Merry Christmas!

Hope you have all had a great Christmas season! It has been a very different Christmas for us - we stayed home this year - and have had lots of time to relax and enjoy all God has done for us.

This morning, Joe fixed me breakfast and then we partook in Christmas festivities. We read the great story of Jesus' birth and then did our annual Christmas ornament tradition. We write on the ornament all that happened throughout the year - trips, blessings, big events. It is really fun the next year to look at past ornaments and reminisce.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas season....

We made Rice Krispie Treats with our niece, Ava. She helped decorate the top with chocolate. She liked eating some, too! This was back at the beginning of December - I think this is the only goodie we made!

Joe sipping his hot cocoa this morning, before reading from the Bible.

Our completed 2008 ornament - some highlights included moving to Illinois, our 1st backpacking trip, Chicago trip with Joe's family, free Cedar Point trip, and many others.Hope you all have a great Christmas! We are headed to southern Illinois tomorrow for some Christmas festivities with Joe's family and then to Indianapolis for Campus Crusade for Christ's Christmas Conference.

We are now in Illinois!

Hello all! We made it to Illinois to safely and are really enjoying our new apartment!

We moved December 1st and boy was it fun. The weather didn't turn out like we had wanted, but God protected us and kept us safe. We saw 3 different accidents seconds after they had just happened - in all we saw about 12 cars off the road. We were very excited to arrive safely and to be on solid ground. The Uhaul and our cars had think layers of ice and were super dirty. But, all in all we were really excited to be where God has called us to be!

The day we moved in, we felt so blessed. Students from Illinois State University and staff (all with Campus Crusade for Christ) helped us unload and settle in. My sister also lives in Illinois and came to help! I think we had about 15 people helping us! By the time the day was done, the kitchen was organized and put away (thanks to the students) and master bathroom and bedroom semi set-up. We were so thankful - our fellow staff with CCC even brought buckeye bars over and a goodie bag. We felt so blessed and welcomed!

Some of the students from Illinois State unpacking and putting away our kitchen stuff!

More of the students unpacking and helping out!

Our nieces came to help us, too! They even spent the first night with us, so they could help us unpack more the next day. They didn't know they were going to spend the night - so they loved wearing Aunt Andrea's T-shirts to bed.

We have been diligently working on getting our apartment in order. We have pretty much everything where we want it now and we really love it!

Our living room!


Our bedroom!

One of our bathrooms!

Other part of our living room - decorated for Christmas!

In other news, we have been really enjoying our new job. We love the people we work with and the students. We were able to attend the weekly Campus Crusade for Christ meeting at Illinois State and got to take part in staff development week. It has been such a joy being where God has called us to be! The students even welcomed us by decorating our cars with window paint!




Hope you are all doing well and taking joy in the Lord this Christmas season!