Baptism, Anniversary, St. Louis, People Watching and New Cookbook

Hello All! In an attempt to actually keep on a once month blog update I am posting only 4 days after the one month mark. It might actually be less than that because February likes to keep it brief.

A few days after my last post Nate baptized one of mine and Emilie's first graders. We were so happy that this student entered the family of Christ. I decided that the kids needed something to hang up to remember their baptism. I am not very talented with making banners or felt so the fifth grade teacher gave me the idea to make a wooden plaque. One of the plaques I made is in a picture below.

We had a very exciting end of February and beginning of March. As some of you know, Nate's and my anniversary is February 27th. We had a lovely dinner at P.F. Chang's. Yes, we went there last year too but it's so delicious and just expensive enough that we only go there once a year. We then went home and watched the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney. We chose this movie because it was partially filmed in St. Louis. I thought to myself, made in St. Louis clearly means it is awesome. It turned out to be an okay movie. It was fun to see places I recognized, especially the airport. I love the St. Louis airport in particular because I have a lot of great memories of when my mom, sister and I would drop off and pick up my dad there for his business trips. There was nothing better than waiting for my dad at the gate when he was coming  home. Sadly, kids don't get to experience that now because of the heightened security measures. Anyway, back to the anniversary, Nate and I like to follow the wedding gifts according to year tradition. This year was leather. Nate got me a beautiful bracelet from James Avery and I got him a baseball signed by the manager of the New York Yankees. It's great what you can find on eBay.

The most exciting part of the past month for me has been getting to visit St. Louis. Nate had a workshop at the seminary for Prepare-Enrich which is a pre-marital and marital counseling program. The workshop fell the Saturday starting spring break at St. Paul so we decided that I would tag along and we would spend most of the week with my family. We also got to see some great friends while we were there. We went to Blueberry Hill to hang out with our seminary/college friends and Growler's Pub to hang out with our friends the Lanes. I had a nice night watching movies with my great friend Rachel Woolery. We went to the restaurants we miss, like Hodak's, with our family friend, Steve. Speaking of restaurants, I ate my fair share of St. Louis Bread Co. (Panera) bagels while I was there. There are no good bagel places in the Valley which makes me very sad. I did some shopping with my mom which my dad and Nate make fun of us for because we are always gone longer than we say we will be. I think there are few things better in this world than going shopping with my mamma and watching TV with my pops. The only thing that would have completed it was getting in some time with my sis but she is having a busy last semester at the University of Missouri. We were able to also visit our vicarage congregation and share about our ministry in McAllen with them. It is always great when we can take a trip down to Cape Girardeau. The people there are phenomenal and we miss them all the time! We had a great trip!

As many of you know, I love airports also for people watching. We didn't get too much quality people watching time in because our layovers were short but I did see a few gems. It's very interesting to see spring breakers travel. Most of the time they are wearing clothing not conducive to travel, i.e. short dresses and clothing that is only appropriate on a beach. They are also usually burnt to a crisp. Sunscreen people, sunscreen. We witnessed a good deal of people walking around with neck pillows on their necks. I hope they didn't plan on sleeping standing up. I think my favorite were these two kids in San Antonio.

We saw a young fire chief in the St. Louis airport. Just keeping the airport safe from the risk of fire.

I think one of my other favorite things was this handicapped sign. Poor guy.

In my world of cooking there haven't been many developments lately. I did purchase a new cookbook called Cook This, Not That! Skinny Comfort Foods by David Zinczenko. To me, "skinny" comfort foods don't usually exist but I like to give them a try. A few days ago I made "The Elvis" sandwich for Nate. He loved it.

"The Elvis"

Ingredients:

4 slices of wheat bread

1 slice of cooked bacon, crumbled

1 banana

Peanut Butter

Drizzle of honey (I didn't use any honey.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put bacon on the pan and cook for 15 minutes. (I cooked more than one slice and used the rest for something else. The oven is a great way to make bacon perfectly.) Drain the grease off of the bacon and crumble. Lightly toast your bread in the toaster. Spread peanut butter on the toast. Create a layer of banana slices on top of the peanut butter and then top with a layer of bacon crumbles. Drizzle with  the sandwich with honey and complete the sandwich with your other slice of toast. Makes two servings.

