Tigers!!!!

Had a great time at a Tigers game this past weekend :)  Brittany had our first guests at our apartment here in Warren, so we got to practice our hospitality!  Jenna, Martelle, Alexa and Ben all came over for the game and spent the night. 

So much fun!  The game was ultra hot and muggy, but the Tigers won, so it doesn't matter :)  I sat next to this nice young couple with an infant.  I thought this was an interesting place to take an infant, but it was father's day and I guess this was how he wanted to spend his time with his family, hahaha.  I had a front row seat to things that I never thought I would see at a ball game.  He made formula, quieted the baby when it cried(wasn't a huge fan of the baby when it cried), and to top it off, changed a diaper in his seat(I was especially not a fan of the baby when it decided to do that).  However, this guy completely redemed himself for the whole evening when he showed me the weather radar on his iphone.  Which helped me rally the troops back to our car.  Which, we literally shut the doors to the car and the wind picked up and storms came in. 

I drove Alexa's van back to our place in the monsoon, with only one headlight and I'm not sure that her wipers had blades on them, because they weren't moving much water off the windshield.  Well, we made it home and played apples to apples and watched Evan Almighty.  So much fun.  I made snacks and we goofed around all night.  The girls got to sleep in the bed and us guys spread out in the living room.  And in the morning I made waffles!!! 

This is Alexa's new boy friend that she is hiding from her Mom.... 

Memorial Day :)

Well, in my ever present struggle to keep this blog current, I thought that I would give you updates on Memorial day weekend.... Hahaha, maybe someday I will stay on top of things moreeeee.

We had a great weekend and had the opportunity to travel the small distance to the west side of the mitten.  It's funny how short 3 hours feels in comparison to 20+ hours of travel.  What an incredible blessing it is to be able to see family and friends over the weekend.  I can't tell you how great it was to see everyone and be back "home."  There is just something comfortable about the little things.  The climate, the humidity, the trees, the cool breeze, the bottle returns, the microbrews, and the mosquitos that just just make you feel like home!!! 

On that friday of Memorial weekend we sped(without exceeding the speed limit, Mom) to Plainwell to attend a friends wedding.  The guy Peter, played guitar in our wedding and is super awesome!  We actually missed the wedding but made it in time for the reception.  That was just the way it worked out with Brittany's school schedule and the time of the wedding.  Oh well.  The reception was cool.  Oh yeah, my wife and I, being the classy people we are, changed into our "wedding clothes" in the parking lot.  I probably shouldn't be telling people that, but it's who we are.  Now you know...  The reception was awesome, we had a great time and saw a lot of friends and there were lots of jokes and people watching.  It was just good times.

On Saturday I actually spent most of my day out with my mother-in-law.  I am very blessed with a great mother-in-law.  She took me to the mall to exchange a hat and then we went to my favorite store ever, Samssss Club.  So many treatsss.  After that we rented a carpet cleaner and I cleaned the carpet in her house.

That night we had the pleasure of babysitting Miss Anna, Brittany's favorite person in the world, barr none! 

On sunday, we out to one of my favorite places in the world, Sandy Pines!  I love it and hadn't been there in such a long time.  The atmosphere out there is so relaxing and super chill.  It's just so summer.  My favorite part would probably be just cruising around on golf carts.  We mostly just hung out with my parents and chatted all day.  My dad and I did play a little round of disc golf, which was cool.  Actually it was hot.  To much sun.  The sun pretty much forced us to go out for ice cream after that:)  The ice cream place is crazy there, it's every chubby kids dream.  The portion size is probably equal to what you would see on Man vs. Food!  After that I went out and dug in the woods for worms that I could go drown.  And in the process of drowning the worms(that's code for fishing, because I don't catch very many fish...), I did manage to catch a bush and a tree, twice.  So, all in all, it was a good day of fishing, two maples and a shrub.  After that we settled in for some cake.  Good stuff!  So great to see my parents!

