photoless life these days

So, we have had some huge things happen in the past couple weeks, but I just have not been taking pictures of any of them! Shame on me...

Well, we moved out of Gulf drive. Our loving friends, PD and Kelli, proved their faithfulness to us by helping us clean our apartment once everything was taken by the moving truck. I'm talking, helped me clean the oven, refrigerator, bathroom, take trash to the dumpster - the real nitty-gritty. Then they let us spend the night with them and fed us breakfast as we left! It was sad to say goodbye, of course.

David and I drove from St. Louis to Manchester, TN where I bought a dining room suite off craigslist. Random, but well priced! Then we drove to Birmingham and were reunited with our girls! The Ely's get some serious grandparent awards for loving on our girls for a whole week! The girls had a great time and hardly missed us at all. Payton and Jenny came by to say hello and help us pack up some more furniture that the Ely's gave us (thank you!). Then we drove to Gadsden, spent the night with my parents and got even more furniture that my parents were giving us! Our parents really got us set up for our new house.

After Gadsden we drove to Augusta, spent the night at some members of the church's lake house. David and I got up early the next morning, closed on our house, drove to the house and waiting for us were the deacons ready to unload the uhaul of our parents furniture! The youth came by to help too. After everything was unloaded we took the youth to Zaxby's for a thank you lunch. The next morning our moving van arrived and the movers spent about 4 hours unloading the truck.

Each night those first few nights a member of the church would bring us supper! Other members sent their high schoolers to babysit our girls while I unpacked boxes. Then the church had a pounding for us. Wow! That is where they all gave us a pound of some household need. We got lots of pantry items (flour, sugar, pasta, can goods) and household needs (batteries, hand soap, dish soap, laundry detergent, dishwasher fluid), games for the girls, diapers, wipes, all sorts!! It was amazing and so so so kind! After it was over, David walked into our pantry and said, "This is Koinonia" (which means fellowship.)

Then we had a few days of downtime for the girls and I to simply unpack and get settled while David started his job! Those were rough emotional days for Caroline and me. Elizabeth Joy was happy as could be! When David went to work, it finally hit Caroline and me that all our friends were far away. Caroline would say things like, "Mommy, can we sell this house to someone else and go home?" or randomly and frequently say "I miss Lucy", "Why can't Nathan come over?" "Where is Moriah?" Ah, it was so sad.

After a fun night at bible study and then out with some girls at the church which lifted me up big time, then finally my mom came to the rescue! She came to help us get settled, which she did in a big big way, but she was also an emotional rescue for Caroline and me. She left on Tuesday and we've had play dates the two days since she has been gone :-) So emotionally we're looking up!

We're so excited to be here at this church. We feel so confirmed that this is where God has called us to be. I look forward to getting to know the people of the church even more!