We're Moving... another guest post by Steve

So Sunday Deaira and I went and got the keys to our apartment which has been something we have been greatly anticipating. We love our little apartment. God has been so good to us! It’s the perfect size, the perfect location and the perfect price! The kitchen doesn’t thrill Deaira as much as she had hoped but recognizing it as the gift from God that it is, she has learned to like it. Now poor (or lucky depending on your point of view) Deaira hasn’t been back to the apartment since that day. Kyle and I have been moving in all that we could since Monday and working hard to get as much done as possible. We have managed to empty out about 1/3 of the bed room and completely empty out the storage unit. Just so you get a feel for the amount we are talking about. It took 2 full size trucks and Dana’s Van to get all the stuff to the storage and just me and Kyle and my little Caravan to unload it. It’s been good time to spend with Kyle. We had IHOP one day which was great! We went to the mall to pick up my ring Monday after 3 loads to the apartment, it was a nice breather. We ran into Elgin which is always an adventure. We set up the book shelf and the dressers in the bed room which makes it look 20% like a real bed room now LOL. At one point during the day Tuesday Kyle asked to see the back patio. We were standing around talking about a place to put a barbeque when I noticed two huge peaches lying on the ground. I stared for a second wondering if someone had thrown them at the apartment! Looking up I was both delighted and a little shocked to see 3 more hanging there from the tree! Kyle and I have met 3 of my new neighbors. They are all women and all very kind. At the end of the day after the last load was done Kyle and I sat down on the porch to take a breather and he pointed out how lucky we are to be within walking distance to the rib cook off , the fireworks, the farmers market and the Christmas parade! He sounded a little jealous! I told him he could crash on our couch any time and walk to any event he wants! So there is still plenty to move and I am exhausted today. It’s been good though and I’m excited and ready to get back to it! I am perhaps a little naive but I just can’t wait for this to be our first home. To know when I go there that my wife will be there waiting for me! I just need to say more than anything God has always been so good to us. We have had our moments of “How are we going to pull this off”?!?!?! God has given us everything we need in his perfect time, my hope is that we can all recognize those moments and gifts and give praise!

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!--Matthew 6:30

The great dress debac.... DREAM COME TRUE!!!

Its done its finished my wedding dress officially fits!!!!!!! I can't tell you how beautiful it makes me feel... It is beautiful and regal and floaty and soft... I can't wait to see everything together dress and flowers and veil... Can't wait til Steve sees me hahaha ya know the hardest thing about this whole wedding dress situation has been not telling Steve like not telling him about it and fighting the urge to show him He's my best friend he's the person I tell everything to ask about everything and not being able to do that has been torture!!! hahaha This would not have been remotely possible without my dear friend! She put in all the labor we got to visit and catch up it was huge and the work she did is wonderful i'm so tickled about certain aspects of the dress I can't even begin to say... in the time it took us to fix my dress it changed from a huge pain a disaster and debacle into a dream! A beautiful vision of floaty chiffon that will carry me down the aisle to my Prince. I had church ladies praying about it with me who were thrilled to hear it was fixed a special one who offered to pay to have it fixed. I am so loved so loved and so blessed and amazed at the love in the church... I hope and pray that my wedding would be a blessing to all of these women to every one who has helped and will help make my wedding so wonderful I pray God would heap his bountiful blessings on them! I remember coming home from Texas and waiting and being excited to see how God would reward me and bless me for that time... maybe I lost faith cuz after 5 months of looking for a job and struggling wondering how we were gonna pay for a wedding I thought maybe God had lessons yet for me to learn ( and he did and does) and that there would be no blessings just yet... He's piling them on in heaps and mounds now and all I can do is fall on my knees in Praise to my wonderful Father in Heaven who is good always who gives always who loves always and whose timing is perfect.

Praise the Lord give thanks to the Lord for He is good

His steadfast love endures forever and He is good

Who shall tell of the mighty deeds of the Lord

And show forth all His praise Alleluia

And Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel

From everlasting to everlasting

And let all God's people say Amen Amen Amen

Let all the people say Amen and Praise the Lord!

Home Sweet Home... :)

We think we've found it.... God is so good!!! Its a cute little one bedroom apartment in Sparks. We'd have a Christian Landlord and Christian neighbors and its about $200 less than we had planned to spend on rent. Its cute clean and well maintained with a grass area and a little back yard. Its small and cute and just seems like a good little place for us to start our married life... Nothing is final yet but we're definitely interested and we told the guy as much. He has some minor fixing up cleaning and what not to do on the place before its official but its pretty awesome!!! God provides too... the money it will cost us to move into this place is like exactly what we have saved up to get into a place hahaha God always provides for us like that. So today we're rejoicing hopeful very excited and I'm dreaming of the little butcher block island I'm going to put in the kitchen and wondering where we should hang our wedding pictures. I can't wait to clean and cook in and keep our little home. Thanks soo much to Kim for telling us about it!!!! Whee i'm so excited I wish it was ours already so i could start packing and unpacking and making it home.... :) I'm very ready for us to settle in and start enjoying married life!! :)

Through His eyes....