After that we went back to Brittany's Mom's for the night. I had a good sleep in and then started doing my handy man routine.  Don't worry, it's not all work.  We actually had a monsoon hit that day, and you know the rule, when a monsoon hits, go out and play in it.  So we went and played in the rain, soooooo fun.  After that, we pretty much dried off and headed back home(back to Warren).  Such a terrible driveeeeeee.  Remember that monsoon that I mentioned previously???  Yeah, pretty much drove home in that.  Good thing Pearl(Brittany's Honda Fit) is roughly the size of a large rodent, and therefore not effected by someone sneezing or even shifting their weight in it....  Any way, we made it home and had a great great weekend.  We certainly hope that you had a great one too!

Twentyfour

I'm writing this blog post with a center alignment due to fact that my intellegence level is prohibiting me from figuring out how to align it to the left, like a normal post.  So, I hope that you readers out there, where ever you are, enjoy the center alignment.  Also, pray for my itelligence level, it needs all the help it can get.....  Also, on an unrelated note, I would like to formally recognize that my blog posts are wordy and in need of a little more spice, so I will sprinkle some pictures of yours truly through out this post for your enjoyment!!

Anyway, I just got done celebrating my 24th birthday, so now everyone living in my apartment is 24!  Finally caught up to Brittany :)  We had a great time!  Highlights include checking out a new church.  We are "church shopping" right now, trying to find a solid, biblical church that has a mission that we can be apart of.  We checked out a nice church, and enjoyed it.  We really enjoyed the preaching, the singing, and the diversity of the church body.  We are going to continue to "shop" a little more and see what else we can find :)

We went to the Logan's for lunch and ate all of those great rolls!  We also enjoyed the shelled peanuts and threw the shells on the floor, my favorite part.  When I do that at the apartment, Brittany doesn't share in the same joy that I do.  Our waitress was just a ray of sunshine...  Not really, she treated us like the inconvenience that we were, and really when out of her way to make sure that we knew it, hahaha.  For some crazy reason, I feel like when she looks for her tips, the customers aren't so inconvenient...  So here is where I ask for your advice, because I'm at a crossroads.  My question isn't about percents or anything like that, my question pertains to when.  A big part of me thinks that tips are conditional to the service received.  Therefore, the better the service, the better the tips and vice versa.  However, as Christians, are we held to a different meter?  Should we extend grace(unmerited favor) to our waitstaff by tipping well no matter what?  I have heard that some of the people that waiters hate most are christians, the sunday afternoon crowd.  I guess my question is, are we doing a greater service to Christ by holding people accountable or giving them what they don't deserve?  Which is greater, grace or truth?  Anyone with thoughts?

On the evening of my birthday I left my wife at home so that she could study in peace, and I went to East Lansing, the home of Sparty!  My good friend Brad is finishing up his internship with University Reformed Church, Kevin Deyoung's church.  Brad had his last preaching engagement with the church on Sunday.  He did great!  I was so impressed with him, and glowed with a little bit of pride(I know, I know it's a sin), because he was one of the guys that I built into so much.  He will do great in seminary.  After seeing him preach, I went out with more friends from college to my favorite college bar, Crunchy's!  It's a dirty little hole in the wall that is so great!  Met some of my favorite people there, Zach, Mark, Brad, Nate, and Sanjay.  Great conversations, great beer.  It was such a good time!

Oh yeah, this was the cake that I made for my birthday!  I call it, "Basket Cake," I will leave you to guess why.  I whipped up this fun little number the night before, and it goes great with moosetracks and mint chocolate chip :)

On the road again!

Well, I just got done driving myself across the country.  For those of you curious how far it is from Abilene, tx to Warren, MI, it's 1350 miles.  I have to be honest, I'm pretty proud of the fact that I did it in about 23 hours!  I stopped for a couple hours of sleep, curled up in the fetal position in the front seats of the chariot of doom(for those of you who don't know, that is what I named my ford focus wagon).  Not the most comfortable because of:

a) seat belt poking me in the side

b) it's a tiny space

c) car's are not made for sleeping

d) when I fell asleep my ear was folded over

e) all of the above

The correct answer is e!  Thanks for all who played!  The ear thing was more of a when-I-woke-up type thing, but I'm counting it!  Have you ever fallen asleep when your ear is folded???  It's the worst!!  I hurts so bad, you wake up thinking that the dream you had of Van Gogh cutting your ear off was actually true...  Any way, I survived.  It was in a nice little travel plaza just outside of senic Vinita, OK.  The bonus was that when I woke up and tumbled out of my car in the morning, there was a McDonald's right there waiting to give me a breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee!  Ba-da-da-da-daaaaaaaa, I'm lovin' it!!! 

