"Oriented"

School starts this week! I must admit it feels quite strange and a bit intimidating to be going back to school after being out for over 6 years, and having 2 children (and losing half my brain with each one). Literally, sometimes I feel like my brain is mush…However, I am really excited about the opportunity to deepen my knowledge (and therefore my love) of God and also of how to learn to better share him with the world. I will be taking one class a semester (and hopefully graduating with a MA in Religion in Cultures when Ben finishes.) We had orientation today and it was so encouraging to hear all the obstacles that people faces and all that it took for each of us to get here.
In the meantime…last few weeks

• We decided to have our first dinner out and ventured out with the twins to find somewhere that served breakfast all day. Well, next time I will research a little better (and not just ask the lady at Lowes . We ended up at Uncle Bills, which we drove 16 min to get to, and it was like 2 steps down in quality from Waffle House…maybe it was a blessing in disguise though because my kiddos made a huge mess (which didn’t matter because it was already dirty), it was super fast since we were the only ones in there, and they could make as much noise as they wanted (and they do).  it certainly made for comical and memorable evening

• They have a HUGE farmers market here- which is fabulous for me, my family, and for my budget!
• We’ve been to several picnics- one for the seminary and one for a church we visited. They are not very fun right now because 1- there is no where to put my children, 2- my kids don’t eat anything, 3- we don’t get to eat either 4- conversation is limited to a few words while chasing kiddos…so we are still trying to figure out how to make these work and I am open to suggestions from experience moms!
• Ben and I had our first date night out on the town! It was so fabulous to get out with him and have a few hours to just talk and explore the city! We had dinner at Sage’s (a really nice restaurant that we had a coupon for, of course), dessert at Baily’s Chocolate Bar (my favorite part of the meal- the Baily’s Irish Cream Frozen Martini it was to DIE for), and walked around in this really cute and quaint part of St. Louis. It was so relaxing and fun!

Where in the world are the Nelson's???

We are finally here! It’s been almost 3 months since I’ve blogged. We have just packed up our family and moved cross country from Mobile, AL to St. Louis, MO with one-year old twins. So I have plenty of excuses for not blogging (including having no internet access for about a month and a half). We had many great adventures along the way, and also hit some major bumps in the road, all of which I will post about later. We arrived on July 11th so we’ve officially been here for about 3 weeks.

The first week was crazy due to the fact that none of my baby gates worked and we have stairs in our house- which is new for me and the twins. Since we didn’t know anyone, or how to get anywhere, it was mostly spent taking turns going to different places (getting lost of course) and trying to baby-proof the house, get groceries, utilities, ect.  I was so exhausted from our month of traveling/moving (not to mention the months before of packing) that it took me a while just to feel like I had energy again.

The other two weeks we have spent unpacking, trying to find furniture (we sold a lot of our furniture to move), trying to find our way around, and get health insurance (which has been difficult since I got denied). Basically, we are trying to get our bearings. We have been living out of boxes for a looong time & I’m really ready to be settled. A wise man told me that we weren’t really made to move, it’s too hard on our hearts. Heaven (what we are created for) is a permanent dwelling. Moving creates a major lack of security and stability. It’s kinda like you are floating for a while…I just feel like I’m trying to figure out where/who I am again! In the midst of this major transition, the Lord has been walking my heart through a painful and difficult season of questions I have for him about pains I continue to face in my life and His presence in those. My cell phone doesn’t work in my house so I haven’t even been able to talk to my wonderful friends back home (thanks to all who have tried calling me anyways- I miss you guys). On the bright side, St. Louis is such a cool city and we are so excited to be here. It has been fun to explore new things and the weather is NOTHING like Alabama heat!