Hawaii

So, we are here. All this stress and craziness and we are here.

I promised you some pics...

While Becky and Noah were on their honeymoon me and lindsey were able to remember ours and have a few nights at the River Shack. These sunset pics are amazing... but they don't capture the fullness of the sight.

While we were there we got to Stand up Paddle and cruise.

A beautiful sunset and a beautiful wife! What else could a man ask for.

Words couldn't do justice.

The Fam (Spark's side). I think everyone got to surf that day... well... almost everyone. My mom and her sisters got scared and talked on the beach.

Overwhelming solitude and powerful waterfall... (un-named location... so it stays that way.)

These are just a few of our moments here in Hawaii.

We still need lots of prayer. Thanks and Aloha.

The Move

So. We are trying our best to document our lives and allow our friends and family to be 'in the loop' with this new thing we like to call photos. If you know us at all... picture taking is not one of our top 10... or top anything really. But, we are going to give it a try because we love you all oh so very much!

Ha. This is a funny one...

Thanksgiving Dinner in mid May. (aka - we had a lot of food to rid from our cupboards including; a turkey, stuffing, green beans, scalloped potatoes, potatoes... you name it, it was there.) We shared it with our friends the Fazakerleys.

Our First Apartment.

Here are some 'before' pics of our Apartment. For those of you who have seen it and shared memories in it, reflect. For those who had never had the privilege, imagine... then reflect.

'look at the stars... look how they shine for you'

...the bedroom.

Here is Lindsey in her Kitchen! This was her favorite place in our apartment. She loves to cook and bake, which explains the added pounds on me.

The move was tough...

Here are some of the boxes we had. I think this is about half. We had to play an un-holy game of real life Tetris to fit it all in our storage unit. I'm not even sure if we took a picture of it finished but our 2 bedroom apartment had to fit into a 5x10 ft unit. You do the math.

The most amazing moving crew. A special shout out to Taylor, our cousin Abby and Janae. They put in some hefty hours too... (also to all the people that stopped in with helping hands and hearts.)

This is the last left over bottle of sparkling cider from our wedding. The perfect refreshing post move-day beverage. (notice the pliers I'm using to remove the cap. I felt like a man.)

Anyway, I could go on. But I will spare you.

We miss CA already and all of our friends and family. (I think Lindsey mostly misses her Kitchen... but I'm loosing weight! ha jk.)

Mahalo for your prayers... please keep it up!

Aloha

how it began.

when you are completely open to God and announce to Him "we'll do anything and go anywhere!" He'll normally take advantage of that. and so that is how we got here. 

luke got laid off (like everyone else in california) back in october. right after this we began pursuing jobs leading worship all over the country. i thought for sure one would open up and we would move to one of the many places we applied to (iowa, louisiana, kansas, arizona, colorado, texas, virginia, florida, michigan, even istanbul, turkey!) but, apparently that wasn't exactly what God had in mind. 

by february we were tired of this. luke's old job offered him to come back and take a new position. though we didn't want to say yes- we did. but six weeks later he was laid off again. needless to say this company was not the nicest or most honorable company- clearly. because of this, though, luke and i became even more open. we decided to walk through any open door until it was slammed in our faces. 

once again, we applied everywhere. and prayed hard. one day, i was hanging out with our friend, bethany, and she mentioned one of her friends that was teaching english overseas. for the next two weeks i researched everything about it and found that south korea seemed to have the most jobs available with the most benefits. luke and i began talking more seriously about it and both decided it was something we would love to do. the job started in september so it gave us plenty of time to get stuff in order. 

about a week after this- the first week of may- we were on our way to church down in long beach (the long beach project- aka the garden) and i was on the phone with luke's mom. i was telling her about our plans to move to south korea and mentioned something about luke still needing to find work here. luke had been looking for these great full-time jobs, but now, if we were really going to south korea, he just needed to find something to pay the bills until september. 

luke's mom told us we should move to kauai for the summer before we went. we could live with them to save money, and luke could do worship at the church while his dad got the surgery on his shoulder he'd been needing for years. i laughed and told her we'd think about it (i was, of course, joking and thinking how ridiculous that was). 

and then i hung up. i looked at luke and we both like, "hmmm".

the next day we gave our 30 day notice at our apartment and put luke's car on craigslist. we adjusted our flights that we already had for becky's wedding and got our documents ready for korea. i quit my job, we packed, put tons of stuff in storage, and moved. all in 3 weeks and 4 days. 

this by far is the craziest thing we have ever done. ever.