Christmas in Memphis

This year we were blessed to be able to spend Christmas with my family in Memphis. Our situation isn't like most, the holidays for most families means traveling and dividing time between 2 sets of families/in-laws but for us since our families are spread across the globe, we pick one place and thats were we'll be for Christmas!

We had an amazing Christmas! We've been able to spend a lot of time with my family, visit with friends, shopping, movies, baking, cooking, and eating yummy Christmas food! I think the high-lights were the hubby and I getting a much needed, relaxing couples massage and going to a Grizzlies game with my family (both wonderful Christmas gifts from my parents). We even had a little snow shower late Christmas night. To say the least we have been spoiled this Christmas! Although I was able to spend Christmas with my family both years while I was living overseas, when you are separated from your family, friends, and country for so long it really gives you a different appreciation and view on things. I really feel like I cherish the time I'm blessed to spend with my family and friends so much more now. Once again, I'm so thankful we're able to be back in the US and be near my family.

While Memphis had a little dusting of snow, Little Rock got dumped on! Of course we were sad to miss it, but I'm thankful we didn't have to deal with the power being out. I heard today that our apartment building has power but since so much of LR doesn't, I think we're staying put in Memphis for a few more days!

Heres a glimpse into our Christmas. Sadly, I have been terrible at taking photos during the holidays this year and have NO photos of me and the hubby :( I think my mom got a few though. Thank goodness for moms!

 Home Sweet Home!

 Marley loves Christmas! His shirt says "Sorry Santa, I ate the cookies!"

 Decorating christmas cookies

 Christmas morning

 Excited about our new iPad!

 Love my momma!

 Winter wonderland 

 Grizzlies vs. 76ers

Love my parents house at Christmas time

To our friends and family around the world, I pray you had a wonderful Christmas season surrounded by family, friends, and the love of our heavenly father. May you and your family be blessed in the new year!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Tis the season for Christmas trees, lights, traffic, holiday cards, gift wrapping, kids with runny noses, freezing cold mornings, Christmas parties, lots of Christmas crafts with my kiddos, scarfs, boots, hot chocolate, and the countdown to Christmas break! This is the busiest time of year and despite the business I'm loving it!

Although this is our 2nd married Christmas, its our first Christmas to have our own tree and all those "other" Christmas things I love...and my hubby could do without!

I'm counting down the days until Christmas break. I love my job and my kiddos but I'm ready for some time off with my hubby and family. I've officially finished my 1st semester of grad school...yahoo!

Here's some of our Christmas decorating. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving 2012

This year my thankful list might be longer than years past. I think the greatest blessing this year was being able to spend Thanksgiving with my family here in the US. The past 2 years I have celebrated with my cousins while I was living in Australia, but it was just never quite like an "American" thanksgiving celebration. This year the hubby and I traveled to Branson, Missouri with my parents to enjoy our mini holiday by the lake. Now, I have not been to Branson since I was maybe 5 or 6 and I had no memory of what Branson would be like so it was a surprise for the hubby and myself! Branson had been described to me as a "country" Las Vegas, I think I would add tacky into that description, nevertheless we enjoyed our time there. We visited the outlet malls, did some sightseeing, ate a lot of yummy food, and spent some time relaxing around our lakeside condo in our pj's! I think one of my favorite things we did was visited Silver Dollar City, which is a theme park in Branson. Most of my theme park experience was from several visits to Disney World, so this certainly different, but it was so much fun. The park was decorated from top to bottom with Christmas lights and decorations. We saw 2 shows while we were there and when we came out of the 2nd one the sun had set and the park looked beautiful with all the Christmas lights! Not only was the park all decked out for Christmas, but ALL of Branson was decorated! 

On Thursday, Thanksgiving day we traveled to my aunt, uncle and memar's (my grandmother) house about 100 miles from Branson to spend Thanksgiving with them. It was great to see them and spend time with them. It was the first time Ben had gotten to meet my cousins and get to spend more time with some of my extended family. We ate and ate and ate. It was all so yummy! Then we played some scrabble, a Smart family favorite! The day went by way too quickly, but I'm so thankful we were able to spend it with family. 

Overall our short and sweet 'holiday' was just what we needed. I'm not going to lie I'm not excited about my alarm going off oh so early tomorrow morning and heading back to work. Just four more weeks and Christmas break will be here!

I'm really trying to get better about taking pictures. We haven't had a camera in over a year and I've been terrible at taking photos with my phone and really terrible at taking photos of us! I didn't really even know this until I started getting photos and things together for our interview with Immigration for Ben's green card. We had all of this stuff put together when we did mine in Australia but thats been over a year ago now so I need to fill in the gaps! So here are a few photos from our trip...I did actually take more but they haven't made it from the phone to the computer yet! 

the hubby and I at a scenic spot on hwy 65

at Silver Dollar City...braving the 40 degree temps!

I hope everyone had a blessed and restful thanksgiving spent with family and friends.

November update

 One day I will have time to keep up with my blog, but just to warn you I don't see that day happening until maybe June or July. My plate is FULL right now, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Besides work, adjusting to our new life, and sorting out immigration stuff...grad school is taking up most of my time. I'm really enjoying it though, so I guess thats good, right? I'll just be thankful next summer when my classes are over and I can feel like I have some "free time" again, although I'm sure by then something us will be going on. My grad program is all online, which is a new thing for me. I'm thankful I don't have to sit in classes several nights a week, but that just means I really have to force myself to do it on my own. I'm thankful for the opportunity to take graduate classes and further my education and for a supportive husband who encourages me to do so as well. I'm also very thankful to live in a country where higher education is encouraged and appreciated because I know it doesn't work like that in other countries.

We are still in the middle of our immigration journey, now in the US for my sweet hubby. We've sent off all of our paperwork and he had his biometrix (fancy word for getting finger printed) last week, so now we wait for our interview. Hopefully that should happen in the next 2 months and we should have our decision! I'm so thankful this process has been much shorter than when we did it in Oz for me, and I feel like its been less stressful! I told my hubby the other day that my new years resolution for 2013 is to not have to "deal" with anything "immigration" for either Australia or the US. I already know that won't happen because we'll have to do a 2 year follow up, but either way I know I will feel a huge sigh of relief when we get his green card because we will both be permanent residents in each others countries and that is HUGE because this has been something we've been dealing with for over a year and a half! I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I can't believe we've been in the US for exactly 4 months today! We have had a crazy, awesome adventure so far! I also can't believe its November. The last 4 months have flown by. We get to celebrate my 28th (yikes!) birthday and Thanksgiving this month! And Christmas will be here just around the corner. I'm already itching to put up our Christmas tree and decorations. My hubby laughs at me, but I CANNOT wait! I haven't gotten to put up my Christmas tree in 3 years! And we haven't gotten to have our own tree yet, so I'm just a little excited. Oh, and there will be Christmas cards! Which my hubby tells me all of this is "very American"....well he married an American! If you want to be on our Christmas card list, let me know!

