less than a week, less than a week

While we were dating, I had an internship in the Washington D.C. area for 12ish weeks. Every time Adam and I would talk on the phone we would chant, "less than a week, less than a week" even though most of the time it was way more than a week until we were together again. It made us feel better. So now, "less than a week, less than a week" until we can stop this graduate school nonsense. I think if we didn't have each other, this would be impossible for both of us. Thank you Jesus!

This week has been very research heavy for both of us and that is no fun to blog about. I am putting off my extreme budget spreadsheet and house buying calculator for a while because I was slacking in the areas I get paid for [read: not as fun things]. I hope we can both finish in the June time frame so that we can go on a little vacation before Adam has to start a real job in July.

On Friday night, we had a Disciple Now type thing with our Youth Impact junior high and high schoolers. It was fun/crazy! I think the kids loved it.

Last post I was already over the "that's all for today" sign off, but I'll try it again today.

that's all for today

The beginning of home hunting

We spent the second half of spring break in the Dallas area hanging with friends and looking for a home. We checked out two apartment complexes and talked to a mortgage guy. No offense, but apartments are just lame. We only looked at two, but they were highly rated on apartment finder. Why would I pay someone $1000+/month for a teeny kitchen?? It just seemed silly. I'm pretty sure that we would have to sell 30% of our belongings before we fit into one of those.

The meeting with the mortgage guy went great! I was very impressed about how much they will let us borrow just based on Adam's salary (because we don't have a number for mine yet). And then I was even more impressed when we realized how big of a house that would buy in this fantastic home market. We are pretty much sold on buying a house, now we just have to figure out the logistics. It's like a multi-variable optimization problem... if only one of us had taken optimization. It is just like Dr. Hurtado tells me, life is a two point boundary value problem and we are just trying to figure out the path between the end points.

The problem is that we have no savings and our mortgage guy says we have to pay at least 3% down on closing. We will have that money once Adam starts working because they were so sweet to offer him a signing bonus. So then we wait until after he starts, but where will we live until then???? Also: When do we start really looking for houses if we aren't closing until August? Who knows a real estate person that we can trust that knows the Grand Prairie area? 1 million other questions... to much to think about now. It is fun to see who can find the cheapest and best house online. Did you know that google maps has a real-estate feature. Very helpful!!

Clean Hands

We are having fun in the sun... from inside a house and not at the beach. Yay spring break 2010! Today Adam, my Mom, and I went to Church Under the Bridge (CUB) in Austin. Basically, a couple of different churches along with a mission organization host a church service under I35 downtown Austin for homeless people. My parent's home church (Zion Lutheran) participates once every other month by bringing breakfast tacos. Today we went along and it was pretty cool/sad. The people were very grateful for the tacos; we passed out about 350 to maybe 100 homeless and other volunteers. Working in youth impact (our inner city ministry in Bryan/College Station) has made me count my blessings, but these people literally have nothing. Even something as simple as having clean hands can be taken for granted. We met a man named David who is a hurricane Katrina refugee. He said he has been going to CUB for 2 years. We tried to talked to him about our faith, but it was hard for him to pay attention. He said he needed money for a bus pass, but we told him to trust in the Lord for everything and He will provide a bus pass. Please pray for David that the Lord will provide him with a bus pass in a way that will teach David to trust in the Lord for everything. Adam and I have been thinking about what we can do once we move to Dallas and this opened our eyes a little today. If you want more info about CUB, look here.

My mom found one of my old diaries from when I was 8 the other day. I wish I would have been better at documenting my life as a child. This diary only has 3 entries, all of which are gold. At the end of each entry I singed, "That's all for today" so that is my new sign off message.

That's all for today.

Almost Spring Break 2010!!

It is almost spring break 2010 and we are busy preparing for the break. Did I say busy? Adam is playing video games and I am on facebook... We should be busy preparing for spring break. Every time there is a break from school, I like to leave my house clean. This is what we should be doing.

This spring break, we are going to be helping my mom with some spring cleaning and for the second half we will be in Dallas searching for a place to live! We are so excited to move and start a new chapter in the Dallas area. The big question is: to buy or to rent? We are getting advice from both parties and I think we are just going to have to see what is out there. We are planning on looking at houses to buy and apartments to rent and hopefully have a better idea about what we should do. I have been calculating an estimated budget with our new salaries and it was so surprising how fast all that money just disappears! So much to plan for. Good thing I love planning. :)

Hello World

Hey Hermano-s,

This blog is going to be a place where I will talk about what is going on in our lives. We are currently 66.7% through our first year of marriage and loving it. I think this first year of marriage has been wonderful and one of the reasons for that I believe is that we have been living here in College Station. We are kind of secluded with not as many friends our age to hang out with so we have been able to spend some great quality time together.

Using this blog I will be able to share with everyone some of the challenges and exciting things that happen to us. We are so excited for what God has planned for our lives!!

loves,
KJ (& AJ)