...to celebrate one whole year

June 23rd marks one whole year of living here in SLO.

WOW!

It has been a year of extreme highs and extreme lows, a roller coaster ride that even Magic Mountain couldn't dream up. We've laughed a lot, cried a ton (maybe not my hub, but I have cried a ton) and seen the Lord work so personally in our lives and in the people around us....we wouldn't trade the last 365 days for anything.

Here's the summary:

We left CO

and landed in Germany to buy our car,

got stuck in Germany for 5 days

and THEN entered SLO

only to share this house with the Patty family for a week while they were trying to move out of it (an unexpected and slightly traumatic turn of events that we can all laugh at now)

and then jumped into a 4 week intensive language course

(thanks again to Mom who came to babysit for 3 weeks!)

whereupon it's conclusion, we went up to KRIZ for 2 weeks.

A few days after getting home from KRIZ, my sis and her fam stayed for about a week,

Then, Team Jenkins arrived in country and moved in with us for the month of September.

While the guys went off to JV Fall conference, the construction started on our road that lasted through the end of November.

Meanwhile, we started our fall semester of Slovene school,

in which we left our kid every day

with 2 very capable babysitters (but still hard for this mom),

did our homework,

took much needed naps,

felt our house shake (literally, for multiple days) from the heavy machinery,

which we did not like,

which Caleb really really liked.

All the while, we learned how to:

pictonary grocery shop,

heat our house with expensive heating oil,

endure getting yelled at by total strangers and one of the coldest winters in a really long time,

say more than "I like swim. Me swim cold water. Me swim in summertime."

and visit beautiful places around this country.

We even found time to teach at a weekend English camp,

attend staff meetings,

hang out with awesome students,

discover our favorite kind of coffee and pizza,

celebrate Thanksgiving with our team,

attend an amazing prayer retreat

have most of our family visit.

And that was just the first 6 months.

Since January...

we met with a great tutor,

went sledding on a crazy old army road in the Alps,

recovered a bit from the busy fall semester,

were treated to a wonderful marriage conference in Poland,

and taught at another English weekend,

started language school again,

got connected to the city heating system

(that was the reason for the construction all fall),

the guys went to a church planting conference,

we had a KRIZ retreat,

and lots of great coffee (and climbing) dates with students.

And we did more homework and took more naps.

This spring... my other sister and her hub came to visit,

so did Hondo's fam for the 2nd time!

(despite being delayed by a random volcano in Iceland).

We celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary

(and the fact is that we still really like each other even after a crazy year of transition!),

(Hondo) lead a missions trip to Serbia,

we figured out which city we'll be moving to,

went to our first JV Spring Conference,

finished language school,

had more staff meetings,

more camp meetings,

more coffee (and climbing) dates,

went on an Amazing Race with our summer interns,

hosted a mini Intern training session,

visited almost every church in the country (literally),

and sat on the Slovene coast and remembered all of the above and how faithful God has been through it all.

Now

I

need

a

nap.