October

Now that it's 2010, I'm finally getting around to updating the last 3 months of 2009 : ) After reading through them, you'll probably see why it's taken so long!

October was the month of giving and receiving visits. We kicked off the month by driving up to State College, PA for the weekend and visiting with Becca Sharpless. After eating breakfast together, David and I went for a hike Becca recommended and got a great view of the city.

Becca went shopping for supplies for the Chinese Moon Festival the China Outreach Ministry was hosting that night. We spent the afternoon filling up water balloons (and getting quite wet in the process!). That evening we got to meet many of the students Becca has been building relationships with through her class and Bible study. We also got to try moon cakes, which have an egg yolk in the center of a sweet cake. It was sad to say goodbye, but wonderful to see the impact she is having on the students there.


The very next weekend we got a surprise visit from my Aunt Lana and Uncle Ron.
You never know when RVer's will roll into your part of the country : ) Uncle Ron was doing some research on his genealogy, which led him to Gettysburg where one of his ancestors was an indentured servant who eventually acquired some land. We had a wonderful time exploring the battlefield, checking out the shops in downtown Gettysburg, eating Uncle Ron's delicious pork & potatoes on the grill and soaking in the local culture at the Apple Festival. It was a great visit and we were sad they couldn't stay long enough to spend time with our next visitors...My parents : )

Mom and Dad wanted to squeeze a visit in before the cold weather set in. They couldn't have timed it better. The fall color was at it's peak the entire two weeks they were with us.
David had to work during the day so I gave Mom and Dad the South Central PA tour : )It was a great time of cooking together, exploring new bookshops and farmstands and of course, finally getting to show them the house David and I would be closing on at the end of the month. Mom and Dad didn't realize when they planned the trip they'd get to help us pack yet again!I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I have to move and don't have mom to pack the china for me! So far she's been the one to assure it made each one of my moves safely.

As if buying a home weren't exciting enough, I was beginning to have suspicions that I might be giving my parents some more exciting news during their visit. Sure enough, on October 24th, we got our big-fat-positive on the home pregnancy test! David and I were thrilled and proceeded to share the news with my parents. Guess what guys, you're going to be grandparents! David's family got the call next and everyone was very excited about our good news. We tried to keep it on the down low, but I think by week 9 basically everyone knew, including our Realtor and mortgage officer who we told the day we closed on the house. Of course, in true small town fashion, they had become more like friends than people we were doing business with by that time. Closing went smoothly and we were very thankful we were going to actually have space for our little one to run around in (not to mention all those bookshelves that were cluttering up our two bedroom town home...two bibliophiles under one roof gets interesting at times : ) Saying good bye to Dad and Mom just two days later was especially hard. I had already started to feel the first trimester side effects of pregnancy like exhaustion and nausea and having their extra hands had a been a huge blessing.

So David and I waved goodbye and got packing,
but that's next month's story : )

September

It's hard to believe how much has happened in 30 days! Just in case getting married wasn't a big enough change in our lives, we thought, lets try homeownership! What began innocently enough, "Lets just see what's on the market and in our price range" turned into "we found a home we love!" So as of the end of October (assuming all goes well) this is the view we will see out our window each day:



We are really excited (and a little nervous) about being actual homeowners. There is so much more responsibility in the upkeep of a house and a yard. Currently our "yard" is a 2 ft wide strip of grass that maintenance comes and mows each week. They even blow the leaves off our tiny "patio" for me! Now we'll have a yard. With a maple tree. Whose leaves will need to be raked. Big changes. But we are looking forward to it, especially having space for guests to come and stay. Currently guests share a room with David's (necessarily) gigantic desk/computer station, an exercise bike (which we do actually use) and all the boxes there was no room to unpack. Now we will have a basement for those sorts of things!

Basement. I'm from Florida. We call basements "swimming pools" there, because if you dig 2 feet down...you hit water! "Sump pump" is a new addition to my vocabulary aswell. Fortunately, our soon-to-be sump pump is bone dry despite the rain we've been having and the current owners have never had the basement leak in the 8 years they've been there. Yay!

Outside of crunching numbers to make sure we are being wise and not steering ourselves into financial ruin, spending quality time in austere bank lobbies, and learning new vocabulary such as "escrow" we've managed to have a great time in our new town.

The month kicked off with the celebration of the county's 225th anniversary. There was a parade that reminded me so much of the small town I come from that I actually got homesick. We sat next to some friendly elderly couples who reinforced the belief that I have that everyone really does know everyone here! After greeting each person, the woman next to me explained how she knew them, "He attended my church." "Her brother-in-law was my next door neighbor." "My son is her veterinarian" "My mailman once incorrectly delivered his letter to our address."

