5 wonderful years!

We reached the 5 year mark in marriage last week!! The time has flown by. We have been so blessed these last five years! It seems like we have accomplished much in these 5 short years! As soon as we got back from our honeymoon we moved to Sacramento to finish school. Just the two of us in this new city, with new jobs,a new school, and a whole different life!! It was a lot of changes all at once, but we did it! That first year was hard, not knowing anyone and not having made any friends yet. It was a huge challenge! Going into our second year, we made some great friends and got connected into a great church! Going into our third year we graduated Sac State and shortly after that found out we were expecting our first child! A bit of a surprise!! We had been married just a little over 3 years when Isaiah joined our family:) I can't believe he is almost 2 years old?! The last two years have been full of change. Jeff left the Credit Union he was with for an Injury Adjuster position with Farmer's Insurance which he soon found out was not all what he thought it would be! After a long, hard year God opened the door for a transfer to a different department within Farmers and it also happened to be in Redding! Home Sweet Home! We left our life in Sacramento back in February. It has been yet another transition, but it is wonderful to be back near family and old friends!
Anyways.....We decided to celebrate our Anniversary by getting away just the 2 of us! This would be our first trip without Isaiah. Since he is almost 2 it was well over-due! We went to LA for a long weekend. Spent most of the time hanging out at the beach and did some touristy things that we had never done before! It was great to getaway just the 2 of us! Need to make it more of a regular occurrence!
Jeff-
Thanks for being a wonderful husband and father! I love you:) Can't wait to see what God has in store for the next 5 years!!

We're Home!

So, we're home, for anyone who doesn't know. We have been home for almost 2 months now. It has been nice. We got unpacked rather quickly as Jeff was leaving for LA in less than 48 hours after we got home:( He was gone for the first 4 weeks off and on. It has been so nice to have him back! Isaiah had a rough few days in his new room, but all is well now! We have immensely enjoyed having much more space and grandparents nearby to babysit!
Isaiah's vocab has sprouted up overnight!! He will try to say anything you ask!! He is growing up so quickly! His personality is really shining through!! Jeff and I find ourselves just sitting and watching him! He is so funny and is constantly keeping us on our toes!

We are having to readjust our city driving habits to a much slower pace especially since Steph got a speeding ticket our 2nd day here:(

It has been neat running into people we haven't seen in a long time here and there, but we do miss our friends in Sac and hope to get back there to visit soon!

We really do feel truly blessed!
til' next time:)

San Fran

So we decided to take one last trip to San Fran as Sacramentoians(sp???). It is such an easy hour drive from Sacramento compared to four hours from Redding. We love San Fran. Jeff and I have been there countless times since we have lived in Sac. We love getting some lunch and heading to the beach, or going to the Peir to watch the Sea Lions, Union Square or just driving around. We have also enjoyed taking Isaiah a few times over this last year. It is really fun to see him run along the beach and touch the sand. It was freezing when we were there yesterday, but we still enjoyed the craziness of it all! We will miss our spur of the moment trips!!

Livin' for Today!

Today while Isaiah and I were eating lunch I noticed he was actually taking his time! It is usually gone before I have even sat down. But today he was eating one black bean, corn and pea at a time(as opposed to handfuls.) It was so funny to watch him, he would pick one up, examine it talk to it, then eat it and laugh. He did this with almost every single one. I was reminded that I too need to slow down sometimes! I often am consumed with what I have to do next or what I am doing tomorrow or next week. I never just enjoy the moment. I need to slow down and store these special moments somewhere because these are things I don't want to forget! He continues to amaze me as he grows and learns new things! After lunch we go outside for a short walk to get some fresh air. The walk usually consists of me not letting him put rocks in his mouth, trying to hold his squirming hand and him trying to go to fast and tripping over his feet. But not today, as we were walking it dawned on me that he was holding my hand, just walking along side me like an old pro. I thought to myself, Steph, you better enjoy this because there will come a day when he won't need to hold your hand anymore.(tear, tear!)
Ok enough of the sappy stuff! Point being, I need to relish in the now more often!

Matthew 6:34 says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself."

