We celebrated another blessed Christmas season and are now enjoying a week off together to try out all our new toys, catch up on sleep, and spend lots of time together. As much as I love the holiday season, I'm not one of those people who is sad when it's over. We celebrate the days well around here and by the time it's all said and done, I'm just as excited to rest well and prepare for the blank space of a new year. Tuesday, we spent a good part of our morning finding new homes for new toys and I couldn't have been happier. I organized art supplies, threw out old markers and replaced them with new ones, freshened up quiet baskets with new coloring and drawing books, and used new storage spaces in the basement for puzzles and board games. I went through wrapping paper, keeping my favorites and dumping older ones, and threw out leftover baking supplies to make room for healthier groceries in the pantry. I'm a seasons girl through and through - I strive to squeeze as much juice as I can out of the sweetness that each one provides, but am always anxious and excited to purge and fill up on the next one.
But before I share some of our holiday memories and prepare for a new year, I can't let 2017 go without taking a look back on the good year it's been! I'm always amazed at how much goes into a single year, and always stand back more amazed at a God who is behind it all. We were blessed with good health and continued work in jobs we both love, we deepened friendships and welcomed a new sister to our family, we went on some bucket list trips, and Beau turned our unfinished basement into a beautiful new space for movie nights, fun gatherings, and lots of room for the kids to read, play, and run around. But most of all, God grew my faith this year, inviting me into His word and into communities where together we can deepen our understanding on who He is and what it means to follow Him. It's been a good good year and I feel like He is just getting started on me! As much as I love to plan and make things happen in my life, when I look back on this past year, so many of these memories and moments were not driven by me. The more I lean on Christ, the more I stand amazed at the plans He writes for this life of ours.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord...
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart... (Jeremiah 29: 11-13)
I probably look back at my last posts of each year more than any other posts. Instead of choosing favorite pictures from our months of 2017, I decided it was a year that called for a top ten. So without further adieu, in no purposeful order...
OUR TOP TEN MOMENTS AND EXPERIENCES OF 2017...
1. I started reading the Bible, start to finish. I love to think about how this endeavor started, with my friend Katie acting on this tug she received at IF Gathering to dig in to the Bible and finish it in a year. She knew she would need accountability and asked a few friends to join her. Thanks to this tug, and our weekly 6 am wake-up calls for whole grain bagels and hazelnut coffee at Panera, we have all developed a love affair with God's word, in context, where we can read it in its entirety and let God work through each of us and what we are learning. We may not have made it through the entire book, but I celebrate a much deeper understanding of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), and just how it sets the stage for the good news of the gospel. I developed a love and appreciation for the magnitude of God's plan revealed in Exodus, and the lengths He went to to bring His people to the promised land. I could start an entirely new blog just on what God has taught me through His word! Our Thursday mornings have provided a breath of fresh air to each week, and proved God's promise that where two or more gather in His name, He is right there with them. And we are just getting started! I received the new She Reads Truth Bible for Christmas and cannot wait to start 2 Samuel and Acts with these sisters come January.
2. We went on a once-in-a-lifetime-trip to all things Magnolia. Nate, Kate, Beau, and I, flew down to Austin, Texas for Spring Break and had the time of our lives exploring this fun city. We stayed in a swanky loft above the Allen Boots store, ate our way through Austin via city bikes, and learned to two-step well into the night. And then we traveled to Magnolia Market, where Johnnyswim lulled us to Chip and Joanna dreamland. And the icing on the cake? An unforgettable two night stay at the Magnolia House, the house Joanna fell in love with and remodeled for the Christmas episode of Season 2. We played house in tiny little McGregor, Texas, cooked dinner for Rob and Marianne, old friends of Chip and Jo who see after the house, and were inspired and moved to bring pieces of our trip back to Iowa with us. How that trip all came to be still makes me smile and I know I will never forget walking through that front door and signing that guest book.
3. A week long Caribbean Cruise with Beau, just over a month before celebrating our ten year anniversary. Beau was a first-time qualifier for his company's All-American trip, and we were treated to an eight-day cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas. We traveled to San Juan, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia, and Barbados, and saw some of the most beautiful rainforest, beaches, and sunsets we had ever seen. We swam with sea turtles, ziplined through a rainforest, and took ancient mud baths in a volcano! And most of all, we developed an appreciation for the people in these small countries who depend on these cruise ships for tourism. Just months later, we were shocked to see many of these same places we traveled absolutely devastated by the hurricanes and pray they can rebuild and share the beauty of their countries again.
4. We returned from our big trips in March and April and watched Taylor marry Kate two weeks later! They had a dreamy outdoor ceremony on a gorgeous Friday in May and we were all blessed to be a part of it. Our big family had fun camping out in Des Moines for a few days, and the nieces and nephews were at sweet ages to serve as important ring bearers and flower girls. And while the venue and weather couldn't have been better, the sweet love shared between these two was what stood out the most about this day. God picked the perfect girl to share a life with my brother and as Beau and I celebrated our own ten year anniversary in June, it's been a joy to watch them start a life together and be reminded of those hard, but sweet years of marriage.
5. Good friends and lots of fun times together. From kicking off a new year with bowling and Chinese, a seafood boil party to celebrate the start of summer, a weekend trip to Chicago with Brian and Angie, Tea Cellar dates, Facetime and Voxer with Kate, a fun Friendsgiving, and all my sweet IF sisters, God blessed us well with good friends to laugh and do life with.
Stay tuned for the last five... :)
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