Alright, enough procrastinating for me. I need to change all of our clocks, thank you daylight savings...this is the only time of year that I regret having a 'wall of clocks' as a design feature in our apartment. And I really should be working on my paper for grad school before we head to church. Hope everyone is having a wonderful, thankful November!

Our BIG update!

I guess I have some explaining to do since its been nearly 3 months since my last update.

There is a verse in proverbs that says "many are the plans in a persons heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." I'm beginning to think this is a theme in my life for the last several years, and I'm so thankful for that. Tomorrow we were set to leave the US and return to Australia but we won't be on that plane. About 7 or 8 weeks ago we were in the midst of our travels in the US. We had been spending time with my family in Memphis, visiting friends and seeing the sights in Nashville and then found ourselves in my former town, Little Rock catching up with friends. Long story short, I was offered a teaching position at the school I used to teach at. Not a classroom teaching position but the gifted and talented teaching position. That was something I had always thought about doing later "down the road," when I had taught for a few more years and gone back to school to get my masters. But God had a way of blessing me with my "down the road"a lot sooner than I expected. We had been praying for quite a while for the next season in our life, not realizing that our prayers would be answered while on our American holiday.

I started work just a few weeks later. We bought a car and found an apartment in Little Rock to call home. I enrolled in graduate classes at Harding University to complete my endorsement in Gifted and Talented Education. We are now in the process of changing Ben's visa to a green card. And of course we are trying to tie up loose ends in Australia, sell our cars, cancel phone plans, trying to figure out what to do with our stuff! All not easy things to do from 10,000 miles away. Those are just the major things going on, there are of course a ton of little things that come with starting over. I heard someone say that moving is one of the most stressful things a person can go through. They are right, and try moving across the world when you weren't planning on it! But we're making it. We are overwhelmed by the ways God has been blessing us throughout the last several weeks and months.

We miss Australia and our family and friends there but knowing that God has brought us here gives us such peace. I am so thankful to be doing a job that I love! I love it even more than I thought I would! To be back at my old school has been a wonderful blessing. For some reason I feel drawn to work with those kids. I don't dread Sunday nights anymore and having to go to work on Monday because I love what I'm doing.

Starting over is busy, stressful, hectic, overwhelming, but completely wonderful when its God's timing.

So, there is my explanation as to why I've been MIA for a while. I'm sorry to our friends we haven't been great at keeping in touch with, but we've been more than a little busy! Things are starting to slow down a bit and we are getting settled and into a routine. Please keep us in your prayers over the next few months as we still have many big obstacles to overcome with getting Ben's visa, finding him a job once he has working rights, etc. We also hope to buy a house after the new year so we'll have plenty of room when our Aussie family and friends decide to come visit! (There's your invite!)

To our amazing family and friends, thank you so much for your love and support. I can't even begin to say how thankful I am for my parents and how wonderfully helpful they have been to us as we're starting over. We are incredibly blessed to have so many people that love us, all over the world!

home sweet home

We made it! Well actually we've been here a few days, but with the jet-lag, catching up with family and adjusting to the summer heat I haven't had time to update. The trip was mostly uneventful. We left Sydney Wednesday morning, the airport was a madhouse! We actually made it to our flight when they were calling final boarding. And thats with us arriving at the airport 2.5 hours before our flight! We settled in to our economy comfort seats, totally worth the extra money for those extra 5 inches of legroom! The flight was long but ok, we slept a few hours, and watched plenty of movies. We arrived in LA early in the morning and made it through customs and all that jazz in record time! It was so great to stretch our legs and be able to walk around for a few hours. We boarded our flight to Memphis and we both fell asleep right away and slept most of the flight. We finally made it to Memphis just before 4pm and boy was it HOT!

I'm not going to lie, I think I had blocked out how hot it gets here. It gets hot in Australia but its a different kind of hot. I think adjusting to the heat and jet-lag have really worn us out the first few days. Our first night we both slept great, but since then we've had a bit of trouble. For me I'm awake until midnight and sleep really late, but my poor hubby took a nap yesterday afternoon which meant he had a miserable night sleep. I'm hoping another day or two and we'll be adjusted. I keep thinking (or hoping) that the more times we make the long trip the better we'll get at it and it will be easier. But I've done it many times and I don't think its going to get any easier.

We've spent some time relaxing, doing some shopping, visiting with friends, tonight we even made it downtown for a Redbirds game. Its so nice to be home. Its so nice to be around the familiar, especially after spending some much time away. Australia is where we live and it is home in a way, but the US will always be home to me.

Tomorrow we are off to the lake to enjoy a few days at the lake to celebrate our 1st anniversary! I can't even believe its been a year since we got married! It has flown by! I'll update again once we return from our weekend away!

last day of work

Yesterday was my last day of work. Like my last, LAST day of work. I'm still not sure it has hit me yet. Although there were so many tears, it still doesn't seem real. I still want to check my email and my brain is still in Coordinator mode, thinking of things that need to be done but I just have to keep reminding myself its not my job anymore. I know 18 months doesn't sound like a very long time to be at a job, but in some ways I feel like I worked there for 5 years. I did a lot though in 18 months! It wasn't my dream job, I didn't love every minute of it, but I met so many amazing people, families and kids through out my time there and I feel like I learned so much about myself in the process. When I left yesterday, I just felt overwhelming blessed to have been apart of St Philips, even if for such a short time.

When I look back to a year and a half ago I still remember the day I went in for my interview like it was yesterday! It was a Friday morning I got the call and they wanted me to come that afternoon, I didn't drive so I had to get a family friend to take me. My hair looked all kids of crazy, curly and all. It was summer and HOT and i'm pretty sure I was wearing my least professional dress and sandals but it was just so hot I wanted to be comfortable! I show up, met with 2 lovely ladies and they offered me a job and little did I know about 2 minutes later when I was walking out of the office I would meet the man of my dreams.

