Hello from Texas!!!

Hi everyone!

Its Brittany - I am in Texas!!! Yayyyy. Mark is in a staff meeting right now, and I am sitting in his office. It has been awesome, and I am really liking it! I flew in yesterday, got here about 1pm. I left Lansing at 3:15am, and woke up at 2:45am, yuck!! It was eaaarly, but I could not sleep anyway because I was sooo excited. I flew out of the Grand Rapids airport, first to Dallas, where weather closed the "ramp", whatever that is. It caused a couple hour delay, but I finally made it. I was sooo excited to see Mark. It was really exciting to finally see him and just get a huge hug. I was a little nervous it was going to be weird, just that we have not seen each other in so long (about 10 weeks), and have only talked a couple times in the past two weeks because he has been at camp, but it was not at all, it was completely comfortable and felt "normal" immediately!

We went to this restaurant called Rosas for lunch. Neither of us had eaten and we were verrry hungry. It was a Mexican restaurant, and was good, but no Cancun (our fav restaurant in East Lansing). We sat there and chatted for a while, and then got the tour of Abilene. I don't really know how to describe it, its about the size of Kalamazoo, maybe smaller, and is just a city. It seems confusing, and there seem to be a lot of confusing roads and intersections, but I am sure once I am down here it will be less intimidating (lets hope). We then went to Target to find Mark a new wallet. Unfortunately Mark lost his wallet coming home from camp last week, and that has been quite an inconvenience. But, he has taken all the right steps to fix it, and luckily didn't have much money in there, or anything toooo important. So, he should be getting a new debit card, drivers licence, and Sam's Club card (the essentials) this week. Anyway, then we went to Academy, which is like a Dick's sporting goods store. It was fun - we both loooove those kinds of stores. I got an Abilene shirt, so that's fun! It is like an Abilene Eagles, which I guess is like the high school mascot here, but it is nice, and it will be fun to represent Texas back in Michigan. And it will remind me of Mark :).
So one of the craziest things while we have been here is how God is just using people and things to really encourage me with the whole idea of coming here. Sometimes, I get nervous and overwhelmed thinking of leaving my family and friends, job, house, everything familiar, and coming to this whole new place, and whole new stage of life. I have always been such a homebody, and sometimes get scared. So, we were driving around yesterday and these thoughts like "this will be my new home, like my new Target and new friends" (these people I have never met) were going through my head. Mark has been really great about being so encouraging, and I know that he will take care of me, but it is just a lot of change at once! So anyway, we go next door to where Mark is staying, and this lady Julie is moving, and offering to give us this bed and box springs, and lots of furniture, and she is just so nice. She also tells me there is a new rehab hospital opening soon, with a traumatic brain injury part and everything. She was just so nice, and just spoke so highly of everything down here, and said she would get more info about the new hospital for me. Then, we go to Chick Fil-A because I needed (yes, needed) :) some waffle fries. This lady comes running over and quickly says hi to Mark and gives me a huge hug. She goes on and on about how everyone is so excited to meet me, and have me come down here. She also says how much they love Mark, which is always fun to hear. She tells me about how she just moved down here a couple years ago, and loves it, and she also works at the hospital. Thennn, we go back and meet Craig Young, the dad of where Mark is staying. He is also super nice, and welcoming, and is just a genuine nice guy. Then, we go to Melody's house. This is where I am staying for the week. She has an awesome house, and is just such a nice lady. She was sooo friendly, and nice, and also works for Broadway in advertising, which is like the coolest thing ever. She too talked about how great Mark was, and we just chatted for quite a while. She also was watching the Bachlorette when I walked in, which even though I don't really follow the show too much, my mom and I watch it sometimes and for some strange reason it just made me feel more at home. She gave us a great recommendation for dinner, Jason's deli. It was amazing. I got a huge salad from this amazing salad bar. It was soooo good, and I love salad bars, I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! The girl working there asked us where we were from (we don't have the southern accent down yet haha), and so that opened a conversation about living down here, and she too went on and on about how great it was, and was just soo nice. Anyway, long story short, there have been so many people who have been so over the top nice and just made Abilene feel like a wonderful place to live.

Oh! And tonight Mark and I are getting engagement pictures! There is this girl at the church who does photography, and I realllyyyyy wanted engagement pictures, so she is doing them tonight for us! I am so excited!!! We have open gym with the youth group kids at noon (should be interesting), and then tomorrow night is youth group. I am excited to meet these kids, and see Mark in action...I will let you know how it goes. Don't worry Moms, I am taking lots of pictures, and once I figure out how to work Marks Macbook, will post them!

