One Year of Home Ownership!

One year ago today…

We did not sleep very well the night before due to excitement

We woke up early to… well…. Wait for the afternoon closing

We went to our “almost ours” house to do one last walk through, on the way due to the large snowstorm went off the road and had to push out

We got together the list of things we needed at the house right away… vacuum, cleaning supplies, lamps, stereo, and the list went on…

We got a call that our closing was moved up an hour… quick get over there to sign the papers!

We signed our names to many times to count… smiled and giggled a lot… and when all was said and done, handed over keys to our new house!

Thinking back on that day makes my smile! On our way from the closing to the house I remember crying in sheer joy! That night we did not let any time go wasted and started tearing down curtains, cleaning, painting, and of course grilling with our friends and having our first meal in our home!

SO much has changed in a year; looking back it is hard to believe it is the same house! I still look around and am so grateful for how God blessed us with a great house. This past year we have made so many memories it is hard to believe how much life we have already lived there!

So for some top highlights:

Hosting every holiday over the year…. Yes, every one!
Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve and Day

The dog running circles around the house chasing Phil…

Lots and Lots of laughter with Friends and family

Game nights…. Poker… Pictionary… Things…

Many crazy construction projects leaving us completely exhausted thankful for a great bed to fall into

Work and youth group parties on the lawn

Dancing in the living room to loud music, not worrying about neighbors be disturbed like in an apartment (Phil still thinks it's to loud... oh well!)

Summer with great friends living in the basement

A GARAGE!!! (Yes, I have made it to FEBRUARY without having to scrape my car… love it!)

My mom staying with us for a week helping getting the house “move-in” ready

A DOG!!

A beautiful new kitchen

Mowing our own lawn for the first time

Many bonfires with friends in our backyard

My sister moving into our newly finished basement apartment

… and many many more

Two a Day.... And Phil Through a wall….

Well this past week and a half I have been working out two times a day and man, am I tired! I am trying really hard to get in better shape and also lose weight before I start training for the marathon. I have been eating right and working super hard but am still was not seeing the results I would like to. Thankfully since Phil and I have both been taking this class at our gym we have really gotten the help we needed. Megan, one of the trainers (Yes Megan, you are now officially in the blog!) has really helped me look at things I can change to hopefully kick start my body! She has really gone over and above what she needs to do and I am so thankful for that!

As a result of this week I was super encouraged by some weight loss and just knowing I can handle working this hard and getting really good eating habits in place! I now have the motivation to do it all over again next week!

Even though I have been more tired, it feels great to be using my body like this. Though I maybe do not want to admit it, when I wake up early to go and run, the rest of my day is great. I have more energy, I am more awake and I love knowing when I get to work I have already run four miles or so, it really is a great sense of accomplishment.

I am very excited for this weekend to relax and enjoy some down time. This morning when I got to work there was an email waiting for me from Phil asking if I wanted to go on date with him tonight. (See, who said romance once you’re married is dead? It’s sure not dead here… Good job Phil!) So he is taking me to Olive Garden and to see the Movie Valentines Day! I am really excited to have a good evening and spend some quality time with Phil!

Now, for the story you have all been waiting for….

During our class a few nights ago our trainer had us all doing different stations and rotating through them. The first one was either doing push-ups OR *if you could* doing a handstand against the wall. Well, I started at this station and knew I could do the handstand, so did and was fine. (well, except for all the blood from my entire body draining into my head…. But that is a minor detail, right?) So Phil is at this station next and decides that he wants to do a handstand too… So Megan says, don’t worry the wall will catch you, so Phil really goes for it. However he started way to far back from the wall and with a bit to much speed and literally crashes into the wall and breaks through the drywall! Needless to say we stopped doing handstands after that…. Way to go Phil!

Here is the great evidence of the damages!

Learning “Joy”

Over the past weeks and months I have been really challenged to re-think the way I live life. Honestly, I can struggle to not play the pity my card when things don’t go my way or even just having a good attitude in all things. For example, living in Minnesota has its challenges! I recently heard a weather man talking about why Minnesota has such extreme weather. We are right in the middle of the equator and the north poll, so we get the worst and best of both climates. I am a freeze baby anyway so winter can tend to be more miserable for me. In the past I have always let the weather dictate my mood… sunny days are good, but on the cold cloudy days I can tend to be a grouch.

