first day of school

My niece, Mara, has her first day of kindergarten on Tuesday. I will be thinking of her all day. She told me on the phone tonight, "...and I go a full day because that's what I picked." Annika seems to be handling it well, but I got all emotional tonight thinking about how fast time goes by and how grown up she acts sometimes. She began our conversation tonight by saying, "I already know what you're going to say. You're going to say, do you think you'll have fun at kindergarten tomorrow?" I laughed and laughed. That was exactly what I was going to say.

Tonight I was looking through pictures and pulled a few of my favorites. I love you Mara! You are going to LOVE school. I loved every single grade and I really think you will too.

my kind of town

Rory and I spent some time on Saturday taking pictures of places and things that all hold some sort of signficance to us here in Gretna. It was fun to collaborate and reflect on our time here together for this project. For example, the picture with the stopsign above tells a whole story of how when we first moved to Nebraska, we arrived at our original apartment at midnight only to be notified that they had accidentally rented it out to another woman. Ha! Welcome home, kids!

So we stayed at a hotel that night and got up in the morning with our U-haul and our cat and started looking for a place to live. We were looking at rental houses and other apartments and when we pulled up to this stopsign we saw the phone number on the apartment building across the street. We dialed the number from this exact spot and no more than 30 minutes later we were meeting the landlord, signing our lease agreement and so, so happy with the way things worked out. We were in a better location in a nicer place at a lower cost. It was amazing.

The pictures above are places and things, but the part about Gretna we have loved the most are the people. We have neighbors who we will miss and a church family that took us in the moment we walked through the door. Yesterday the church went out of pizza after service to bid us farewell and we felt so loved and cared for. We will miss these people dearly.

get me to the church on time

We got to go to a wedding last night of two of my camp staff from 2009. Jon and Jessi had a beautiful ceremony and the reception was wonderful. They asked me to pray before the meal, and I was so honored to be asked. It's a big deal for me to get to participate in these huge, momentous, life-changing days and I spent a lot of time thinking about what specifically I wanted to pray for them. This is a fantastic couple and I'm excited to see how God moves within their marriage.

A few weeks ago, my friend Meta wrote about her experience as a new pastor officiating at weddings and leading couples through marriage counseling. Meta writes with honesty and articulation and I always look forward to her new posts. I hope you enjoy her writting today.

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Side story: I had written down that the wedding last night began at 5:30. We arrived at 5:01 and Rory told me that I am a little to eager to certain events and that it is not necessary to show up 30 minutes early. So to kill some time we took a few pictures outside of the church, documenting my belly. Then I started to realize no one was getting out of all of the parked cars around us. I got nervous and said we should go in and wait in the church. When we walked in we were quickly ushered to our seats and sat down just in time to watch the groom step out in the front of the church. Wedding was at 5:00. Close call.

Documenting Gretna

Here's something to add to my little-list-of-things-to-do for the weekend. I'm going to become a tourist in my own town.

Things I want to document:
*The Gretna library
*Motorcycles on Hwy 6
*The cobblestone streets in town
*Our church
*The tornado sirens
*The view from our deck
*Sonic frozen lemonade (which means I'll have to buy one...)
*Our door knocker
And hopefully a whole bunch of other unexpected photos too.

organized nesting

My "nesting" period has definitely begun as we prepare to move out of one nest and make arrangements for moving into the Minnesota nest. Because I can't lift heavy things (splendid timing, I believe) I have created a system that should make this move as smooth as possible. Each box has a nametag on it telling which room, and often times which part of the room I want it to end up in, as well as a list of what is inside.

I know everyone labels their boxes when they move, but honest to goodness, the picture above just makes my heart happy. Something about the uniform nametags and the obvious contents written on each one... I am an organized girl, and I love a good system and this move is fulfilling both of those loves.

(This picture was taken a week ago. Believe me, this pile of boxes has grown and will continue to grow with more lovely-labeled boxes.)