO excited for the chance I could go on Tuesdays! I missed the first week due to a youth staff meeting, but last week I got to go with my mom, and it was GREAT. And Today is Tuesday.... And I'm not going...because Matt has a lot to do at work and he really needs to get some work time in...and so my plan is to go next week for a double dose---the video from THIS week will replay at 5:00, and then the current evening starts at 6:30p...but the thing is, I know it's Tuesday, and I know that while I'll be here at home cooking dinner for my boys and hanging out with them, there will be some 5000 woman across town singing and worshipping and studying God's Word together, and well, I just wish I could be there too!

So as I sit home and sulk, I just wanted to give Beth Moore a shout out and encourage YOU to be encouraged by her as well. And I want to say Thank You to God, my Father, for bringing me/us to Houston and for blessing us all with a woman like Beth who shows us how to seek after God's own heart so geniunely and earnestly. She is an example for me like I've never had before.

And as she ended her last post,
I LOVE ya'll today! Be Blessed!

3 Weeks Worth of Texas...

It's been a few weeks since I took time to post. Things have been going well. But I don't have as much time to play around online and on blogger with all that has been going on. Matt has been taking the computer with him to work most days, because his computer there is still having problems. So the time I do find to get online is dedicated to looking for a job, looking up driving directions, researching car insurance/etc., and even looking at houses for sale. I get on facebook a bit each day, but just to keep up with birthdays and wall posts I get on my phone.

Noah has been doing well, but we are no where near getting him settled into this new routine. I have taken him to the Mother's Day Out daycare program at the church probably 4 or 5 times now, but I had to pick him up early today because he refused to calm down and lay down for his nap. It is not easy to move his nap time (and therefore bedtime up/wake up time) 2 whole hours! They lay the kids down at noon, and before we left FL he had gotten used to taking his nap around 2 or even 3 sometimes. I don't disagree that an earlier bedtime would be nice for Matt and I, but that means we have to wake up earlier in the a.m. with him. We are trying to get used to it, but it's a slow process! In order to be able to take advantage of the daycare program tho, every day will have to be on THEIR schedule. It's a good program though, so I want to use it. Here's Noah last week on during "western" week with a hat they helped him "make".

Speaking of western...We have now been in TX for 3 whole weeks (Noah and I came in on a Thurs). The first week was spent unpacking and taking stuff to storage, lunches and dinners with church people. The second week was mostly preparing FOR the following weekend, and this week has been recovering FROM that weekend and getting ready for this next one!

We had a great Winter Retreat with the teens from our church. There were right at 65 teens and probably 25 adults! So about 90 total. (8 identical white vans driving down the highway!) About 15 of that # joined us from another small church here in Houston. It was a great group of people, both junior and senior high students. I stayed in the cabin and spent most of my time with the junior high girls, but I got to ride in a van and hang out with some of the Sr. highers during games and meals, which I really enjoyed. It is pretty crazy to say this, but I actually learned everyone's names by the first night...including the other church. That is what I would call a direct answer to prayer, because I have been praying that God would enable me to learn names quickly and not have to be embarrassed that I knew I'd "met" someone, but not recall their name...that's especially hard with youth...I hate to make them feel insecure in any way. It was soo cool to spend the weekend calling people by name!

The campground we went to is about 5 hours away, but with 90 people that easily stretched out to 7ish hours. It's northwest of San Antonio, out in the "hills" of Texas. It really was a cool campground--you have to literally drive thru a river to get there, and I don't mean drive across...I mean drive about a mile IN the river (of course it's shallow) to the campsite. The campsite we used had around 8 or 9 cabins with a big kitchen and meeting room....a large ampitheater, a big flat field for sports, and then another whole big area we didn't even use with a gigantic field and a full court bball court with lights.

And we get to use the entire campground for FREE! No cost at all. The area is like a big canyon, so you can go hiking around on trails on all sides of the campground. The weekend was basically like a mini camp schedule, with 3 meals a day, 2 services, morning games, afternoon games, and free time. Matt spoke 5 times, another youth pastor did music, and we introduced Infiltration for the last night game---with a pretty good response. Overall, I wouldn't say anything was just spectacular, except for the food--yum--but it was a great weekend for us to get to spend time getting to know the teens and the adult sponsors alike. No major injuries, no major discipline probs, not as cold as expected, 3 hour adult/student football game, strong worship time, good time in solitude & nature=good weekend.