I'm blessed. So incredibly blessed to have been apart of that school. When I look back at the whirlwind of the last 18 months, yes there were up and downs as there are in any job, some days were downright terrible, but all the good from the last 18 months more than outweighs the bad. I'm so thankful for all the friendships I made, thankful for the amazing families I had the chance to work with and thankful for the awesome kids I got to know.

So, I'm officially unemployed which should be a terrifying thing, but I have a lot of peace about it. I know that the timing was right and God has a plan for whatever is next for me. I'm praying its back in the classroom, but I know he will reveal that to me in His timing. Until then I am going to enjoy my 3 months of travels with my hubby and some much needed time with my family and friends in the US!

the countdown is on

I can't believe its almost been a month since my last update. I was on a roll! I guess when you book a 3 month holiday overseas, resign from your job, have to move out of your flat and put all your things in storage...you get really busy, really fast! Its just been nuts around here. I can't even believe how fast time has gone the last 4 weeks, which is fine by me because I am ready to be home and hug my momma! We leave in 2 weeks, which means we have 8 days left of work and 5 days until we move out of our flat. I guess I'll have plenty of time to rest and relax once we get on the plane, since it is a 14 hour flight to LAX. I promise i'll try to write a proper update sooner rather than later!

our new adventure

I was hoping I would get around to this update sooner than I have, but lets just say missing almost a week of work because of being sick, after being off work for 4 weeks means you have a lot of work to catch up on! This week has been very busy, but thankfully i'm pretty much feeling back to normal. I still have a bit of a cough, but thats heaps better than I was feeling a week ago, so i'll take it!

I've mentioned in several posts over the last few months about things going on with us and asking for prayers, well here is some more about that! When we got married we moved into a small flat at the back of our friends house. We knew this would be a good opportunity for us to save money, adjust to married life before making a big decisions, etc. For the last 6 months my husband and I have been praying about whats next for us. We love our little flat but its not a permanent home for us, we would really like to buy a house down the track, but we know with buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility. I'm not sure we're ready for that yet because we really want to travel some before we settle down. We've been praying for some time and have really felt like God has closed some doors for us and opened others. We really feel like He is leading us into a new season and we are really excited to see where he leads us. For me a part of all of this was feeling like some doors were closing for me at my job as It was never going to be a permanent job for me because my heart is in the classroom. So as of last Friday I have resigned from my position as Coordinator at Narara OOSH & Vacation Care. I have so many mixed emotions about it. This school has been such a huge blessing in my life. I have met so many wonderful kids and families. The job has certainly been a huge challenge for me but I feel like i've accomplished something and thats a good feeling to leave with. So that is the first part of our "new adventure" as we are calling it.

The next part of our "new adventure"is...we are going to travel!! I'm so excited! I love to travel...obviously or I would most likely not have ended up moving half way around the world. I love airports, stamps in my passport, long flights, packing etc...all those things that most people hate, I love. I'm so thankful my husband is excited about traveling too because I can't think of a better travel buddy. We decided to celebrate our 1 year anniversary by just taking off for a few months to travel, visit family, etc. We don't have a lot of plans. We have booked flights to the USA to go spend some time with my family since its been 6 months since we've seen them. It will be so nice and refreshing to visit with friends and family as apart of our adventure. Other than that, we don't have any set in stone plans yet, other than our return flights back to Oz in September. We are excited to see where God leads us! So, you never know the Fowlers could be coming to a town near you sometime in the next few months!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we embark on our "new adventure!" I will try my best to keep the blog up to date once our travels get under way. So until then its work for the next 6 weeks, then 3 months of traveling...yahoo!!!

sick days

 I tell you what I am ready for a holiday! We have had so much going on over the last several months, especially the last few weeks and now I get sick. Not fair, not fair, not fair! Ok, i'm sorry i'm done complaining. I think I mentioned a few post ago about being sick, yeah I'm still sick. Anyone who knows me well, knows I do not do 'sick' well. I started feeling a little better after starting antibiotics but have not been able to get rid of the cough. So after 2 days of people making comments to me about how horrible I sound I went back to the doctor. Verdict is...I still have a upper respiratory infection and now have an ear infection. Ughh! So now i'm on a new, stronger round of antibiotics including an inhaler to help my cough. My doctor smiled when I asked if I should miss a day of work and then she handed me a medical certificate with bed rest orders for the rest of the week. Not happy!! I've just been off work for four weeks I don't want to miss the rest of this week as well. As I said, I don't do 'sick' very well. I know I need rest but I don't like sitting still, so i'm going to follow her orders and pray I get better soon. I think my poor hubby is ready for me to get better just as much, if not more than me! He is a TROOPER! I'm so thankful God gave me just the man I need. Let's just say he hopes our children are not like me one day when they are sick. He has been so wonderful helping out with things around the house, taking care of me, coming up with herbal tea 'remedies' and forcing me to drink them (not an easy task!), and forcing me to take medicines constantly. I love that man so much. He deserves way more than the bag of peanut M&M's I bought him today! So let the resting begin and hopefully I'll be feeling better by the weekend because we've got a very special little girls 1st birthday party to attend on Sunday!

Happy Mother's Day!

 There are a lot of things I miss from home. I miss Target (we have Target here but its nothing like American Target) I miss happy hour at sonic, I miss NBA basketball, I miss mexican food, I miss my friends, I miss Marley (my sweet puppy) but most of all I miss my parents and especially today I miss my mom! I so wish I could be there to give her a big hug and take her to lunch for Mother's day but I guess i'll have to settle for a skype date.

My mom is the best. She is my best friend. I tell my sweet hubby all the time, that I love him a lot and he is my best friend but sometimes I miss my other best friend, my momma. He always responds with, "I miss your mom too!" Now that i'm a grown up, mature, married lady (I am, right?!) I can assure you I'm pretty sure I was a handful for my parents growing up. Can you say, drama queen?! I have so many great memories and my mom was in all of them. From throwing my many elaborate themed birthday parties growing up, taking me and my girlfriends on trips, going shopping to buy things for my first apartment, teaching me how to sew curtains for my classroom, our many shopping dates, picking her up at the airport when she flew all the way to Sydney by herself so she could help me finalize wedding plans and working with her to surprise my dad when we came home a day early for Christmas. There are so many amazing memories, I could probably write a whole book, but i'll spare you :) I look back now and I'm so very thankful God blessed me with the best parents in the world and the best mom. My mom is not only one of the sweetest ladies you will ever meet in your life, she is patient, caring, strong, creative, organized, stylish, a great listener and great at giving advice and hello, she is gorgeous! Even though we've spent most of the last 2 years living on different continents, I feel like in some ways its made us closer and its certainly made the moments we do get to spend together so much sweeter.

