New York

Riding in on the train. We told Ella she is one lucky girl. She has had more life experiences in her short little life than many adults!

She really enjoyed the carousel in Central Park. If you ask her about it she gets very animated, using her hands, saying "and the horses went up and down, and up and down, and UP AND DOWN!"

She also enjoyed the toddler playground area. They had a rolling slide that she thought was particularly fantastic. I failed to snap a shot of that one, much to her dismay.

She is pretty lucky to have such a great daddy!



No one on the East Coast understands OU football

This past weekend we were so lucky to be able to travel to New York City to visit some of our friends from college. It was fun because we were watching the OU game together. Our friend Mitch thought it would be fun to have a "No one on the east coast understands...OU watch party" and our friend Mindy was gracious enough to host it at her apartment. It was special because we hadn't seen each other in probably six years! I feel very old saying that I have good friends that I haven't seen in six years.
It was so wonderful to catch up where we left off and to see how different and at the same time very much the same we all were. We obviously have very different views of the world since we left our small private liberal arts bubble to see the world. And yet, deep down we are still the same people. That is comforting to me. It was nice to have a taste of home when we are so far away! I hope to get to cultivate these relationships more while we are here!

Water Dog

Max, our Yellow Lab, loves the water. He is also the kind of dog that will do aything to please his owners. We feel pretty sorry for our dogs right now because we moved from a single family house in Kansas with a big backyard to the first floor of a multi family home with a sliver of a backyard that is not fenced. We are pretty lucky because we have this awesome park that is not far away with a lake that you can hike around. We did learn that hiking with a three year old, a large Lab and a fairly naughty little Cavalier is quite a lot of work. We were all ready for a break at one point so we stopped and let Max practice his retrieving. He is acutally very good and loves to do it!

After every good dip in the water it is really fun to shake and get everyone within a ten foot radius wet. I think he does it on purpose.

This is Max on the top of the huge hill that looks out over New Haven. If you notice, there is a small strip of blue in between the sky and the trees behind him. That would be the ocean. Yup, we are that close!

And here is Stanley walking Ella in the trees.

He likes to run away, so he rarely gets to be off leash, even when there aren't other dogs around. Ella is getting to the point where she really loves "helping" to walk Stanley. She is pretty good at it most of the time, except when she has a three year old moment and gets distracted, drops the leash and Stanley runs away anyways. She has also started calling him Stan which is really funny to me for some reason.

All the Pretty Little Horses

The fabulous thing about living in Connecticut is that there are so many fun things for kids to do. There is this little farm close by that has pony rides on Wednesday afternoons for kids. Ella and I went with one of the playgroups that we met. She LOVED it. She has always loved animals and she really enjoyed being able to ride and feed the horses. Sorry that the pictures aren't great. It's kind of hard to get good pictures when you are trying to make sure your three year old isn't falling off of a horse!

As always, Ella demonstrated her impeccable fashion sense. Everyone loved her pink boots! It's crazy to think that last Wednesday she was wearing a sleeveless dress and this week we are wearing sweatshirts.

This girl was pretty upset when we had to leave the horses. Maybe someday we can have a horse that she can take care of and ride!

The Long and Winding Road

I promise, we really did move to Connecticut. Here's a little pictorial diary of our journey from the Midwest to New England.

This is what you do when you have packed most of your belongings and sent them ahead of you. You pack your car with everything left that will fit inside and on the top! It was so sticky and humid outside that my camera lens kept fogging up.

Poor boys! I was so concerned that they were going to die because they didn't have enough air and because they had to stay in their kennel for so long. Turns out they were getting plenty of air and were probably more comfortable than we were. They love their kennel!

So I missed the real Welcome to Missouri sign because I was talking to Matt on the phone. This is from the Welcome Center outside of St. Louis.

This sign was particularly cool. It was on the top of an arch covering the road. It was dark and we were both at the point of delirium by this time, so I didn't get a great picture. I promise it was cool though.

