555!

I signed in to post my weekly update on baby and our travels and such but realized this is going to be my 555th blog post here on the good ole blog and I figured that required something special! I posted my first post October 21, 2005 when I had been at Fuller for about a month. I thought it would be kind of a fun way to update family and friends on the seminary experience, and it has been. It's kind of fun to look back over the past 6-ish years and see all the major changes and milestones that have happened along the way. The friends who have come in and out of my life, the things I've learned, the new hobbies, passions and interests I've discovered, getting married, becoming an aunt multiple times over, graduating, job hunting, moving, lots of traveling, and now becoming a mother myself. It's been a full half-decade! I now know why people often say "don't get married too early, you grow and change a TON in your 20s!" (Not to say if you did get married young that's a bad thing, it was just the counsel I received multiple times). I look back and realize yes, I have grown, a TON. My world view has changed, my political views have changed, many of my friendships have morphed and changed over the past 6 years, and while my core faith beliefs haven't changed the way I understand faith, God and their connection with our world has changed drastically. As I look back through these pages on this website, here are some of the highlights I've experienced--in lists of 5 of course :)

5 Biggest Life Events
1. Meeting my hubby and getting married (duh!)
2. After years of playing dolls and "practicing" with Megan, meeting Lily Abigail & watching Megs become a mom has been incredible. Being an aunt isn't so bad either!
3. Meeting my small group from Fuller. We spent almost 3 years together, walking through life, sharing the ups and downs. Some of us are still in better contact than others, but all of these women taught me many important things. Thanks, Jenn, Becca, Tera, Alethia, Christina, and Megan.
4. Passing my ordination exams and becoming "call ready." After years of work, studying, learning, asking questions, writing essays, and being examined in front of committees of people multiple times, in October of 2010 I was finally deemed "certified and ready to receive a call."
5. Hospital Chaplaincy--I loved it. I hated it. I learned a ton.

5 Fuller Classes That Shaped me (and my Theology) the Most:
1. Introduction to Family Ministry from Chap Clark
2. The Pentateuch from John Goldingay
3. Women, the Bible and the Church by David Scholer
4. Using Scripture in Pastoral Care from Gordon Oliver
5. (a tie) Ethics from Erin Dufault-Hunter or Perspectives on Christ in Culture by Richard Mouw

5 Favorite Recipes I've Loved Discovering in the past 6 years:
1. Thai Turkey Wraps
2. Double Tomato Bruschetta
3. Butternut Squash Quesadillas
4. Turkey Pesto Panini sandwiches
5. Pesto Chicken Pasta

5 Best Books I've Discovered (and probably raved about on here!)
1. The Poisonwood Bible
2. The Book Thief
3. The Hunger Games Trilogy
4. Harry Potter (the last 2 came out while I was in seminary)
5. Same Kind of Different as Me

5 Ridiculous Head-Shaking Moments (the "are you kidding me?!" life experiences)
1. My stalker my second year of seminary. Friends who remember this story will be shaking their heads at the insanity of the whole situation.
2. So many Thanksgiving cooking adventures. Thanksgiving is usually the holiday that grad students don't travel, since it's only 2 weeks before finals/Christmas break, so I got to celebrate many Thanksgivings with friends. When each person brings their own expectations and family traditions to a meal it provides some head-shaking moments that is for sure! So many messes, good times, and some food turning out more edibly than others (anyone remember the year of the green stuffing? Or the sweet potatoes that we baked without anything to catch the drippings in a borrowed house's oven? Or a certain someone's desire to stay up all night the night before dinner to make sure the turkey was perfect much to our dismay? Or the year we actually managed to simplify things and had an enjoyable time??)
3. 4th of July just about every year. So many crazy, somewhat disastrous experiences. Jenn and I got to experience them all together--including the year we finally got smart, and ditched the fireworks altogether. That was the most enjoyable :)
4. Too much travel. The Christmas of 2008 Charles and I attempted to do an insane amount of traveling to see everyone in our lives in 2 1/2 weeks. We flew to Minnesota, flew to South Carolina (spending a night in the Atlanta airport due to snow), drove to Jacksonville, drove back to South Carolina, drove to Kentucky, drove back to South Carolina, and then finally flew home. This was the trip that has led us to set a 2 state/stop limit on any vacation. We will never do this kind of trip again!
5. Taking this job in Seattle. We're still shaking our heads about the last 7 months. Insanity from day 1. Not sad to be away from this church in the slightest.