***A Special guest blog by Steve***
I know by now you have all heard Deaira’s side of things so I thought it was about time to invade her blog with mine. It’s hard if not impossible to cram the last 2 and ½ years into one blog entry so I’ll just try my best to be relevant. I was sitting around one day surfing MySpace when I came across Deaira's profile. Impressed by her love of Lord of the Rings and her obvious love of the Lord I sent her a message asking if we could be MySpace friends. That quickly became long late night phone calls about Lost and cake. I remember our first date very well! I got up early since it was my day off and went to get a haircut, got the car washed bought new boots and went to Ross and bought a new Shirt. Why did I do all these things? At this point I really wanted to make a good first impression. I had learned so much about her heart. The nervous silence of dinner was broken by our musings over how good the food was and I knew I had found someone special. Sorry to jump ahead but it wasn’t long before we were spending all our time together. Laughing, talking, and eating. It wasn’t long before she told me in tears that she wasn’t looking for a boy friend; she was looking for a husband and a best friend and someone who loved Jesus as much as she did. I was relieved to hear her say that. I felt the same way. I wanted to take our relationship seriously and I do love the Lord. We spent every day after that with that in mind. I know my commitment to her grew strong and deeper until one day we were just watching TV and we both looked at each other and had some kind of mutual “I really want to marry you” moment. It was spontaneous and probably a little silly but we knew. I remember calling my mom and telling her almost 2 years ago that I wanted to ask Deaira to marry me. I called my Grandma Goble that day too! Our trip to Michigan was great. She fit into my family without missing a beat which is kind of scary! She loves my mom and dad she loves my brother Andy and as for my sister they are like long lost sisters that were meant to be together. After that trip we started to plan to think. We thought we were ready then! We really were convinced of it, that we could get married that year and we knew everything. Fast forward to last August when Deaira went to Texas. For me, it was the worst experience of my life. I was miserable and lonely and I felt abandoned. After a while though, I started to realize something. In missing her I started to really appreciate all the little things she used to do. Even some of the things that used to make me crazy started to click into focus. I stopped feeling like victim and started to really let myself lean on the Lord. By Thanksgiving time I was a different man. We had been apart for months and I had struggled and by this time I was even more certain that I loved Deaira and would love her for all my days. That I wanted nothing more than to be her one and only and for us to side by side heart to heart honor love and obey the Lord Our God. The feeling of steadfastness and trust and commitment that I have even now is easily ten-fold what it was before she went to be with her grandma. I won’t say it’s easy to remember that when we fight or hurt each other, but the appreciation that grew out of that time has made it easier to remember how much I appreciate and love her. We are much stronger for it. Now fast forward to January and Dea and I started to go nuts trying to plan and pay for our wedding.. (Did I skip the proposal)? For me being the guy, the best part was picking out and taste testing cake! The one we picked out is 2/3 mine and 1/3 Deaira's. LOL. She fell instantly in love with this pumpkin cake. It’s been a growing experience all on its own this planning a wedding. When we disagree and I think I'm right and we sit down and have a cup of coffee and talk it out and come to an agreement it’s a great metaphor for what I hope is the way we deal with all our problems. Coming to an understanding, finding common ground. Not spending $400.00 on folding chairs! LOL. I know this has been a little scatter brained and all over the map I hope someone got something out of it.

Hunny-bun... Sugar-plum... Pumpkin Pie...

