Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Slip Sliding to St. Louis



Yes, I'm back!!!!!!! What a crazy month it has been. I tell you Rob and I have had one adventure after another. It's been stressful but also a whole lot of fun(or maybe I should say "not boring"). A wise man gave me and Rob some great advice the day of our wedding. He said simply, "ride the waves, ride the waves". Well, Rob and I have been in the eye of a hurricane and we're a little sea sick but we're trying our best to ride those waves.


Feb. 24th was our planned date of departure from the great North. That was our plan but it was a no-go. A horrible snow/ice storm came through and there were all kinds of driving advisories. We ended up leaving the next day but it was horrible. I've never seen roads like the ones we drove on. I was in one car with my mom and Rob was following close behind in another car. We maybe reached the speed of 45 mph but that's as fast as it got. There were parts of the interstate that only had one visible lane and that one lane was ice covered. I've never experienced such tension. This tension lasted through both Dakotas. It took us a total of 24 hours to travel to Missouri.


Rob and I hit the ground running and started looking for apartments in St. Louis. Boy oh boy did we learn a whole lot about each other." RIDE THOSE WAVES" It was a great experience for a newly married couple. Not knowing St. Louis all that well it took us awhile to get to know what areas were good and what areas were not so good. Once we figured out what areas we liked and could afford we then had to find an apartment in that area.


The Lord led us to a duplex in the St. Louis city limits. The building we live in is shared by a 75 year old lady that owns the building as well. She has the cutest little backyard that I can't wait to spend more time in. She even told me that I could cut off any flowers I wanted to. It's a dream come true. I can have all the fresh flowers I want and I don't have to get dirt under my finger nails. It's a great place to live and we have plenty of room for any of you that would like to come visit.


Well, we found a place now it was time to move in. Rob's belongings are still in ND and the airforce should be delivering them soon. My stuff however has been in my parent's shed since last May. All of our wedding gifts were being stored in my parent's basement. Our moving date was St. Patty's day. It was supposed to be an easy move. We were going to just pull the Uhaul truck up to my parent's shed and load it up. Easy huh? The Uhaul truck got stuck in my parent's pasture. Someone tried to help by pulling us with his truck. Didn't happen. We then borrowed the neighbors tractor. Didn't happen. We finally had to call a wrecker-SUCCESS.


Rob and I are now in St. Louis and pretty settled. Our next challenge-finding jobs. Rob and I have really been discouraged with our whole moving experience but there are lessons that we wouldn't have learned otherwise. We were reading together last night and came across a good verse for us right now. 2 Cor. 6:10"sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, poor, yet making many rich, having nothing, and yet possessing everything." What a great attitude Paul had about his hardships. Rob and I are trying our best to rejoice in our circumstance. We have so much to rejoice about. Whether we're sliding in the ice or the mud we should rejoice. So, we're dusting off our surf boards and we're going to enjoy those waves. The life God has given us is so totally gnarly.