Time for another quiz question.  Which animal crossed the road in front of me?


a) Coyote
b) Wild Pig
c) Huge Racoon
d) Deer
e) all of the above

Answer: e!  The coyote and wild pig were kinda cool to see, I'm sure anyone who follows are blog has already heard enough about deer crossing the road in front of cars, but the racoon really impressed me!  This thing was massive!  To give you an idea, it's was roughly the size of a horse, no exageration!  Luckily, I was an alert driver and swerved just in time to drive under it's massive frame and in between it's legs!  I have a little car, remember??  That's why I had to give it a sweet, manly name!

It was foggy the whole time I was in texas and oklahoma.  And it rained the whole trip, until I got into the friendly mitten!  Something you should know about me, hate using my windshield wipers.  I don't hate windshield wipers, in fact, I think they are great and do a great job at what they do, however, for some reason, I just don't like to use them!  But there were times on this trip that it rained so hard, that when I had my wipers turned as fast as they could go, I found myself wishing they could go faster! 

Things I learned on this trip:
1) In oklahoma, you aren't supposed to drive through smoke, but fog is alright.
2) During the course of a long night of driving by myself, I enjoy talking to the toll booth attendents.  (Just to be clear, I do not enjoy paying tolls)
3) 5 hour energy drink does not replace sleep, which makes me wonder if it really has a purpose then....
4) Get directions from google, yahoo, ask, and mapquest.  They will all give you different directions.  For me, ask.com gave the fastest this time, however, some times their directions aren't very clear.


That's all I can think of right now...  So, let me leave you with this unrealated thought: When you have a huge box of business cards with information that is no longer correct, please do something fun with them.  For me, it's was randomly covering a coworkers office with them as a goodbye present.  This was me and my intern Will covering his office in my old business cards....

The past few weeks....

.....have been crazy.
Yes, the past few weeks have been nuts, but they have been so great. I have gotten to spend tons of time with my sisters and mom, and while I miss Mark tonnnnnnnnnns, it has been wonderful to get to spend quality time with the fam before the craziness of school starts. I will try to recap the past couple weeks:

- April 28th - heard we did not get the apartment, and needed more work history documentation submitted. Ugh. (We were planning on moving in May 1). Had a mini break down/panic attack.

- Decided to leave Texas a day early

- My amazing sister Wendy let me stay with her in Tulsa (on a few hours notice)

- Drove (by myself) from Tulsa, OK to Plainwell, MI in one day. (Thank goodness for Harry Potter on CD, diet coke, and junk food)

- Babysat baby toddler Anna (for four days - and loved every second of it) :)

- Found out we got the apartment (Mark worked really hard getting everything turned in and faxed quickly)

- Met Mark's parents in Warren, and moved most of our stuff (including our king sized bed, couch, tv,  and entertainment unit) into our apartment. It was verrrrrrry heavy and tiring.

- Celebrated my mom's, Jenna, and Lex's birthday at Mongolian BBQ. It was tasty and we took lots of birthday celebration pictures.

- Watched tons of Gilmore girls with my Mom and Lex

- Got to see my little baby girls soccer team (well now I guess they aren't really "mine") play a game. Cold + rain + wind + 8 AM + 8 year old girls  = looooots of whining and not much fun. But it was great to see them!

- Went to Chicago. My mom had a work thing there, and we tagged along. We had so much fun, and Jenna, Lex and I shopped all day Tuesday. And miraculously got along practically the entire time. Shopping literally zaps my energy and I am done in 2.4 seconds, but other than that minor detail it was amazing.

- Hit a deer on the way home (somewhere in Indiana), and pretty much totaled the car. Police came. We had to sit on the top of a tow truck (the car literally strapped to the top of the tow truck, and we were sitting in it) while he flew (literally 85mph) down the highway. Had to stay in another hotel. This one wasn't as fun. Mom was pretty stressed out (go figure), but everything still managed to get along pretty well, and thanks to my hilarious sister Jenna, we had a pretty good time.

