11 Years Later

My favorite wedding picture

Today is my 11th anniversary.

I'm not sure how that happened - 11 years is a LONG time! I feel like I'm not old enough to have been married 11 years, but here we are.

As I spent some time thinking about our 11 years together, it amazed me to think about how much our love has changed. When we started dating 14 (what!?) years ago, we were so young. 16 & 19. We were best friends, but so in love. In our wedding pictures 3 years later, we look like babies! I didn't feel young then, but now I think back on it & realize that we were just beginning our lives. Many people thought we were too young to build a marriage that would last. We had no life experience. We just knew that we were in love & wanted to get married as soon as possible. That love was strong & passionate, full of young dreams.

Most of the wedding party before the reception.

Now, 11 years later, the love is still there, but it is different. It is so much deeper now. While Derrick & I are still best friends, we are now also partners in life. We are each other's other half. We work together so well. We are each other's cheerleader, support, counselor. When we committed to "To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health" 11 years ago, we didn't know how much of that would be true. Life has not always been roses & rainbows. Marriage is hard work, even when it is with your best friend. Feelings get hurt, money runs out, people get sick. Sometimes God reroutes your plans right in the middle of your comfortable life. No matter what the future holds, Derrick & I are commited to each other.

Spring 2007 (I think)

One of the things that Derrick mentioned about our wedding was that he loved something that was part of my vows. We didn't write our own vows, but just let Pastor Bill do whatever he normally did. I don't remember all of my vows, but one line was "You are the husband of my choosing." 11 years later, it is still true. Derrick is the husband of my choosing. I don't know if I love him more than I did the day we were married, but the love now is so much stronger than it was then. As we are headed out into a new adventure together with our boys, I am excited to see how God uses us as we do what he has called us to! We are in this together, until death shall part us - and that is an exciting place to be!

Fall 2014

Quotes from the Boys

One fun reason to have kids is so you can hear the crazy (& hilarious!) things they say. I'm sure I've missed some, but these are some good ones! Dylan's are always great, but Andrew is finally starting to get in on the action!

Dylan:

January 2015

"My cold is getting badder." (We thought he said "better.")

"Wow, this is a fancy restaurant!" - while eating dinner at Chipotle.

While playing Life -
Dylan: "What's this say?"
Derrick: "Tutor."
Dylan: "Toot-er! My house is the Toot-er!" Laughs hysterically!

April 2015

Dylan has always had a good grasp on speech & grammar. He was never one of those kids who said things like, "Me want juice." Even when he was tiny, I was always shocked at the way he could put sentences together appropriately. The other day our friends shared a story about Dylan & his friends with us & I laughed so hard that I thought I needed to write it down.

Our dear friends Jenny & Steve teach Dylan's class at church on Wednesday nights. The class is 1st & 2nd graders & they LOVE to chat with each other. Jenny says that she tries not to intervene in their conversations as much as possible. The kids were talking about pets & one of the little boys was telling a story about how he knows someone who "dyed" their dog pink. Dylan responded with "I think you mean 'killed.'" He knew that we didn't "die" things, we "killed" them. The child insisted that, no, he meant "dyed." Dylan continued to argue with him about if he meant "dyed" or "killed." Sometimes in person communication isn't better than text messages & emails!

"When I grow up, I'm going to get a car just like this. Only a convertible." While riding in our mini van. 

Dylan - "How do the weather people know the weather?"

Derrick - "Well, they study it & can figure out what's going on."

Dylan - "Oh. Maybe they just watch the news."

Andrew:

For some reason, Andrew calls all the grandparents "Baca." We have no idea why or where it came from, but that's what he prefers. So goofy!

May 2015

Andrew's favorite song is Jesus (There's Something About that Name). He loves it & we sing it almost every night. He has started singing it on his own & it is adorable. Also, hilarious! The song goes "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There's just something about that name. Master, Savior, Jesus..." Andrew's version goes, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Some name. Masser, Freezer, Jesus!"

What Happens After Graduation?

Many of you have been asking what we are doing after Derrick graduates at the end of the month. Are we coming to Iowa? Are we staying in Colorado? We decided that we would share with you where we are at & what is next. Since Derrick started sending his resume out to Nazarene church districts in March, he has had several conversations with District Superintendents either about specific churches or just about the district in general. Nothing really jumped out at us. Then Derrick, on a whim, sent his resume to the Prairie Lakes district at the beginning of April. We have a couple friends on the district, including our former youth pastor/best man/good friend/mentor to Derrick, Dave. We thought it would be awesome to be close to him. Before I go any farther, I need to say - Prairie Lakes is a big district. It is all of Minnesota, North Dakota, & South Dakota. As Derrick was sending out his resume, I said the thing you should NEVER say when going into ministry, “I just don’t want to go to some tiny town in North Dakota. No one lives in North Dakota!”

So the next day (or something), Derrick gets an email. The District Superintendent of the Prairie Lakes district wanted to meet with him. He just “happened” to be in Colorado Springs for a few days. So they met for lunch. And Derrick texted me - “The DS is nice...he wants us to consider a ‘really nice church’...in Beulah, North Dakota.”

I immediately started sobbing. North Dakota, God? For real? Not only was it not really closer to Iowa (12 hours vs. the 14 now), it wasn’t really near our friend Dave, either (still 6 hours to his house). I texted my dear best friend, Amy, who is really good at talking me down from my crazy. After me telling her what was going on & many messages back & forth, she finally said, “Okay, but what is your gut reaction?” Aside from the sobbing...my gut reaction was to allow the DS to give our resume to the Beulah church & see where that goes. After talking to Derrick that night & finding that he had the same gut reaction, we contacted the DS & told him he could give the church our information. We have been telling God “wherever you want us,” so this was our first BIG step out in faith.

And then we waited. And as we waited, we researched. Derrick may have accused me of being a stalker. We searched the town, the people, the church. We found that the town was super tiny - 3000 people. No Walmart, McDonald’s, Sam’s...but they do have Derrick’s favorite - Subway! Seeing all that they don’t have made me really nervous. The more I looked & thought, though, the more I liked the idea of a small town. No major distractions. More places for my boys to be outside & run & be boys. It really started to feel like it could be home. We began to get more & more excited. And more & more nervous. It felt like they would never contact us, so we thought maybe they decided to go a different direction. And then one day a couple weeks later, Derrick got a call. They wanted to Skype interview us.

I was so distracted waiting for that interview. I was so excited & scared. We interviewed. The church board was super nice & have a great idea about where they want their church to go. We had a really nice interview. And then we waited, again. Finally, after what seemed like forever, but was really only a few days, they contacted us, inviting us to come visit & for Derrick to preach. We are so thrilled! It feels like God has been leading through this whole situation. Whether or not we are called to the Beulah church, we know that going to interview there is from God.

So pray for us. We are excited, but very nervous - this would be a major change for us. We are currently attending a decent sized church & we live in a town that has almost anything you would want. Our boys have grown up here in Colorado Springs & it would be hard to take them from what they are so used to. It would be hard to leave our dear friends here who have become like family. Pray for the Beulah church - this is a time of transition for them & they are trying to discern what God has for them. Maybe it is us...but maybe it’s not. Most of all, pray that we would all look for God’s will in this. We all want to do what God is telling us to do. We want what is best for ourselves, but we also want what is best for the Beulah church. Being in the center of God’s will is an awesome place to be & we want to spend as much time there as possible!