34 Things We Love About Derrick!

Easter - 2015

Today is Derrick's 34th birthday. In honor of this, Dylan, Andrew, & I have come up with 34 reasons that we love him!

Andrew's first birthday

From Andrew

1. Eat with Daddy
2. Eat pizza
3. Go park Daddy
4. Up-down Daddy(Andrew likes Derrick to hold him upside down).

Derrick and Dylan have always loved
playing video games together.

From Dylan
5. He is funny
6. He takes me places sometimes
7. We can go on trips with him
8. We play games & the Wii together
9. He reads to me at bedtime
10. He loves me a lot

Derrick & Dylan playing light sabers
- April 2012

From Renee

11. He is a great Daddy who loves his boys.

12. He has a great sense of humor. 

Derrick has been told he looks like this guy.

13. He is a hard worker, no matter what he is doing.

14. He loves Jesus & does his best to follow him every day.

15. He is very smart. 

NBC Graduation 2015

16. He encourages me to do what I love.

17. He is great about giving me a break from "mom" life when I need it. 

18. He does a great job caring for the boys. He has never referred to himself "babysitting" the boys. He has, however, babysat for our friends before while I went out.

19. He is a fantastic preacher & loves to study God's Word to prepare to share it with others.

20. We are becoming foster parents, not because I want to & he is just along for the ride, but because he understands the need for good foster families & he knows that kids need a stable home while their parents are working their stuff out. 

Derrick & Steven at Steven's wedding
 - August 2014

21. He is very loyal to the people he loves.

22. He doesn't think he is too good to help around the house if he needs to. He loads the dishwasher, cooks, sweeps, & does laundry. His mama trained him right!

Derrick holding Dylan for the first time
- Late October 2008

23. He also gets up in the night with the kids. He changes diapers & bed sheets, feeds bottles, gives snuggles. He's a fantastic dad.

24. He loves ice cream. And I love ice cream. And we love to eat ice cream together after the kids go to bed!

25. He has never been frustrated when my medical issues have made it so I can't do things. He has always been there to be an encouragement for me to do the things I CAN do.

26. I can trust him. 

27. He follows God, even when it is hard & isn't the most popular thing to do.

Candid shot taken just before our wedding.
It is still one of my favorite pictures.

28. He has stuck with me through all of my emotional-ness, my

crabbiness, my unreasonable sadness & has helped carry me through all of it.

29. He includes me in all decisions that affect our family.

30. He works really hard to control his temper, even when it is really hard to do so.

Bedtime snuggles! (2015)

31. He cares about people a lot.

32. He makes our family a priority. He takes seriously his role as a husband & father.

PJ & Derrick - early 2015 

Dave & Derrick
- August 2015

33. He finds people he can look up too in lots of different areas of life so he can better himself.

34. He has matured over the past 15 years that we have been together, but he is still the same man I fell in love with. He is definitely an improved version of his younger self!

Wedding Day - May 22, 2004

May 2007

Fall 2014

Derrick, we love you & are so thankful for you! You bless us every day! Thank you for being you!

North Dakota Update

We have been in North Dakota just over 12 weeks. Almost 3 months. Since I haven't been updating like I should, let's hit the highlights...

Things we don't like:

• Being an hour from Walmart & Target...or maybe we do like that?
• The grocery store closing at 8 pm (6 pm on the weekends!)
• No dollar movie theater
• Being far away from our dear EastNaz & NBC friends. We miss you all terribly! 
• Even after moving 12 hours away from our second home, still not being any closer to our family & friends in Iowa. We miss you all so much, too! 

Things we love:

• The parsonage. This house is gorgeous & HUGE! We love having lots of room to spread out & having the yard to play in. I'm hoping to plant a good sized garden next year.
• Our church - both the people & the building. Everyone has been such a blessing to us & we are loving getting to know them better.
• The parsonage being so close to the church. We aren't right next door, but we are just down the street. Derrick walks to work most days & we walk to church most Sundays. I know that will change come winter, but it is so nice right now. 
• The foster care process is so much easier than Colorado or Iowa. We are excited to hopefully be licensed by the end of the month! We'll put all the space this house has to work!
• The small town life. Sometimes I miss having a hundred choices of places to go to dinner or tons of activities to attend...but most of the time I don't. We are loving being home more.
• Along with that, we are loving spending more time together! We were all so busy & pulled in so many different directions in Colorado that it was really too much. It is awesome to be able to be a family again. And since Derrick isn't having to do homework all the time, we have even had time to watch shows together like we used to! 

The move has been hardest on Dylan, which I kind of figured it would be. He was only 3 when we moved to Colorado. He remembers bits & pieces of Iowa, but Colorado was his home. In the weeks & months surrounding the time when we moved, almost all of his friends moved from the area. They are off in Indiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, & on the Navajo reservation in the southwest. Even when he would cry about missing Colorado, he knew most of his friends weren't there. We have kids in our church, but the kids his age are mostly girls & I know he misses playing with other boys. Being homeschooled, he doesn't have a ton of places to meet friends, but we were blessed this week to meet another pastor's wife & her kids at the library. They also homeschool & she has a son Dylan's age, so I am looking forward to getting together with them soon. We also just signed Dylan up for a boys gymnastics class & are hoping that will help him some, too.

Overall, just like our move to Colorado was, this move was a good & right one for our family. It is hard to be so far away from our family & our friends-who-became-family, but we are thankful for technology that helps us keep in touch. I am able to check in often with dear friends in Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, & Michigan. The boys talk to my mom almost every week. I was even able to see pictures of a dear friend bringing her adopted daughter home from Armenia. Derrick checks in weekly with his best friend, Brad, & together they are able to work through the issues of the world...or maybe just the issues of homework & ministry. :-) We are blessed to have so many people who love us all over the country! As we continue in ministry here in Beulah, we are looking forward to building more relationships here & watching God work in the church & community!

Please pray for us as we continue to adjust to our new life here in North Dakota!