Coming Up for Air

Whew! The last month has been crazy! We don't have internet access at our house yet, and the few hurried times I've managed to run to the library to pay bills online have not afforded any time for blogging. I miss it! All's going well at our house, although much more slowly than we had hoped. Currently the kitchen is primed and waiting to be painted after Christmas, the living room is missing some wallpaper (although not all - there are six layers to be stripped!), our pots, pans and food supplies are living in the spare bedroom, and we are still sleeping on an air mattress on the living room floor next to our wood stove. But we love having our own home and wouldn't trade it for anything! I promise to post pictures as soon as we get our own internet connection, so that I can upload them from my computer (which is also on the floor in the spare bedroom :-P).

Right now I can blog freely because we are visiting my family in NC. YAY!!!! This is a MUCH needed break for us - we realized a couple days before coming down that we hadn't actually had a full day off since we visited down here last Christmas! This past year every day has been at least partially filled with schoolwork, building the barn, moving, or working at the barn. It's been a crazy, busy, tiring year but wonderful all the same. We love what we're doing and are excited about all the opportunities and blessings God has given us over the past year.

We are also incredibly thankful, for many things: jobs that we love, a house of our own, the luxury and joy of our horses, the opportunity to work closely together much of the time, our wonderful church, good friends, family that loves us and with whom we can rest, relax, recuperate and recharge. But most of all, we are thankful for God's incredible, indescribable, incomprehensible gift of Christ, His Son. Without Him and His grace, abundantly poured into our lives, these blessings would mean nothing. He is the ultimate source of all the joy, strength, patience, love and community we have experienced this year, and words cannot express our thankfulness and adoration. It is our hope that each of you would draw close enough this Christmastime to see and feel the joy, hope and love this babe in the manger, this Savior on the cross brings into the world.