Without divulging our secret identities and wanting to remember for posterity this time in our relationship where we're so head over heels in love and silly. I just wanna talk about a silly thing we do that makes us happy would probably make most people gag if they knew the truth haha but Steve and I have these ridiculous pet names for eachother but we love them we hold onto them they're in some ways like an alter ego for us... complete with baby talk and teasing... its not uncommon for me to yell his pet name across the room when i need his attention. I'm ashamed to admit it but we even have a silly song i made up with his pet name... oh yes... its that silly that disgusting and all the more vital to us because its a reminder of our silly laughing happy times when we've fought we'll tentatively ask "Am i still your **insert sickening pet name here**?" and we'll respond "Of course you never stop being a **insert sickening pet name here**..." Our kids and grandkids will probably tease us mercilessly for it someday ashamed and embarrassed by it ( at least i hope so) but I hope they'll see they'll learn they'll always know that our special names for eachother are the good parts of our relationship the special happy cuddly times the giggling laughing silliness that is so important to us... I don't know how we stumbled upon them one day I just started calling Steve his name thinking it was the cutest most silly thing and it stuck it stuck so much i was forbidden from uttering it while we were in michigan lest his family hear it and tease him... And my name came in turn his revenge against the silly moniker i had for him and tho at first we rebelled and didn't understand we've come to embrace and cherish these nicknames making up silly songs making up silly things like the "**insert sickening pet name here** handbook and care manual" and did you know that **insert sickening pet name here**'s run on pepsi and starbucks? oh yes we are sad silly little people with disgusting sugary pet names for eachother that mean so much to us... but he is my **insert sickening pet name here** I love him so he is my bestest friend in the wide wide world and I'm gonna marry him and be his wife cuz I'll love my **insert sickening pet name here** for my whole life.....

To be his Wife...

To be his wife.. Who would have thought who could have thought. Of course I always imagined being the wife of a wonderful man someday. Most young girls dream of loving husbands and babies. I'm no exception. To be his wife however is so much more than playing house and day dreaming ever could have prepared me for. To be blindsided by this unique human being who is so seperate from me and yet so close. I'm sure I've said before I feel like I've always known him that my life our lives surely never existed apart from eachother he seems to fit so well.

To be his wife seems the highest calling God has given me to love honor obey and cherish this man every day the way God loves and cherishes me. A pretty high calling the very highest perhaps God could call me to and yet I find myself joyfully faithfully prayerfully and with tremendous joy and anticipation diving into it. Loving Steven being his wife being his parter helper lover friend and wife seems like the exact thing I want to be. Steve feels like home...

We had a rough day spent pouring over our meager budget compared to our future hopes and past failures and then driving all over town to find a place to live. Our first "home" What a rough raked over the coals day it felt like to me. I felt stripped and anything but loving but at the heart of all of the thoughts whirling in my brain and the list of chores and resposibilities choices and challenges ahead of us at the heart at the center of it was the simple fact of being his wife clinging to him loving him there is nothing I would rather do no one I would rather be than faithful to God loving and cleaving to this husband he's providing for me. Steve is the gift God has given me on days when I feel raw and rough he has given me this man who's shoulder God molded to fit my head. I can hug him or rest my head on his shoulder and we both feel recharged rejuvenated and ready to face the next task.

Steve and I have learned so so much in the last year its impossible to look back without thinking and seeing the leaps and bounds God has took us thru to prepare us for Oct 11, 2008. We thought we knew so much we thought we were so ready a year ago... obviously we weren't or we would have married a year ago. God has been soooo faithful to us and his provision so perfect in so many ways his leadership and guidance in our relationship has been essential will be essential. It is our prayer that when we're old and gray bouncing great grand babies on our bionic knees or even at our funerals that the best thing that could be said about our lives our marriage is "They trusted the Lord" We strive for that we remind eachother of that when we owe $300 to our florist and our car breaks down and costs $300 to fix. And putting the flowers off til next pay day means putting off something else til the pay day after that but God faithfully provides and we trust him and know he is good marriage is good and we count down...only a month left...

How could you resist? They're already flower girls!

Look at those faces... so young so sweet. So completely totally ready and excited to look cute scatter leaves and wear princess dresses! This is Niah and Olivia Briggs, my flower girls. I needed a big pretty girl who could handle the responsibility of sprinkling leaves for me to walk on and I needed an adorable fairy-girl to carry a special kissing ball. Where was I going to find such special young ladies as these... right in my own church... Niah and Olivia are church family they are my friend Kelly's daughters I grew up with their Daddy, and their uncle is part of the reason why i'm a star wars nerd. Their Mimi was my sunday school teacher and it just seems fitting to include part of my church family in my wedding party. I know they don't realize what having church family in my wedding party means to me they're just excited to wear a pretty dress and scatter flowers and leaves but its fitting for me. My church family has always been a HUGE important part of my life. Niah has been hard at work crafting me wedding cakes out of play do and Olivia was soo cute dancing around in her gold sparkly shoes. Shoes are never as cute as when they're on the feet of an excited little girl dancing around.
I remember dreaming and planning from a young age all about my wedding to come how i imagined flowers and frilly dresses sunshine and cake and of course a handsome prince. My dreams are so close to becoming a reality its time to bring those dreams to life in sweet little girls who will learn that the best Princes are the ones God introduces you to and that beautiful weddings and marriages are his special gift to show he loves us. Besides if I hadn't asked them I wouldn't have anyone to wear these perfect leaf filled dresses :)