My mom came down to stay with Noah, and she says he did pretty good as well. Fussed a bit each morning and a few times during the day, but nothing like it could have been or like she expected. It was nice to spend a few hours with her on Thurs. morning while Noah was at the daycare, and then we took him to the Children's Museum for the Free Family Night. PACKED, not something I would choose to do again, but a neat experience I guess.

I look forward to taking him again, on NON free nights, he'll really enjoy it. Tues. of this week, when we got home, we watched the whole Inauguration stuff most of the day and then took the afternoon out while Matt stayed with Noah. We first headed to Ikea, where we quickly got nearly lost and realized that one hour was no where near enough time to even begin looking through that place! We left with only a few small purchases--I'll have to return with Matt to use our big gift card.

From there we headed to Houston's First Baptist, where we got a double dose of Beth Moore Ladies Bible Study--first the 5:00 video showing of LAST week's lesson, then at 6:30 a praise and worship service followed by the study for the evening. Even though it ended up being very similar to a video session from the Patriarch's study that we just did this fall (coincidence, because it is on the subject of Inheritance, which basically starts with the story of Abraham) I still really enjoyed it and I think Mom did too. She doesn't get this kind of thing there in Ainsworth. I am really really really excited about being able to go to this Bible Study in Houston each week, even if I have to go alone sometimes--I don't have anyone to go with me yet, because they do a Wed. a.m. study here at the church for ladies, and I don't take that anyone fights the traffic to go downtown. I think twice a month I may go for the double dose thing!

Well, I took mom to the airport yesterday morning and spent most of the day with Noah and working on a current resume. Today I tried to take him to Mom's Day Out, but that just turned into a nightmare...he is now playing in his room by himself after refusing to secumb to sleep after 3 hours of trying. I am at my end. Matt left about an hour ago to go to SNU for ANOTHER weekend with the teens--I couldn't leave Noah again, so it's just him and another fellow and 4 or so students. THANKFULLY, ther's a Girls' Night Out thing tonight I got invited to...not sure what we're going to exactly but I heard it involved dinner out, a few lady speakers/musicians and Kate from the TLC show Jon and Kate Plus Eight. I'm ALL IN for that! One or two of the dads are watching the kiddos. In fact it doesn't appear Noah is going to get a nap at all until I put him in the car to go out there---glad I'M not staying at home with him tonight!

Well, that's it, I gotta go get ready for my evening out and figure out what to do with a sleepy boy who is not staying down for his nap. Thanks for checking in on us. If you read this, leave me a comment! I know you're out there, because you tell me you read our blog, but only Carrie and Sherrie leave me comments! Just say hi! It's real easy.

Houston, We Have Takeoff...

SO HERE WE ARE!!!

Noah and I spending New Year's Eve together;
Noah, ready to go play tennis with Daddy.

It has been a long two months since we first found our we were coming to Houston, with all the emotions you might expect during that time: joy/happiness, but sadness, excitement and anticipation but also doubt and uncertainty, hope for the future but some regret over the past, feeling encouraged at times but disapointed at others, peace from God and yet anxiety (still human). There have been good things and not-so-good things that we've had to deal with, but overall, it has been a very smooth transition. And we are very thankful for that. Thankful to God, and thankful for all of your help and prayers.

It's amazing how long it took me to pack up my entire house and how easy/quick it was to unpack once we got here.
Of course, the hard part of putting together beds and tables and such was done for me, on both ends, and probably one-third of our "stuff" is still in storage, but what we chose to bring up --to the 2nd floor--of our new apartment, is all unpacked. And THAT feels good! It really only took us the first 3 days, because there wasn't much going on around here and Matt was able to help me with Noah and the unpacking. We have one small area of our Apt that has our boxed-up wall decor, but we just have to decide what we want to put up, and how to do that without putting huge holes in the walls. But the rest of the place, including the closets (we have closets!) is all set. That's a nice feeling, the first step in feeling "settled".

