Welcome to Our Home!

The long awaited photos are finally here! I've posted a select few from each part of the apartment. You can view more in my Facebook photo album.

Please follow me for the royal tour....

This is the view when walking in.

Our office. Standing at the door, looking to the right.

Standing at the door, looking left.




Looking at the dining room from the living room.

Looking into the kitchen. It looks small, but there's lots of cabinet space!

Another view of the kitchen



Bathroom



 

A view of our bedroom from the door. It's a little bare, but it's a work in progress.

View of bedroom from the bed.

My favorite part of the bedroom: TWO CLOSETS!!

Looking out our sliding glass door/window in the living room.

Our view from the balcony...pretty nice, huh?

Looking into the apartment from the balcony.

 

Please Excuse my Absence...

...but there has just not been much to report. I still haven't heard about the job yet. I did e-mail the HR woman (my main contact) and all she said was that they are still conducting testing and interviewing and haven't made a decision yet. I've got no idea how much longer I can expect to wait though...sad news!

We have been connecting with some more people here, which is definitely worth reporting. A couple weeks ago we attended a gathering for newlywed couples. It was really fun! We weren't even the newest married couple either...score! We played the newlywed game and heard from two couples who have been married about 4.5 years and one who's been married 6.5. It was really fun and a great way to meet some new people and have conversations with folks we've just met once. We even met one couple, Andrew and Becky (they have been married 6.5 years), who invited us over last Thursday for a homemade dinner and Settlers. Yes, we finally got to play Settlers of Catan!! Oh and even better news...I won for the first time on my own!!! Woot woot! :o)


We even got to play with the old board!

We have finally got the apartment looking pretty good and have hung up most of the things we've wanted to. We even somehow managed to store the things we didn't think would fit anywhere! I took some photos today, so look forward to those in the next few days.

For those who feel so inclined, if you could continue to pray that I will get a job (specifically the one I have interviewed twice for, at JFP) we would really appreciate that. Bills are adding up and it's getting pretty tough with just Erik's 20-hour-a-week graduate assistantship for income. And please also pray for us as we are still transitioning with living in Florida, away from all our friends and family, and with Erik being a student again. Thank you all, and I would love to hear some updates from some of you! If any of you have blogs I don't know about, post it in the comments section...I would love to read them!

Happy Birthday to me!!!

Nope, I am not another year older. But today is my birthday...my spiritual birthday. Today marks the day in 2006 when I was born again.

Four years ago today, I laid my life down for Jesus Christ and accepted him as my Savior.
Four years ago today, my heart was captured by a loving and wonderful King.
Four years ago today - at about this time - I was heading to my first "large group."
Four years ago today, I decided to stop drinking until I turned 21.
Four years ago today, I made one of the best decisions I have ever made.
Four years ago today, I completely changed my life, and it hasn't been the same since!

Katie and I got saved on the same day! This is us our sophomore year at ISU, the day after.

And here we are almost four years later, celebrating my actual birthday.

I am so thankful and feel very blessed to be able to share such a special day with my best friend! We've had quite the journey full of lots of ups and downs, but God has really brought us through. We became friends as non-believers and God managed to save us on the exact same day. We've been in each other's weddings, wiped each other's tears, laughed for hours, and have had so many wonderful times. I love my best friend, and I love our wonderful Lord!!

Although He has taken me a long ways in four years, I know I have so much more growth to do and so much more to learn. I look forward to the next four years and so many more honoring and glorifying God. Praise the Lord for His loving mercy and grace, and praise Him for awesome best friends like Katie!

A Photographic "Weekend Update"

Happy Labor Day, everyone!! I got to spend the day with my hubby who would normally be working and at school most of the day and night, so I'd say it was a good day. =) We had a good weekend too. First, I want to start off with a few pictures from last weekend, thanks to our friend Mick Haupt, via Facebook.

A really cool shot of Orlando at dusk. Taken by Mick Haupt.

Tears for Fears! Taken by Mick Haupt.

Taken by Mick Haupt.

This Saturday, we had the pleasure of getting to see Anberlin (one of our favorite bands) do a FREE acoustic set at this cool CD store in Orlando. Erik went the night before to see a band he likes. This could become a favorite place of ours!

