Andy (usually about once a week) turns to me and says, "You know we really are blessed". Sometimes this phrase can really get to me (especially when I'm anxious, worried or stressed (which I am 95% of the time)). I want to shout back, "Ha! Yeah okay we really are, are we?". But I don't. Because we are. Then we usually start talking about all the ways God has blessed us. We both have parents who are still married (thanks!), we have a roof over our heads, food in the fridge (if it was on the table it'd be getting spoiled or bad), good health (most of the time minus my freak illnesses, probably because I wasn't breast fed! =) hehe), Andy has a great, stable job (trust me looking on job listings everyday the majority of job postings are for physical therapists (I dare you to check it out)), um we have THE best dog (you were waiting for Buckley to be mentioned so there you go!), we don't have to fear going to church and proclaiming our faith, our government is not hugely faulty (okay I'm really not political and yes our government does some crazy things, but I'm talking about countries where their leaders are totally incompetent, so please don't jump down my throat... I mean they're not making us do anything too crazy), and the list could go on and on. 
I have felt particularly blessed in the past couple of weeks. When moving to Washington I did not have any jobs lined up nor did I really want to begin searching. To tell everyone the truth I realized through a series of events that I felt my career path had changed. I went into teaching wanting to change children's lives. I feel that the American family has gone down a lonely and unhelpful path. Children are split between two parents, they have new siblings who are way older or way younger, their parents spend most of their time with the doors closed (or open) screaming and yelling, children are left alone until 9 or 10 at night because their mom is the only income source... I still desperately want to help these children (I saw it all throughout my student teaching and substituting). But I really felt God tugging at me and wanting me to be a stay at home mom. Now I was totally against this throughout high school, college, and going into marriage. "What about the girl? She works so hard during school and she's supposed to throw it away to stay with her kids all day? How about the guy stays home?..." The question that kept getting thrown into my head was, "What greater way to change a child's life than to be there for your own child?" If I was to be a teacher I feel like I would have to choose between my own children or the children in my classes.. I know there are great teachers who are also great moms and I give props to them. I just don't know if I could do it. Anyway... a long paragraph to say this I'm not teaching and I'm not really looking for a job (God has blessed us that we don't need my income to survive (although YES I KNOW IT'D HELP WITH THE LOANS)), but my next career title will be MOTHER (hopefully soon).
Andy and I have recently become an uncle and an aunt, respectively. My sister and my brother-in-law now have a little boy named Parker Louis who is absolutely adorable. I am so thankful that we live in Washington and are only 3 short hours away. I just think that if we still lived in St. Louis who knows how long it would be before we could see him. And! I can see him more than just once a year! We are taking a trip back to Seattle (we were there the 17-19th, Parker was born on the 20th... fail...) this weekend to see him and I get to take Parker's newborn pictures! So the weekend of the 17th, Andy had a conference for physical therapy (a continuing education thing) so we got to see Amy and Brandon and stay with Chris and Melissa. We are just so excited that we live so close to our siblings and that we can get to know them better and just hang out with them more often. And we get to see our adorable nephew (soon to be nephews) as much as we want! 
Sorry I was a little chatty this morning... Most of you just look at the pictures anyway. (And I apologize for the parenthesis usage- what can I say! I love to use them!)