Here's a shout out to all my friends that are fans of The Office. We thought about going to Scranton, and then we thought, hey that's a ways away and there's nothing really IN Scranton, so we just kept driving.

There is New York, across the bridge. It is so close! I LOVE NYC!! It is one of my favorite places! I am hoping to take a day trip or two before I can't travel anymore.

We're almost there!!

We made it!

Here's Matt and me at Pepe's Pizza. I forgive him for making me miss the Missouri sign because I like him so much and he drove all the way up from Maryland to welcome us to the East Coast!

God of This City

Yes, I realize that it has been almost three months since I have blogged at all. If you are looking for pictures, cute Ella-isms and fun stories this is not the post for you. Hang in there, I promise it is coming!There is way more to come, I have just been a little busy and distracted. Beware, this is probably going to be a long post!
I must also start by being honest. I feel like for the most part I am pretty open and will share my struggles with those that I feel comfortable. I feel that it helps me process what is going on in my life and hope that my struggles might help someone else. So what I really should have been doing this last month is sharing those struggles.
At the end of July we moved from Lawrence, Kansas to New Haven, Connecticut. While not a perfect place, we loved Lawrence. We spent five years of our lives there and it was comfortable, it was home. I guess I gave the adventurous part of myself a bit more credit than it deserved. I was so excited about moving and starting this new chapter in my life.
The move, compounded with me being five months pregnant was exhausting!! I was still very excited about everything though. My mom came up for a week and helped us with Ella and the house. And then she went home...
Since then I have not enjoyed Connecticut. There are some things that are very nice, like the beach, the cooler temperatures (I don't know if my Oklahoma people know this, but in other parts of the country people do things outside comfortably in the summer), and the proximity to two of my very favorite places, Boston and New York City!
Then I started to get lonely. It is basically Ella and me all day long, every day. I'm not working and we don't really have any friends yet. She keeps asking for her friends which makes me sad and makes me feel like a horrible mom for not being able to provide friends for her to play with.
Everything is very expensive and I have found a lot of the people here to be very short and grouchy. I am so used to living in the South and the Midwest where everyone smiles and talks to each other, even people that you don't know are generally polite.
New Haven can be pretty dangerous in spots. It's very weird, you go down one street and it is beautiful, clean and nice and the next street over is very sketchy. Not bad, just very different from what I am used to. I used to be able to run with Ella to the park every day. I had three great parks within running distance from my house. In my house now I can't go past my street by myself after it gets dark.
We tried out a Nazarene church that is about 25 minutes away and it was very much not what we were looking for, which was disappointing. We thought at least that would be one familiar thing that might help us transition a little better.
I can be a melancholy person by nature, and so needless to say all of these things and more caused me to start to spiral. I have been so upset for the past few weeks, so lonely, so frustrated and so confused. I must be honest in saying that up until Sunday I HATED New Haven.
I have always been one that speaks to and is spoken to by God through music. I know I've said many times before that music helps me understand the world around me. We have attended a new church for the past three weeks that we have been very pleased with. They seem to have their priorities in order and do a lot of things in the community instead of focusing inwardly. Ella has really enjoyed their children's department. My favorite part of the church is the worship. This Sunday one of the songs that we sang was "God of This City". I had heard it before and had heard the story behind it before and thought it was a nice story, but it never really meant anything to me. It was recorded by Chris Tomlin, but was originally written by an Irish band called Bluetree. They were asked to play in a brothel in Thailand. This song was written onstage. As they were looking out around them the words came to the lead singer and the rest of the band all started playing along with him. The words go like this:


You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

As I sang the familiar words to this song I began to cry and I really felt like God was speaking to me. He was saying, "Hey You, yes YOU! Get out of that funk! Wake up and take a look around you. Instead of being depressed because things are different around you and focusing on how much you hate this place, start focusing on me and the things that I can and will do in this city. Instead of hoping that you can get out of here as soon as possible and wondering how you can make it through two years here, focus on living while you are here. Meet your neighbors, love your neighbors. Why don't you try and get to know Me a little better while you are at it? Take care of your daughter, help her to understand who I am."

