Tennessee Mountains= Beautiful

21 Days

This is the 20 ft. trailer that was graciously loaned to us for hauling our possessions up north. This is more room than many people in countries around the world have to live in. Puts a different perspective on things when you think like that. We are very grateful for it! Corner of our bedroom.

Clothes. Clothes. Clothes. We most assuredly have too many clothes.

Approximately 3 weeks from now we begin our next adventure in life! Today, I am excited as all git-out about moving across our beautiful country to another land. A place where we will start a new life, make new friends (and of course keep the dear friends we have now!), live in a new place, learn new territories, and see God work in an amazing way.

I was reminded today by a sweet neighbor lady that our God is a great and powerful God who can and WILL do anything! He has the best in store for us and all we need do is ask! She told me some great stories about how she has seen the Lord work in her life, miraculous works, amazing and impossible things. But not for God. While we may not hold to the same beliefs or doctrine, this dear lady and I both believe in the power of God. I believe the Lord sent her to encourage me today, to see His faithfulness in every area of my life. I hope that you will see His love and encouragement this week as well!

The Wilderness Waterpark in Sevierville, TN

Super fun!!!

Girls Night Out Pedicure

Molly, Heidi, Brittany, and Abbie and I spent a Saturday shopping, tanning, and getting amazing pedicures! So much fun to have a girls' night out!

Gun Rnage with Family

While my amazing sisters and sister-in-law were down visiting, we added my brother Noah to our group and went to the shooting range to try out our new gun. Although I freaked out at first because all of the shooting was overwhelming and REALLY loud (kind of embarrasing, yes), I got past that and ended up shooting multiple rounds with our new .38 Ruger. Love it! I must say, we are all pretty good shots and the night ended up being alot of fun.

Bass Pro Shop, Guns, and Thoughts

Mike and I love spending time with our youngins'. :) Our kids are so much fun to be around (for us anyway...) and we really love just taking an afternoon or evening and going to the park, walking around the mall, or heading over to the Bass Pro Shop! Our kids love that place!
They have awesome mounted animals- it's almost like walking through a zoo...except, all the animals are dead. Ha ha! Caleb loves to see the moose and turkeys and deer. And they have this huge tank full of really big fish that Abbie will stare at for a loooooong time. Great place! Sam is happy as a lark in the cart in this picture... it's one of the few times he's actually IN the cart because he mostly wants mommy to hold him all the time!

Hmmmm, out of order photos- me and Mike on the way to church.

Me with my new hair-do!

Back to Bass Pro.... Mike was lovin' the pontoon boats!

Sam playing with a turkey while we wait for Daddy, who was looking at guns....There's a story behind that!

"Look at me Mom! I can see the whole first floor of Bass Pro!" He was like a monkey trying to climb up the wire!

Caleb took a picture of Abs and me. :)

Self-portrait! Nice smile son!

Caleb and Sam all ready for church- I had to take a picture! Look at the difference in their eye color. Got my blue-eyed boy and my brown-eyed boy! They are both so precious and handsome!

These two little monkeys found some balloons in a drawer and were walking around the house like this. They crack me up!

The Gun Story:

Last week I had a garage sale. This guy that came to the sale wanted to buy an item but wanted to come back later that evening to buy it. Fine. He never shows. Whatever.

The next morning, we hear this pounding on our door at 8am. Its a Saturday, and while not everyone has the luxery of sleeping in on Saturday, we do. We were sleeping. Mike jumps out of bed and scrambles to get to the door. When he walks out of our room he sees the yardsale guy standing in our livingroom!!! We DO lock our doors at night (and I have them locked during the day when Im home alone with the kids) so after figuring out that we weren't in immediate danger and kicking the guy out, Mike asks Caleb if he let the guy in. He did. Looooong talk later, Caleb understands that we dont open doors EVER to strangers. And Mike says, "We are buying a gun today!" While we've talked about it for years, there has always been something more important to buy and we've just never done it. Well, Im proud to say we now own a gun. And I'm a pretty good shot, just to warn you! ;)

Thoughts:

So, these last few weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions for me. Leaving our beautiful state where everything is blooming and changing, and life is starting afresh once again is really hard! Just being honest! I love the mountains, the sunrises here, the fact that it's 60 degrees in the morning when I go running with my friend, the green grass all year round, and most of all I love how close we are to Knoxville! Its a bustling city full of life and there are always things to do! We live so close to everything so its easy to get around. And I also feel comfortable here because I know this place.

All of these things are great. They are fabulous really. I'll admit, I've been spoiled! But God has something greater for us in Minnesota! It has taken me awhile to come to this conclusion- like, five years. But God has done an amazing work in my heart recently, and I am truly excited to see what He has in store for us. I think its going to be hard to beat what He's given us here, but God is ABLE to do anything! So I think that life in Minnesota is going to be awesome. Mostly because I will have my amazing husband there, and my three sweet children.

Have a blessed day!

A taste of Spring