We're Moving

This will be our place of residence in about a month! We are excited to have four walls that we don't share with anyone. God blessed us with great neighbors in our apartment building, but it will be nice to be able to have a space of our own. It is somewhat troubling when Ansel kicks and plays on the floor loudly. I wonder how much of what he does is disruptive to the couple living below us. It is crazy that the house is nearly the same size as the garage, but we are up for the challenge of living in a small space. It is a beautiful little house with hardwood floors. The whole house only has one closet, but I'm sure we can figure out some way to store our belongings. If nothing else we will become selective about which items we will keep in our house. Space will become prime real estate that we won't want to occupy with useless items. My husband can attest to the fact that I am a packrat to the core. Since our wedding day, Travis has been gracious and allowed me to be refined in my own time, but seriously there are many items that need to make their way out of our home. I am hoping we will be transformed and better stewards of the items we possess. Praise God for the blessing of being able to rent a house with a garage! It will be wonderful to have for winter in Buffalo.

The Theme for Our Next Dinner Party?

You may not know this, but Travis and I are into sushi. This week we decided to take our sushi experience to a whole new level. We made some of our very own! We used tofu (pan-seared in sesame oil), avocado, and carrots. It was delicious! We will certainly experiment with other ingredients. It was tasty. Travis is not only great at shooting sushi (see above), but he is also pro-style at rolling the rice in the nori! Nice job, Trav :)

A Sunday Afternoon Walk and SHE Event

On Sunday it was a bit warmer than it has been in a while and we had a couple of hours to spare together between lunch and the SHE Event with Rebecca St. James. We had the perfect opportunity to get out of doors and experience something new. The Careys bought us this wonderful external frame backpack carrier for a baby shower gift, and so we had to take Ansel out for a test-run in it. Next time we hope to take him for a long hike because...he loved it! We had been talking about how we still want to have some adventures with Ansel this summer, even if it can't be a three day weekend kayaking with our 4 pound backpacker's tent to islands. We are still trying to figure out just how daring we can be with our little Ansel and keep him warm, dry, happy, and most of all, safe! His dad was excited at the prospect of spending numerous hours this summer with the sun shining and Ansel on his back! Overall great fun had by all (I liked photographing my handsome guys!)

Ansel and Travis had a guys' night together while I went out to the SHE Event. The style of the event was super laid back, Rebecca St. James wanted the ladies in attendence to feel as though it was just having coffee one on one. Her heart to our hearts. It was nearly exactly like that and it was easy to forget that 500 plus other women were there. The vibe was even more intimate than a Jennifer Knapp concert I attended back in the day at the Pioneer in Reno. Perhaps that was due to the fact that it was at our own little Amherst Baptist Church, where I would guess there were no more than 700 women (including the handful of very sneaky men who somehow got in--crashing our mother/daughter night! ;) My friends and I were only about 5 rows from the stage.

Rebecca is so genuine, so true to the character that a Christian woman should have (gotta love that Aussie accent as well.) I am thankful that little girls have a role model to look up to in such a disappointing, sex-crazed, immodest world. Rebecca's younger brothers, Joel and Luke, sang backup and those boys are blessed with some voices! What a talented family! It is apparent that Rebecca longs for fellow believers and a lost world to delve into a deeper relationship with Christ. Among the topics were modesty, purity, and raising godly children. I was encouraged in my walk with Jesus and it was fabulous to spend a night worshipping with my girlfriends.

Six Months and Counting!

I can hardly believe it! The time has passed quickly. Ansel is growing fast. He is nearly 17 pounds and a strong little guy. Travis shot some six month photos and these happen to be my favorites. :)