Thinking Back & Looking Forward

I've been thinking back to last year's holidays, and how our lives were SO incredibly different from what they are now. Even though the last year has flown by, a year ago still seems so far away because we were in such a different place. We believe that God is good whether we have a "good" year or not, but it's hard not to feel that He has been extra gracious to us this year in giving us so many great things:


- amazing new jobs (Matt at Blue Cross and me as a stay-at-home wife and mom)
- good health (I don't think either of us really got sick at all this year!)
- being able to continue living in our apartment surrounded by such kind neighbors
- a new car and the sale of our old one
- a great church that has really taken us in like family
- a new floor in our apartment after the old one was ruined
- some new future family members (Matt's dad and my brother's engagements)
- so many amazing friends we've been able to grow closer to
- our dog, Béla
- and absolute best of all, our little Asher (and all the help, gifts, and meals that came after him!)


We rejoiced and suffered with some of our close friends as they went through some major changes themselves - pregnancies, babies, marriages, engagements, loss of babies, medical problems, divorces, family issues... We are so thankful for all the good things in our lives and our friends' and family's, and also hurt for the struggles and losses we've had to watch a few of our friends go through.


Just like we could probably fill several pages with a list of things we have to be thankful for this year, we could also probably fill pages of things we'd like to accomplish, both individually and as a couple, in the year to come. I'm not going to list all of those either, but here are some of our biggest goals for 2011:


- give God thanks whether this next year brings joy or pain (though there's sure to be some mix of both)
- keep Christ the center of our individual lives and our marriage
- be the best parents we can to Asher
- become more actively involved in our church
- be good stewards of our money
- eat healthier (yes, I realize this means I need to start cooking more)
- actually USE our gym membership and get back in shape
- grow because of, not in spite of, our situations
- be the best friends and family members we can be


All that said, here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy 2011!

A Very Belated Announcement

Congratulations. He's a keeper.

The first few days were a blur. Then all of a sudden, boom, you realize this is life with a baby. And not just any baby... your baby. You're exhausted, you've barely had time for a shower, but you can't stop watching this incredible, new little person. He sleeps. He eats. He poops. And it's amazing. 

Welcome to parenthood.

*****

Thanks, Huggies ad. For once, I found something I could use in our junk mail!

Anyways, because I've seriously neglected this blog for quite a while, I thought I should mention that Asher David Coppel was born at 3:15 PM on Friday, October 1, 2010. He weighed 9 lbs 1 oz, and measured 22 1/4 inches. Matt and I are absolutely head over heels in love.  :)

JEEP FOR SALE!!!

1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited

~  146,000 miles  ~  5.2L V8 engine  ~  dark blue exterior w/ black trim  ~  grey leather interior in great condition  ~  custom subwoofer box w/ amp and 10" speaker included  ~

(Click HERE to see full picture album.)

If you are interested or know someone who is, leave a comment or Facebook message, or call (803)386-1638.

Time for an update.

Matt is in his final week of training at Colonial Life already. He has exams this week plus a lot of homework. Next week he will begin the second half of his training program over at Blue Cross, where he will work permanently once his training is complete. It's much closer to where we live, which is nice. So far he's done really well on all of the work he's submitted. I'm proud of him.  :)

This past weekend my mom and my friend, Courtney, came up to spend Saturday and Sunday with me. Matt's sister, Laura, threw me a baby shower this past Saturday at their dad's house. She did an amazing job putting everything together and it could not have turned out any better. The food she made was delicious and we had a good time visiting, playing some cute games, and opening presents. Good memories.  :)

(For pictures and a more detailed account, check my post on the baby blog.)

Hmm... Last thing I guess I'll mention -- Yesterday Matt and I dropped the Jeep off at the dealership for a diagnostic inspection. We are wanting to sell it sometime in the near future. It's in excellent condition considering how old it is, and as far as we know right now there aren't any problems that are too major. (When we dropped it off, the guy helping us got in to move it and was like "This thing is pretty sweet!" So hopefully that's a good sign for selling it...) We're hoping to get $2000-2500 for it, but of course that all depends on what we hear back from the mechanics. Once we know more and get it back we'll take some pics of it and start officially advertising.  :)

Independence Day '10

First of all, is it really July already? Where is this year going?!