5 Ways I've Grown or Changed in the past 6 Years:
1. I recognize my tendencies to be passive aggressive, and have been working on being much more direct in how I'm feeling and what I need in a situation or relationship. I'm nowhere near finished growing in this area, but I am SO much better than I was when I began this blogging journey!
2. I am 100% in favor of women being in ordained, full time, equal ministry to men. When I began seminary (and thus this blog) I wasn't positive what I thought, but my study of scripture has shown me that this is a theological hill I'm willing to fight for and "die on" so to speak. I am SO grateful my husband is just as passionate about this as I am and has promised me he would never even apply at a church that does not fully support women in ministry. When we got to West Side we realized there are still a lot of people there that don't agree with the Presbyterian Church's stance on this, and that made both of us really uncomfortable, one of the reasons I am relieved to be gone.
3. I am much more confident than I used to be--in my knowledge of things, my concept of myself, and in my gifts and abilities.
4. I am a lot more comfortable with gray areas in my faith and in the world. I'm okay with some mystery, with not fully having "the" right answer for situations. I think one day we will know and understand much more fully the ways of God and this world, but for now, I'm much more comfortable sitting in the sometimes-awkward in between.
5. I value my family and the way I was raised even more than before. I took for granted that everyone's family was like mine, and I've learned as I've developed close relationships with friends and with some of their families that this isn't the case. Every family is unique and different, and I am so grateful for the ways that my parents raised me and the family system they created for us.

Week 13--Sweet Summer Peach! And the not so good part of the week...

So depending on which baby book/website you're reading, we've either just entered the 2nd trimester, or it's coming next week with the beginning of week 14--either way, we're close! Baby K is now the size of a sweet summertime peach, which ironically I've eaten quite a few of in the past few days. The coolest developmental milestone this week is that her little fingerprints are forming! How sweet is that?? He's almost 3 inches long even if he does only weigh about an ounce. For quite awhile both of us were convinced this baby is a boy, but in the past week or two I am starting to think "girl"--so we'll see, we are anxious to find out next month! We'd be super excited with either (at some point in life I'd love to get to parent both) so whichever gender God chooses to give us for this first one is just fine with me! (Like I have a whole lot of control over this!) We're having fun playing with baby names--I will say if it's a boy we're pretty set, if it's a girl it might be a long process in finding a name!

The not so great part of this week is that I came down with what every pregnant woman fears...a good ole bladder infection. Yup, I haven't had one since I was 6.....I'm not sure I'd care to repeat this experience. I didn't realize what was wrong until yesterday when the on call nurse made me come in for a test--glad I did, they were able to get me a prescription right away and rumor has it by tonight I should be feeling better. That hasn't happened yet, I'm still pretty miserable, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the magic drugs do work, and quickly! So for now I'm camped out in my bedroom--well and bathroom--with my book, a movie, my laptop, and heating pad. And water bottles, lots of water. SO grateful that we had such an empty schedule this week and I didn't have to be anywhere or leave home.

What have we done this week? A whole lot of nothing! We went wandering in Discovery Park with Missy on Tuesday which was gorgeous, and for dinner Thursday evening at the newlyweds (Darbee & Reagan's house), but otherwise we've had a mini vacation at home. Before we got married my husband would admit that he's never been a huge reader, and when he was working he didn't have a whole lot of free time to read, but it's been fun to see him start to pick up some books this past year. He's read all 7 Harry Potter books, and this past week started in on The Hunger Games trilogy, which he has been obsessed with. He read book 1 and 2 earlier this week and is part way through the third book now--I'm sure he'll finish today knowing the pace he's been reading them at!

Other than that, not much is new here. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be feeling a bit better--we leave Wednesday to visit family for a week and a half, so I really really hope by the time I have to spend 5 hours on a plane I'll be back to normal! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, friends!