- Jenna and I came to Detroit to get my ID card for school, name changed, and to unpack some of my apartment. She was soooooooo helpful. She totally organized my bathroom, sorted and folded clothes, was comic relief, and we chatted the whole way there and home. It was great. Oh yeah and hauled a 8492000 pound desk up and into my room.

- My mom bought us tonnnnnnns of groceries to get me started off in my apartment, and it is such a blessing.

And now here I am in Detroit, sitting at Panera (because we don't have Internet at our apartment), with day 1 of PA school behind me, which I will talk about later. But one word to sum it up is : Yay! God is so good, and I cannot stop thinking about how much he has blessed me. Mark and I have a verse lately - Psalm 55:22 - "Cast your cares on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall". Mmmmmmmmmmm love it.

Here are some pictures of the events discussed above:

Love,

Brittany

Update from Brittany

Helloooo

         Mark's parents just left this morning and we so enjoyed having them! They also pretty much saved the day year with their mini van pulling trailor and willingness to help us lug all our crap and pack it into the Uhaul, and pull it all the way back to Michigan with them. We are so thankful. We now have hardly anything left in our apartment, and it kind of feels like camping. Good thing we like camping! We dont really have anything to cook with or a bed, but it should be fun. We woke up this morning and found our internet was shut off. Long story short, something got messed up on ATTs end, and while we got it sorted out we will not have internet til Tuesday night. Perfect, this will make things like working on school stuff, apartment stuff, and finding jobs muuuuch easier. Ugh!

         There is so much going on, and there are so many varibles that need to still be worked out, it is hard not to get overwhelmed. We are still waiting on approval from an apartment in Detroit, Mark still doesn't have a job in Michigan, we arent quite sure how or when moving in to our apartment (when/if we get it) is going to happen, we both still have to drive back to Michigan (weeks apart), and I still have quite a few things that needed worked out before school starts on May 10th. Yiiiiikes. We are trying to be patient and trusting God with everything, and remember that we are on the "same team". It is easy for me to get frusterated with everything and take it out on Mark, forgetting all the huge sacrifices he is making for me to go to PA school, and move back to Michigan, and that he loves me.

        I have recently learned that I cannot be anxious and thankful at the same time. God made my brain incapable of both at the same time. So I have found that whenever I am anxious (which is lots latley), I just start thinking of all the things that I have to be thankful for. It has been a very helpful stratagy.

        Well, Mark and I are at the church getting painting stuff together for tomorrow (we are painting the youth wing). Hopefully some kids show up to help!

 We tooke some fun pictures in the bluebonnet feilds which grow wild down here, and are beaaaaaaautiful!

Love,
Brittany

Hello internet faithful!

It's Mark, Brittany's husband...

I just wanted to give you a quick update on a couple of life experiences that I had recently.  As you know, I am on the job hunt again because, life is just easier when you have a job :)  Earlier this week, I scheduled an interview with a nice church outside of Grand Rapids for this evening.  It's very exciting anytime you get an interview in this economic climate, but especially at a place that you actually want to work at!

Let me set the stage here: Things have been a little stressful here.  With visitors coming and going(please don't get me wrong, we love our visitors!!!!), busy work schedule, dealing with some tough people, tons of pollen in the air making my allergies flair up a little, prepping to pack and move across the country, and look for a job, things are just piling up.  So last night, Brittany and I got to bed a little late, but I fell asleep very, very quickly.  Welllllllll, the middle of the night rolls around and I am shaken awake by my lovely wife, who groggily informed me, "I noticed you fell asleep, so I woke you up!"  Then she rolled over and didn't say another peep!  Not sure what to say about that one.  It seems that her heart was in the right place, right?