Wow, sorry so long!!!

Love,
Brittany

Family Vacation!!!

this did not post, and I thought it deleted, but found it today on here, so thought I would post it too...2 for 1 day - lucky lucky :)

Hello from South Haven!!



My mom and sisters and I are in South Haven for a week and lovingggg it! We rented a little condo close to the beach, and have just been relaxing. We have been to the beach tons, sat at Dairy Queen today for 2.5 hour chatting, got 2 doses of ice cream, and are watching a musical, all the essentials for a great vacation! We went to Clemintines tonight for dinner, and it was wonderful, and yesterday went to Maria's - a little Itialian place, and it was soooo good.

Mark's mom came yesterday, and we planned some with the wedding, and chatted, mostly chatted :). But, she has lots of great ideas, and is so good with crafts. Here is a picture of us working on our wedding planning. It was sooo great to see her and just spend time with her - and I got to hear lots of good stories about Mark when he was young. Here we are working hard on wedding stuff.

I dont really have too many exciting things to say, except that I get to see Mark in 5 days and I am soooooo excited! I have my outfit all picked out, and I just cannot wait to get down there!

Here are some pictures....

Well, hopefully next week when I am in Texas Mark and I can update! Yayy!!

Quicky before I'm off to camp

I just want to start off today by saying how much I miss Michigan summer. I do miss the friendly mitten and it's wonderful summer climate. (and the pines, and of course all of you!) I once heard it described to Christians that, "For those that don't believe in Jesus Christ, this is the closest they will ever get to heaven, and conversely,as believers in Jesus Christ, this life on earth is the closest to hell we will ever get." Although that is a true statement, that person clearly never spent the summer in Texas where it's hot as hell every day! Sorry, that was a little crazy, but today the temp is over 100 degrees, again. I can't even remember a day that the high wasn't at least 95 degrees. And it seems like these degrees are in Celsius!

I have been keeping myself busy the past couple of weeks. I had a wonderful time on the fourth of july! I went to a coworkers house and had some fun there. I bought some fireworks to help me enjoy the occasion of our nation's birthday. I wanted to celebrate our country by blowing up a small part of it! Maybe I can help you understand the kind of fireworks that you can buy, by sharing a little bit about this wonderful state. Keep in mind that in Michigan, all you can buy is glorified sparklers. Texas is a wonderfully proud of it's military history, very red, gun toting-nra activists-armed forces supporting, bleed red white and blue, pro constitutional rights states ever! You can pretty much buy sticks of dynamite here! It's great! I bought some mortar style artillery shells that were a lot of fun to light off!

I also enjoyed some of my favorite things the past couple of days. I rode my bike today around town, lately I have been enjoying what I call "urban mountain biking". That is basically looking for fun obstacles to ride my bike over or through. For instance, I have enjoyed a cement drainage ditch that forms a nice little half pipe to ride in. Today for lunch I went to Taco Bueno, which is a Taco Bell spin off that started here in Abilene. And coincidental, the people around here are extremely proud of it. It's good, but it's fast food mexican, so it's not great and it's not better than my ex employer, Taco Bell. Anyways, they have on fountian pop IBC rootbeer. I love IBC rootbeer, reminds me of my childhood, when we said that it was the best rootbeer ever(it is really really good), but liked it more because it came in bottles that resembled beer bottles. Speaking of beer, I have taken a liking to Shiner beer. It's the Texas mainstream microbrew. It's no New Holland or Founder's, but pretty good. They don't really do dark beer. I think Texans are just scared of it. Let's see, what else? I went to one of my favorite establishments last night. B-dubs=awesome. Buffalo wild wings is so good. I had my standard boneless 8 piece spicy garlic with a tall blue moon. So good. Worth that punishment that follows the next day... I'm also enjoying a Driscoll sermon right now, love him!

Speaking of Driscoll, I'm working hard down here to model my ministry off of his. On sunday nights we have dinner together and play some games. Then right after that we have a youth service where we play contemporary worship songs and I attempt to preach a small sermon to the students. I'm still getting used to the the preaching, it's a whole different mind set from what I have typically done in the past. On wednesday nights, we have been meeting at various houses where we eat together and then have a bible study that rehashes what I talked about on sunday. The whole goal here is to encourage life application and to get the students to think for themselves instead of being spoon fed.

