Spring has sprung!

Well it feels like an age since my last post, which is probably true - but things have been pretty busy! This past semester has gone by very quickly. Josh had his spring break last week - which I had hoped would mean some time that we could go out on a day trip together, but he had exams to study for and assignments to write, so it ended up being a regular week. But he made really good progress on his work - it amazes me how hard he works, but I'm thankful for it! 

Another thing that we are very thankful for at the moment is the warmer weather! The grass is turning a healthy green again, and (dare I say it) the white winter snow seems almost like a dream. It's just amazing to see how much the landscape can change in a short period of time. And there is something so cheering about longer sunshiny days, and warmth in the sun - it was strange to get into the car and discover it to be toasty warm (as opposed to frigid). So after experiencing temperatures like the ones that I recorded below - we are now back up into the positives and today got up to wonderful 15 degrees. :)

Brrrr!

One of the last big snowfalls that we had in February

We were really blessed to be treated to a delicious pizza dinner with some of our Kiwi friends from church. They took us to a famous local pizzaria which had a really great atmosphere and very delicious pizzas. 

Josh enjoying the tasty pizza

Before all of the snow melted I also got to go sledding with the Couperus girls! It was a lot of fun. A cold day, but we trekked up and down the hill and had a lot of fun.  

Zara at the top of the hill

Kate with her rosy cold cheeks! (and you can see Zara going down the hill in the background)

We had a couple of big inner tubes to slide on, as well as a couple of boards that were kind of like boogie boards (just the snow versions of them)

The view from the bottom of the hill!

Now we'll just have to wait until next winter to go again. :) Here are a few more pictures that we took over the past couple of months. For a combined Valentines Day/Wedding Anniversary present to ourselves we decided to go out for dinner to a local cafe and enjoyed a bowl of chili - that they very cleverly decorated with a heart. ;)

Some of Josh's snow-blowing exploits at the seminary

Josh and Albert managed to convince the seminary to fly the NZ flag on the flagpole again for Waitangi Day. NZ represent! :D

Our Valentines Dinner - they always serve the meals here with a massive pickle. 

Mountains of snow that Josh had to shovel through over the winter

A cool picture that Josh took :)

The other news we have is that we have had our summer internship confirmed! We are heading to Canada! And not just any part of Canada but British Columbia - which is about as far away from where we currently are as you can get. :) It is apparently a really beautiful part of the country, and we are really excited to have the opportunity to travel there. The church is the United Reformed Church in Abbotsford, which is about an hour west of Vancouver. We are so thankful to this church for taking us for the summer, and we (in particular, Josh) are really looking forward to working alongside the pastor, and Josh will have a lot of opportunities to preach in the 10 or so weeks that we will be there. It's such an incredible gift to be able to experience this, and for the church to take in a first year intern is amazingly generous. We are really looking forward to the experience.

So below is a map of the road trip that we will be going on. It's a biggie! So your prayers would be really appreciated as we plan and prepare for a big trip and also the time that Josh will be preparing for regular preaching as well as our travel once we are on our way!

According to Google Maps it's about a 34 hour drive

Something else that I am kind of excited about is that in the pictures that I have looked up of Abbotsford, it looks a little like NZ...

Abbotsford = mountains, hills and rivers!! Hurrah!!

Don't you think so? Cool huh! It'll potentially be like a little trip home! So that is a little update from us. We will try to keep you posted as things progress and we get some more things arranged for our trip. In the meantime we really appreciate all your support and are so thankful to be a part of a worldwide family. Plus our first year in the US is almost over, time has flown! We are enjoying it here - but don't worry, we look forward to coming home in another two years. ;)

Til next time!  

Shenanigans

Hi everyone!

As per the title of this post, you would be pleased to know that we have been getting up to a few shenanigans - pretty much expressly so that we have some fun things to update you all on. :)

Things have been going well - we are so blessed! And very thankful for everything that God has provided us with over here. Especially at the moment, we are very thankful for a toasty warm home - the temperatures have plummeted over here, so it is now boot, scarf, hat and glove weather already. There was even a bit of snow the other day - however it was a little more sleety, didn't settle on the ground at all. All the trees have been changing gorgeous colours, so last week Josh and I went for a walk and took a couple of pictures. 

This is just down the road from our apartment.

We also went with some friends last Saturday on a fall outing to a farm kinda place where they had a bunch of interesting animals, a pumpkin field and a corn maze. : )  

Yes, there was a camel in the middle of the Illinois countryside, random but true.
And he really liked Josh. I think he liked having someone who he could look in the eye. 

Oh yeah, and a tortoise. 

So that's an update on some of our shenanigans! Josh has finished his exams for the time being - and received one of his grades back yesterday - which he passed with flying colours! We are very thankful!

New Tabs

Howdy everyone!

Just a quick update - before I have to pop out and pick Josh up from class (he walked over to school this morning, but it has been raining today, so I took pity on him). :)

You may notice that there are a couple of new tabs up the top of the page (just above this post), entitled 'J', 'H', and 'U S of A'. I thought I'd explain a little about what they are all about. :)

Both of us have been really enjoying getting stuck into learning more about the Bible, and Josh in particular has been finding it really fantastic to devote this time to learning more about our faith! And he has been getting a lot out of it already. I have been really enjoying working my way through some good devotional material, and reading some excellent books - and both of us feel like there are things that we have learnt and read that we would love to share with people! So the 'J' tab (as you have probably figured out by now) is for Josh to update you all on some things that he has been learning that he has found interesting. And the 'H' one is for me - sometimes there is a verse that is just too good not to share. :) 

The 'U S of A' tab is something that a good friend encouraged me to do. This country has a lot of similarities to NZ, but there are also a lot of quirky little differences that we will probably look back on in the future, and perhaps even miss! It's interesting to know what is different, and perhaps we could even learn something from it - so this is our tab of interesting uniqueness from America. :) Things that are interestingly unique to us as Kiwi's anyway (and perhaps a few things that we do that the American's think are 'interestingly unique' too). :D

Hope that all makes sense! And hopefully we can keep this updated for you all too. :) 
Til next time...