A great way to start the day

My new morning routine is one that I am digging more and more everyday. For basically the past year I have spent the first several hours of my day with Rachel at Fair Bean Coffee. I still go with her to open in the morning, but I have to leave by 6:50 in order to have time to bike to the MetroRail on time for the train ride up north. I miss being able to be around her so much in the morning, but I think it is going to be good for us because a lot of the time we can't interact a whole lot after it starts getting busy and that can just lead to frustration for both of us. So this gives us some really good quality time in the first 45 or 5o minutes. It also allows me to have about an hour of time when I get to the Domain to read or catch up on something that I need to do on the computer before I go in to work. And the short bike rides I have to take before and after the train ride are amazing. I get to bike over town lake on S Congress birdge during the sunrise and I get to exit the train with a small troupe of bikers heading off to work. Definitely a great way to start the day.

Getting the itch...to CAMP!

The weather is changing and Rachel and I just sat around with a few of our roommates and shared stories, photos and videos of our past camping/backpacking experiences and now I am super inspired to go right now! Hopefully a trip can happen by the end of October!

Public Transportation is the best

We are very fortunate to have good and still progressing public transportation in Austin. Sharing one car and working in far different areas of town is all made possible by the combination of bikes, 1 car, car2go, buses and the MetroRail. From what I have been told and from what Ive experienced a little myself Austin still has a ways to go before it has as good public transportaion as other cities such as San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc.. but Im grateful for what we have and for the direction the city is going.

To Us

Very excited about this weekend. Rachel and I are going to our first Marriage Conference titled "Intimate Mysteries". We are excited for several reasons, first and most obvious is the chance for us to focus on our relationship and marriage on a deeper level in ways that I am sure are going to be challenging. Also the guy leading the conference is the former president and co-founder of Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, where I hope to be attending either next fall or the fall after next. I hope that we will gain some great insight that we will be able to share with others!

A new season is in the air..I can feel it

I am starting to think that normal is what you make it. Rachel and I joke some times about "when are things or life gonna be back to normal" but I really don't think we have set ourselves up for the typical normal lifestyle, and I think we are really ok with that. But having said that, we do feel that things are settling into a nice rhythm now. All of our roomates were home for the first time together last night! Barrett and Kristin are leaving again for a few more weeks, but its basically like they are here. Job possibilities are starting to come to fruition and we have been connecting with more people at Vox. Yesterday I made a quick list of things that I wanted to focus on this fall so that I had some goals and whatnot, and hopefully come Christmas time I can look back and see if I stuck with any of it. And as dorky as it sounds I am pretty stoked about some football :).... Also a quick side note, I feel very fortunate to have gotten to know my friend Evan for the past few months. He just left for Afghanistan for a few years to follow Jesus and serve. Very few people have effected me in such a short period of time like he has, you can follow his journey on his blog.

I am so blessed, I pray that I realize that everyday and celebrate it in thanks and gratitude, and share it with others.

From South to East

Its been 9 months. Our lease is up and we are moving. We are moving from our way too nice Soco( lingo for South Congress) apt where so much local and non-local activity goes down on a daily basis to a more fitting house, tailored perfectly for Rachel and I and our roomates in a humble neighborhood on the East side of town. We are super excited about this for several reasons. Number one being it is a house, and an amazingly renovated house at that! It has two larger decks, a partially covered one in front and a fully covered one in back. Another reason why we are excited is that we are going to be able to have a large garden and chickens!! Don't know a ton about either yet but can't wait to learn. Also, we are living really close to the faith community that we are apart of called Vox Veniae. It is also really close to Good & Fair Clothing, where we are doing our internship. We have some great neighbors that are old families that have been there for a while and have history that we can take a lot from. We are super close to some great coffee shops and restaurants and right down the street from the University of Texas. I will post more on our house and the garden and chickens and all as we go along, just wanted to get an intro on here about this next chapter in our life.

I hope my updates will become more regular soon

There has been so much going on in mine and Rachel's life over the past month or so, along with all of our apartments lives, that somehow it all kind of happened without me making the time to blog about it. I am aslo getting some new eye glasses so I honestly think that will help my blogging as well, because right now its pretty uncomfortable at times to sit and stare at a computer screen for a decent amount of time.

A quick recap:

Jomara's parent's and brother from Brazil stayed with us/traveled for 3 weeks

Danielle's younger brother Keegan stayed with us for 2 weeks

Justus stayed with us for 2 nights

Totaling 9-10 people in our 3 br 2 b apt for a little while

My parents also came into town for a few nights to visit during this same time but thankfully stayed in a hotel

Rachel and I were in our friends Stephanie and Adam's wedding in Dallas

Rachel and I started working/interning for Good&Fair Clothing

We found a house and start renting on July 1st!!!

God has also been teaching me a whole lot during and after this whole time. Im going through the Old Testament right now and have been learning a ton about the faithfulness of God and the love he has for his people,We are so quick to forget about God and what he has done for us, and God continues to show patience to a people who want to live counter to what the world gives us, to a people who want to follow and worship a one true God but that fail over and over at doing so.

-May faithfulness and love walk before us today