Married Life Update

Hi friends!

Well, we've been married for 3 weeks. It's been a fun ride so far. Literally. We've driven over 1,300 miles since getting married. Good thing we're used to spending a lot of travel time together. This summer pales in comparison to last summer's travel adventures. Last summer. we drove from Springfield to Houston then flew to Africa then flew to Turkey then flew back to Houston then drove to Tulsa where I flew home for a few weeks. Apparently that wasn't enough because we then proceeded to take a 3,000 mile road trip from Oregon back to Springfield with my best friend Lizzy, stopping at all the sites along the way (Redwood forest, San Francisco, Vegas, Grand Canyon, etc). Needless to say, we're used to traveling together.

And the reason we drove 1,300 miles in our first 3 weeks of marriage is because we are in Florida! We got to spend our honeymoon in beautiful Sarasota, Florida (rated the USA's #1 beach). We enjoyed relaxing, salt water, sand between our toes, and gorgeous sunsets. And if all that isn't great enough we saw a manatee when we were in the ocean. He swam close enough touch. Unfortunately, I'm a baby. I got scared and jumped behind Davy. In my defense, a large black figure coming toward you in the water is a little bit intimidating... I don't care who you are.

The good news: we don't have to leave sunny Florida just yet. After leaving Sarasota, we headed to Orlando for Cru training. This is sometimes very confusing to explain to people, but I will try my best. Three years ago, Davy joined staff with Cru. He has been working in full-time ministry at Missouri State ever since. Two years ago I decided to do a one year internship with Cru. I also worked in full-time ministry at Missouri State (you've probably put two and two together and realized that is where we met). After my one year internship was up, I decided to do another. I loved my job! And just like that my second internship year was up. Sometime in that second year, I started dating Davy, got engaged, and married him which leads us to right now. Over the last two years, I felt God calling me to join staff with Cru full-time. My job won't be that different than my internship. I'll still share the Gospel with college students, lead Bible studies, disciple girls, and attempt to launch movements where none exist. The main difference is the time commitment. Rather than a year to year commitment with an internship, I'm committing at least the next 3-5 years to working for Cru. It may be longer, but will see what God does.

So, this summer I get to attend a 4 week training in Orlando. This will prepare me to raise support and better equip me to lead students. I will be taking 2 seminary courses in addition to learning more about Cru. Since Davy already joined staff 3 years ago he doesn't have to redo the training. However, he's here with me taking a higher level seminary course and helping run the New Staff Training conference. We're really excited for what the summer holds and wanted to keep everyone updated. We'll attempt to keep updating you on our experiences this summer.

Here are some pictures from the last 3 weeks:

A sneak peek of our wedding photos. We can't wait to see the rest of them!

Here we are on our road trip. On our way through Georgia we found this fun cow statue at a gas station. Random, so we decided to take a picture in front of it. 

In case you're not sure what you're looking at, this is our tent from our stop halfway to Florida.  We did not read the directions and therefore did not "verify package content." Which means we ended up with only one tent pole. We improvised. Thankfully, that campground had tall posts to mark each campsite. Also, it was dark when we set up camps. Oh, and there was a hole in the tent (fails all around). Davy found a frog in the tent when we were packing up to leave. Good thing we're pretty chill.
 

We set up our tent in the dark, but woke up to this beautiful sight. Totally worth it. 

After our camping debacle we finally made it to Sarasota. The beaches there are GORGEOUS. Here's a sunset we enjoyed.

Enjoying a walk on the beach.