Things we are loving in Texas...

Love it.  Always will.  And have missed it so. 

 I used $20 in coupons today, on things I actually use on a weekly basis--feels good to be back in HEB country.

The sky.  Its really beautiful here and seems to go on forever.

  This isn't actually a picture of the sky in Texas, but just so you get the idea.  

Finding a shop that was made for me. :) 

 This store has cute clothes, designer fabric, and home decor....love it.  Some of my favorite things all wrapped up into one store.

We also are loving the people here.  We haven't met a ton of people yet, but it seems that everyone we meet is incredibly friendly & truly hospitable to us.  I don't know if its the small town thing, or if its Texas, or if its simply the Lord sending kind souls our way, but we love that about this place.

Its the little things in moving to a new place that can make the world of a difference.  

a texas anniversary

Ben & I just celebrated our second anniversary two days ago in our new home in Texas.  With the move and the transitions that go along with it happening only a week before our anniversary, we didn't put much thought in before hand to what we were going to do.  On top of that, west texas is a totally new place to us, so we have no idea what the good eats are, or if there are any special things to do here.  As we were talking it over during the move, we both decided that the thing we would enjoy the most would be a nice, relaxing professional massage together. A massage is great in general, but after moving yourself almost 900 miles, from the third floor of an apartment complex to a new home, there are a lot of sore spots that need a good working out.  We are soooo glad we did it and the timing of it was perfect.  We had just gotten everything in our house un-packed, put away, curtains & pictures hung, lawn work done, and house completely organized.  After going hard and long for the past 3 weeks, relaxing was all that was on our radar, and after the massage, we both felt like jello--completely relaxed.

I guess it is fitting that we are celebrating our second year of marriage in a new home.  It marks a new journey for us, one that is exciting and still very mysterious.  Ben is in meetings today where we are hoping to find out more of what his training will entail. Meanwhile I am working to venture more into some of my passions while here.  Ben will probably be very busy with training & though that is nothing new to us, it is a challenge to me to be able to keep myself intentionally occupied in a new place.

We are still visiting churches in the area, but feel very drawn to one in particular which we will be visiting again this week.  One thing we are sure of, is this--we can see the Lord's hand in very tangible ways over our time here.  Although there is so much to our time here that remains to be seen, it is a comfort to us that the Lord obviously has us here for a reason--He has already placed people & opportunities in our path that are hard to ignore and we are excited for that, especially being that we know our time here is limited.

hello texas.

We finally made it to Texas, and thankfully, after almost a week of being here, we have internet in our house.  You never quite realize how much you depend on the world wide web until you are without it for a few days.

The trip down was a long one, but the Lord definitely provided for us fully along the way.
Ben drove a ginormous Budget rental truck all the way from FL to Texas, with our Rodeo in tow, which demanded that we drove the entire route at 55 mph. ugggh. We were also required to stop every 50 miles to make sure the straps on the tow dolly were holding up, so needless to say, it was a LONG trip to Texas.

During the trip we also determined that Louisiana just doesn't like the Carters.  It always seems to leave us with nice little gifts, like flat tires. Thanks LA. Just before the move, I blew out a tire in my Camry right before we got to the LA-TX border. This time around, right before we got to the border of Texas, our tow dolly got a flat tire.  We were stuck at the Lazy Cajun RV Park for about 3 hours...awesome.

In all seriousness, the Lord provided for us greatly in both of those situations & we can look back & laugh at them now---but I am not going to lie, we may be avoiding Louisiana on road trips for awhile.

Ben & I are currently trying to make our new house a home---even though we will only be here for about a year, it is good to have a familiar and welcoming place to come home to every day, especially when transitioning into a new town.

 Everyone seems to be so friendly here.  We have already had at least two different strangers show us the most amazing hospitality we have probably ever received.   One (a local pastor) toured us around town, helping us house hunt all day long, and the other person spent 2 hours in the heat, fixing our Rodeo's electrical wiring & battery for a grand total of $20.   It is very challenging and convicting to us as believers to show kindness to everyone we meet.

That's all I got for now---more cleaning & putting away of boxes to do.