A Quick Catch-up

So... it seems during the times when life is changing the most, we have the least time to write about it. :-) But now that Grace is sleeping well again (and Caleb's working late), I thought I'd do a quick catch-up post.

First, and I'm pretty sure I've posted some about it, but I don't remember exactly what, we're expecting a little baby boy at the end of August. We still have no idea on names, but have a dozen or so favorites to choose from at least. :-) It's been a much, much easier pregnancy this time around, with almost no sickness or anything to remind me I'm pregnant. Except a kicking baby in my tummy. I showed Grace how she could feel the baby move yesterday and told her we'd have to "wait and see" if the baby would move. While reading books this afternoon, she several times would put her little hand on my tummy and say "wait-see".

Yep! We've moved back to Dallas, and have been here about four weeks now. And absolutely enjoying being close to family again; it's been great fun being able to have our parents over dinner for a change! And they've been awesome about offering to watch Grace so we could settle into our temp housing and do some house hunting of our own. And I'm totally loving having a washer & dryer of our own again! I think that's my #2 favorite thing about being down here, after family. Followed by having a backyard and garage (no more 400 foot walk in the rain to carry in the groceries!). Every morning Grace has to take a tour with Daddy of the backyard and clean out the bird bath and see the "purple gate" as she's dubbed it. And in the afternoons, she loves digging in the flower pots with her little spoon. We still really miss our condo at times, but it was so often rainy and muddy, we'd never yet just let her freely play in the dirt like she's been able to here.

We left all our stuff in storage up in Seattle, except what we could fit in our eight suitcases (Grace had her own seat on the plane, so we got to check two more for free! Plus lots of carry-ons). It's a lot harder than I realized not having a more permanent home, and I've been surprised how much I miss the regularity of our routines and having our own stuff, but God's been teaching me a lot through this. Yesterday I was reading the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings, and it struck me how long the Israelites waited for the fulfillment of God's promise to have a land of their own. And realizing that in reality, we are wanderers on this earth; right now our lives just happen to match that much more closely than we've been accustomed. We're really hoping God will lead us to a house soon (preferably before the baby arrives!), but if not, we'll be living in this limbo-sort-of-place another six months or so. I've realized I had very firm ideas of what having a baby is supposed to look like - painting a room, getting everything set up - and it's been hard not even knowing where we'll be living, but many, many people have delivered in much harder circumstances than living in a roomy two bedroom house with other people's furnishings. I could be on a donkey on my way through the desert! :-)

Anyways, that's a quick overview of where our lives are now, and as Caleb's done with work, we're off to enjoy some good ol' Blue Bell. :-D