I may be making some of those up...

Did I mention Ben Franklin is a really big deal up here? This is a pic of one of several "Bens" who attended the parade. I love living in a state, or rather, a commonwealth, with so much history. I can't wait to go to Philly sometime and see independence hall, the liberty bell, etc.

Shortly after that, Pastor Stephen and his wife Kelly, our best friends up here (well, really our only friends up here, besides our sweet neighbors) moved back to the land of humidity and sweet tea, that's right, they're in the South again. We miss them, but God has been really faithful in bringing new friends our way and possibly a new church, so we are really excited about that!

A few days after their moving van drove off, David and I headed for the Pocono mountains where he had a training for work. We arrived early so we could visit Bushkill Falls. It was a beautiful, uphill, three hours of hiking. The weather was perfect and I felt so blessed to being enjoying such a wonderful place with David. We passed 3 waterfalls, several streams, stood on top of ridges and walked through leaves that were beginning to turn yellow.

Our last big event of the month was David's birthday. We had a surprise party and a great time hanging out with his co-workers. I made a cake, but forgot to take it out of the pan and place it on the cooling rack in time. When I tried later, it was stuck fast and eventually came out in several pieces. I learned an important lesson...enough frosting fixes anything!

I'm so thankful for all the new experiences and friendships the Lord continues to bring our way, it's hard to express it all in a not-so-concise blog, especially when trying to cover a time when so much happened. Maybe I'll eventually get the hang of updating more frequently with smaller posts!

Never a dull moment!

Life has certainly been interesting here lately : ) Let's see, since my last post I turned 23 and for my birthday, David took me to DC for the first time! We rode the metro in and spent the afternoon in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was an amazing experience. I saw the White House and the Washington Monument for the first time.

We've also found a church we both love attending. Pastor Stephen is still in seminary, but his sermons are truth filled and give us much food for thought each week. His wife, Kelly has quickly become my best friend up here. They have an 8 month old daughter and are also transplants from the South : )

This past week David and I travel to Las Vegas for a 2 conferences. The first was Blackhat. This computer security oriented conference was held at Caesars Palace. When we checked in (at 9pm Pacific time), they told us they were out of Non-smoking King rooms, they did however have a King bed in the Penthouse for us! We were upgraded to a room with a great view and jacuzzi tub. Yay early 2nd honeymoon : D

The next conference, DEFCON, was held at the Riviera. No luxury suite here, but this conference had a much smaller entrance fee and I was able to attend with David all 3 days. I learned enough about computers and hackers to know I should probably never turn on my computer again.

Las Vegas itself is not a nice city. While we did find "family friendly" things to do in the evening, if I were choosing a place to visit, it wouldn't be worth all the smokey casinos and inappropriate images we had to wade through to get there. My favorite part by far was watching the Belagio fountain. I could stand there all day...if it wasn't 107 out...David got a big kick out of the M&M Store where we saw the history of M&M's and got to try coconut flavored M&M's for the first time, YUM!


Finally, it was time to head back home. I was ready to go home and actually glad that all our adventures were coming to a close. On the flight David and I were seated with an older gentleman who noticed we were reading a book called "Financial Peace" (highly recommend it! Great for learning finance basics) he asked if he could give us some advice as someone who has been married 40 years. Of course we said yes. He then explained how he and his wife had divided financial tasks and had never had a cross word about money. Later, as we watched HGTV, he recommended we also look into buying a house. Since he was interested in giving input we started sharing our concerns with him and picking his brain for more great advice. He talked to us about resources to help assess what mutual funds to get, advised us what to look for in real-estate and even explained to me why PA is a commonwealth, not a state. Realizing this man had an uncommon depth and breadth of knowledge (and that he now knew where we lived and worked) I decided to find out a little about him. It turns our we had been receiving financial advice from none other than the Chairman of the Stimulus Package board, Earl E. Devaney! I would have never guessed he would have been sitting in coach or be interested in giving pair of newlyweds advice.

So now we are home, but our adventures haven't come to an end! I tried a new chicken a rice recipe that was super yummy (and super easy!) last night and today I locked myself out of the house...Fortunately I had a helpful neighbor who was able to fix that with a wiggle from his credit card in the door jam....and that's why I usually lock the deadbolt!

And that concludes the latest chapter in the "Gainey Tales" : D