Right now we are in the middle of a series that I call, God's top ten. It's an in depth study of the ten commandments and how they actually apply to our lives. For instance, I don't have too many murders in my youth group(6th commandment), but I do have students that let anger rule their actions and "commit murder in their hearts". A cross reference from Jesus' sermon on the mount. I'm slowly seeing light bulbs go on in the students heads as some of them have aha moments. I have had some pretty interesting challenges, but lots of little victories too!

Also, I have been trying very had to engage the students outside of the learning environment in an effort to build relationships that will hopefully help me build my ministry more effectively. I have been organizing weekly open gyms and we also have another weekly event we call, Breakaway. Breakaway is where we breakaway from the church building and go do something fun just for the sake of doing it. We have played in parks, gone swimming, out to lunch, and most recently we went to a Craig's Cruisers type place where we scored a great deal. We went bowling, played mini golf, got lunch and played in the arcade. It was great. And that is where today's picture is coming from.

I am going to spend the next two weeks at camp. I am very excited for this and can't wait for it. After that, I am having a very special girl come and vist me! Then after that, I have a three day mystery trip that I'm leading. So the next month of my life is going to pretty busy to say the least. I love you all and miss you all so much and can't wait to see you sometime in the future!

Long time no blog!

My class is over!! Ahh I am soooooo happy. I really did try so hard. Whatever happens God is good and knows exactally what grade I need. I got done Wednesday and have been pretty busy since then, but right now I am laying on the couch, watching jepordy, playing facebook, drinking a diet coke, and could not be happier. I worked 8-5 today, so had to leave Plainwell at 6:15am this morning. Awesome. But, work was really fun today, and we got to have a cookout (yes, I grilled, Mark would be so proud). It was beautiful this afternoon and evening, which makes it better. As does holiday pay. :)

A couple pf weekends ago Ashley, Amy and I drove down to Champaign, IL to go to my friend (and old roomate) Kristen's wedding. It was beautiful, and lots of fun. Amy played piano and I played violin, for about 8 songs. It was a littttle stressful, but it turned out really well. We stayed in an hotel room (or "a" hotel room?) and it was a blast. We felt so grown up. Ashley actaully said "we have no adults" or something along those lines, and yes we actaully all have been graduated college for at least a year. It made me soooooooooo excited for our wedding. 6 months from yesterday!!!!

Here is a picture of us at the wedding. I am wearing Jenna's dress, and loved it.

I get to see Mark!!!!!!!!!! In 24 days!! I am soooo excited. God is so good, and the family that Mark is staying with, used their air miles or whatever they are called and bought my ticket! I am working til 9pm in Lansing on Sunday and leave out of Grand Rapids at 5:50am. I will arrive in Abilene at 10 something AM, and get to stay until Friday morning (then have to work that night). I think this will be awesome for me, just to see what its like down there, where he works, what the city is like, where he lives, and just all the details of where I will be living soon. AND to see Mark of course. I am sooo excited to just give him a huge hug.

Oh!!! Another exciting event was our we had our first premarigae counseling session (well our first real session). But, you are probably wondering "But Mark is in Texas and Brittany is in Michigan??" Well, because flying back and forth is a little pricy and not too practical (and Mark only likes practical things :) ), we do it via video chat on Macs. We sit and stare at Mark on a computer screen. It actaully is pretty amazing. The youth pastor from my church (Michael) is marrying us, and him and his wife (Mandy) are so great, and they are doing it with us. I was a little nervous that it was going to be awkward, but it really wasnt, not ideal, but it works! Praise God for technology that allows us to do it like this!

I still babysit Anna, and Lex does it the other 2 days. It's honestly like my favorite thing ever. She is such a nugget. So here is a picture of her for good measure.

And here is my beautiful ring. Which I spend half the day staring at.

This past week was my dad's birthday, and a couple weeks ago was Fathers day, which were both hard. I just reallllly miss my dad, and with wedding stuff, it is kind of bittersweet. I so wish he could be here. We (my mom, sisters, and I) went to the cemetary on Thursday and released balloons that we had written notes on. So, here is a fun picture of me and my dad. And yes, I rocked messy hair when I was three, and pretty much every day since. :)

Lovvvvvvve,

B