Holiday Craziness...

Often it feels like you go, go, go until the holiday hits and then after all of chaos that a holiday can bring you crash. Well for us it feels like it was only the beginning...

Thanksgiving was great! On thursday we went to our pastors/boss/friend's house for fun and food. It was great! A perfect way to spend our first thanksgiving together. I made my first pumpkin pie too and it was a success! On friday we opened at Beaners at 4:30 in the morning. We opened early to accomodate all of the early shoppers. It was a lot of fun though. We had several more people working than normal which is always fun since we LOVE our co-workers and we were busy all day. The busiest day our Beaners has ever had. It was fun and everyone was in a great mood it seemed like. We worked until 12 and then rushed home to start cooking our first thanksgiving dinner for my (Jen's) family. It was a lot of fun but by 7:00 we were both exhausted.

Saturday we opened at Beaners again and then at 12 Mark's family came and met us at work and took us to lunch and we got to spend the rest of the day with them. It was really nice to see them and get to show them our lives here in Grand Rapids. On Sunday it was another bright and early morning setting up Journey Church. Of course the day went well and again we had more new faces. Every Sunday is just exciting and affirming of why we are here. On Sunday afternoon though Mark and I crashed hard. We went to bed early and tried to rest for another crazy week. We get tired sometimes and really burnt out but at the same time life here is just so much fun. This time of year is so exciting to be sharing so many firsts together.

We do miss people though and we are still trying to build relationships and find our place here in Caledonia. Its challenging, fun and new and there are good times and there are bad but we are so thankful to be doing this together. And serving an Awesome and holy God here in Caledonia Michigan!!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

In the Potter household that is :)

Mark bought our tree yesturday and we are going to put up our decorations tonight. We try to make Fridays our date night so this week we are going to decorate our home, have homemade chicken and rice for dinner and then maybe go get a coffee or something later. We are excited. Last friday we went to dinner at a little local place called "Sundance Grill". It was a gourmet mexican I think I would say. They had a small but delicious choice of dinner options. The place was small and quiet and we really enjoyed just being out having fun together and being able to relax. Then Mark took me out to the church office because he has a surprise for me :) Since we dont have a fireplace in our apartment I had been complaining about not having anywhere to put our stockings. So Mark being the innovator that he is set out to surprise me with a fireplace. He had been making me a wooden fireplace at the office. It was painted with a mantel and everything! Of course we cant make a fire in it but none-the-less I was excited. So after finishing together some last finishing touches on our fireplace we set out to Beaners to get Snowmint Mochas, my new favorite. We ran into Ben there and hung out with him for a while and then we decided to go to Barnes and Noble. We love hanging out at book stores and we still had about an hour before we would need to get to bed for our early morning shift at Beaners. So we read in big comfy chairs at the book store and then headed to our cozy home for bed. It was truly a great evening. We love our date nights together. Its our one time to be together just for the purpose of being with each other and enjoying life. We have each others undivided attention and get to enjoy or new marriage. We may be together a lot during the week but it is in between jobs, emails and dirty laundry and so we really look forward to our weekly date night!

So I'm excited about tonight. We both love Christmas and although it may be about a week early at least we will get to begin to enjoy our first Christmas together :) Hopefully it will snow soon. Im excited for it.

Good TImes

Hi friends. It has been a while since we have gotten a chance to update, mainly because the last two weeks have been far from normal. Last week I was sick with a really bad cold. It was just bad enough to keep me in bed for a few days, miss work and become incredibly stir crazy. I missed our Halloween outreach which was a really big bummer but I did get to spend the time watching hours of movies:) The outreach went very well though and it was great to see Journey out serving our community. Church went really well last Sunday. It was a great day all around. We had lots of new faces and no technical difficulties :) Monday morning though was quite the adventure for Mark and I. I got up at 4:45 AM (yes I know its early) and was rushing around as usual to go to my lovely job as a Barista. I have been having lower back pain for a while and in the past it has been an occasional problem. Monday morning I felt a little bit tense which as been fairly normal since I began working on my feet 40 hours a week and my back hurt maybe just a little bit more than normal but none the less I was moving. I was just about ready to go when I bent over to pick up my purse. I gasped and actually lost my breath for a minute because I suddenly was in horrible pain and I could not move myself from the position I had fallen into (kneeling against my bed). Praise God that Mark was in bed sleeping and after saying his name with as much might as I could he awoke and flew out of bed to save his wife. We manage to get me into my bed laying flat and wondered what to do . Mark called my boss for me ( who is also his boss ) and thankfully we have an amazing manager who said "Dont worry about work, just take care of your wife." So anyways long story short we made a trip to ER on Monday and I spent the rest of the day hardly moving. Tuesday we got into the doctor and got me set up for physical therapy. I got new shoes and was back at work on wednesday :) Im feeling much better and I am thankful for health insurance and to start therapy to take care of this problem. I also am very thankful for my amazing husband who made it his priority to be my side this week and take care of me. I think Im the luckiest girl alive.

Long week, it was indeed but here we are in our comfy home with our good friend Ben enjoying another Saturday night preparing for another day in the life of Journey. I really do love it here. I miss home every now and then but every day this becomes more my home and lansing becomes more of my childhood and past. I love you all. Especially you Mom:) tee hee.

November?

November? Where did you come from? I cant beleive it. Im only three months away from being 21 and then maybe I wont feel quite so young. I feel rather sick today, in fact I have for the past three days. I did though apply to Cornerstone...its probably not even where I want to go but it was a step in the right direction. We will see...

Its friday and that makes me happy except that we work on Saturday...booo.

K thats all for now.