Life Update: 2018 is a BIG year

It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to make a blog post. However, Melissa recently suggested I post an update for everyone to read and I thought that was a pretty good idea. There is a lot of things going on in our lives this year. It’s hard to believe that we are already over a month into 2018. It is easily the biggest year of our lives since we got married. As a matter of fact, 2018 is likely going to be an even bigger year for us than 2013 was. So in case you haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on in our lives, read on. Lots of changes and new things are coming this year.

Jobs

Melissa is still enjoying her job at Skidmore College. While I am sure she would rather be working for a Christian school, she tries to make the best of the situation. She enjoys being in this kind of environment as it causes her to have to remain fresh and on top of modern trends. She works in the marketing department for the web team and will have her second year anniversary in May. One of her highlights this year was working the commencement service where Oprah was the speaker for the 2017 graduating class.

As for me, 2018 will mark my first anniversary at North Country Subaru in less than a month. It has been great to work for a company that has good values. Furthermore, it is a much less stressful job than I have ever had before. While most of what I do is not particularly challenging, I enjoy what I do and the people I work with and work for. I get weekends off and am able to come home and still have a life outside of work. An added bonus is that I am actually using some of the stuff I learned in college for Computer Science.

Youth Group/Church

For the most part, my role at the church is the same. However, a new church invited me to preach for them this year and they even paid for me to stay in a hotel. This was certainly a new and unique experience and I enjoyed being able to help out another church. I think it went well. I actually preached at a total of three different churches in the last year.

 

The youth group has grown quite a bit in the last year. We brought 23 students to the Word of Life Reverb overnighter. This is the biggest off-campus event that I have ever done as a youth leader and 2-3 kids even made decisions to follow Christ. We have increased weekly attendance at youth group as well and we are having more fun and more compelling messages than ever before. Part of this is due to the subscription that I have with Download Youth Ministry. If you are a youth pastor, you should definitely check them out!

Enough with the past, let’s get to some more interesting things that are coming up in 2018.

New House!

What started as a casual conversation a year or so ago, has become a reality. We are very close to closing on our first house. So far, things have been going easily and quite smoothly. We knew what we wanted and went for it. Unfortunately, what we wanted was out of our price range. This didn’t stop us from putting in an offer that we thought was pretty low. It didn’t seem like we would get the house for nearly $20,000 less than what they wanted, but to our surprise, they accepted the offer! They even agreed to fix up some of the repairs that were found during our inspection and we are now well on our way to closing at the beginning of March!

We have already informed our landlord we would be moving out, we have been approved for a mortgage, and the inspection went well. All we are really waiting for now is a few more papers to be signed and our lease to run out. We’ll have the entire month of March to move out and clean our current place before starting our next adventure of home ownership.

The house itself is really great. It is currently a three bedroom with two bathrooms. That is what we thought we were buying. When we showed up, we found nothing but good surprises. The basement is set up for a fourth bedroom and a third bathroom. There is also a den/office area and lots of storage in the basement. Furthermore, the yard ended up being quite large, and flat, and there is a detached garage as well. We are pretty excited even though the basement is a somewhat sizeable project.

We are having a baby!

Yep, arguably the biggest news of 2018 is that we are having our first child! We will find out the gender at our housewarming/gender reveal party sometime in March. The baby is due July 4th which we are pretty excited about. Our gender reveal is going to be done using either blue or pink fireworks that we found online, and it’s just perfect!

Melissa is currently 19 weeks pregnant and she would describe it as fairly easy so far. She didn’t have any morning sickness and our appointments have been going well. She’s a little nervous about becoming a mom, and I am sure that I will become nervous once the baby arrives.

Told you this year was going to be big.

There are a lot of other things going on this year as well that are still interesting. Frodo is about to take his test to be a therapy dog in a week or two. He has already become a certified “Good Citizen.” Melissa is going to be going on her first ever week-long business trip (in March no less). We paid off Melissa’s student loan and my car loan. We also celebrate our 5th anniversary in May!

2018 is going to be the most adventurous year that either of us has ever had. Praying the good things continue, and the hiccups are smaller and manageable. Keep us in your prayers as we explore everything this year has to offer.