Honeymoon Pics

Last week in church Pastor was talking about prayer. I have to admit that I don't really remember what exactly he said, but while he was speaking I thought about all the things Jen and I went through this summer. We went to Bali and Lombok and lived through the stomach bug that followed. We made it through the atrocity that was our flight to the states for the wedding. We were able to see some of the most beautiful country God has ever created when we went to Colorado. We've been motorcycle riding, bike riding, flying on a Cessna 172, whitewater rafting, scuba diving, uh....married, and so much more.

I feel like I've complained alot about some of the things that have gone on this summer. But really, looking back on it, we were so blessed to have things be taken care of as well as they were this summer. For all of the traveling, playing, working, sleeping, and talking we did this summer; everything worked out! God has taken incredible care of us throughout all of it.

Now what does this have to do with prayer? I can't say that I was on my knees through all of the things we did, but I can say that God loves me and loves to make things good for his children. I believe that while all of this was happening, many people from all over were praying that it would work out. If I'm wrong, please tell me. In fact, if I'm right, please tell me.

I would like to thank all of you who chipped in to make this summer awesome for us. God answered your prayers.

What We're Doing and Where We've Been

Whenever I write a blog it doesn't seem nearly as interesting as Cory's. However, I will strive to keep this one interesting AND informative!

Looking backwards a bit - after the wedding in WV we headed to Colorado for a week at Estes Park. It was an awesome place to go for our honeymoon. We got to do lots of stuff from a 27-mile bike tour (downhill) through Rocky Mountain National Park to whitewater rafting on the Pouder River to go-karting (I won, by the way, and that rarely happens). We stopped in Kansas to see his family for about 5 days and were able to spend lots of time with them. His mom organized an open house while we were there so I got to meet lots of people Cory grew up with or has known for some time. We finished out our trip to America in West Virginia before returning to Guam.

We arrived back in Guam with no problems. What a blessing to have an uneventful flight back! We have been here about a week now and are preparing to have a wedding reception here Guam-style. Local food (chicken kelaguen, red rice, pig), all-natural decorations (bamboo, hibiscus, plumeria, woven palms), and very relaxed (come as you are)! We have quite a bit to do in the next couple of days, but it seems that most of our students will be coming with their families as well as church folks and staff friends. We are planning on 400 - but we have no idea how many we will really have. We are looking forward to celebrating with all our friends here.

By the end of the month we will be in Korea trying to settle in! We have our Visa's and will start shipping some of our stuff as soon as we can get an address to mail it to. It's going to cost my arms and at least one of Cory's legs, so we are going to re-pack and try to downsize AGAIN. (I'm smiling on the inside.) But, hey - it's just STUFF. And we all are guilty of having too much of that . . .

A Few Weddings Pics

I'm sorry for taking so long between blogs. We only have one more stop before we get back to Guam. We got word from Korea that our working visas are in the mail!! We have jobs again!!!

Anyhow, here's a few photos for those of you who are cursing my name because I haven't put them up yet. Feel free to let me know what you would like to see and I'll try to get it on here for you when I have more time online.

Delayed

This is the sign we got to look at for an extra eight hours while we waited in Osaka's airport. I have no idea still what it was that we were waiting for, but it took a long time to get it done. I had to change our connecting flight in Detroit twice while we waited in Japan, but by the time we got out of customs in Detroit we had already missed all the flights out that night.

I got over it, :) but I was pretty irritated about the whole thing. We were dreading the flight already, but the wait just made it worse. Add our continuing recovery from third world cuisine and you have a literal soup of disaster. Haha!

We can't complain about the whole trip though. We were able to get a few hours of sleep in a Best Western in Detroit before flying into Pittsburgh. Because of the flight change, I had to change our car reservation as well. I was able to upgrade from a Pontiac G6 to a 2007 Jeep Liberty for an extra fifty bucks total for the ten days we have it. The Jeep is awesome!! Cruise Control, power everything, no wobble at 80 miles an hour! It's even got Sirius Sattelite Radio with a Christian station, #66!! What a steal of a deal. We'll drop it off this Sunday on our way to the West.

Thanks to all of you for praying for us to get in okay. Even though we were delayed in every airport we stopped at (8 hours in Osaka and 45 minutes in Detroit), we still had a good trip. I'm glad we purchased a portable DVD player, and now we have a long life external battery so we can watch movies for 14 hours straight (one flight from Detroit to Osaka)! It'll come in handy on the way back and forth from Korea if we ever decide to come back to the States after we get there.

We're excited about Saturday, and we're finishing up the last few details before the show starts. We look forward to seeing those of you who are coming. If you're not coming, you can see all the highlights here in a couple weeks.

The Ride to Mawi Beach

Bali and Lombok