Well, that's all for now. I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day and that you have a very blessed Easter! God is good!

Christmas, National Lutheran Schools Week and Funny Kids

Hi Friends! I know I apologize every time for the length of time that it has been since my last post. I am sorry. I had planned to update the blog about a week and a half ago and then some unexpected business came up, as it usually does.

To start off this, what I'm certain is to be a long post, we have to go back to December. December is a busy month for all people. It is especially busy for us. We have birthdays everywhere in December, Nate's, my mom's, Nate's brother Alex and mine. Oh yeah, and there's that small holiday, Christmas. Pastor's aren't busy at Christmas at all...note my sarcasm.

We had a lovely Christmas. My mom, dad and sister, Victoria, were able to come visit for a week over Christmas break. It was so nice to have them here. We hadn't seen them since we moved and I miss them a great deal. We had a nice time showing them around Texas or as I like to call it sometimes, MexiTexas. We spent Christmas day with our friends from church who couldn't make it home for Christmas. It was nice to have our McAllen family and my family here to celebrate together. We made it out to South Padre Island one day and had fun walking on the beach. When they were here it was actually pretty warm, but the day we went to the beach it was colder. You will notice in the pictures below, we are wearing sweatshirts. That is a rare occurrence down here. Nate and I were so glad to be able to spend time with them, even though it was a very busy week at church.

For Christmas for our church/school staff I channeled my inner craftiness and put homemade decals on candles. They turned out like this:

My friend, Carrie, and I walk mostly every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at 4:30 or 5 a.m. This may come as a shock to most of you because it is very widely known that I am NOT a morning person. I have been known to say on a fairly regular basis, “I hate the morning”. I know however though, if I don’t get up and do this, I will not exercise at all. Why not go after work? I live in what is practically Mexico and it is 75 degrees at 4 p.m. in February, on a cool day. Anyway, one morning Carrie and I are walking. We realize that this tow truck is very slowly following us around the corner on to a side street. We are mildly creeped out but we keep walking. The tow truck passes us and drives slowly down the street and shines flashlights on cars. At that moment I realize we are going to witness a car repossession. Carrie and I go from suspicious to overly excited in seconds. We watched as the tow truck drove up and down the street looking for the car desired. We then see the tow truck stop, someone get out and then the tow truck started to back up to take a SUV. We were so excited. We are thinking, you only see these things on TV. These guys were nowhere near as fast as the people who do this on TV. We were surprised that the owner of the car didn't hear anything and come outside. They certainly had ample time to do so. Anyway, it was something we had never seen and it was really an interesting thing to watch.

January is far less hectic when it comes to how busy things are at church. The first two weeks are especially dead. The highlight of January for me was National Lutheran Schools Week. As a kid, I LOVED this week. Dressing up funny and special events are always a great time when you are a kid. I have to be honest that I was kind of dreading it this year because dressing out of uniform and special events usually make students crazy. The first graders actually did really well that week despite the changes. The reason why it was so great this year was because the theme was "Baptized for this Moment" and Nate ended up baptizing two school children at the closing chapel for the week. What a great blessing!

Speaking of baptisms, there has been an overwhelming interest from the school children lately about getting baptized. We have a baptism happening this Sunday morning for a third grader. One of the first graders is getting baptized next week in chapel. The first grader who is getting baptized asked me about it back in October and it is finally happening. I love how excited he is to enter the family of Christ.

Nate started a new Bible study after the new year about world religions for the Winter Texans. Our young adult Bible study is doing this study as well because when Nate mentioned that he was doing this for the Winter Texans we all expressed interest. He is really enjoying both groups with this study. It is really popular with the Winter Texans, so much so that he has had as many as 40 people and for a mid-week study that is a really great turn out.