Stephen Christian, lead singer of Anberlin, looking right at me!!

He really is amazing.

Erik and me after the show.

They played about six songs, but because they are from Orlando and love us so much, they decided to do something special and play a song from each CD they have out, including an old EP. It was awesome and made me love them even more! We were also the first crowd they ever played one of their new songs for. We've got it on video. =) They stayed after to do signings and kept saying that they wanted to meet everyone, but the wait was long and we had adult-like things to do.

I've been working on some things for H2O this weekend. I am helping one of the pastors create discipleship studies. The studies are already written, I am just helping with the design. It's been fun, but VERY time-consuming.
Saturday night, we went over to a new friend's house for a wine party. She has been fasting from alcohol for about six months and decided to break her fast with a big celebration. She has been around H2O for a long time and works at the GCM office, so she knows a lot of people. There were quite a few there, including a lot we don't know, so that was fun. There were even a few guys who were on staff at Illini Life (Chris Ridgeway and Mitch Jackson, for those who may know them) so we had fun talking about our friends from back home. Angie made a huge spread of delicious appetizers and desserts and you can tell she spent all day and stayed up late the night before preparing. Everything was amazing! There were tons of bottles of wine there, as everyone was supposed to bring one. We had a lot of fun and got to try some new wines!

We had a great weekend, thanks for reading about it! My testing at Campus Crusade for Christ is tomorrow, so please pray that goes well! If I impress them, I will get an interview on Friday. I'll keep you updated!

Us at the party, compliments of Angie's photos on Facebook.

A New Perspective

Well I have some good news today! This week has been much better than last...but let's start this post with the weekend I ended the last post with. The Tears for Fears concert was really fun. We had a great time with our new friends and the band really rocked! We got stuck behind a bunch of people who were standing and we couldn't see the band very well, but we were able to push our way through for a good portion of it. They were just as good as 25 years ago, and I know a good portion of their songs. They even did my favorite, "Woman in Chains." It has a guest female vocalist and I really didn't think they would perform it, but they did it as their first encore song. It was amazing!! Unfortunately, I forgot to put the battery (which I charged specifically for this event) in my camera, so I have no photos. =(

In the beginning of the week I was feeling very discouraged and kind of defeated. I called the Applebee's in Orlando on Tuesday and let's just say, no good news. Needless to say, that really got me down. I hit the internet for some hardcore job hunting and ended up applying to four jobs. Lucky for me, only one allowed a cover letter. I was planning to spend some time at the pool, but the time whizzed by me as I searched and searched for jobs. As the hours ticked away, I started to feel a cool sense of relief. It was almost like God was whispering to me to just be calm and stop worrying...He gifted me with a new perspective, if you will.

Then, late in the afternoon I received a phone call from a woman with Human Resources at Campus Crusade for Christ in regards to the position I have been on the edge of my seat about (read my last post for details). She asked if I had time for an interview and I spent about 40 minutes chatting with her. It went really well! Now it's kind of confusing, but let me try my best to explain. The woman who is doing the hiring in the department had this HR person go ahead and do the first phone interview with me, and if that went well I was to go in for some testing. They will be measuring my skills with Microsoft Word and Publisher, which are the programs I will be primarily be using to complete the job functions. The woman I spoke with wanted me to e-mail her a few samples of my work, which she would forward on to the other woman. Less than an hour later, I got an e-mail asking me to come in for testing on Tuesday, September 7!! If the testing goes well, they will let me know right after and I will return next Friday for an interview with this HR lady and one other HR person. If that interview goes well, I will stick around for a second interview with the woman in charge of hiring for the Jesus Film Project.

It's not like I feel as though I have this in the bag, but I am feeling pretty confident about it. I really, really want this job, and I know I would do well in it. Not only would I use the skills I spent four years (and thousands of dollars) cultivating and learning, but this job would put me in a faith-based setting and allow me to grow in my spirituality. As I told the woman interviewing me on the phone, I never could have imagined such a wonderful opportunity. Please pray that I do not become too complacent or overly confident. Pray that if this is in God's plan, He would give me the words and wisdom to achieve this goal. I am going to go over both programs and look over some interviewing techniques so I can be as prepared as possible.

Have a blessed weekend, everyone!