I love you mom. Thank you for raising me the way you did, thank you for taking care of me when I was sick, thank you for putting me in my place when I was a pain in your behind, thank you for always letting my friends come over, thank you for teaching me how to make the best chocolate chip cookies, thank you for teaching me how to be strong and independent, thank you for being an encourager, thank you for never giving up on me, thank you for always pushing me to do my best, thank you for letting me move half way around the world to discover the adventure of a lifetime, thank you for being the best example of a loving, Christian wife, and thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for being my mom.

I'm jealous of those of you who get to see and hug your mom on mother's day. If you live close to your mom, be very thankful. See and hug her every chance you get!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and all my 'other moms' and friends who are now moms!

Me and my sweet momma :)

back at work

 I feel like I was on a roll with my blog updates, but then again I did have a lot of free time while I was off work! I feel like this week was a whirlwind, but i'm thankful its over and the weekend is finally here. Even if I was up at 6:15 this morning with my hubby who has to work Saturdays. I HATE that he has to work Saturdays! I long for the Saturday morning we can sleep in, go have breakfast at the beach and actually spend a whole day together. Instead, now that i'm back at work we're back to have 1 day off together. I'm very thankful for our jobs but I miss my husband and long for us to have "normal" work schedules so we can spend time together. It certainly has not been my favorite thing in our first year of marriage.

Ok, i'm done complaining...back to the whirlwind week.

I guess like in any job when you've been gone for a while you have a lot to catch up on. Thankfully I have a wonderful staff member who was filling in for me and she did a fabulous job keeping up with things in my absence so I didn't have too much work to come back to. But nonetheless there were still emails and phone calls to return, meetings, and trying to adjust to my crazy schedule again. I'm very thankful for my job, but the hours and schedule are hard. I'm sure i've shared this in the past, but I run the Before/After School Care program aka OOSH Care (Out of School Hours). So naturally that means I have to be at work before school and after school...so thats 6:30am-8:30am and 3:15pm-6:15pm, plus all my office hours which I generally do on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so on those days i'm at work all day...yes, 6:30am to 6:15pm, if i'm lucky I can try to get away for lunch. Working a split shift isn't always terrible because it does give me flexibility to see friends during the day, do my shopping, cleaning etc but when you live 20-25 minutes away from work that just means you spend a lot of time in the car. The schedule is hard, most days I don't get to see my husband until I get home at night (yes, even though we may work at the same school that doesn't mean I see him all the time!). I guess this week i've just had a harder time adjusting back to my schedule/routine and on top of that I've gotten sick. One of the joys of working with kids, lots of germs! It started out with just a little cough, then I started feeling miserable so I made a trip to the doctor and I have a chest infection. Not what you want to hear your first week back to work. So i'm on antibiotics for the first time in almost 2 years and have instructions to rest over the weekend so I can be good to go on Monday. So it certainly has been an eventful first week back at work.

Besides adjusting to working again and getting sick we've had a lot of other big things going on this week. Even though our Australian visa battle is over, we still have some other big things going on. Not going to go into all that now, but please keep us in your prayers.

good, good day

I am finally a (temporary) permanent resident of Australia!!  Insert (giant) sigh of relief here! I have been impatiently checking my email every 10 minutes all week, praying and hoping for a response from immigration but surprise, surprise rather than communicating by email they actually sent me a large envelope with a letter granting my visa and they even sent back all the pictures, invitations, cards we had to include in our visa application-aka proof of a genuine relationship. The temporary, permanent resident thing probably confuses most people. When you apply for a partner visa it is done in 2 parts, but you apply for them both at the same time. I am considered a (temporary) permanent resident for the first 2 years we are married. After 2 years are up they check up on you, and basically make sure you are still married and then you are considered permanent. Although now being a (temporary) permanent resident I am able to come and go from the country, work without restrictions (yay!), receive Medicare....basically everything of a citizen but I can't vote, which citizens are required to do in Australia.

I can't even begin to tell you how excited and blessed we are! We first started this immigration journey over 9 months ago and even though we will always have to "deal" with immigration issues in our relationship, we are so excited that this huge step is behind us! Personally, I feel like its a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. We've kind of been in limbo the last several months, but now knowing that I can go back to work and having this visa behind us we can finally start to move on an make plans.

Thank you to our many friends and family that have been praying for us. We are so thankful to have such an incredible support system all over the world! Not many people can say they have that, but we can. Know that we have had so much love, support, and prayers during the last 9 months is overwhelming in the best possible way.

I'm so thankful for my incredibly supportive husband throughout all of this. He's had to put up with a lot of stressed out moments from me and a whole lot of tears, but he's been amazing through it all constantly reminding me of God's plan and timing. I'm so thankful God's plan and timing are better than ours. God has taught me so many lessons throughout this experience and probably one of the biggest is to let go! I'm terrible at that, I love to be in control but i'm so thankful he is still patient with me. God has been with us every step of the way from the beginning of our visa journey to now and I can't wait to see what big adventure he has for us next!

pity party of 1

Some days are just hard. Some days I just want to pout. Some days I just want a hug from my mom. Some days I just want to cry. Some days are just overwhelming. And some days i'm just over it. Today is one of those days. I'm not good at staying home and not working. And I'm really not good at being forced to stay home and not work! I'm just used to being busy. I've been off work for 3 weeks today...3 weeks too long. It was nice the first few days. I was able to sleep in, catch up on my to do list but now i'm just ready to be back into my routine.

I received my medical check results in the mail on Friday and I sent them straight away to Immigration in Sydney. So now we wait, or keep waiting. It frustrates me to no end because we've been waiting for 9 months! I understand why they have rules, but that doesn't make things less frustrating for me. I just hope and pray that a decision is made soon. I know it will happen, I just need to be patient.

I saw this on Pinterest today. It put a smile on my face and was a beautiful saying and something I really felt like I needed to hear.

Flat Stanley came to visit

There are so many things I miss about teaching but one of the biggest was getting to do fun projects with my kiddos! We never participated in the "Flat Stanley project" but I certainly wanted to! Flat Stanley from CA came to visit via my aunt in St. Louis and we had fun doing some "Aussie" things. I had a lot of ideas but it rained all but one day while we had him so a lot of ideas got canned. My husband even contributed some ideas! I had to explain the whole "Flat Stanley project" to a lot of people here, most have never heard of it. And my sweet husband loved to call him fat Stanley...not really sure why, but it sure made me laugh. It was a fun mini project for a few days and helped keep me busy during my time off work. Now time to find another "project" to keep me busy!