Last week, I was able to substitute for the first grade class because Emilie’s (my partner in crime) grandfather died. The first graders and I had a very interesting week. It just so happened to be the worst week for sickness in our school that week. The first graders, who are very affectionate, gave me a version of the cold that I am still fighting. They are a very huggy group. This illness outbreak lead to about 5 kids throwing up over the course of the week. Luckily, they all are very good about making it to the trash can. I also had two students poop their pants. Apparently, I was scaring the poop right out of them. We had a fun week. It also gave me a chance to brush up on lesson planning and actual teaching. It was refreshing in that way.

To finish off this post, I thought I might share some quotes from my school kids:

We were talking about how everyone is sinful in first grade for religion one day. When I said this, one of the girls says, "Even Pastor Wollenberg?!?"

Background info on this story: It was the first day of Lutheran Schools Week. The students were allowed to white white this day and to be out of uniform.
Me: What's wrong?
First grade girl dressed in her uniform with her white uniform shirt: I wanted to wear something white and fabulous today but my mom said I had to wear my uniform.
Me: It's okay you're still wearing white.
Girl: I just really wanted to wear something fancy today.

First Grade Girl: (in a moment of frustration shouts) AW SUMMER SQUASH!

Girl: Boy kicked me in the face with a ball.
Boy: I didn't mean to.
Me: Okay, please apologize to girl.
Boy: I'm sorry.
Me (to Girl): Are you okay? Is your face going to fall off?
Girl: That's not even possible.
Boy: If her face does fall off, maybe it will turn into a fossil.

First Grade Girl: Who goes to H-E-B (grocery store) before school? It takes me an hour to get in and out of that place.

First Grade Girl: Miss Schultz, is snowball a squished word? (She means compound word.)

My favorite: "Mrs. Wollenberg, thank you for teaching us about Jesus."

Well that’s all for now! God is good!

Our first Fall in the Valley

Hi Friends! Sorry it has been so long!

Things have been very busy for us. It has seemed so long since our last post. 

Something that I didn't get to include in my last post was that I attended the wedding of my good friend Rachel McCall, now Rachel Schlie. Her wedding was in a small town near Pittsburgh called Cabot, PA. My good friend Shayla picked me up from the airport and we had a great time catching up. Our friends from CUW, Matt and Katie Barry, were kind to open their home to us to stay while we were in town for the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding! I also had the pleasure of catching up and dancing with the lovely Al Chandler and Amanda Voss. It was so great to see everyone.

Nate's parents came to visit at the end of October. We had a great time with them. We went up to San Antonio with them since they had never been there. We had a nice time walking the Riverwalk and shopping at the Marketplace. We gave them a taste of authentic Mexican food, including Tamales! There is this excellent place called Delia's that has extraordinary Tamales. They are very popular to have at Christmas time and they are inexpensive which makes them even more delicious! Nate's parents ended up staying for a couple of extra days because of hurricane Sandy. Fortunately, they did not suffer any damage from that devastating storm. It was a very nice visit.

The day that Nate's parents left was the day of the Fall Festival at St. Paul. There were some carnival like rides. There were game booths, karaoke and some great food. There was also a cakewalk. This was the first time that Nate had ever experienced a cakewalk and he was glad that he would be able to finally partake in this tradition. Now the expression, "It's a cakewalk", finally makes sense to him. For the festival Nate and I dressed up as Buzz Lightyear and Jesse the Yodeling Cowgirl from Toy Story. It was a great night!

As many of you know, pastors and their families really can't travel home for the holidays. For Thanksgiving we were here with our close friends from the church, mostly the called workers who are in our situation, being far away from family and some others. We had an excellent potluck style Thanksgiving at our friends Carrie and Elin's house. We proceeded to play games, watch football and take naps. There was also Black Friday preparation. It was very nice. We are very blessed with a group of friends down here that serve as our "family".

Speaking of Black Friday, everyone knows that I love a good deal. Black Friday is a big day for me every year. Now, let's be clear. I am not a crazy Black Friday shopper. I will not set up camp outside a place of business three days before a sale is to start so that I can get a 60" tv for next to nothing. I will partake in the sales but I get there when the store opens or a little bit after and wait until everyone walks in and then I enter. However, my favorite Black Friday deals are the ones that are online with free shipping. Kohl's has great Black Friday deals and offers them all online with free shipping for orders over $50. I was finished with my Kohl's purchases on Wednesday and didn't even have to leave home, or so I thought. On Thanksgiving, I was talking with my friend Carrie while we were going through some ads, after we had returned from Target. A beautiful 7ft pre-lit Christmas Tree caught her eye in the Kohl's ad and we were back out. Kohl's was packed. They really need to invest in some better shopping carts because many of the Petsmart carts from next door had been commandeered for Kohl's shoppers. We found her Christmas tree after some hunting and then proceeded to spend a very slap happy hour and a half in line waiting to check out. It was actually really fun.