We are moving home in just 24 days. I can't believe it is here already! This week I have started to pack a few things here and there. In doing that I was thinking about not living in Sacramento anymore. It has been our home for the last 4.5 years. It is the first place we lived as a married couple, it is where we graduated college, where we became parents and where Isaiah lived the first year and a half of his life. Those are some monumentous moments in life. We have made some life long friends that we will miss terribly! I know we will miss the( what seams to be endless options of) restaraunts and malls!!
It is going to be great to be back home. It is really important to us for Isaiah to grow up around family. At the same time we know it is going to be different than what it was 4.5 years ago when we were dating. We are going back as our own family now.
Of course I am worrying about Isaiah and moving him into a new place, plus Jeff is leaving 2 days after we move for 2 weeks for training. So I am worried he will be traumatized with a new home and his daddy being MIA. I know he'll be fine, just me being me!!
Four and a half years ago all we wanted to do was get out of Cottonwood and now we are going back. It is funny how we now appreciate the things we once took for granted. I guess there really is no place like home! At least for us anyways.

xoxo
steph

So I guess the cold and flu season is here and has been visiting our house the last few weeks:( It started with Isaiah almost two weeks ago. He caught the stomach flu, which totally exhausted him. I have never seen him so inactive! The feeling of helplessness is an awful feeling for a parent. One in which I felt wholeheartedly. I hate seeing him sick like that and him not being able to communicate exactly how he is feeling to us! Thankfully it lasted less than 24 hours and he was back to normal within a few days. As contagiousness would have it Jeff and I both got it simultaneously a few days later in the middle of the night. Yuck! We too felt better a day later! My Mom who came to visit also got it! What a highly contagious bug that was!
Now we are going into the Pediatrician tomorrow morning to see about a fever Isaiah has had for the past 48 hours. It seems to be rather unexplained as he is showing no other symptoms along with it. Hopefully we can gain some insight as to what may be causing this. Once again I feel so helpless and just plain bad for him. If only he could tell me if something is hurting him! That day will come sooner than later I suppose. Hopefully this is the worst of it for us this cold and flu season.
Til next time,
Steph

What a Ride!

I know this is my third post in one day but I just started this blog and feel there has been a lot going on in our lives to blog about!!
I am going to try and make this VERY LONG story as short as possible!
So, as most of you know last January Jeff took a job with Farmer's Insurance as a Liability Adjuster. It was something different than the job he worked through college and thought he would give this a try. He found out quickly it was not at all what he thought it would be. I thought it would get better with time, but soon realized it wouldn't. After a few rough months he found out he might be able to transfer to a different department within Farmers and best of all this Transfer would move us home to Cottonwood. Wow! What an unexpected answer to Prayer! Well, that was June 5Th. Since then it has been the most rigorous roller coaster we have been on! When they very first told Jeff about the transfer, they said it would happen in 2-3 months, the time they needed to get someone else trained. Then in July he found out it would be 4-6 months. We were a little bummed but still excited about the new change! Then in September it started to look like it might not happen at all. One week it was because they were too understaffed to let him go, then a few weeks later it was because they were too overstaffed and might be laying people off. It was rather fishy so Jeff thought he should get a plan B going. He decided to apply to the Butte college police academy. This whole time we are praying for God's will to be done and wondering where he wants us to be and what he wants us to be doing. We were trying our hardest to be patient and lean on God with all of our might knowing that he has the ultimate plan and that what we want isn't always what he has in store. In the meantime (Octoberish) Jeff was accepted to the police academy and that was a relief to know we had an out if the transfer didn't go through. On the other hand that too was going to be a big risk since we would be paying for the academy ourselves and then "hoping" Jeff would get hired at the end of it. So, we were still praying that God would open and close the appropriate doors and that we would recognize them! In the meantime Jeff was really getting anxious and just simply wanted the truth from his bosses about the transfer. He decided to go into his boss's boss and ask if he thought the transfer would be happening. He told Jeff it wasn't looking like it would be happening. Of course we were upset since we have been planning our whole lives around this transfer. Later that day, Jeff's boss's boss's boss( I know that's weird, but it's the only way to explain it:) came to Jeff and told him that he didn't want to lose him as an employee and he was 99% sure he could make this transfer happen. So, we had been prepared to put Plan B into action and this news from the big boss made our proverbial roller coaster take ANOTHER dip! All along wondering why God is doing this to us?? What does he want us to learn from all of this?? This whole process has been so mentally exhausting I didn't know if I could hold on for another dip! We just wanted to know what we will be doing when January comes...plan a-transfer with Farmer's or plan b- quit farmers and go through the police academy?? Over the last 5 months we had become so impatient with God and not fully trusting him. We finally surrendered it all to him and were completely waiting on him for an answer! We found out on Friday Jeff got the transfer. We have never been so relieved! God has been there this whole time, it was us who weren't listening! I heard a song today at church that resonated with me. Specifically the chorus, "You are the everlasting God, You will not faint, You won't grow weary, Your the defender of the weak, You comfort those in need." God never gave up on us! He is always there! It is so hard to see a rainbow in the storm but when the storm passes you can see it clearly!
Til next time,
Steph