Well hello there little plum! And happy 4th of July!

It's been a fun week around here in our household, definitely a different pace from the past 7 months! Baby K has hit the size of a plum as he or she is starting his 12th week of life (almost done with trimester #1!), and is starting to make me look a teensy bit on the pudgy side. A friend of mine said about two weeks ago "if I didn't know you were pregnant, I never would say anything, but since I know, I'll just say you definitely are getting a tiny bump! If someone didn't know you well they'd never know, but to those of you who know you well, we can see it!" I had the realization the other day that I have the world's shortest torso. I thought the only problems this was going to cause in life was shopping for jeans (they are never long enough for my legs!) but on Wednesday I realized "umm....where's this baby going to grow?? There is nowhere for it to go but straight out!" I told my good friend Missy I wasn't sure how I felt about this and her response was to jump up and down and squeal "I feel very cute about it!!" So we'll see over the next few weeks how this little bump starts to form!

Since my husband is now finding himself with copious amounts of free time on his hands and since Bethany Pres (the church we're now going to, the church I am a member of from my college days) needed an extra male chaperon on their mission trip, he spent the past week helping them out. He had a fantastic time, and said it was a really healing experience--seeing a very healthy youth ministry, a ministry and church that cares about depth, not just entertaining kids. The youth director there is a friend of ours from Fuller, and the group he helped was led by Missy, one of our dear friends and bridesmaids from our wedding. They stayed at a church here in Seattle and during the day the 44 kids were split into teams of 7 or 8 and served at various spots around the city. His team spent the week at a retirement home doing landscaping and yard work for them.

Friday he flew down to San Luis Obispo for a job interview which was Saturday morning. He comes back super late tonight, and has had an incredible time. He loves the town, really enjoyed the committee, got to rent a board and surf yesterday and today, and said that even if we don't get this job it has been such a healing and life-giving weekend for him. It was so encouraging to see a church doing youth ministry the way we've been trained, and just to know there are still churches out there that would be willing to have conversations with him is always encouraging. His voice on the phone last night sounded happier than I have heard him in 7 months. So I don't know what this means, but I am so grateful for this time he's had in California.

I spent the week here, visiting with a couple different friends, putting the house back together after company last week, going on walks every day (you're right, Mom, they do make me feel better!) still napping, helping a friend wedding dress shop, and just enjoying the house to myself for awhile! My best friend from Portland drove up Friday to spend the night with me, and took me to get pedicures yesterday which was a fantastic treat :) Yesterday I video chatted with Miss Lily and she was cracking me up--that is a kid with a lot of personality! I am still "jah-jah" (or however you would spell her rendition of "Sarah") and I am very excited that Auntie Jah-Jah and Uncle Ca-ca (her name for "Charles") get to go play with her in person in about 2 weeks. Her newest obsession is mommy's heels. Except she wants mommy to be wearing them, not her. Megan said that she was eating breakfast in her boxers the other day and Lily brought the heels to her saying "mommy, shoes!" You can never be too stylish. Even in pajamas. She's also learned the word "no" and now everything is "no" even when it's really a "yes." Not sure how I feel about this particular stage! This kid is part fish--she started swimming lessons last week and LOVES the water. Even sprinklers. Seriously, how cute is she?? (this is after her first experience with the backyard sprinkler).

After so many people recommending it, I'm finally reading the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I'm still not entirely sure what it's about (only on chapter 2) but the writing is so beautiful it makes my heart ache. The way words are used, sentences formed, images employed--I am in love and almost don't care what the story is about.

I've also been in LOVE with summer produce and colors in my vegetable drawer this week. I cannot get enough of this beautiful food! I started buying mango for the first time, and am quite enjoying it (it's on the lists of things that are great for baby's development, so I figured I should try it). I've been going through strawberries, watermelon, tomatoes, pesto, basil, zucchini, sun dried tomatoes, and artichokes like nothing else these days. Here are a few of the meals I've been making with these ingredients--I'd highly recommend any of them!