Things in 1st grade continue to go well. The students are still funny and sweet. This past week I subbed in 5th grade. It was a nice change of pace. I was pulled into 3rd grade last minute on Thursday to sub and the 1st graders were very concerned. I've learned that if you ever want to feel like a million bucks, just spend several months with a bunch of 1st graders, leave for about 3 days and then return. There were hugs and so many stories about what had happened while I was gone. It was so cute.

There was a dessert auction for the youth at St. Paul. and I make some delicious cupcakes that sold for $90! I found this recipe on Pinterest and was very glad that I did. In the process of making these, I mistook the speed lever for the tilt-lock lever on my Kitchen Aid mixer...twice. Needless to say, things got a little messy. Haha.

Here is the recipe:

PUMPKIN CUPCAKES WITH CINNAMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING by Nancy Creative

Makes 22 cupcakes

• 2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 (15-oz.) can pure pumpkin puree (not canned pumpkin pie filling)
• Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting (see recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 muffin pans (22 cups–you’ll have 2 less in one pan) with paper liners; set aside.

In medium bowl, blend the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In large bowl, blend canola oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree and blend well. Add the flour mixture into this pumpkin mixture and stir until blended. Pour batter into muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in pans for about 5 minutes, then remove to completely cool on a wire rack.

You can make the frosting while cupcakes are cooling…

CINNAMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

Makes enough to generously frost all your cupcakes! Halve the recipe if you want to frost your cupcakes more lightly.

• 2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese (regular or light), softened 
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
• 7 1/2 to 8 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Blend softened cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add in vanilla and cinnamon, blending everything well. Gradually add confectioner’s sugar a cup at a time, blending mixture after each addition. Frost cupcakes when they have completely cooled. If you’re not serving these soon after frosting them, refrigerate until ready to serve (because of the cream cheese in the frosting).

Source: http://nancycreative.com/2012/09/21/pumpkin-cupcakes-with-cinnamon-cream-cheese-frosting/

We also had a Chili Cook-off at St. Paul in which I tied for 3rd place with a recipe for Cincinnati Chili. It turned out good but I think it could have been better had I had more time to make the chili. 

2 lbs ground beef
2 cups chopped onions
4 cups beef stock
2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
2 -3 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 ounce grated unsweetened chocolate or 2 3/4 tablespoons cocoa
2 teaspoons instant minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper or 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 bay leaves or 1/8 teaspoon bay leaf powder
Toppings
chopped onion (optional)
finely shredded cheddar cheese (certainly NOT optional)
kidney bean (optional)

Directions:
1. Brown ground beef and onion.
2. Drain.
3. Add beef stock to beef mixture and simmer 10 minutes.
4 Add remaining 13 ingredients, simmer uncovered 1 hour.
5. Remove bay leaf, skim off extra fat.
6. Serve over hot spaghetti, or hot dogs in buns for chili dogs.
7. Top with plenty of cheese and other optional toppings.

Read more at: http://www.food.com/recipe/skylike-chili-skyline-chili-copycat-110548?oc=linkback

That's all for this very long post. Sorry for the length and for the delay. I hope that you all are having a great approach to Christmas! God is Good!

So Many Things...So Little Time

Hello All! I’m sorry it has been so long since my last post. I actually wrote this about a week ago and haven’t been able to post it. Things have been terribly busy. Here comes a long update…okay go!

Good news! We finally acquired internet for our apartment. Sadly, it is only a 3G wireless card, so Skyping is still not possible. The day we regain normal high speed internet will be a beautiful day. Until then, Skyping can only happen at church.