Here are a few pictures from our brief time with Flat Stanley.

FS enjoying some Vegemite toast and a cuppa

FS learning how to drive a right hand drive car

FL visiting Umina Beach...the 1 sunny day we had!

FS helped with grocery shopping

FS hanging washing out on the line to dry

Welcome to the family

This past week my sweet husband and I were blessed with another nephew! Adorable, Elijah Benjamin made his grand entrance on Wednesday, a few weeks ahead of schedule! We finally made our way to the city today and got to meet this handsome little man. There are many perks that come with being married but gaining 3 nieces and 2 nephews has been one of the best perks! Being an auntie is so much fun and I'm excited that one day (a long time from now!) that our kids will have so many awesome cousins!

medical checks...done!

 Apparently I posted an immigration update too soon yesterday...

When I made my medical check appointment on Monday the earliest appointment they had was 10 days away. Before I hung up with the lady making my appointment I asked if someone cancelled if they could call me, she said it didn't work that way but I could call in a few days and see. Yesterday I was thinking maybe I should just call so I did and low and behold they had a cancelation at 1:30pm and the guy asked if I could make it by then (at that time it was 10:30am) I said of course!! Then began the mad dash as I had to be on the train exactly one hour from when I hung up with him. I threw on gym clothes left the house with no makeup...which I never do! Rushed to work to get some forms printed that I needed to take with me and my sweet hubby took me to the station.

When I arrived at the medical centre it was nothing what I thought it was going to be like. Imagine over 100 people in a very small space, most of which didn't speak English and everyone is trying to move to Australia. An interesting experience to say the least. I had to wait about half an hour, finally got called up to the counter and then began the not so fun stuff....chest x-ray, eye exams, blood test, doctor visit and a few other things. They shuffle you around from station to station with your stack of paperwork. From start to finish it took about 2 hours. I should get my results soon, hopefully! Then those go to Immigration, then our application goes to a case worker and a decision will be made.

I am so amazed at how much as happened in a week! God is definitely taking care of us and blessing us so much. I feel like we've just been waiting for almost 9 months and now all at once everything is happening...SO exciting!!! Keep praying for us, we could have a decision as early as a week or two which would be AMAZING to have all this behind us, but also then I could go back to work!

time for a change

Don't worry, you've come to the right spot!

Since being on "forced holidays" I've been trying to think of a few "projects" or things to keep me busy. Mostly things that are free or cheap because we are temporarily a one income family! For a while now i've been wanting to make changes to my blog but I was also debating on maybe starting a new blog since being married but then again I wanted to keep everything all together so I decided that some big changes and a facelift would do! So now we're www.blfowler.blogspot.com...for the last few years I was writing about teaching and my single, traveling life but now i'm a old married lady and want to include my hubby! I've also opted for a new title. When we got married the top 2 questions everyone asked was "when are we having kids?" and "where are you going to live?" The answer to the first one...not anytime soon and the second one...we don't know. But no matter where we live, we have a lot of friends and family all over the world and I hope we can use this space to keep our family and friends updated on whats going on with us!

On the visa front, I got a phone call from immigration yesterday! I have officially been cleared to have my medical checks! After we get these results and send them to immigration our application will be sent to a case worker and a decision will be made, hopefully! Now I just have to wait about 9 days as that was the earliest medical appointment they had available. But things are moving along! God has had his hand in this from day 1, and in the last week since my last day of work He has been doing big things! We are very blessed and can't wait for the day when its all finalized and I can return to work. Please keep praying for us!

Alright, time to get back to my house wife duties of the day and maybe another project!

big week

What a week we've had! Last weekend was our long 4 day Easter weekend, which was wonderful! We were able to rest up, spend time with family, BBQ with friends, do a lot of laundry, finally finished a book I've been reading for too long, and we even made a day trip to Sydney and visited the zoo! It was a much needed weekend and we enjoyed every minute. Tuesday I went to work for my last day. Its a bit difficult explaining to my kids why I wouldn't be at work for a while...I tried to tell them I would be on holidays, but wasn't going anywhere. That didn't go so well so then I tried explaining that (short version) I can't come back to work until I get a piece of paper saying I could work in Australia again because I'm from America. That actually worked, sort of. One of my little girls said "well, I don't like that!" I laughed and said neither did I! On Wednesday I finally received my FBI background check from the US. What a happy day that was! There are a lot of steps in our immigration journey and I kind of feel like I need to celebrate every time we make even the slightest movement! I already had plans on Thursday to go to Sydney to visit with some of my parent's friends, who were visiting from home so I decided I would hand deliver my FBI check to Immigration and hopefully be able to beg that my application go through faster so I could go back to work. My attempts were unsuccessful, which didn't really surprise me. But it wasn't a wasted trip because I was able to spend the day with my parents friends. It was so nice to get hugs from home and even just to be around people who sound like me! It may sound silly, but you move somewhere were you sound different from everyone else and you will miss hearing things like Y'all! We had a fun day, we did a lot of sightseeing around Sydney and I took them to a few of my favorite places. It was a good day, made a me a little bit homesick but thats ok. Later that evening my hubby and I wrote a formal letter to immigration requesting that our application be processed quickly, which we were advised to do by our lawyer. Apparently applications that are "process ready" meaning all the paperwork is turned in can be shoved through quicker in certain circumstances. If I've already explained that, please excuse me. So, no we wait...or continue to wait because we've already been waiting over 8 months! Its hard not to get impatient and frustrated at times. We are just very worn out and tired when it comes to this process. Everyone tries to give you their opinion or advice, even people who we know have been through it. But everyone situation and circumstances are different and the immigration process has even changed itself over the years. What we really need from them is support and encouragement while we wait. Its just hard because this is controlling so many things in our life right now, mostly my work situation but a few other big things too. So we just keep waiting. I know God is teaching us so many lessons through this experience and I guess the biggest is patience! On a random side note, I'm thinking of changing up the blog a bit. I really wish I was design/computer smart, but i'm not! We have so many things and changes going on, I feel like this needs one too. So we'll just see how it goes!  

Home sweet home

When we went home for Christmas I had so many people ask about where we are living. So here you go, several months late!

