Sweet Home Alabama

We have had so much going on the past couple of weeks and absolutely no time to post about it!

I had a wonderful time spending time with friends and family in Cali. My mom and I had a great time shopping. (We were practically stealing our deals were so good!) This was probably one of the last times that my closest high school friends will all be living in the same area. It blows my mind how God's plans are so different from anything we would ever plan on our own! Daniel joined me for the last weekend to attend a good family friend's wedding. The wedding was spectacular and had me tearing up several times! This couple is such a testimony of God's faithfulness and we look forward to seeing the impact they have for Christ!

Less than 24 hours after returning to NM, Daniel's family came to stay with us in Albuquerque. His parents, brother, sister-in-law and their 7th month-old little boy all managed to fit into our now very large apartment (praise Jesus!) with room to spare! We visited Santa Fe with all the cute shops and historic buildings. We went to the Loretto Chapel and saw the famous staircase that was built with no nails. No one has been able to figure out how it actually manages to stay together and defy gravity!



Joshua, Daniel's brother, also helped put together the changing table and make our baby's room start to take shape! I keep going in there just to look and dream...I'm getting so excited!! I'm going into week 28 now and according to our ticker (on the Baby DnA page), we only have 88 more days before we meet our little boy!

Only a week and a half later, Daniel and I (and the foosa) are out in Montgomery, AL for his JAG training. It is crazy to think about everywhere we have lived just in this year alone: Northeast, Southwest & South. Baby DnA is quite the traveler even before he's born! We have had quite a welcome to Alabama in the 3+ days that we've been here. Our complex messed up and didn't have our apartment actually cleaned up and ready for us...so we had a little tidying up to do. We also got a rude introduction to the massive cockroaches that the south breeds. We found two dead ones and two live ones all in our first day! On Saturday night, I discovered one in the top drawer of our dresser (It still makes my skin crawl to think about it). We forced ourselves to go through the drawers one-by-one until he ran out from the bottom. Yelling, spraying and wacking ensued, but we finally killed it! I think both of us slept a little better that night knowing that there was one less in our apartment. It has now been more than 24 hours since we've seen a roach and our place feels a million times cleaner!

However, we didn't end up sleeping too wonderfully last night because our apartment was rocked by the worst thunder and lightning I have ever experienced! It felt and sounded like a massive 18-wheeler was driving on the roof. The poor cats who haven't been scared by thunder in the past, were terrified and hiding under the bed. And of course with all that downpour, there was flash flooding this morning to top it al off. I don't think I was expecting so much culture shock!

To Montgomery's credit, it is beautifully green out here. We've also been impressed by the fantastic shopping that is right down the street from our apartment. The people seem really nice and the old architecture and plantation-style homes are beautiful. The incredibly loud bugs, that turn up the volume at about 10pm, will take some getting used to, but we're learning to appreciate the good aspects of the south.

Daniel's first day of JSOC (JAG school) started today. So far so good. If God could get us through 3 years of law school, this will be a walk-in-the-park!