I will have to say that it shook me a bit. I realized how selfish I have been and how huge I have made some less than huge issues. It has sure changed my outlook on the world around me. The bad things haven't gone away by any means, but I do think that God is going to help me understand them better and deal with them as they come.

He has even provided some hopeful new friendships. In the bulletin there was an announcement for small groups that are meeting this fall. There was a meeting for those that were not involved in one, but would like to be. At the meeting was another family that recently moved with small children. The mom is around my age and invited us to a playgroup at her house. I know this probably seems like a small thing, but she was so nice and so open and I am excited about the possibility of getting to know her better and meeting some other moms. A lot of the parents around here are considerably older than Jimmie and I are, so we are excited to meet some people that are in the same station of life that we are!

I know that this has been a LOOONG post, but hopefully it will help you understand a little better where I am at in this time in my life. Hopefully I can have the courage to keep sharing and be open and vulnerable to what God is trying to tell me.

Transitions

Yes, my last blog was in April. I realize that it is the middle of May, but wow we have had a lot going on lately! I feel like we have barely had time to breath and it's not going to get better any time soon! I will try to get it updated next week when Ella goes to stay with her Nonna.

Last Sunday in church Brent asked what we were willing to do for God? It was all about transitions and listening to what he was telling us, even if it wasn't the most logical or reasonable choice. I turned to Jimmie and just smiled. Later, talking with my Dad I realized that we had an entire row of transitions going on! Sara just started a new job and work on her masters ON THE SAME DAY! Becca just graduated from Vet school and is in the process of buying a house and starting her new job. Craig graduates in a couple of weeks and will start his residency. My parents are getting ready to build a house. My grandpa moves back home from the rehab hospital after back surgery.

Jimmie graduates this week and then in July we will be moving to Connecticut where Jimmie will start his  new job. Then we learned that we are going to have another baby in late November, early December. Talk about turning things upside down! I feel like it might not be the most reasonable or logical choice to move our family halfway across the country to an unknown place with few friends and no family anywhere close, especially pregnant and with no job for me! I do feel however that this is what we are supposed to be doing and so I am excited to see what He has in store for our little family!

I am so excited about all of these changes and scared at the same time. I am in mourning a little bit for my friends and life here in Lawrence. This is the place where Jimmie and I truly became adults. We bought our first house, started school and "real jobs", paid off all of our debt, and started our family. We have made some lifetime friendships in this place and I am sad that we won't be seeing some of these people very often any more. We have made friends that have become our family while in Kansas and I can't say often or well enough how thankful I am for you!

 For the first time in my life I feel like I can truly be myself. I don't have to change for those around me. I can be the same person at home that I am at work and with my friends. I know that my beliefs, ideas and things that I enjoy are different from many around me. I have always felt that I was never quite on the same wavelength as everyone else. But for the first time in my life I am ok with that. I don't feel the need to be something that I am not or to try to please everyone around me anymore. Don't get me wrong, I do like it when you are all happy, but I am not going to change who I am anymore to make you happy! I don't feel guilty about things and I have very few regrets in my life. I have tried to reconcile with those that I feel I have hurt and feel at peace with my life right now.

While there are a lot of things that I will not miss about my job, I will truly miss the friends that I have made there. I can say from experiance that you don't find good friends at every job and I hope that I can find some people as wonderful as my "Purple Peeps" on the next leg of my professional journey. You have carried me through some less than fun things at work and I wouldn't have survived there without you!

So I guess, in a way I am saying "Goodbye for now", not forever, but "I'll see ya later". Thank you Lawrence and Olathe friends for making this a home. You have changed my life in unimaginable ways and for that I feel truly blessed.