We are renting a tiny flat by the beach. When I say tiny, I mean tiny! But it's ours and it's super cheap and our landlords spoil us! We love living less than 5 minutes from the beach. It's not our style but that's ok because one day we'll have our dream home.

Immigration

I feel like I should re-title my blog...the ups and downs with Immigration. For the last year and a half, especially the last year immigration has been on my mind pretty much every day. I feel like i've become and expert on something I have no interest in becoming an expert on! I am thankful for my understanding and incredibly patient husband who has been by my side every step of the way and our wonderful immigration lawyer who answers every one of my (sometimes frantic) emails. Never in my life have I every had to think or worry about where I live and actually being able to stay and live there. So this was a new ball game for me. I guess its something most people don't every have to go through. Yes, I had to occasionally get travel visas to visit other countries back in my traveling days but never anything quite as extensive, difficult and overwhelming as this. As I've mentioned in previous post, as of the 11th of April I will no longer be able to work until my visa is granted. And right now in order for my visa to be granted we are waiting for my FBI background check to be sent back to Australia for the US. I made a static filled phone call to the FBI this morning and the lady informed me my background check will be mailed on April 6th even though it was processed 3 weeks ago! Thats another week away! As much as I wanted to ask her why...maybe raise my voice or cry...who knows, I resisted and said thank you and hung up the phone. At least for the next week I can stop waiting for the mail to be delivered. I know in all of this God has a plan and he is teaching me many lessons. Honestly I think God is giving me exactly what I need. I need a break from work. Even though its a unpaid/forced break, its still a break and I desperately need some time just to do nothing. For so many weeks now we've just had so many thing going on. Most days I feel great about things. I know that God is in control and he's given me so much peace, but some days are just hard and everything catches up with me and hits me like a ton of bricks. I feel like I've been having more harder days lately, which I hate. But as my sweet husband says, I (we) have a lot of big things going on, a lot on our plate that not everyone knows about, and I need to give myself a little more credit and not be so hard on myself and that its ok to have a bad day. He is probably right. Gosh, I love that man! I don't know what I would do without him helping me though all this...well actually its because of him I have to deal with immigration in the first place but he is TOTALLY worth it :) I know that this is just a season. One day (hopefully very soon!) I will be granted my permanent residency visa and we will get to have our celebration dinner at the top of Centre Point Tower in Sydney (my request!), I'll be able to go back to work and I can breath a BIG sigh of relief because finally the biggest hurdle on the Australian end of Immigration will be over. Now I know immigration will always be a factor in our life and I knew that when I married an Australian. And one day maybe we'll have to deal with this on the American end for Ben and I pray if/when we do I will have learned a lot from this go round to help me the next time! Its just a season, it will pass. Right now I'm constantly praying for strength to get through this season and patient while we wait for the next. But everyday thankful its in God's hands.  

sick days

My hubby and I have both been home sick the last few days and boy does that make for an interesting few days! Thankfully we're both on the mend. For me sick days lead to a 'Lindsey nest' on the sofa complete with my new memory foam pillow (which I am in love with, its amazing how much a pillow can change how well you sleep!), blanket, cup of tea, and my laptop. I've spent more time on Pinterest in the last 2 days than I probably should but its so addicting and I love it! For some silly reason Pinterest makes me feel at home. I love all the crafty things, the tons of holiday decor ideas, I love all the beautifully decorated houses that scream southern living, I love, love the countless teaching ideas and don't even get me started on the yummy looking recipes! I think Pinterest is a southern girls best friend. I'm from the south..we decorate our homes for every holiday, we monogram everything, we love looking our best, including our big hair (which had to be the first thing to go when I moved to Oz, courtesy of my cousin). I love being a southern girl and I miss it terribly, somedays.

Pinterest is also wonderful at making me miss teaching...terribly. There are SO many ideas its crazy! I think my teaching ideas board has the most pins of any of my boards. I've definitely gotten sucked into reading teaching blogs this week and pinning tons of ideas for my classroom I hope to have again one day. I'm very thankful to be in a school and very thankful for my job, but its not teaching and I'm a teacher. I've known since I was little that I wanted to be a teacher. I used to spend my allowance at the teacher supply store and turned our playroom into a classroom. I did such a good job that once we had a repair man or someone come to our house once and asked if my mom home-schooled us! There are not a lot of things that I think i'm good at, but i'm good at being a teacher. Its my passion, its what I feel is my calling in life, and its what I love and miss everyday. But God is good and I know I'll get to teach again and when I do, watch out because i've got a ton of new ideas, thanks to Pinterest!

 

You learn something new everyday

Its true. I feel like this is a major theme in my life now! Everyday I do learn something new; whether it be in my job, about my friends, about living in another country, my husband, being married, my relationship with God, and who would have thought i'm still learning about me, even after 27 years! This might sound all kids of cheesy, but I feel like moving half way around the world and starting a life in another country really has changed my perspective on life. I think of all the lessons and experiences I've gone through in the last 19 months and sometimes I wonder how i've made it this far.

My hubby and I talk sometimes about some of the differences between the US and Australia, most of them not major things (even though at times it may feel like) whether it be hanging our clothes on the line to dry outside, cooking with herbs from our landlords herb garden, how slow the internet is here, washing dishes by hand, having central heating and air, etc. I told him that even though a lot of those things are silly, I hope if we do move to the US one day that we can have a clothes line in our back yard, have our own herb garden and maybe even some chooks! Don't get me wrong, I still want a dryer and dishwasher and all those things I miss so much, but every once in a while it is nice to sleep on sheets that had been hung outside in the sunshine all day!

I have decided that no matter where we live when we have kids I want them to know everything about where they come from, after all they will be half Australian and half American! I want them to know what its like to hang clothes on the line and not just use the dryer! I want them to get to celebrate all sorts of American and Australian holidays, we will get to do road trips around Australia and the US, and Lord help us but hopefully they will learn to love flying because we will be doing a lot of it! At times its overwhelming thinking of being an international family, but we can and will make it work. I'm incredibly thankful for technology and know that no matter where we live our kids will grow up knowing part of their family via skype, and thats ok.

