That being said, here's the last 9 months in review:
December: Christmas. I used to realllllly enjoy Christmas. However, I find that with each year, Christmas gets harder and harder. A couple of competing thoughts: 1. Busy season is just after Christmas and I hate busy season. 2. Christmas season makes me wish I had someone to share it with. I still love the church service, the truth of the babe in the manger, but to be honest, I'd rather not blow the whole thing bigger than it needs to be anymore. I'd rather be volunteering somewhere or traveling with my family. Just being honest - each year is a little harder. However, you are in luck - that is the ONLY "singleness sucks" mention for this post (or any others until this Christmas). Pretty much every other time of the year, it's pretty grand.
January-February: Busy season. I don't remember much.
March: March was great because I had an opportunity to go for a second time in 12 months to PARIS! A much larger group went this time and it was a ton of fun. Not a ton of sight seeing because it was a really quick trip, but the experience was great. Some of the highlights: 1. Organizing 2 dinners, one of which was in an old Parisian mansion in St. Germain and the other of which had a terrific view of the Eiffel tower. 2. Girls day spent sight seeing and finally seeing Basilique du Sacre Coeur and Musee d'Orsay which was super great. Also some of the ladies had never been to Paris, so that was really fun to see them love the city as much as I do. 3. After Paris, I took the train to the Hague, which will be the subject of a longer post below for the month of July/August. Spent 3 days in the Netherlands and loved it.
April/May: Another busy season I wasn't expecting or enjoying. Don't remember much. However, good news is 20 days into April, I went back to Kenya! It was so great - I can't say enough great things about that trip. Too many pictures - I really should have a blog post just for Kenya, but if we've talked recently, you would get the gist of how much I love Kenya.
May was also the first anniversary of my 29th birthday. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over with. I'm working on making the next decade memorable. I was also in San Jose for 2 days...didn't really need to be, but ended up that way for work. Cut it short to get back for other fun stuff in Houston. Oh and girls weekend in San Antonio was a blast! My replacement also started on my job (read later), which was great.
June: Lots of traveling. I did an around Texas trip knowing that I had my replacement on my job and vacation I needed to burn. I'm working with the coordinators for the Kenya project at my church (I'm back at Trinity!) So when they asked if anyone had time to go to Lubbock for the LCMS District convention to promote the trip, I said, why not. So I drove to Austin to visit with R and K from the Kilgoris trip for a day and then headed on from there for 2 days in Lubbock. I'm not a fan of Lubbock, given I went to school in CS. I still can't see the attraction or excitement about the school or town, but it was a nice break and had lots of opportunities to talk to many people about how great the trip is. I could do that for days. I also got to see Rev K, Pastor B and Pastor H from various college ministry times. It was so great to also talk about ULC while there. I miss that place.
I drove back through Fort Worth for a family reunion (I know, not on the way). It was good to catch up with some family. Leaving it at that. Drove back - total time in car was close to 22 hours. Finished most of Tale of Two Cities, which was my boss's recommendation to become a more well rounded reader. I actually enjoyed the book on tape concept and ever since have not been able to stop getting audio books. I thought I was only a visual learner, but I'm finding this is improving my audio learning skills. Thank goodness for free books from the library that just download on my iPad.
July: So this is where life starts to get crazy, crazy. First, the good stuff. Karen came to town for a visit! It was soo much fun. I spent several days relaxing with Rev K and S in San Antonio and I got to see another close friend from college. Much appreciated and very relaxing. Baby shower for the latest "nephew" - so excited for T and D.
Now to the crazy stuff. I've been working on an aforementioned move to the Netherlands for about a year since the last blog post. Well, it came together in July. I got a contract at the end of the month and since then it has been going crazy. I remodeled a bathroom, got everything fixed in my house and put it on the market. Bittersweet - I really love my house. However, it's time for something new in my life and this is a huge door God has opened for me - I couldn't be more excited, stressed, thrilled, etc.
August to date: Filled with packing, staging, dealing with a mountain of forms, switching addresses, finding storage, dealing with more paperwork, making it rain with all of the moving expenses, etc. It has been crazy. On top of work. On tap for this week, finish out a quality check on my job, last Kenya meeting for a while, client going away party, company going away party, movers on Friday, getting my car ready for sale this weekend, packing the essentials and getting on a one way flight next Tuesday to Amsterdam and then to the Hague. I can't believe how quickly everything has come together.
A few prayer requests: please pray that I focus on finding a church when I get there. I'm going to try out APCH when I get there. There are 2 other options in the city, otherwise I'm going to be on a train to Rotterdam or Amsterdam for English services. No Lutheran church in the Netherlands...I'm so glad Trinity took my back after 4 years away - it'll be nice to come home to church there. Second, it would be great if my house would sell soon. I had some action last weekend, but none since. Third, more peace and calm...I've been doing ok so far, but everything is a bit upside down.