Double Tomato Bruschetta
Mediterranean Orzo Salad
Turkey Pesto Paninis

Okay, that's enough rambling for the day--you're probably sick of reading this anyways! Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Most Recommended Books

I was recently asked for my list of books I most frequently recommend to people, and that question made me think for about a week! It was a fun one to reflect on, and while I couldn't limit it to 10, I did limit it to 15 books :) I tried to pick books that somehow changed me, inspired me to think differently, or act differently after I finished reading them--books that "stay with you" over time as you think about life. Then below is just a short list of my all time favorite fiction books, that I loved and think others will too but didn't necessarily make the list of "15 books I think everyone should read at some point in their lives!" :) Enjoy, and happy reading!

1. In the Name of Jesus or Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen

2. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

3. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

4. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

5. The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith (really all 3 books in this series)

6. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp

7. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

9. When the Kings Come Marching In by Richard Mouw

10. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis

11. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

12. Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner

13. Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell

14. Sabbath Keeping by Lynne Baab

15. Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Favorite Fiction/Vacation Reads that I'd absolutely re-read:

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

anything else by Jodi Picoult :)

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Shack by William Young

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shafer

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Week 11--We have a baby Lime! And other weekly updates...

I get all these fun emails now from various pregnancy sites, letting me know (mostly) helpful hints on what I might be experiencing as pregnancy progresses, but my favorite emails are the ones that show up every Friday morning (when we start a new week in this little one's life). These emails let me know how big our lil munchkin is, and what he or she is working on developing this week. It is CRAZY to think about all that is happening inside me! My favorite email comes with a comparison to a piece of produce, letting me know just how big baby is, and this week we've made it to the lime stage! All the other fruits up until now haven't seemed that significant--a grape, a kumquat (whatever that is), a blueberry, but a lime? That feels a bit more real to me--that's a decent sized piece of fruit! This week baby is busy getting his hair follicles, nail beds for those cute little fingernails I'm told I'll hate cutting, and can actually somersault around in there! I can't feel anything yet, but that just sounds impressive to me! This little munchkin is wearing me out, I still can't make it through a day without napping, but I can't complain. I'm not working, so I can take naps when I need to, and for the first time in my life I seriously don't care if the house isn't spotless. (Most days, some days I get a second wind and can't stand the dust!) I'm doing my best to eat healthy baby-growing food...but for some reason I want popcorn. With butter. Every day. And salads (my normal favorite food) don't taste as good anymore. Maybe the fruit smoothies balance the butter out? I can hope! I have definitely gained weight, but am grateful my "normal" clothes still fit...the world of maternity clothes sounds a bit overwhelming right now...

In other news, we had a great weekend with my husband's sister and her four kids who stopped by for 4 days. We showed them a bit of Seattle, played games, watched movies, and napped (they were jet lagged coming from Japan, so I wasn't the only one napping every afternoon!)

We're still reeling a bit from what happened at the church. I think this is going to take awhile to heal from. We're hurt and angry, mostly at how our senior pastor chose to handle things, and we've been hearing from several congregation members who are beside themselves with anger on our behalf. One family told us they weren't going back to church yet, they were too mad to sit there and listen to our pastor preach. We never wanted to cause drama here and we aren't sure what to do with everything. We are walking away with our heads held high though. We were faithful to everything we said we wanted to do in our interview, and we can't control the fact that apparently what we said we wanted to do isn't actually what this congregation was ready for. He's been circulating his resume and cover letter again, and has already had 2 phone interviews with two different churches. One of these churches looks and sounds like an absolute dream church for us. They talked to him for awhile, hung up, and an hour later the senior pastor called back and said they wanted to fly him in this coming weekend for an in person interview. Prayers for him this weekend would be much appreciated! We're trying not to get our hopes up, but realistically we haven't seen anything else out there that we're this excited about. I actually think we feel more excited about this potential church than we ever did about our Seattle church.

In the meantime we've been so grateful to have a chance to worship at Bethany, my beloved church here in Seattle. The music, the preaching, the praying, the people who have heard what we've been through and have reached out with hugs and prayers, all have been washing over our dry, thirsty, hurting souls like refreshing rain. I can't even begin to communicate how hard it was for me to worship at this church we've been part of. Being able to be at Bethany again has been amazing.

