A beautiful week of blessing

Last night I buzzed out of the house at 9pm to the neighboring town (closest liquor store) for some champagne.

We've had a week full of beautiful blessings, culminating last night in an opportunity that Landon has been working toward and we have been praying for for several years now. God has been so generous to us, and we are so grateful!

The beautiful blessings:

our new little niece: Leland June McBrayer

Leland was born Monday night.

 She is Garrett and Crystals second daughter. 

We are so grateful for her!

Big sis, Greenlee with Leland. Is this precious or what!?

(photos courtesy of Jane Wallace, Crystal's mum)

Skiing The Canyons

Landon and I received coupons for free tickets to The Canyons at the Warren Miller film we attended back in October. The Canyons are closing this weekend so we had to scurry on over there! It was fun to ski somewhere new. We had a wonderful time!

Praise Band

(2003 an old pic of my favorite praise band ever)

Starting in just a few weeks (conveniently after Snowbasin closes for the season) I will begin to sing on my church's praise band. I am so excited and so grateful. I haven't been involved in a church in several many many years. It's a wonderful feeling to be contributing and to be connecting to other Christians (not to mention the awesome privilege to lead others in worship). 

Funding

I have started to write about this and keep deleting everything I've written. Obviously, I guess I'm just not sure what to write here. Last night Landon received the news that he will be funded through the remainder of his PhD. 

This is huge.

I know that you have followed our journey with Landon's schooling for these many years. 

When Landon was accepted to the U last year, we were ecstatic! Landon had applied to many PhD programs around the country multiple times. For some reason, God thought that it would be best for Landon to get his masters at a Christian school before moving on to a PhD program. Though I wish we didn't have to spend two extra years in school (sorry, i have a habit of saying "we" when I talk about landon's schooling...), especially in Illinois, I really have trusted God with leading us there regarding Landon's education. When Landon was accepted to the PhD program at the U last year, it blew our minds. Finally! But without the funding, it was sort of like giving us a taste of the ambrosia, but not letting us eat it. This year we have continued to live like we have been: with our moving boxes in a pile in the basement, ready to be opened up again. Not really committing to anything in the community because we wonder where we'll be next year. 

Landon's receiving funding means a lot of things for us. For one, it means that we won't have the financial burden of paying for any more tuition ever. Also, Landon will get to teach undergraduate courses, so he will get to learn a lot more about philosophy and receive the experience he will need in order to apply as a prof once he's done (glad we have 4 more years before we're waiting to pack our boxes for that opportunity!). It also means that we will be living here for 4 more years. So maybe we can make friends that we will actually get to grow with, get to know deeply, get to love for a longer amount of time. 

And I'm realizing that this is probably where we will start our family. I'm hoping that by 2014 we will have some babies around here. 

I'm so proud of Landon. This is a huge accomplishment that he has been invested into and working toward for several years. I'm so grateful for his hard work!

Now, all we need is for me to find a job out here and we'll be good to go!