After we went to Cancun over Christmas this year I was really dreading coming back to the cold, but started thinking about my attitude. I realized that by allowing myself to be crabby about the cold was wasting time and not living a life of joy that I want to live. Though the cold is still cold, I am learning to realize this is where I live right now, and choosing to love the weather for all its ups and downs makes me a much happier person.

Though this example is simplistic, I have been trying to apply this to my whole life. Often we wish things away and only see the grass on the other side. I just don’t want to live my life this way. I want to be in the moment, living and enjoying all that God has for me now, not wishing for things to be different. I am defiantly still learning, and know I will never stop learning contentment and joy, but am so thankful for the changes I have already made.

I would love to hear how you choose joy in life…. Leave a comment!

And now for the change of subjects: Bathroom Update (OK, for those of you who watch SNL, when I say Bathroom Update, I hear the music playing from the Weekend Update….)

Yesterday we were very pleasantly surprised that our state tax refund had already been put into our account! Go Phil for doing our taxes well and right away.. did you know he is the best?! SO, we decided we wanted to get the vanity ordered for the bathroom first since that is the only thing we need to order and we wanted to make sure we have it when we need it. I just got a notice saying it has shipped and is scheduled to arrive on MONDAY!! Very exciting for us…. Now we wait for our federal tax return…. Hopefully within the next three weeks. Then the party begins…… or the mess….. ok one or the other!

Feed my Starving Children

On Monday night our small group packed meals for Feed My Starving Children. If you have never heard about this organization, you should check their web site out here. But for a quick re-cap what they do is pack and send these food packs to children all around the world who are starving. The packs consist of Chicken and vitamin formula, rice, vegetables, and soy. These four ingredients give the children the nutrition to grow and become healthy again.
Eagle Brook is doing a project this month where as a church we are packing over 3 million meals to send to places like Haiti where poverty is rampant, especially after the earthquake. It was a blast to do, but also really cool to know the time we were spending packing meals was going to directly affect a child’s life. Over the course of the night, we packed enough meals to feed 94 children for a year, unbelievable!

On another note, Phil and I are both so grateful for our small group! Since we got married fairly young we have been the only married couple for a long time and have really desired to be with others who are in the same stage of life we are. We have found such great friendships through our small group and love having other married couples to hang out with.

Hope you all are enjoying the halfway point of the week! Only two days until the weekend!

Coming soon…. The story of Phil falling through a wall… yes, there will be pictures!

Have I told you about my Husband?

Ever since Phil and I got married two and a half years ago, (I honestly cannot believe that much time has passed) Phil has continually astounded me with how loving and self-less he is. Everyday I am challenged by him to care more and to put my own desires away.

The last week or so he has, on a few different occasions, made me snuggle up on the couch while he cleans the kitchen and makes us dinner. Or I complain about my phone, so he offers to switch with me, or he knowing the house needs to be cleaned does not hesitate in helping, but even more does the things he knows I hate, like vacuuming or cleaning the stove.

I have asked him why he is so kind, he always responds the same, “Because I love you.” It makes me melt to hear him say that. I am challenged by him to love more, to think about his needs above my own, because I love him and want to serve him in the same way. For Phil, it seems almost second nature for him to be so selfless, for me it is another story!

These past few months have been a challenge for Phil, I know he has been frustrated about jobs and wanting to take care of me the best he can. But even through these hard times I see him becoming more and more like Christ. I respect him so much for how hard he has worked even in jobs he does not enjoy, and still comes home willing to serve me.

Over this last weekend we were both serving at Church, and I was in a conversation where someone asked our head pastor (Bob Merrit) what he would have changed or done differently as a twenty-five year old. After thinking about it, he said no matter what, to learn to love his wife better, to not let the spark die, to serve each other. He then said, “You guys, I am living the dream, I am married to my best friend celebrating twenty-five years of marriage because of the hard work we put in back then.” This is what I want to do, this is what Phil is doing.

So have I told you about my husband? He is amazing, I am so thankful for him! I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

It must GO!

Over the weekend I accidentally dropped a large bobby pin down our bathroom sink. It already drains very slow do to very old rusty pipes so I thought we better get it out! I told Phil about this so on Sunday he started to try and get it out. :) After trying for a while from the top, we realized we would have to go from under the sink and get it out of the trap. (Aren’t you impressed I know what it is called?! Ok, well I may have just called Phil to find out the name…) So Phil got out his pipe wrench and other tools and went to work. After he got all the pipes apart we found the bobby pin, along with a nasty amount of hair and other grossness clogging our sink.
Thinking the problem was fixed he started putting the pieces back together and found that due to rustiness and old pipes they had actually just broken off, so there was no way to reconnect them. After talking about if we even wanted to spend the time, energy, and money to fix it, we decided that a run to Home Depot was worth it. We got the parts and headed home to find that the pipes are not the right size and that there is not way to fix it without spending more money than we want to on a bathroom we are tearing out in a month!