Anyway, I'm at work this morning, worrying about my interview later tonight, and I get a call from a 248 area code, which of course is a metro detroit  area code.  I take the call, and it's another church calling me back and I have a quick phone interview with that church!  That church sound pretty cool, really big, but I would have a great opportunity to work on a satellite campus, work with all the other youth directors from the other satellite campus's and have an overseeing youth director helping all of the the satellite youth directors.  This is awesome!  However, in the course of this interview, I was asked what the last movie I saw was.  I blanked!  At least it was on a kinda silly question, but I felt so dumb.  The only movie I could think of was Apaloosa!  A decent western that I had rented from a redbox movie vendor.  I didn't think of "the hurt locker," I didn't think of "where the wild things are," and I didn't think of "avatar," the movie that I saw in the theater and in 3-d!!!!  Which ps, gave me a serious headache, and  some crazy blood shot eye!  Anyway, I'm panicking now.  So I try to explain how awesome redbox distribution centers are for seeing movies at an inexpensive prices, and she has no idea what I'm talking about!  Mind you, this is church is in an area known for it's wealth.  I felt like such a goof!  I stand by my love for redbox movies, it's a good deal!  The rest of the interview felt like it went well, so now I'm playing the waiting game with them.  (Almost forgot, she also asked me what books I was reading and all I could think of was Harry Potter... Another strikeout, hahaha!  However, I didn't say Harry Potter, I recovered and shared about the John Piper book I'm reading, it's called Momentary Marriage, and it's really great!  You should all read it!)

Same story with the church from Grand Rapids, I felt like the interview went well and I'm playing the waiting game...  Yup, just waiting.  If I can make a request across cyberspace here, please pray for me that I can get blessed with a job :)  Thanks!!!

Cake Date!

Well, Mark has a new love. Cake Boss. The TV show on TLC. He loves the main character "Buddy" who owns a bakery with his family in New York. He talks really loud, says rediculous things, but makes awesome looking cakes. So Mark, and his artsy self, thought that we should try and make a cake. With fondont and everything, just "because". Honestly, at first I was not too excited, but when he showed me these recipies he found, and showed me his sketches that he made, I got pretty pumped. Sounded like a fun night to me! So here is how we spent several HOURS (I have never lasted so long cooking one thing in my life) last night.

Latley

Here is a little recap on what is going on in our life:

- My mom and sister (Lex) just left on Friday and I am pretty bummed, we had suchhhhh a wonderful time, which mostly included laying around (while mom worked from her computer, and Mark was at work), and Lex and I watched Gilmore girls and sat out in the sunshine. My mom bought us lots of groceries, so that was such a blessing! I think I suffer from like post-excitement-depression. I get bummed when something I have been looking forward to is over (I realize this is normal, but I think I get more bummed than normal people). So anyway I am recovering from my depression today :). Some highlights from their trip were, getting our nails done, Gilmore Girls, soccer in the park, Dallas, and of courseee our luxury motel (the Motel 6 I recommended). It was so fun to just share our life down here with our family!

- Mark came to Dallas to pick me up at a hotel so my mom and sister would not have to bring me back to Abilene (we went to Dallas for the day/night), and we found a great deal ($10 tickets) for a Texas Rangers game that night. This meant we would have a day in Dallas so we bopped around and found this great little Mexican restaurant ate and walked around, found an Apple store (and drooled over their products), sat at a bookstore and read for a couple hours (Mark read a couple on mountain biking, and I read this book by a doctor of stories from his internship), we were in uptown I think, and everyone seemed really rich, and everything was very nice!

- Mark is still looking for jobs like crazy (I am trying to help), and it has been a bit frustrating. We know God has something planned, and we just are praying for wisdom and peace. This whole transition (moving, leaving down here, getting our stuff to MI, finding an apartment, starting PA school, finding Mark a job, blah blah) has been honestly really hard for us. We are both really scared, and have to remember that we are on the same team (and often say it out loud to each other) a lot. Most of me is so excited to see what God is going to do with our lives and how He is going to work everything out, and then a part of me is honestly scared to death.

Here are some pictures:

First is sweet baby Anna (yes, she is in a car, but it is parked), then a terrible picture of me and my pretty delish banana bread, next is a picture of the map we used to get to Abilene. Not even joking - its my mom's pocket sized atlas, Jenna was giving us some advice on what roads to take, it was pretty hilarious. Then is my sweet baby sister Lex, who is sunburned. Which was pretty much her spring break goal. And the last photo, while it looks a bit crazy, is all the fiber one bars we got. They were on sale for $3.50 for a box of 20 (which we usually buy at Sam's club for $7.38/box), which is crazzzzzzzzzy. The boxes of 20 rarrrrely go on sale, and we also have coupons for $1 off per box. And Fiber one bars are sooo gooood, and we eat them everyday for breakfast, and so seized the opportunity and stocked up. It was great. :)

Looooooooove,

Brittany

P.S. Mark will post soon. Promise.

