Wednesday, July 24, 2013

did you hear the crickets?

every time you clicked on this forgotten blog of mine? i did, every time i thought about writing some kind of update on our life as of late. i still hear those crickets, but im going to try my best to fill you in anyway.

1. we are no longer in california. (duh!). but we had a great time, and the second half of the trip was just as great as the first. it was harder to leave this time though, for some reason. i dont really know why. maybe because willow (and this new baby) are now in on the whole equation. seeing our family say goodbye to her, and her being at the age where she understands who her family is, and even on a small scale, what "goodbye" means, its harder. all of us feeling like the time was (as it always is) too short, and how much willow will have grown and how much we will have changed by the next time we see them. (but dont get me wrong. i mean, thank heavens for Skype! and jet planes!)
and then there is this whole other side. after being away for awhile, we are ready to get back to our home in ireland. back to our routines and closets. and of course, we miss the people here too! and the people here miss us! (well, hopefully. right? ...please?)
its all just so weird. like being split in two! anyway, i digress. we are home now, which brings me to number two.

2. we arrived back in ireland on a thursday morning. wait, lets go back a little ways...
we had kinda been house hunting for the past few months, looking at the listings for fun and also because our lease was up since last september and we are weird and like to move house wayyy to often. oh! and also because we have another baby on the way, we thought we could use a bit more space. i mean, we could've been just fine where we were too, but we were looking to see if any options were out there, just in case. and what do you know? there was a great option, staring at us straight in the face. so we rang the number and set up a viewing. then met the landlord, who was staying at the house that night (and was also pissed drunk), then shook hands on it. it was ours! and he would save it for the next four weeks that we were in california.
so back to that thursday morning....we got here. and on friday morning started the move. WORST.IDEA.WE.HAVE.EVER.HAD. im not going to go into details, but just learn from our mistakes. dont do it.
but we are in the house now, and the dust is settling. its a great place, only two miles from our last home, so we are a bit deeper into the country. tractors driving by every couple hours, a field of cows on either side, and a beautiful sea/river view. pictures will be seen in the future, im sure of it.

3. we have hit the ground running, church-wise. its summer time, so its busy time! we had a team from charleston, south carolina (who were down-right awesome) around for a couple weeks. they did everything from painting the church offices, to helping run a week long kids camp. over 80 kids heard the gospel and were taught and listened to everyday. amazing!
and also there is just the general catching up of things and catching up with people. God is doing a cool thing in this city, and we get to meet/know some incredible people because of it. needless to say, we are blessed to be a part of His church here, even when its busy and crazy and we cant seem to keep up. God is doing something, that we know. so praise Him!

4. willow is walking! can you say finallyyyyyyyyyyy. yes, this deserves a whole numbered point! in fact, i think it deserves a whole new post. ive only waited 16 months for this day! so stay tuned.

5. im nearly 30 weeks along now, and feeling all sorts of things. from the physical (seriously, this baby will not stop moving) to the emotional (are you surprised? haha). but ill save all those updates for another post too.

now, did i miss anything?