Inspiration

One of my favorite things is to find inspirational phrases or sayings in unexpected places.  This saying was under my lemonade cap the other day and totally made my day!  When I was staying at Mimi's house in March (right around Easter), I found He is risen! in my egg carton.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it...I did try to take a picture of course, but it was fuzzy.  Now, really, doesn't that make you smile a little bit?

You've Got To Be Creative!

Braedan and I have been meaning to post pictures of our apartment for a while now.  We are still in the process of decorating it, we (I) am always moving things here or there to see if it works better in a new spot.  Our apartment it petite, so we are limited on space and have to be pretty thrifty with our funds...but I think we've been pretty creative on how things are arranged.  We are still deliberating on what pictures from our wedding/reception/honeymoon to put on the walls, but we are getting there.  So, now for your entertainment, here are some pictures of our cozy apartment from the beginning to now.

My dresser, we can actually fit 2 dressers in our room, imagine that!

B's manly dresser.

Thanks to the Pusateri grandparents, this shelf is perfect.  AND we finally have found a way to display the slate cross we got for our wedding!

When you live in a cozy apartment, this is the closest thing to a recliner that you can get.  A vintage, very comfortable rocking chair (we will re-upholster it someday) and a Target ottoman, perfect and comfy!

Our kitchen, one of my favorite areas.

A different view of the kitchen.

Our little table nook, thanks to Gramps and Grandma Battenschlag--the table fits perfectly!

I know it looks like our bed takes up our whole room, but it really doesn't!

The view you get when you first walk in the door, WELCOME!

Looking back towards the front door, don't mind our pile of shoes.

Our "office" area.

This was taken right after we got back from our honeymoon...wedding presents and luggage basically took up our entire apartment.  **Please note B's posters are still on the walls.

The windows face west, so we get pretty sunsets in the evening, if you discount the heat.

It's August and it's freaking hot!!!

Hello friends and family,
 So, it's kind of hot outside. It seems like no matter how long we run the air conditioner it's still not enough to keep the sweat off of us. To beat the heat, Miriam and I took a trip to the Coralville Reservoir to enjoy the sandy beach and nice cool water. It was a while since we were last there, our best estimate was about two years, so quite a long time, but it was nice to get back and enjoy the outdoors.
 Things have really started to pick up with my football officiating. Yesterday I officiated a scrimmage in Anamosa and I realized just how much I had yet to learn. Despite a lot of questions and missteps, the experienced refs were more than willing to give us pointers or tell us some techniques that help them. My first official game is still about three weeks away, but I'm already excited to get working and have fun!
 Miriam's eating leftover Olive Garden, thanks to a special treat from the Garrett parents (thanks mom and dad!) and we're just about to start hanging pictures up and watch football (I agreed to help hang up but we had to watch football while doing it, haha). Hopefully this week goes by fast, the weekend sure does.

It's Gone!

Well, after a long-long time of growing out my hair to donate it...it is officially cut off and on its way to being made into a wig for cancer patients who have lots their hair.  Basically, I have been growing out my hair since Braedan and I started dating.  It was a long couple of years trying to grow it out, but it is definitely worth it in the end.  A woman, somewhere, will benefit from my hair in a wig and then I got a cute haircut out of it as well.  Here are my before and after pictures :)

Please Vote for "June Skies!"

Hi everyone!  We hope this hot and humid weather is not getting the best of you.  I just keep telling myself that somewhere in January, I will be wishing for warmer weather, so we might as well enjoy it while it lasts!
So, on a whim, I entered a photo in a photography contest of Shutterfly.  Now, what would be spectacular is if I could get all of your votes for my picture titled "June Skies."  This is the picture (from our honeymoon) I entered:

So, what I need is:
1)  after 12:00 p.m. tomorrow (Monday), go to shutterfly.com,
2)  scroll down to the bottom right hand side of the page and clicks on the Summer Freedom Photo Contest. Here's a link to the picture! Awesome picture
3)  please click on the box and read the directions on how to vote for my picture.  My picture is titled "June Skies" and the picture with the most votes wins...so please vote!  
 Thank you!!!

One month

 Miriam and I have been married about a month now and the first thing I think of is where has the time gone? It seems like not long ago I was driving down I-380 through one nasty thunderstorm on my way to the rehearsal dinner to kick off the festivities. The past month has been a blur of activity. A day doesn't go by when we don't work on our apartment in some way, putting pictures up, rearranging furniture, taking down my posters :P But it's been so exciting at the same time.
  Thank you to everybody for making our first month of marriage absolutely amazing! We hope every month in the future is just as good, if not better :)

Blackberries in July

What a great couple of days we've had!  We spent the weekend with my family and then celebrated my birthday today with them also.  It was so much fun to see them multiple times in a row!  Braedan and I feel so blessed with our families!
My home church is in the process of calling a new pastor to lead the congregation, so this is an exciting time for the congregation.   On Sunday, we had a special congregational meeting about calling the new pastor and everything is starting to move forward after many months of having an interim pastor.  Braedan and I are also going to start the process of "church shopping" in the area.  Most of the weekends for us are spent out of town, so we haven't started the process yet...but we are anxious to start.  It is important to us find a church together.

Yesterday after church while the rest of the family was having their afternoon siestas, my dad, Taffy and I went to a friend's farm (in fact, we lived at this farm at one time) to pick blackberries.  Well, my dad went to pick blackberries and I went to take pictures and Taffy went, well, to snoop around like a Golden Retriever should :)  Here are some of the pictures I took from our little adventure.  If you didn't know already, I really enjoy photography--especially black and white pictures.  I see so much beauty in the beautiful world God has given us.  These are only a few of the pictures I took.  I took about a gazillion pictures and got about a million mosquito bites in the process...but it was worth it.