My thoughts (Brittany)

So I just got back from orientation for PA school at Wayne State, finding an apartment in Detroit, annnnd staying with Ashley! I had a long time to think on the way home so thought I would share....

I am soooooooo pumped for school. I really enjoyed meeting my classmates, my mentor is wonderful, and I feel so much better now that it is over! It will be a very busy time, and very hard, but I am excited! Driving over to Detroit Monday morning, I was super nervous, but then I was just so thankful that I was not going over for another interview, and just thinking where I was last year, and how much God has blessed me. Last year at this time I was going to apply, and dreading beginning the application process (which suuuucks), not engaged to Mark yet, and feeling a bit discouraged about becoming a PA. I was driving (verrrry early) on Monday and just praising God for how far he has brought me. I am starting a great school, moving back to Michigan, and married to literally the most amazing man in the world. Anyway, we got to buy our medical supplies, hear our daily schedule (which turned out to be more manageable than I had expected), meet our professes, and learn that we get all the breaks that Wayne gets! I was thinking that we didn't get as much time off, but we do (for the first year at least!). Yay! Classes start May 10th and I can hardly wait!

I got to stay with Ashley in Lansing on Monday night, which was great. I love her so much and it felt just so normal being back (and especially staying with her), we ate at Cancun (our favorite Mexican restaurant ever), watched the office, and just chatted. :)

Then today, I went to Detroit to find a little place for Mark and I to live. I felt a bit overwhelmed (to say the least), but I just had to get out there and find something (like I said classes are starting soon!). My lovely husband helped make a map and chart of the apartments that we had looked at on-line. Learned an important lesson today (well lots of important lessons), things on the Internet are not always as they appear (go figure right?). Well, yesterday people at orientation who were more familiar with the area helped me rule out a few right away, and then today, I ruled out several based on just driving by the neighborhood. It really broke my heart and surprised me. I have heard how Detroit is really struggling, and it sure is. I have heard the unemployment rate this January is 16% and Mark and I were reading this article (that of course I cannot find right now) but saying that the average American spends something like $37k annually on life (NOT including mortgage or rent), and the average person in Detroit spends $16k (which was the lowest ranked city in the US). So many buildings are trashed, or burned partially down, and there are so many homeless people. It breaks my heart. There is so much crime and violence, so anyway, lots of neighborhoods got crossed off the list, we just would not be safe.

Finnnnnallly found this place in Warren (parkviewtowerapartments.com), and they were great, and its about a 30 min. commute (which I finally came to terms that I will have to commute). The lady who helped me was so encouraging and sweet. ANNNND I felt safe! Okay, here is where the ridiculous begins...so Mark and I have money saved up. We have listened to Dave Ramsey, have amazing parents who have taught us to live below our means, save our money, don't buy things we cannot afford (we aren't congress) and so on. Anyway, thanks to an inheritance my grandma left me, an amazing God, living debt free, lots of frugal-ness, and saving LOTS, we have enough money for me to pay for grad school, and a still quite a nice emergency fund. But, apparently this does you no good for an apartment. I explained that Mark was leaving his job to move up here (his income qualified where he is at now), and they said we could not be qualified. I asked if we could pay a whole year up front and they said no. THEN, she suggested that I take financial aid, and we would qualify then. Ummm?!?!! Excuse me? Take out a LOAN for school that we could simply pay for? (which is totally another story for another day), but I think that it is so engraved in peoples head that they HAVE to go to college, and HAVE to take out loans, that it is sad. There are so many other ways, but anyway, I digress. So, back to this sweet apartment lady, she figured out that if we just made no indication that Mark would be leaving his job in Texas that it might work out. So, we are going to fill out the forms, pay for a whole year, get a one bedroom apartment, and pray that everything works out!

Here the apartment is - in all its glory:

Oh yeah! And cool thing about the apartment is that you can paint the walls!

And here is sweet Anna who I got to babysit Saturday night :)

Love, Brittany