Well, it's my first night alone for the week. My husband is helping out with Bethany's high school mission trip this week--they needed another male leader at the last minute to help with one of my best friend's groups of students, and when the youth director heard he was all of a sudden available he grabbed him! This weekend is the big interview, so I have quite a few evenings alone on my hands. Tonight's plan? A warm bath, The Bachelorette, and popcorn. With butter.

Meet our Lil Hamster!

If you are friends with us on Facebook you know it's official! We're going to be parents! We're super excited to introduce you all to our little munchkin--who for now, goes by either "Baby K" or "the hamster." We showed the ultra sound photo to a friend of ours from church and she said "oh!! I'm so glad you guys are having a little hamster!" The name kind of stuck--especially with my husband :) So at least until we find out what we're having (mid-August sometime) "the hamster" will suffice! Baby will be here to meet all of you in person mid-January--hopefully after all the holidays are over!

We were planning on waiting another week or two to make our announcement, but on Wednesday of last week my husband was let go from the church we've been serving at. It's a long story, but it wasn't a good fit from the beginning. We're mostly relieved to be finished there, although we are very hurt and angry about how the end of our time there came about. We're back to wondering what in the world is next for us--will we be moving again? Will we be able to stay here? What's next? At midnight Wednesday night we couldn't sleep, and felt like doing something spontaneous and maybe a teensy bit spiteful. We wanted to show the church that they couldn't take away our joy we were experiencing last week after hearing our baby's heart beat for the first time. So we decided to post our news to facebook right then. Waking up to congratulatory comments was much better than waking up to comments about loosing a job! So, it should be a crazy year as we figure all this out (prayers would be appreciated, please!) but for now, I thought I'd share a few fun moments since discovering I was pregnant.

I found out I was expecting Baby on May 5th, and told my husband that evening. He was shocked to say the least, and my favorite moment was when he looked at me and said "wait, so you're like 4 weeks along ALREADY? That means there's only 36 left! I need a beer...." I felt a little bad about the timing. His parents arrived about two hours after I told him for and I swore him to secrecy for the weekend. It was so early, I wasn't ready to tell people, I wanted to visit a doctor and make sure things looked okay, and so many miscarriages happen so early on I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up. I'm sure they were wondering why their wine-loving daughter in law all of a sudden refused to order anything but sprite when we went out to dinner!

Thankfully I cannot complain about this pregnancy at all. Other than being exceptionally more tired than normal (which I am told is the most common first trimester side effect) I haven't been sick at all. I nap every day (or try to), and generally am falling asleep on the couch by 10 PM but otherwise I can't complain. No baby bump yet, but I can feel where baby's growing when I push on my stomach, which is a very cool feeling :)

I have definitely been wanting a baby for awhile now, but for the first several weeks it didn't feel real at all. Other than all of a sudden wanting to list napping as my new favorite past time, I didn't feel any different, and life at the church was so beyond stressful we couldn't really think about anything else. We both confessed to one another that we were even wondering if this baby would make it past the 1st trimester--perhaps God would realize this stressful season of life wasn't the right time to give us a child. What a horrible thing to say out loud, but we both admitted to thinking this way. (Now we don't have a stressful job, but the flip side is we don't have any job!) I didn't feel any attachment at all to this being inside of me, even though the pregnancy books were describing to me all the crazy things happening in this little being from the very early weeks. Then, one day, in the middle of week 8 for me, I was walking home from Target and it hit me, strongly, how badly I wanted this baby to be real. I don't know that you could say I was overcome with love for this baby I don't know yet, and haven't felt yet, but I was hit with the realization that this was OUR baby, and no matter what was happening in life, I wanted to know this little one, I wanted to be his or her mom. It was then that I started letting myself get a little more excited, and I think it was then that my husband started getting more excited too. We started having fun with a baby name book, we started talking about the baby more, he started asking me "what did you do to help yourself and our baby be healthy today?" (to which I usually responded--"I slept!") and we started praying for baby. When we went for our first ultra sound seeing the flickering heart beat on the screen was such a beautiful sight, especially since they couldn't hear it via doplar the day before.

