Welcome Fall

This is our first Autumn here in Kentucky, and I must say that we are thoroughly enjoying it.

Last Saturday, which was the first day of Autumn, Matt took me to the river front park in Downtown Louisville.  We had a great time walking along the Ohio River, and missing the ocean as we looked at the river.  The river's nice, but it's just not the Pacific Ocean.

It was definitely kind of strange looking across the river and seeing a different state (Indiana) right there.  We actually only live about 5 minutes away from Indiana.  Matt wanted to go put his feet into the river water, but as you can tell from the pictures, it's not really clean, but he got as close as he could get. 

It was a pretty windy day, you can see that in the above picture, the river is sort of choppy, so it kind of looked like little ocean waves, but not really. :)  I really enjoyed the metal swings that they had set up along the paths on the river's bank.

We had a great first day of Autumn.  The strangest thing was that it actually felt and looked like Autumn.  The weather is a tad chilly, and the tree leaves are beginning to change to brilliant reds, oranges, yellows, and purples.  I'm so excited to experience our first fall where we get to see the actual changing of tree leaf colors.  Not that they don't change in California, but I don't think going from green to brown to gone is really that exciting. :)  

Besides exploring Louisville, Matt and I have kept really busy this past week.  Matt is so so so busy with his Seminary classes and full time job.  Please keep him in your prayers as he learns to balance school, work and family.  This is not an easy task, but we know that God will give him the strength to make it through.  I have been throughly enjoying my job at Christian Academy of Louisville.  The little preschoolers are just so funny.  

I have to tell you this cute little story that happened recently.  One of my preschool students was writing the letters of the alphabet out.  I complemented them and said, "You're so smart, who taught you your alphabet?"  Of course I was thinking that they would respond that their mom or dad had taught them their alphabet, but that wasn't the response that they gave me.  They looked up at me with their serious little eyes and stated, "God taught me my alphabet, didn't He teach you the alphabet?"  What do you say to this kind of a response?  Well, I said, "That's amazing!  He sure is a good teacher isn't He?"  They quickly agreed and continued on with their coloring.  Aren't young children just so amazing and faith filled? 

God is so good and faithful to us, and we pray that everyone back home is resting in His promises and leaning on Him for the strength that you need from day to day.  Until next time, "Happy Fall!!!"

It's Been Too Long!!

We have been so busy here in Kentucky, which has caused me to greatly neglect my blog posts.  Hopefully nobody thought we just disappeared. :)  Honestly, not much different has been happening lately.  We have definitely fallen into a pretty predictable schedule, and I guess this just seems boring to write about.  I mean who really wants to read about someone's monotonous daily schedule, right?   So, instead, let me tell you how God is working in our lives while we are here at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Probably one of the hardest things for any married seminary student to handle is how to schedule time to be with each other.  You cannot even imagine how demanding Matt's studies are so I won't even try to explain it to you.  I will say this, the Lord is definitely teaching him to make every minute really count.  This will definitely be a good skill for him to have once he is in the full-time ministry.  If Matt's heavy school load isn't enough, he's also working a full-time factory job from 3:00 - 11:30p.m.  I go to work at Christian Academy from 9:30 - 6:00.  Matt's first class of the day begins at 7:00 a.m..  As you can see, we do not get to see each other during the week until midnight when he gets home from his job.  This is quite common for married Seminary students.  I have determined that I will not let Satan use this crazy schedule to try to destroy our marriage.  (Now I hope that none of you think that our marriage is on the rocks, because it isn't at all.)  I have decided, that like Matt, I need to learn to make every moment count.  I'm so thankful to my mom for teaching me how to make my husband feel loved and special in simple affordable ways.  I remember very well, my mom teaching me to write notes to my dad and put it in his lunch pail for him to find at work. I love writing notes of encouragement to Matt, putting some of his favorite candy with them, and hiding them for him to find in his school bag.  Then I love the anticipation of waiting for Matt to find the note and candy and for him to come home and tell me how much he was blessed by the note at just the right time.  We may not get to see each other a lot, but there are many things that we can do to show each other how much we love the other.  I'm not the only writer though.  Many times I'll come home from a long day of work at preschool to find a note from Matt lying on my computer.  I love getting notes from him, they let me know that he is thinking of me and loving me very much.  All this to say, that God is teaching Matt and I how to continue building a strong marriage even through the business of seminary life and hectic work schedules.  But, most importantly we realize the importance of having God at the center of our marriage.  Without Him, we open up our marriage to the attacks of Satan.  Tomorrow, Matt and I get to attend a marriage seminar called The Family Life Seminar.  We are so excited to learn from Godly couples how to properly strengthen our marriage while we are here at seminary and also when we are serving God in the full-time ministry.

Another thing that we have decided to do in order to make the time that we spend together count is to have a date day on Saturdays.  This past Saturday, Matt planned a surprise date day for me.  We had so much fun, and just enjoyed being together and talking about what had happened during the week.  We laughed, prayed together, and even discussed the future.  Matt took me to my first flea market here in Kentucky.  You'll love the name.  It was called "The World Awesome Flea Market."  I guess they aren't too concerned with their grammar at the flea market.  It was a great experience though.  We even got some local raw honey; which I really love.  One of the things that we purchased there was an antique glass Mason jar that had a beautiful blue tint to it.  Matt thought I was kind of funny for wanting an old jar.  On our way to our next destination, he kept asking me what I was going to use the jar for?  I didn't really know, I just liked the jar.  As we talked over launch at an amazing sandwich stop called Penn Station in Bardstown, Kentucky, we came up with a really cool idea for the jar.  There are so many things that we would like to see in Kentucky so we thought that we would right down the things that we wanted to see and do in Kentucky on little slips of paper and place them in the jar.  Each Sunday we would take turns pulling a slip of paper from the jar, and then it would be that person's responsibility to plan the Saturday date day to the place listed on the slip of paper.  We're really excited to begin this "Date Day Jar."  I'll let you know how it goes in future posts.  Well, after our trip to the amazing Sandwich shop, Matt took my to one of Kentucky's many state parks:  The Bernheim Forrest. This park is absolutely beautiful.  They have an amazing visitor's center, and there are so many little paved trails to explore.  We took one trail that led us too a pond filled with bluegill and turtles.  Matt bought some food for them, and we had so much fun feeding the turtles and fish.   We also went on what was called the "Canopy Walk."  This was a long pier-like structure that allowed you to walk over the canopy of trees below, the view was breathtaking.  We took quite a few pictures while we were there, which you'll see below.  After visiting the park, we went and got sushi from Trader Joes and brought it home and we ate it while we watched an old movie.  We had such a great time together.  We are so thankful that God allows us this time to be together and share our weeks with each other.  It is just such a refreshing time.

Here I am in a really neat structure made out of sapling trees.  

Here is the pond full of fish and turtles that we found while were were walking.

We had so much fun feeding the turtles, it was much better than feeding ducks. 

There are benches all over the trails to sit on and relax and enjoy the looks and sounds of the natural beauty around you. 

Here's a full view of the structure made from the sapling trees. 

We took this picture with the timer function on my camera.  I just love the old rustic fences here in Kentucky.

Here's a picture of Matt looking at the view from the Canopy Walk.

Well, as usual, this post is getting too long.  So, I better let you all go.  We miss you all so much.  Thank you for your prayers, they are needed, and we definitely feel them and God working in our lives here in Kentucky.