Year One.

So here we are, a year later, we survived. We made it through winter, and the summer and even the beautiful spring and fall. It has been intense. Challenging. Refreshing. Exciting and depressing. Exhasuting, to say the least. Words can't really express how I feel, mainly because I don't really know how I feel, swirls and swirls of emotions would be the best I could do.

I find my self feeling very optimistic, and extremely grateful. Grateful for all of our friends and family and all the visits, cards, and surprise packages that made this year a little less painful and helped remind me how loved and blessed we really are. Grateful also for the new people God has brought into our lives, so insane how one minute you don't even know someone exists and the next you can't really picture life without them. That really blows my mind a little bit each day. A lot of what I'm grateful for is also what scares me, I LOVE my job and I LOVE my church, seriously, and I'm afraid someday I might love them both too much.

Also just a little frustrated and confused, I guess I thought I'd be over a lot more by now, but I still crave Miguels and just the other day I was in tears after a rough day because all I wanted was to sit near the ocean. Crazy how some things just make you miss home like nothing you could have ever imagined.

Overall, I feel like I have survived one of the hardest years of my life, and Iived to tell about it. Lots of teaful stories I can recall and differenes between the life I knew and this crazy little life I've become a little more accusotmed to. More than anything I am hopeful about this year and continue to pray that God reminds me everyday why we are here and opens my heart not only for the people of Des moines, but also for the city. As Moise would say " I may be an Iowan but my spirit will always be in African"

♥

seasons

the harders

my drive to work

Moise and his little brother David

the tanzania boys

bike rides

back to school night

Adel corn festival

Iowa State Fair

jeremy breaking my heart

I'll keep you posted.

Fall.

It's finally here, and SO worth the wait. The BEST (read: only) good thing about seasons, is fall. It's like God hand crafted this glorious season just for me: scarves, pumpkin lattes, and mustard yellow and red on every tree! Yeah no doubt God is showing off for me. Not a day goes by I'm not awestruck by His beauty in nature. Almost just as often though I remind myself to soak in every minute, and every day because "the one that shall not be mentioned" is coming right behind it. ugh. It can't be worse right than last winter right? Who knows? At this point I've pretty much learned to expect the unexpected. But for now all I expect is to watch the trees continue to change color, the leaves to collect outside our window and the rest will be here soon enough.

Here's what's been happening in between seasons

The trees down town

Playing on the beach at Half Moon Bay

This beach is amazing, seriously.

And so are these boys. ahh. <3

Our kickball team on the other hand, well lets just say this is the most amazing thing about it

Bike ride on the west des moines trails

like a scene from a movie

dinner with the fam, it was so delicious

and probably my new favorite picture of all time.

.

Fall was good.