Our first post as a married couple

Thanks to all of you, our wedding weekend celebration was AMAZING! We got on the plane to go on our honeymoon and were humbled by how perfect everything was. Thank you so much for celebrating with us and making it such a memorable weekend.

Our honeymoon was incredible – we loved Australia and couldn’t believe everything we got to see. J.J.’s favorite part was snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef while I absolutely loved getting to tour Sydney on bikes. We both were left speechless at the beauty of Tasmania and the uniqueness of Uluru (Ayers Rock). If anyone is looking for a tour group, check out Adventures by Disney. We would highly recommend them to anyone – they did a great job planning the 10 days we were there and making the trip very memorable.

We got back from our honeymoon and hit the ground running. Thanksgiving and Christmas were just around the corner. We had loads of duplicate furniture to sell and I still had some boxes to unpack. Work needed some pretty intense attention after two weeks off and there were still some wedding lose ends to tie up. Somewhere around that time we decided that we were being called to simplify: strip down our possessions to make more room for God…which led to a lot of sorting and ultimately the decision that we should make an effort to sell our house. A huge step of trust for us in this market but I think we both feel like it is what we should do, no matter what the results.

It is now practically April and I am realizing how quickly the next nine months are going to fly by. Our goals:
– Simplify, simplify, simplify (in process)
– Reach out to any mission opportunities (check!)
– Have the worlds most massive garage sale ever (our entryway and garage are being taken over by ‘stuff’ and the pile keeps growing – where did all of this come from?!)
– Put our house on the market by May 1st (eeek very far from being ready for this)

There is a lot to figure out but it’s so exciting to be embarking on this journey together. It’s amazing how natural it is to be married. Going home to the same place, waking up together, planning as one, sharing families more intimately… we are loving every minute. Psh – if the first year of marriage is the hardest, we have this made! 😉 Don’t worry – I’m not that arrogant. I know we both have a lot of learning and growing and I am intimidated but excited about the refinement that God will bring through this relationship.

As for our mission trip, we know that you guys are as excited as we are about January 2014 so we’ll do our best to keep this blog updated as we make some decisions. For now, we are still prayerfully considering all of our options.

More later!