Every year during the week of the 4th, Matt takes his Boy Scout troop up to the mountains for summer camp. This year his training for his new job didn't allow him to miss any days, so we drove them up on Saturday (07/03) in a 15 passenger van and got a ride back to Columbia with the Waddells that Monday. On the 4th, the Boy Scouts always participate in Rocky Bottom's parade (I use the word "parade" very loosely), then venture down to the great town of Pickens, SC to eat some corn dogs and ice cream as they mingle with the locals and watch the fireworks display. Chances are you'll see more mullets that night than the rest of the year combined, provided you don't live in Pickens or a similar town. Good times.  :)

Rocky Bottom 4th of July Parade

some of the scouts in the pool

Troop 424

The following Friday when Matt got off work, we drove back up in my car so that Matt could bring everyone home again in the van on Saturday. It made for a pretty busy week, but I love going to the mountains. It's so beautiful up there.  :)  It was Béla's first time to the mountains and she seemed to really enjoy it as well. I wish we were able to go up there more often!

Feeling Productive

I'm definitely feeling a sense of accomplishment this week. I like keeping myself busy with little projects aside from just keeping the house neat, going to the store, etc. That stuff gets boring after a while.

I finally got Heather & Alan's wedding video finished and to them. (Still need to burn the raw files to DVD for them, but that's no biggie.) I think it came out pretty well, especially considering that Matt and I are not professional videographers, and it was also my first time ever working with iMovie and iDVD.

I also helped Matt with some of his homework. He volunteered to be project manager and complete a design for a t-shirt that his training program had to create. No one knew how to do vector drawings in Photoshop or even draw a sketch on paper that would be good enough to use. (Matt doesn't really know a lot about that stuff either.) He's in training classes from 8AM to 5PM every day, then comes home and has 3-4 hours of reading to do. His new work load plus everything he tries to do for his Boy Scout troop adds up to a lot. So last night I helped him out by making the t-shirt design his group came up with. I had NO idea how to do this stuff, so I was reading online as I went, trying to figure it out. There are still some things that need to be added, but this is what I did so far. (And yes, they look simple, but I'm still proud of myself. I probably could've done it in 30 minutes in Paint, but in Photoshop this took me like 2-3 hours.)

(FRONT)

(BACK)

I think my next task to accomplish will be making a video of our own wedding. We had someone tape it, and people were walking around with the video camera at the reception... I just need to upload the footage and make it pretty so we can have a DVD of ours, too.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

I should probably start this post continuing from where I left off in the last one. The "situation" I was referring to at the end of my last post was a job offer that Matt had received from a recruiter at Blue Cross Blue Shield of SC. We didn't want to say anything about it "in public" until we knew what was going to come of it. They called him pretty much out of the blue saying they had three positions suddenly open up that needed to be filled ASAP, and wanted to know if he was interested. It was an entry level position for application development, and though that's not an area that was exactly in his comfort zone, we still felt like God was opening this door for us and that he should go ahead and apply/interview. He had to go in for a formal interview, followed by a two hour, timed programming aptitude test. Within a week of getting the initial phone call about the job, we found out that he'd been accepted for the position! Not only that, but he was also the only outside hire! He started there last Monday and seems to love it so far. He got a pretty substantial increase in pay plus awesome benefits, so now I shouldn't need to worry about working outside the home once the baby arrives. What a GIGANTIC blessing for our family!!


This past weekend we had a nice Father's Day celebration with Matt's family. Saturday we had a cookout/pool party at Matt's dad's house. It was me, Matt, Frank, Laura, Malcolm, Malcolm's parents, his sister Brianna, her husband, Clay, their baby, Carter, and Malcolm's brother, Courtney. The four dogs - Rita, Kandi, Izzy, and Béla - were also there. It was a full house but lots of fun and good food! I didn't know what to get Matt for his first Father's Day, nor did I have much money to spend, so I just got him a card and a onesie that says "I ♥ DAD" on the front.  :)  Yesterday we had planned to go to church, but ended up sleeping right through the alarm (the dog included). I think we were all pooped from the excitement the day before, so we took our time getting out of bed then headed over to Matt's dad's again for Father's Day lunch with his grandfather and relaxed around there for the rest of the day.


