Bye Christiana!

A very dear, sweet friend that I was blessed to meet and spend time with for a short period is leaving for Cambodia tonight along with her husband and 3 month old baby. They will be missed! But, they go for the sake of the gospel and there is no better reason than that!!! My prayers and thoughts are with them this evening as they say good-bye to all things familiar and begin the long flight across the world.

Classes Have Begun!

Nathan began his sixth semester in seminary today. It will be a challenge, but a joy to learn and discover what the Lord has in store!

Highlights of 2009

2009~We enjoyed our first Christmas-New Years-Traveling-Home break, Nathan survived a second semester of seminary married (makes some things easier, and some things harder...), we explored some hot spots of California, managed to go from a one bedroom apartment to a studio apartment (and like it), Natasha went from Starbucks to a full-time nanny/housekeeping job, we went camping in Virginia Lakes (a place of which Nathan has fond childhood memories), bought our first car together, enjoyed Nathan's mom, sister and niece on a mini-vacation, celebrated Thanksgiving with my sister and some of our L.A. friends, and were blessed yet again with the chance to return to Alaska for Christmas break.

Nathan and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary! We are so thankful the Lord blessed us
with one another. We really love being married and are thankful for a great first year.

In order to save some money, we moved into a studio apartment in our same complex. It challenged us to go through our worldly possessions and decide what was really necessary in order to make everything fit. Ironically, we love this apartment and it is a home we will think fondly of in years to come. 

In March Nathan had his spring break and we decided it was time to get our of this crazy city! On a shoe-string budget we went to Monterey to see the sea aquarium and down to discover Santa Barbara. We know consider it a special place that we try go to as often as we can. We had a great time wandering around new cities, trying some new food and seeing some more of God's creation.

Beautiful coastline of Monterey.

Two dorks enjoying Honey! I Shrunk the Audience! at Disneyland.

Disneyland was offering free tickets on your birthday, so in May we were able to celebrate Nate's b-day at Disney! We may be getting older, but that place is still magical! Nathan was a good sport and went in the tea cups with me. :-)

Nathan's mom, sister and niece (well, two of them, but Miriam wasn't born until December) came to visit us for a wonderful week in August. I can't begin to explain how great it was to see them! It had been 8 months and I was quite homesick! We showed them around L.A., had a lot of great food and were given another excuse to go up to Santa Barbara. It was like a slumber party every night with all of us sleeping in our studio apartment. I am so bless to have a second family that I really, really like!

And, potentially more photos to come...

Home for Christmas

Hello Again! I thought I would post some photos of our past year and our holiday break. We had a wonderful 3 weeks in Alaska and it was very hard to leave! We are now back in L.A. and Nathan started 6th semester of seminary! It's going to be a toughy, but I know the Lord will see us through it!

Christmas Eve with my family...

Got a little weird...

But, that's a little normal.

Nathan's wonderful parents...we forgot to get a real Christmas photo!!! Probably because it was Christmas morning and who wants a photo taken then? This one was from our very first night back in our beloved state, we went to a hockey game of course!

We got to meet our sweet little niece, born on December 4th.

We will miss our Alaska!