So long story short, good thing the bathroom will soon be no more! Oh yeah, and if you are at our house over the next month, sorry, we have no bathroom sink!

Happy Monday!

Do you know how Big HE is?

Some days I am completely astounded by how HUGE our God is. For example:


I was running on the treadmill a few months ago at our gym. I had just gotten over bronchitis and a major cold so I had not been running for at least a week, but was determined that I would get a good run in anyway. For those of you who have ever been a runner, you know how quickly you lose your endurance with running, just missing a few runs can be bad, but missing a week for me is excruciating, on top of still being slightly sick!


So I got on the treadmill and decided that I was going to let the next hour be my time with God. As I started running my shins started to pound with pain. Every stride I took was almost unbearable pain. Still determined to get a good run in, I just started to pray that God would take the pain away. I kept on running and about a tenth of a mile later I was still is pain and thinking that I might not even make it to half a mile. So I started praying again, I almost laugh at saying this, but I just told God, ok this is the deal, I am training so that I can help children in Africa, I need a good run and I know Satan does not want me to do this, so God, please make the pain go away. I was even laughing at myself as I prayed but knew that if God wanted to he could make the pain go away. A little while later it dawned on me that my legs no longer hurt, that in fact the pain was totally gone. How cool is that?!

As I kept on running every time I would get tired and want to quite I just kept on praying that God would give me the strength to continue and make my run a time of worship. Well, because I am totally human and still getting over being sick about halfway through my run I was exhausted! So I started praying again, Lord please let me have the endurance so that I can run… I was literally about to hit the stop button, I think my hand was reaching when I sent out another desperate prayer God please give me the strength to continue! Just as I was reaching someone walked in the door of the gym that caught my attention. As I looked up, I realized that he was wearing this:

I was completely astounded. Here is was in my own little world running and praying and God did not only hear my prayer but answered by having someone else, who I have never meet come into the gym at the exact time I needed it and run RIGHT behind me!

The rest of the run hurt, it was hard, but every time I looked up I saw someone else who was doing this too, someone who God sent at that exact moment to give me the encouragement I needed to keep going!

Has your heart been broken?

Have you ever had an experience where your heart has been broken? I do not mean a broken heart from a relationship gone bad, though that hurts also. I mean a broken heart over the things God’s heart breaks for?

When I was thirteen I boarded a plane headed for Rio De Janeiro Brazil where my life was changed forever. Though this trip was over eleven years ago I find that I am still processing what that experience did to my heart. I distinctly remember the moments I sat on the orphanage floor with a child who was dying of AIDS. I remember the smell of the dump where people lived in literally cardboard houses and searched the dump all day for anything they could sell to buy food. I remember walking down the street seeing the child with the overextended stomach, assuming the child was overweight, but fining out later that once starvation takes over your body creates gas and literally blows up your body. I remember weeping over what I saw; to this day I cannot think about these things without being overcome with emotion.

When I came home, nothing was the same. My life was changed forever. Since this time I have known that I have a passion and a longing to do something about these children. I remember holding the children knowing that someday I want to adopt a child and give them a different life.

This past fall I was sitting next to my husband in a leadership training where the speaker showed pictures of a missions trip he had just gotten back from. He talked about the people and what he saw and experienced. As soon as he started talking tears ran down my face as I was once again reminded of my own broken heart for things like this. On the way home, I sobbed over my broken heart for these things. But also felt helpless. I want to do something, but I do not feel called to be a missionary in Africa, so what is this calling?

A month later a co-worker came to me and asked me if I was planning on running a marathon this year. I said yes, this was the year to be crazy… She then told me about what World Vision is doing. (see this post for more info) THIS WAS IT! I was so excited I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I have come to realize that God has been preparing me for this, to do something in my own community alongside my friends and family to make a difference for the child who lives in the dump, the baby with AIDS in the orphanage, the child dying of starvation on the street. I run for them. I run so that others can be exposed to these things and have their heart broken too.

These memories may never go away, in fact I never want them to. I want to have a heart that beats for what Christ’s heart beats for, that loves what Christ loves, and that cares for those who do not have a voice and be their voice. I may not have the money to change the world, the ability to change countries, but I do have two legs… and so I RUN.

