back in the Lou..

Hiking with my mom in Beautiful Montana
We're home (whatever that is now) and it's nice. Too much vacation makes me restless. I'm excited that this is my last week of work. We had a great time in Montana, but we were definitely ready to come home after our 10 days were up. Too much family makes me crazy and I was once again reminded of why we live on the other side of the country from the crazy Strucks (sorry mom, but our family is just weird).

Now we have somewhat of a plan in place. I'll finish my last week of work up here in St. Louis and then will stick around for a good week and half or so before I get the heck out of dodge. Since we won't know what (or if) our health insurance situation will look like once we move and get new jobs we're both gonna be spending lots of time going to the eye doctor, dentist and regular doctor just to make sure we're all happy and healthy before we leave. I'm not looking forward to these visits to say the least, but at least we're pretty healthy people so I'm not too concerned either. I just don't like needles going into my arm and seeing a bunch of blood come out of my arm. It just doesn't seem normal to me.

On another note...I've noticed since I've come back to from Montana that I've become quite the pizza face. I guess it must be from coming for our humid climate over to a dry climate and then back to a humid climate. Regardless, whatever it is I look like a high school boy going through puberty. Seriously...the zits are atrocious. Don't know what I'm going to do about that, but for now I'll just deal.

So that's my very boring update. You'd think with as crazy as our lives have been these past few months I'd have much more exciting things to say, but the fact that I'm a pizza face is about all I could come up with right now. If you're still reading, I'm sorry.

feeling encouraged...

We're still in Montana and we're having such a great time. This really is such a beautiful place.
As our vacation comes to an end I've been stressing a little bit. I guess it's just knowing that once we get back to St. Louis I only have 1 more week of work and then it's off to the unknown. Considering that we don't yet have jobs or a place to live in Madison yet I'm sure it can be understood why I'm a little stressed.

We've been pretty busy on vacation and haven't had much time for sleeping and relaxing, but yesterday morning we finally got to sleep in. I woke up around 8:00 and just laid in bed for a good hour or so. I was thinking and praying just about our situation with this move and how scared I was and felt like God was just reminding me of all the times he's taken care of me in the past. It really just challenged me to continue to trust him. After we got up we decided to head to our favorite coffeeshop to check our email. My mom is one of those ancient folks that only has dial-up and I just don't have the patience for it.

Anyway....when I opened up my inbox I noticed an email from a friend in Madison (really she's the only friend we have there and they only person we even know there besides our Realtor). She had recently talked to a friend of hers that had a basement apartment for rent. Apparently they've been renting it out to a YWAM couple that will be on outreach in India until November and while they're gone rather than renew a lease and pay for a few months of rent they wanted to sublet it out. It's a 2 bedroom, 1200 square foot apartment with free wi-fi for only $375 a month! What an answer to prayer! Within just a few hours of emailing Jewel back the lady that owns the apartment called me and we have it all worked out! She's SO nice too and even offered to let Steve & I live with her, her husband and 4 kids after November if we haven't found a place to buy yet. It's also great because the couple that are out of town for a few months left the apartment furnished hoping that someone would come along and sublease (they were willing to just pay rent for the months they'd be gone), so we won't even have to move all of our stuff in for just a few months only to have to move out again.

I've been looking for a place to sublet in Madison and have had an impossible time with finding some place for just a few short months as well as the places I've found that are available have not only been tiny (which really isn't a big deal for us) but have been closer to $1,000.00 a month!

I just feel so encouraged. God has really been so faithful to us through this process and I know He's going to continue to guide us as we look for jobs and a house to buy.

Now I can get back to relaxing for a few more days....

Montana Loving....

We're having such a great time on our vacation in Montana! This really is the most beautiful place in the whole entire world....well, at least in the summertime.

Last night we went to the Rodeo...pretty much one of my favorite things to do in the world.

We're going again tonight and then next week we're heading up to Glacier National Park! I'm loving catching up with old friends and hanging out with my family!

A good nights sleep....

So, we've had this problem since we moved out here with Steve's folks and it's kind of made me a bit crazy (and cranky).
His parents are so sweet and so good to us....the only problem is the bed. The mattress we're sleeping on in actually one that Steve bought a year before we got married, but because we didn't use it at our house it's been here in their guest room the entire time we've been married.
It's brand new and have never been slept on. It's not uncomfortable.....the only problem is the plastic.
I'm sure you've all bought a new mattress before and seen how they come wrapped in that heavy plastic so they don't get messed up when your transporting them home. Well....this mattress is STILL wrapped in plastic with all the sheets and blankets on top of it.
We've been here for 2 weeks now and both of us have had an impossible time sleeping. This plastic is LOUD! A typical night for us has been one of us barely moving an inch while we sleep and then realizing that because of that plastic we've not only woken up ourselves but the other person as well because it's so loud and then in our foggy sleep state we apologize to the other person for waking them up. Essentially we're apologizing for barely moving. Needless to say it's been hard.

The logical solution would be to take the stupid plastic off the mattress, but I just feel to bad. I know it's technically our mattress and we should be able to take the plastic off of it if we want to, but since we've been storing it here for the last 3 years and most likely won't even take it to Madison with us it's basically kind of Steve's folks mattress now, so because of that we feel bad taking off the plastic.

For the past 2 weeks we've hoping and praying that we'd just get used to the plastic and eventually be able to sleep through each of us hardly moving and causing a big ruckus, but it hasn't happened for either of us.

Steve's folks are out of town for a few days, and yesterday when I came home from work Steve told me to sit on the bed, I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but he was insistent that I sit on the bed and so I did and then I realized......no more noise! He couldn't handle it anymore either so he had taken the plastic off and hid it under the bed (he's such a rebel like that).
I was so excited to go to bed last night and I am happy to report that I got the best nights sleep that's I've had in a long time. I actually woke up feeling refreshed rather than sore because my body was subconsciously tense all night as I tried not to move in my sleep.

Now I'm just left wondering.....why didn't we do this 2 weeks ago?