It's only week 10, and something tells me that this is going to be a crazy ride! I love that I'm pregnant at the same time as my little sister, and our babies will only be about 3 1/2 months apart. I love that Lily knows her mommy has a baby in her tummy and has seen ultra sound photos of her sister, and when she saw my ultra sound she immediately said "baby!" She now knows Auntie Sarah has a baby in her tummy too (she is starting to think she does as well...but that's probably to be expected!) I'm super excited to tell our other nieces and nephew they get to be cousins this weekend when they are here in person :) They will be fantastic cousins!

Tonight we went to babies r us to pick up a few things for our 8 month old niece who will be here this weekend and while there we struck up a conversation with a middle aged couple (the husband was enjoying the selection of rocking chairs). They have 4 grown kids (they were buying grandkid gifts I am guessing) and as we were leaving the conversation the husband said to my husband "thanks for not making your wife do this on her own." He told me later "I don't understand why a guy wouldn't want to be here with his wife, this is important, I wouldn't miss this." I am so grateful for his excitement to journey with me! He may not know a lot about pregnancy, child birth, or newborns, but he loves learning and sends super sweet text messages to me like "I love you and our hamster too!" throughout the day. For father's day this weekend the munchkin even bought him his first Father's Day gift--a newborn onesie that says "I love my Daddy" on it :)

So stay tuned, I'm sure that I'll have much more to share as this journey unfolds over the next 30 weeks (can you believe we're already 1/4 of the way there??) Thanks for walking this journey with us, friends!

Hellllo Sunshine!

I thought I'd share some photos from this past weekend since it was pretty much the nicest weekend we've had since moving here! Enjoy our latest adventures!

Friday afternoon Missy & I headed over to Whidbey Island for the start of the annual girl's weekend. The rest of our friends had to work and come later Friday night, but we arrived about 4, took a walk on the beach, and then made dinner together.Our meal was delicious if I do say so! I found butternut squash ravioli at Safeway that had an amazing alfredo/sage sauce. It was heavenly. That and a great salad, sliced apples and carrot sticks made for a fantastic start to the weekend--especially eating together on the back deck!We had brought everyone's food and luggage over in our car, so we set up the cabin while waiting for friends. The snack table was the most important :) We made cookies, guacamole, had fresh fruit, chips, crackers and plenty of beverages to choose from. I don't think anyone went hungry this weekend!Relaxing Saturday morning--reading, massages, sunlight, coffee. We were each assigned a meal to shop/prepare for, so Heather and I made a delicious breakfast of her famous pancake puff, fresh blueberries, bacon, and orange juice/mimosas. The tide was out Saturday (not as far as I've seen it go out but it was out enough for a great walk!) so a walk on the beach was the next activity after breakfast. I have so many memories on this beach--it's the beach our family would go to every summer--I have so many pictures of us as little kids climbing those sand dunes :)Leslie, Jen and Heather on our walkJen was in charge of lunch, and oh my word did she make the world's best sandwiches! Apparently they are sandwiches her husband makes often, and we will be too now that we've been introduced to their amazingness! Start with a large sourdough roll, pile on fresh mozzarella, turkey, and then a bunch of vegetables (red peppers, cucumbers, shredded zucchini, red onions) that have been soaking in olive oil/balsamic vinegar. The bread absorbs the balsamic, so instead of mayo or mustard the main flavor is sourdough and balsamic with the mozzarella and turkey undertones. Heaven I tell you, simply heaven.Darbee, Heather, Jen, Missy, Lynn, LesliePost lunch reading on the deckI had to leave after lunch on Saturday because of the U2 concert that night and I was teaching Sunday school the next day (the rest of the gang stayed til Sunday). The mountains on the ferry ride home were incredible. It was a gorgeous night for a concert! It was our first time to Qwest Field--I loved the view of downtown from it! The 360 degree stageLenny Kravitz openedBono...we heart him...