Catch Up!

So I haven't posted in almost 3 years, that is so hard to believe. My last post was when I was pregnant with Ilsa Clare, who is now 2 and a half!

Amazing! My how the time has made some changes! I suppose this one should be a big game of "catch up." Three years in one post, here goes!

I was "let go" at Fredericksburg

Realty in October of '07, but I took with me some great experiences and memories, and had a wonderful outlook on our life to come.

I was still pregnant with the little one when Jay and I decided to look into taking another call somewhere else in the world.

That world ended up being Minnesota, Big Bend, Minnesota to be exact.

On January 23, 2008 we welcomed Ilsa Clare Grave into our beautiful family. She was born at home with our absolutely wonderful midwife, Faith Beltz. Amazingly enough, Jay, who thought he was going to be hyperventilating on the front porch was right there with me the whole time.

Holding the flashlight to be exact.

(I will tell that story in more detail another time, but for now we will move on.) Four and a half short weeks later we packed up the family and moved 1200 miles north to the frozen tundra of Minnesota.

We have been living and loving life up here in the Great White North. The winters are pretty cold and blistery, but so beautifully

clear and white it is almost hard to imagine. The night we arrived here it snowed 8 inches and didn't seem to stop for almost, well forever.

We are now well seasoned snow angel makers, snow ball fighters, and snowmen (and nativity scene) engineers as well.

The girls are growing like little weeds, Ilsa Clare is small and mighty, and Isabelle is a brilliant 2nd grader (that is for 3 more days she is.)

Both of them are growing into

beautiful little girls and young ladies, whom we love and adore very much!

Cleaning out Closets...

Cleaning out closets is an amazing adventure! I mean, really, when was the last time you cleaned out a closet? While trying to get ready for our newest little bundle of joy, my husband, Jay (the Pastor), and I started cleaning out our library just last night. Our library is exactly that. Four large mismatched book shelves LOADED with books, a desk piled with paper work and folders, and a closet that houses our solo TV and other miscellaneous items. By miscellaneous, I mean, random. I came across a pair of leopard print ice skate blade covers in that closet, an unused wreath, and an old locker bag???

First, off let me say, this was Jay’s closet to start with, so I cannot be held responsible for most items found within. After digging through this closet, which to be honest, was not by any means full, I had created a good trash bag size pile of LARGE things to go in the trash. No, no, the leopard ice skate blade covers did not end up in the trash, they made the cut. I did, however, come across a box full of our wedding cards and left over thank you notes. While digging through this box o’ memories, I came across about 20 thank you cards with names on the envelope, but no address!!!

Hmmmm…that is interesting. Sure enough, we had a small stack of thank you cards that we never got into the mail. Written, yes, the hard part was done, but mailed…somehow we (together we work as a unit, especially when something is messed up) managed to miss the mailman with these few, yet mostly important thank yous. As I looked through the unaddressed envelopes, I realize that not only have we left off some of our congregation members, but also the Senior Pastor, a retired pastor, a former Bishop and a former assistant to the Bishop. What are the odds that those very specific few envelopes could be lost to the wayside? Goodness!

So today, our 8th moniversary(8 months), I sit at my desk scribbling addresses in non-matching ink colors on 8 month old thank you cards, trying to decide if I should write a little apology on the back side of the envelope, or just go with what I have…I opt for believing that most these folks were young once as well, and if they really care that it took so long for them to get our thanks, then they did not really mean it in the first place. Well, that is MY justification. It is mostly because I am just not interested in explaining myself. So, lesson learned! It is amazing what you might find in your closets, you should give it a try. But BEWARE of what you might find.

God Bless and Peace to you all,

Liz the Pastor's Wife