Our apartment has been a pleasant surprise. I researched apts a TON, but we did not visit to check them out. I admit we were a bit worried about if it would really be as nice as it looked online...so far, I have not been disappointed with anything. We are in a 2/2 on the 2nd floor, and the bedrooms and bathrooms are "spacious" for an apt.
The living area is wider than we expected and the ceilings are an extra foot or two high, so that makes it feel bigger! Here's a shot of the work in progress, it's all I've got of the living room right now.
The biggest thing that makes it feel bigger is an extra little section on the end of the living room, called a sunroom---aka, my office/craft place. It's almost the size of our old office room!
The kitchen is smallish, but as long as we're not all 3 in there at once, it's not bad. Short on the cabinet storage, but that's to be expected.
But the closets are all large and we even have our first coat closet by the door. There's extra storage in our mini laundry room and a good sized linen closet in the 2nd bathroom. Here's a shot of our master bath

--I'm still working on Noah's bathroom, but will post soon--it's gonna be pretty cute!
So we're set! We just got the cable and internet hooked up Tues, and that has been a big help---Noah was really missing his little cartoon shows, like Dora and Blues Clues and of course, the "Up and Down Show!". Oh, bytheway, we are only on a 3 month lease, and we're hoping to be able to start the loan process and looking for a house by the beg. of Feb...maybe, we'll see.

Church was good on Sunday. Contemporary music, I only knew 2 of the 5 songs, actually. It will take a while to get used to the differences, but it was good to be in the worship service and get a feel for the size, spirit and attitudes of the church people. Normally, the teens have their separate service during the adults service time. Sunday we were allowed to join them. We met alot of people, and I remember most all of their names! We went out to eat with a group of the youth staff adults and then had some fellowship time with one couple at our aprt. that night.

Matt has been working at the church each day this week and yet claims he has gotten very little "work" done. Everyone has been great, helping him learn how they do things around here and a few planning meetings/conversations for an upcoming Winter Retreat...but other than that, it's just learning names, procedures, and a long lunch out to a restaurant each day (gee, that's rough) ...oh, and setting up his office. It's a good sized office at the end of a hall, just a bit away from the rest of the offices--which will be good for him, once everyone .... how do I say this... gets back to their own work instead of having to help him ? Does that sound too rude? It's very nice for him to have so many people checking on him, but at the same time, he says he hasn't had a solid hour to himself the whole week. He doesn't do very well with distractions--he works best , at least preparing messages and things, when he gets a chunk of time all to himself, quiet. I'm the same way. That would drive ME crazy! So like I said, eventually, it may be nice for him to be dooown the hall where he is.

I've enjoyed this week and being able to leisurely check out the area and check things off my to-do list each day. Like, for instance, put together our little office area at the end of our living room, do ALL our laundry, go grocery shopping, go shopping for new bathroom curtains/rugs, post office run, and today, Mother's Day Out! I'm going to love this program--it's a day care situation from 9a-2p each Tues. and Thurs., and it's "free" to pastoral staff (apart of our benefits, that is). I haven't had time to myself like that, during the day, for that long, since....I don't KNOW WHEN! I'm going to spend a few days getting errands done, and then hopefully this may be the time that I can find a job--Tues/Thurs., that is. Oh, it would be so nice if I could just enjoy the twice weekly Day Out as ME time!!!

My mom is coming this next Wed. to stay with us a week and to help us by watching Noah while Matt and I go to the first big event for the youth here--the yearly Winter Retreat. It is apparently the biggest thing they do here, and is a 4 day retreat into the "mountains" of Texas (I don't honestly know where they go, except that it is usually quite cold) She will be here a week, so hopefully we'll get to go see a few things in Houston while she's here, like the Zoo or the Children's Museum. I've been dying to see what it's like! It will also be really nice to have my mom here to visit. I look forward to all our family visiting.

I know it's pretty much illegal to right this long of a post and not include pictures, but I'm just too tired tonight. I'll add some tomorrow when I get a chance, probably before any of you even read this. If you do, check back for pics soon.

Love you all! We have new numbers, by the way, check your emails tomorrow.