I think of how moving here for me has been and i've had moments of ups and downs. Some days are great and some i'm just down right homesick. Its funny when I first moved here I talked about how the culture shock wasn't bad and I wasn't very affected by it...yeah, I was wrong. I think it takes quite a while for culture shock to set in. I've been here over a year and a half and I still have moments of, whoa! I really hope we will be able to create a life for our kids where they don't have to go through some of those experiences. Although I know some of it will be necessary, I just want to protect them from as much of the hurt and homesick as we can, wherever we live. I hope they always feel like they fit in whether it be in Australia or the US. I hope we can teach them so much about both places that it just becomes a natural part of their life. I hope they love both of the places they come from just as much as Ben and I do. Being an international family affects more than just Ben and I, but at the end of the day its he and I. We have to make the decisions that are best for us and one day for our children. We can't worry about what will make everyone else happy, because lets face it, we can't and we shouldn't have to. Its about us, our 'one day' family and the plans God has for us, wherever he leads us.

 

Blessed

Where to start? I've been trying to figure out what to start with and all I have is- we are incredibly blessed. As i've shared in past post, we have a lot going on! One of the biggest things being my permanent resident visa which we are waiting approval on. And because of several things out of our control, I will have to stop work in April until it goes through. But I tell you what, our God is bigger than all of that! We have been praying so much regarding my visa and work issues (as well as some other big things we have going on...and no, we're not having a baby!) and God has been blessing us and answering prayers left and right. We have so many other things on our minds and God is continuing to open doors and showing us his way. I'm just so thankful. At the moment we still have not been given a decision on my visa, but we did receive some good information from our immigration lawyer, which by the way he has been another blessing! We've only had to meet with him twice, but he still keeps in touch with us and answers any questions we have. He informed us last week that Immigration is making some changes with visas that are "process ready" which ours will be hopefully this week as we are waiting on 1 last thing from the US. And hopefully because of our situation we should get it approved faster so I won't have to be off work for very long, if at all. Not for a minute do I think any of this is an accident. God is on our side and he is working it all out. I'm not going to lie there have been times when I get so overwhelmed and stressed out with everything going on and knowing I don't have control over any of it, but God has given me so much peace about it all. We still have a ways to go and several more things going on besides the visa but God is in the drivers seat and I'm so excited to see where he is taking us!

 

soup & spiders

Before we got married my husband knew my lack of cooking skills but I was bound and determined to be the best possible wife and learn to cook for my husband. Well 7 months later, all I can say is i'm very thankful my husband is a better cook than myself! My husband is a great cook and he's a great teacher. Slowly my cooking skills are improving and one day when we have a kitchen thats big enough for more than one person to fit in, an oven that works and a dishwasher i'm sure i'll become a fabulous cook! I can however follow most recipes. I received a few cookbooks when we got married but there was one I bought after hearing about it from a friend that has become my favorite! Its called the 4 Ingredients Cookbook by Kim McCosker & Rachael Bermingham. I love it! How hard can cooking be if you can make a yummy meal with only 4 ingredients?! One of my new favorite recipes is Thai Pumpkin Soup. It is so yummy! I'll share the recipe with you, but I recommend you go buy the cookbook because it has over 300 recipes that are just as yummy and simple!

Thai Pumpkin Soup (serves 4)

Ingredients: 1kg butternut pumpkin peeled and diced (for my American friends, I believe butternut squash is the same as our butternut pumpkin...I think), 2 tbs red curry paste, 300 ml coconut cream, 1/4 cup coriander chopped

Steps:
1. Saute pumpkin and red curry paste until it starts to catch on the saucepan
2. Add coconut cream to deglaze the pan, top with enough water to level with the pumpkin and bring to a boil
3. Reduce heat simmering until the pumpkin becomes soft and mushy
4. Puree (I use a hand mixer), season with salt and pepper and fold in chopped coriander
5. Enjoy!!

It is a thai soup, but its not too hot/spicy for those who may be wondering.

Besides my cooking skills slightly improving this week, its been interesting around here...I was bitten by a spider. When I first moved to Australia I kept hearing stories about the wildlife here and how they have some of the most dangerous spiders, snakes etc. For those of you who don't know I hate, HATE spiders. Any kind of spider and especially the dangerous ones! I'm the girl who always has bug spray under my kitchen sink! So naturally I would be the one to get bitten by one of those dangerous spiders. We aren't 100 percent sure as I didn't see it, but the bite and all the symptoms I experienced match the red back spider. I got super sick on Tuesday with what I thought was a migraine as I had a bad headache, nausea, etc but later that night I woke up in tears with intense stomach pains. A few other crazy, random symptoms and 2 days later I was feeling more like myself. I didn't go to the hospital because silly me didn't tell my husband about this really sore bite I had on my ankle until the next day. I didn't think anything about it and just thought it was a mosquito bite, but once I showed him the bite he immediately started putting the pieces together and told me what it was and how all my crazy symptoms made sense now. We called his mum who was a nurse and she said I was in the clear. Afterwards once the shock wore off, I'm pretty sure I told him this goes on the cons list for us living in Australia! No...we don't really have a list, we joke every once in a while when certain things come up. And yes, I realize spiders are everywhere, even the dangerous ones. Lets just hope this was my only encounter with one!

 

Fancy that

They have an app for blogger??! Wow. What did we do before iPhones? I know I rely on mine for everything and I'm very glad we invested in the otter box case because my phone tends to dive off the sofa onto our tile floor frequently!

So here it goes, first blog post from my iPhone.

Yesterday was Valentines day. I love holidays, I especially loved being able to celebrate them with my kiddos when I was teaching. There are so many wonderful moments in teaching but being able to celebrate holidays and see them through a child's eyes is so wonderful. Kids often see things differently than we as adults do and so often they see it in a much simpler way and I love that. Although valentines day in Australia is not as big of a deal as in the USA my kiddos and I still had some fun talking about it and making valentines crafts.

Luckily my husband knows me well enough to know that even if they don't make a big deal out of something like valentines day here, that he married me and I love celebrating every little holiday! A few weeks ago we were watching 'Friends' where monika and chandler decided to make valentines gifts for each other. My adorable husband thought we should do that too. So one store bought gift and one homemade gift was the plan. He can be creative and crafty...me not so much. It was so much fun though! He was working away for two afternoons on my gift. When I came home from work last night he met me at the door and lead me around the house with my eyes closed to reveal my valentines surprises. Afterwards we went to a yummy dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant at Terrigal Beach. It was such a wonderful valentines day with my valentine.

