family fun.

So I thought having to come back home after being at my parent's was hard (especially when I was horribly homesick in the first place), but having them come visit us here in TN and then have to leave was really sucky :( I guess it's cause I know that when I'm up in IL, it's just for a trip. But them being here in my world started to feel so normal. They came to visit for about a week and we had a blast! I really got used to them being here and can totally see them moving to this neck of the woods. I was able to spend Mother's day with my mom for the first time in a few years, so that was nice.We spent most of our time driving around, sightseeing. We spent the day over in Gatlinburg and took a chair-lift ride up the mountain. We drove up into the Virginia, through the hills and over to Abingdon. The funnest part of the trip though was starting to go through some houses with our realtor.

Yes, we are getting a house! I am so so so so sooooooooooooo excited! We are blessed beyond belief and have some people who are wanting to help us with getting our first little starter home. We've looked at about a dozen or so but I think we may have narrowed it down to 2. Hopefully we'll have good news on one here in a few weeks. I can't wait to finally unpack all of our stuff that has been in storage since October and start feeling like we actually do live here. I have been spending countless hours on the internet looking at ideas and projects, loving every minute of it. Can't wait to get started!
We've also been working on the new space for our church. It's about half way done, with all of the walls and lighting done. We'll be picking out paint (the best part) and hopefully moving in next month. It's going to look so great! I not only get to decorate my office, but the nursery and youth room. It's been so fun picking out colors and putting together design boards. Fingers crossed it turns out as good as I see it in my head :)

Well that's about sums up the last few weeks. Still workin on doing this more regularly. Love ya'll!

the first post...

So here it is... the first post. How exciting! Or completely mundane, I guess depending on who is doing the reading :) I have recently become quite the blog-reading creep, so I feel it's only fair to put myself out there too. I started this, ooohh, about November of last year with every intention of my first post being January 1st. Well, hello March 22nd! I feel pretty ridiculous writing this considering I have my doubts about who exactly would want to read it, so let's just say I'm doing it for my own cathartic reasons.

I titled this blog "A Beautiful New Chapter" because that is exactly what I feel I've started. I got married on June 27th, 2009 to seriously the bestest guy in the whole wide world! (And I know every other taken girl out there will whole-heartedly disagree with me, but what they don't know is that I'm telling the absolute truth. It's a fact! My hubs is literally THE best. So there.)

So after we got married, I told my most excellent hubby that we would go wherever HIS job carried us. Little did I know that we'd be carried so soon. Up until October 2010, we were living in Burleson, TX (a.k.a. South Ft. Worth and the hometown of Kelly Clarkson, fyi.) I was teaching Special Ed at the best elementary school ever (shout out Bransom Bobcats!!) and the hubs was on staff at church as the associate pastor. Have I failed to mention that my other half is a pastor? Oh were did my head go. Thats the most important part of this puzzle. A little history- my dad is also a pastor for the Assemblies of God and statistically, I am the quintessential pastor's kid, or PK. Bratty, bossy, rebbelious... the works. I had spoken out quite loudly, from an early age, against never, EVER marrying a pastor. Well you know how they say God has a sense of humor? Jokes on me. After 23 years of holding my ground, I caved. What can I say- he's a total hottie.

So back to Texas... My Mr. started feeling the itch about March of 2010. We had close friends who were planting a church in northeast Tennessee and had asked if we'd like to come along. Remember when I unwittingly made the comment about going where his job took us? Long story short- we packed up and headed to the hills of northeast Tennessee in October. I am the children's ministry director and my hubby is the Youth pastor. I'll probably post the longer version at a later date.
Honesty is the best policy right? So we've been here for about 5 months now and it still doesn't feel like home. Not that I don't like it, cause I do! I just don't feel settled yet. But that could have something to do with the fact that we don't have our own place yet, don't have steady income, don't have a building for our church... All the little party favors you get when planting a church. Again, more on all that later.

This new chapter of our lives is shaping up to be pretty interesting. I guess that's why I'd like to document it in this way. We'll see how that goes...

Oh by the way, I forgot to introduce myself to any non-family/friends. My name is Stephanie :)