Micah 6:8
But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.

Long Weekends…. My Favorite!

Both Phil and I had an amazing Valentines weekend topped off with having Monday off as well. As Phil says, “Thank you Presidents!” We really packed in the fun, so for a re-cap…

Friday night we got together with some great friends for dinner and bowling!
Saturday we had another Birthday Party for our good friends, Jen Knight and Alex Whitworth. We ate yummy nachos and watched the Olympics. (By the way, have I mentioned that I am in AWE of these athletes!?? Ok, well I am!)

Sunday for Valentines Day we celebrated Phil and Katie style and went shopping for bathroom stuff. Though most people would not think this is a great way to celebrate, this could not have been better for us. We LOVE to work together and are both super excited for this next project. While we were at Lowes, one of the employees cornered us as we were walking out of the store and asked if I was forcing Phil to do things for me since it was Valentines Day… he said that that was a great way for me to get things done… oh so strange! Here is a sneak peak at a few of the things we picked out!

Monday we enjoyed a relaxing day of doing laundry, shoveling snow and going to a World Vision exhibit that Eagle Brook is doing, check it out here if you want more info, I would highly suggest you go if you can!

The craziness begins again….

After taking a break from house remodeling we have gotten the itch (ok, and the funding) to start yet another project…. Drum roll please……

This time we are going to completely tear out our bathroom, move walls, plumbing, and electrical to make our dream bathroom! Currently the bathroom has a lovely shade of PINK tiles, pinkish floor and a vanity that is way to low! Because the previous owner was a smoker all our grout is black, despite my determination to make it white again, it remains a nasty color! We have one outlet that is on the opposite wall from the vanity, making curling irons and hair dryers an interesting task of not tripping over cords. OH, and did I mention the strangest “closet”? IT ALL MUST GO!

As we thought about it, we want to completely tear everything down to the studs. We know at some point there was water damage, and want to make sure we are repairing anything that might be under our lovely walls. Both Phil and I have been talking non-stop about how we are going to do this! Thankfully we do have another bathroom in the basement, but are still hoping to get it done as soon as possible so that the basement does not become our permanent bathroom!

Currently we are in the planning stages. We both decided that we want to have everything picked out and ready to go before we tear it out so that the project can take as little time as possible! We are going shopping to pick out tile, tub, sink, vanity, faucets, and toilet this weekend (Maybe on Valentines Day! Is there something wrong with me if I would rather do that then go out to dinner?) We will actually start the demo in about a month!

Stay tuned for updates and dust!

A start of a new era...

Despite all the times I have thought, I should blog about this, or this is too funny not to share on our blog I have yet to post a single word of the going-on’s of our life in 2010… However in my new endeavor to keep our friends and family more updated in life I am going to try to do better!

January started out calm, which was such a nice break from the fast pace we were going in December! Though our rest did not last long! We both started grad school again, small group started, and the biggest commitment of all… LGN! But before I explain what that is you need a little back story!

Back in October I heard about a running opportunity through World Vision. Basically they started a “running team” that runs for world vision to raise awareness and money for their cause. It is an awesome organization that does so much for children and communities in third world countries. I will talk more about that in future blogs though…. After praying about it and feeling a great call to use my love for running for the greater good, I along with two other employees from Northwestern started a team. How this all evolved is another long story for another time, but God’s hand and leading had been amazing… more to come soon!

SO, after having made the commitment to run a few different races, including a Marathon (yup, that’s 26.2 miles…) I knew I needed to make changes in my life so that I could not only run but have a healthier life as a result! Phil also decided that he would train and run. We joined a gym last may and since we have been there kept on hearing about a class they offer called “Look Good Naked Boot Camp.” After talking to the trainers about the class Phil and I decided that this would be an awesome way to get in amazing shape, lose weight and overall be healthier, especially with starting running we both knew we needed to do something to prepare other than just running.

The class is crazy! The first week Phil and I almost literally could not walk! We go Monday through Thursday and every other Saturday for an hour of the craziest workout possible. We do cardio, strength training, yoga, kick boxing, boxing, biking…. Ok well basically any exercise ever invented we do. The trainers help us not only get a great workout but help us if tracking of our eating and making sure we are breaking old habits and creating new, healthier ones! After only three weeks we both are seeing dramatic results in our bodies and our overall health.

Stay tuned for more…..