More good news is that I got a job. I am a teacher’s aide for the 1^st grade at St. Paul and I tutor after school as well. This is my first experience in a classroom with children younger than 3^rd grade. They are exhausting but they are also a good deal of fun as well. They say the funniest things. I wish I could record them all day long.

Here are some of the things they say:

First Grader: (After saying goodbye to his mom already moves to the doorway as she walks out) Goodbye Mom! I love you! Then he blew her a kiss... First Grader: (After saying goodbye to his mom already moves to the doorway as she walks out) Goodbye Mom! I love you! Then he blew her a kiss...(this one made my heart melt a little)

Miss Schultz: Please give me some examples of "How" questions.
First Grader: How do you do, partner?

Miss Schultz: God is watching you all the time.
First Grader: He knows where we are?
Different First Grader: Like how, with a map?

First Grader: (While very intensely staring at his hand) I wish I had four fingers like Mickey Mouse.

Miss Schultz: Peanuts are a healthy snack, except for Emilia, she can't have them.
First Grade Boy: She's electric.

First Grader: I dropped my pencil box; but it's okay, it didn't break. It's waterproof.

I do enjoy my time with them and my tutoring but working a straight 10 hours a day, five days a week, having choir and bells Tuesday night, small group Bible study Thursday night and Family Fun night on Friday night is wearing me (and Nate) out and causing our apartment to look like a warzone. (I am very aware that sentence is very long and most likely grammatically incorrect.) I keep looking to the first 2 days in November. There is no school so I should be able to get in some cleaning and possibly some baking and crafting. Those are high hopes but we’ll see. There’s always Thanksgiving and Christmas break.

Our weekends have been very busy too. Since we have been here, we went with the youth to the water park on South Padre Island, Schlitterbahn, (It blows my mind that they worked that name into a radio jingle). Nate went to the area’s confirmation retreat. There were several churches there and had a great time. They buried him in the sand and made him look like a mermaid.

One weekend Matt (the youth director) and I decided we would teach Brittany, one of the new teachers, how to cook. Our cooking lesson turned into an all day event. In the morning, I took her grocery shopping and taught her my secrets of savings. Then, we came back and made 6 meals. We had 3 crock pots going and did few meals in the oven. One of our oven meals was a very exciting experience; Matt put some chicken with some oil on it a little too close to the broiler in the oven. We heard a crackling noise, so I went to see what was going on. I opened the oven and there were flames. Now, instead of reacting to the situation, for some reason I saw the flames, calmly closed the oven door and simply said, “That’s a fire” and walked away. Matt and Nate quickly responded with “WHAT?!?!” and Matt turned off the oven.  I guess the flames shocked me. I made a new recipe that day, a simple, tator tot casserole that was delicious. I have never met a tator tot I didn’t like. Here is the recipe:

Tater-Tot Casserole
SERVES 4

1 lb lean ground beef (I doubled the meat to make it go farther to feed 4)

1/2 medium onion, chopped

1 (10 1/2 ounce) can condensed cream of celery or cream of chicken soup (undiluted)

1 16oz package frozen tater tots

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

salt & pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Brown ground beef. season with salt & pepper.
3. Add chopped onion, cook until tender.
4. In a casserole dish, combine ground beef mixture & cream soup.
5. Top mixture with tater tots.
6. Bake , uncovered, for 30-40 minutes till bubbly and Tots are golden brown.
7. remove from oven & top with cheese, return to oven until melted.
8. Enjoy!

Source: http://cravingcomfort.blogspot.com/2010/01/tater-tot-casserole.html

We also had a school pool party one weekend in which I needed to take a dessert. There is a reason I chose the dessert that I did. As most of you know, I am a sucker for a deal. The grocery store down here was having a deal that if you bought a $5 tortilla warmer, you would get 36 tortillas for free. These tortillas are the best tortillas I have ever had, however it failed to dawn on me that it would take a really long time for just Nate and I to eat 36 tortillas. This leads me to making the Apple Enchiladas which, if you like things really sweet, this is your dessert. I could only have a half of one, but they were delicious.