Today is another celebration - Matt's 30th birthday! Tonight we're going out to dinner downtown to celebrate with his family.  :)  


Lots going on in the last few weeks... So far the summer is off to a great start!

Just what we need.

Then Abraham looked up and saw a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So he took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering in place of his son. Abraham named the place Yahweh-Yireh (which means “the Lord will provide”). To this day, people still use that name as a proverb: “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”
--Genesis 22:13-14


Yahweh-Yireh, or Jehovah Jireh, 'The Lord Provides'.  That's God's promise to every believer who waits on him, to every one of his children who trusts in him.  Many times in our walk with God our faith will be tested.  And when that happens, God wants to show us that he will provide.


I can't believe we're nearly half way through 2010 already. Time seems to fly faster every year, and this morning I started thinking about all of the things that have happened over the last months and how God has been right there providing us with what we need, at exactly the moment we need it. I'm thankful that throughout my life God has shown himself to me in that way over and over again, whether it was providing financial support at the last minute before a mission trip or providing my family with anything from groceries to Christmas presents when we didn't have the means to purchase them on our own. 


This year has been no exception. We were able to get our sweet little puppy Béla back in January, only to find out less than 24 hours later that we were pregnant.  :)  A month later I lost my job, leaving us with only Matt's salary to live off of. It was a little scary having our family income cut nearly in half, but I applied for unemployment and it went through quickly with no problems, providing us with exactly the money we needed to afford to keep our health insurance and pay the rest of our bills. (Very thankfully, we have no debt right now outside of our student loans.)


Then when it came time to file taxes, it looked as if we were going to have to pay anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars to the government, due to some things that weren't done properly with Matt's job. It worked out that we did have to pay federal, but got a return from state so that it not only evened out, but we were left with enough money from the state return to pay our car taxes for the year and the COBRA payment for the month of June. Even our accountant said he was somewhat surprised that it worked out so well. 


Then a couple weeks ago the filtration system on Boogie's aquarium broke during the night and had been spilling water out onto our living room floor for several hours by the time I caught it the next morning. It damaged the wood laminate as well as the lady's living room ceiling below us. We didn't know what we were going to do, as getting it fixed will easily cost anywhere from a few hundred to possibly over $1000, depending on whether or not we can match the flooring or if we have to re-do the entire room. Somehow it came up when we were talking to some people at church, and within a week we got a call from another member of our church who is involved in a local ministry that does contracting type work for people who can't afford it. He came out to our apartment and looked at the damage, took a piece of the floor with him, and told us not to worry about anything, that everything would be taken care of. What a HUGE blessing!!! 


Those aren't the only ways that God has provided for us this year, but they are definitely some of the big ones. There have also been so many other things I didn't mention that we've been blessed with through our families, friends, and church. And now there is yet another situation where it seems like God may be providing our family with a truly enormous gift. I don't want to say too much "in public" until we know for sure what the outcome will be, but whichever way things happen I know that God is in control. If this particular thing doesn't work out, I know that He will continue to provide for us in some other way.  :)  

Now we know...

Let's start somewhere.

Alright. I started this new blog because I wanted to have a place to post miscellaneous non-baby related things. I want to keep the baby blog mainly about the pregnancy, and this blog mainly not about the pregnancy.

I used to use Xanga, but I don't really know anyone who uses it anymore, plus I like being able to log in and see both of our blogs together in one place. I'm sure I'll be the one writing most, if not all, of the posts on both blogs. Matt's not into blogging much, but he always reads what I post and sees the comments as well.

So, that being said, welcome to the new blog. Our lives aren't thrilling, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat interesting.  ;)