My homemade...err...edible gift for him and his homemade gift for me :)

our holiday and a little update

It's hard to believe we've been back from our holiday in the US for almost 6 weeks! And sadly i'm just now getting time to blog about it. Better late than never, right?! We left the first part of December for our big trip home (my home anyway) to the US. Last year when I went home for christmas my dad and I had devised a plan to surprise my mom, so this year I was bound and determined to surprise my dad! We originally told my dad we were going to arrive on Saturday, December 10th however really we booked our tickets to arrive on that Friday. I know, I know...not a huge surprise but he is a hard man to surprise. Overall all our trip there was ok, as ok as a 14 hour flight, 6 hour layover and another 4 hour flight can be. I think we counted, our total trip time door to door was 28 or 29 hours. But it was worth every minute! I guess the biggest challenge was not sleeping, neither of us could sleep on the long flight. I think I slept maybe 30 minutes to an hour, I think I was too excited to sleep! By the time we arrived in LA we were so tired, thankfully we slept most of the flight to Memphis. When we arrived in Memphis my mom and brother were there to get us. For those of you who have never been to the Memphis airport it is probably one of the ugliest airports with this terrible brown, shiny brick everywhere and it always seems to have the same smell...but it felt like HOME! We decided to have my dad meet us out for dinner with my auntie Amy and her boyfriend Pete who were also in town for the holidays. We of course chose Mexican food because you just can't get that here! My dad showed up after a few minutes and needless to say I think we surprised him! He said he thought something was up because I was suppose to email him before we left Sydney and I never sent him my itinerary...excuses, excuses!

As soon as we got to Memphis we hit the ground running! We got to attend my childhood church our first Sunday morning there. It was so wonderful to see so many familiar faces and get lots of hugs! I got to see my best friend Bethany and meet her adorable little girl, finally! During our first week we headed to east Texas to visit with some of Ben's friends from when he lived there 10 years ago. It was so good to finally meet them after hearing so much about them. We got to see all the sights of Nac and even saw the house where Ben lived. I was able to meet up with one of my friends from college that lives in Lufkin, it was really good to catch up with her and chat all about being newlyweds! I hated that it had to be such a short trip, but it was worth it! The day we returned from Texas was also when one of my best friends Marie and her husband Brad came into town from Colorado for wedding reception. Marie had come out to Australia for our wedding but she was only there for 4 days so it was good to finally be able to spend more time together catching up. We ran around town like crazy getting things ready for our reception and had a lot of family and friends arriving in town! The Saturday morning of the reception we had my family, my Texas family (you know who you are!) and my 3 best girl friends over for an amazing brunch cooked by Marie's husband Brad who is a chef. I have to say that was probably one of my favorite moments of the entire trip was having so many of my favorite people in the world all in one place. Later that evening we had our Memphis wedding reception or as I like to call it wedding extravaganza part 3 or as my father has named it the Ben and Lindsey world wedding tour, the last stop. My mother and her friends did an INCREDIBLE job transforming the lobby of my parents church into a rustic, winter wonderland. My mother had been "pinning" ideas for our reception on her pinterest board for months and no lie, our reception looked just like her board. I am blown away by all the little details and hard work and her friends did. It truly was my "other" dream wedding! Not many girls get to wear the wedding dress twice and have more than one wedding celebration, we are so blessed to have been able to share it with all of our loved ones. The evening was perfect, the food was delicious, and the time spent with friends and family was priceless. If you want to see pictures from the night you'll have to check out facebook.

The rest of our trip was spent visiting with friends and family, shopping...lots of shopping, sightseeing and of course Christmas! We did make a quick day trip to Little Rock, but it was nowhere near enough time to show Ben my "home" so i'm thinking we'll just have to make another trip one day soon! Our Christmas was wonderful. It was our first Christmas together and it was so special to be able to spend it with my family that we don't get to see very often.

Its hard to sum up our almost 3 week long holiday in just so many words. The trip for me was much needed, I was very ready to have a dose of home and to be able to show my hubby the life I had there before coming to Australia. When you live so far from home and your family you learn some big life lessons, and for me I think I took living so close to my family for so many years for granted, so now the times we do get to spend together mean so much. I love the life we have in Australia, but I miss home a lot.

We arrived back "home" in Australia right before New Years. We were able to spend some time with Ben's family, including his grandmother who went into the hospital while we were away and passed away a few days after we returned. I'm so thankful we were able to see her before she passed away. She was such an incredible woman of faith. I only had the privilege of knowing her for less than a year but I was deeply touched and encouraged by her strong faith and love for the Lord.

Since being back things have not slowed down thats for sure. We quickly settled back into our jobs and home routine. I celebrated 1 year of being at my job, our 6 months of being married and we celebrated Ben's 32nd birthday a few weeks ago! I have spoken with immigration a few times since being back. We will find out if our Partner Visa (which means I will be permanent resident) will be approved this year. There is a 9-12 month wait time. So the earliest we would hear would be May, and August at the latest. However we did find out yesterday that if our Partner visa is not approved by April 11th, that I will no longer be able to work at the school i've been working at. The reason behind that is, when I first came to Australia I came on a working holiday visa which has work restrictions that you could only work at 1 employer for 6 months, now that i'm on a bridging visa the same restrictions from my original visa still apply. I was able to work for a second lot of 6 months after we were married because the time started over when I moved to a bridging visa but unfortunately there is no way around it after this 6 months is up, unless my visa is approved. So, we're praying that it will be approved! Please keep us in your prayers that it will be approved closer to the 9 month mark than the 12 month mark! Also be praying for us as we have a few other big things going on, we'll share when the time is right. And no...we're not pregnant because i'm pretty sure thats what most people would think first. We are very blessed and know that God has a plan for us. We're excited to see what the next season in our life will be and where God will take us!

 

Happy New Years!

Happy 2012!



I hate that I wasn't able to send out holiday card or newsletter of some sort this year, so i'm settling for a New Years blog update. I guess we are a much for digital world now days so I guess it fits, but you better believe I will be sending out card this Christmas!

2011 was certainly a year of change, challenges, friendship, love but most importantly a year of blessings! I was able to start a new adventure in 2011 when marrying my best friend and everyday since i've loved being able to share my life with him. I'm not sure how anything can top all the exciting, life changing events of 2011 but I know God has more exciting things for us to come in the years ahead.

To our friends and family, I pray that this year you are surrounded with Gods love, peace and blessings! I hope you get to spend time with your loved ones, get to experience a new adventure and are surrounded with heaps of laughter! We are so blessed to have each of you in our lives and so thankful for all your love, encouragement, and support in 2011! We hope you had a blessed holiday season with loved ones! Next post, I'll update you on our holiday with family in the US!