Apple Enchiladas

Cherries or peaches can be substituted for apples. (I used apples)

1 (21 ounce) can apple pie filling

6 (8 inch) flour tortillas (I used smaller ones which made them half the size and doubled the tortillas.)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1. Spoon about one heaping quarter cup of pie filling evenly down the center of each tortilla.
2. Sprinkle with cinnamon; roll up, tucking in edges; and place seam side down in prepared dish.
3. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar and water. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; reduce heat and simmer 3 minutes.
4. Pour sauce over enchiladas and let stand 45 minutes.
5. Bake in preheated oven 20 minutes, or until golden.
6. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Source: http://cornfedmomma.blogspot.com/2011/04/apple-enchiladas.html

Two weekends ago I had the chance to attend the Texas District Pastors’ Wives Retreat at Camp Lonestar. I was very impressed with the retreat. The committee did a great job picking topics that were very relevant to pastors’ wives and engaging speakers. That is a pretty big compliment coming from someone with the attention span of a first grader. I was able to see some lovely ladies that I haven’t seen in a while and also meet some new ones. I also had a great time driving up with the pastors’ wives from the valley. It is always a good time when you get to cross through a border patrol checkpoint (this one was not on the border). I left the retreat feeling refreshed and happy to be in the Texas District with such great women.

This past Sunday and Monday, Nate and I ventured up to San Antonio for our PALS gathering. PALS stands for Post Seminary Applied Learning and Support. That basically means that for the first 3 years of your ministry you come together with pastors and their wives from your area that are also in their first 3 years and talk about your experiences and the guys also have some study time. We have a great group from South Texas. We played some crazy bridge to get acquainted which if you haven’t played it, you really should. One of the best parts of the trip that had nothing to do with PALS was that there is a Panera near the church we were at up there and I was able to get a Cinnamon Crunch bagel. YUM.

That is all for now. God is Good.

Hola, Howdy and Hello from Texas!

Hello from Texas! As you have noticed (or maybe not), I have changed our blog to Nate and Kate in the Lone Star State. Very exciting! (At least for me).

We have been in Texas for almost 3 weeks now. We are finally starting to get settled. We live in a part of Texas called "The Rio Grande Valley". It is not actually a valley, it is just a piece of flat land along the Rio Grande River. Since we have moved here, things have kind of been a comedy of errors. Now they are funny, not so much at the time. A week before we came down here the rental company that we are renting through told us that our newly built apartment would not be ready because the electric meters had not been installed yet. Obviously this is when panic set in because we had a moving truck coming from St. Louis a week from that day. Thankfully, we were able to move our stuff in. Sadly, we couldn't stay there for obvious reasons. We had a few very gracious members of the congregation take us in. We also had a very nice couple let us use their home because they were leaving for a mission trip. We got by just fine. We finally got electricity and then the air conditioner started leaking. After a firm message that I left on the rental company's answering machine, it was fixed the next day. We have been living in our apartment now for about a week. I have the kitchen unpacked which was a huge deal because I have way too much in that department, of course, nothing I am willing to part with. Haha. We are still working on the other rooms so that they don't look like a war zone. It might be a little bit yet before we invite people over or post pictures of our place to Facebook. I am very excited about the palm tree in our front yard!

Something that isn't so funny still is that we still don't have internet at our apartment. I know that people lived without it for a long time and still do, but this "first world problem" is killing me. You know it's bad when I, a person who isn't a big reader, reads a 385 page book in less than 24 hours. Even though we don't not have the internet right now, we have had the Olympics to keep us occupied. There is one thing for sure. Nate and I LOVE the Olympics! I have been glued to the TV for the past week. Today we had Dish installed with DVR, so I won't miss any of the coverage!

Nate was installed at St. Paul on July 22nd. It was a very nice welcome. My parents and sister came down for the occasion. We were so happy that they made the trip! We had a great meal after the service, consisting of some very tasty Mexican food. I am going to have to capitalize on living in this part of the country when it comes to learning how to make the native food. Since then, we have just been trying to get settled in both at home and Nate into his office. He is preaching for the first time at St. Paul tomorrow.

Here is a picture from the installation:

Well, that is all for now. Hopefully the next time I post there will be some pics of our place! God is good!