Hello, "Thirty!"

I've heard for YEARS that people are typically much crazier about their thirties than their twenties, so aside from the SHOCK of thirty... I've been excited.

Thus far, "thirty" has not disappointed!

Driving to work that morning I was honestly a little sad. Ryan was at home sick and in still being feeling fairly new to Austin I didn't know if my birthday would be celebrated. FULLY silly in hindsight but that morning it felt very real .... WELL!!! My wonderful new friends BLEW ME AWAY by bringing food and treats to our group that morning, chocolate birthday cake and THEN when I got to my cube they had crazy wonderful decorated!! And, those fake flowers are staying in case anyone was wondering. I'm also thinking I'm going to put up a mini Christmas tree just for kicks and giggles :O)

Anyhow, 'thirty' continued with closing on our first home (many pics and details below) and we are now getting to play with what we want to do to make it "Ryan and Anna" as a friend so perfectly put it! This is what we're thinking for kitchen counter and cabinets... WEEEE! :O)

Ryan had said earlier in the week that we could go anywhere for my birthday dinner and in thinking and praying about it all I wanted to do was grab some sushi and wine, have a nice dinner at home with my hubs, and then write in our "Story of God's Glory" book. When we got home from the closing, Ryan told me to hop into a bubble bath to chill a bit - WONDERFUL!!! He put on candles and worship music and it was greatness. When I got out he had cleaned the entire house, lit candles EVERYWHERE, arranged the sushi on a platter and chilled our champagne. A GREAT first 'married' birthday :O)

And, apparently, thirty is the gift that just KEEPS on giving because I've been gifted with a massage from Clairie, tickets to the "So You Think You Can Dance Tour" with sweet Winks (I KNOW!!!!) and my husband is paying for me to go skydiving with Stefani... a dream all of my life in the making!

"Hello 'Thirty' ... WONDERFUL to meet you!"

Important Note: James 1:17 ~ Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. "... Thank you, Jesus :O) I love you too."

The house that God built.

To say that we bought a house just isn't accurate at ALL... God has literally given us a house and He has BLOWN our minds in the way He lined it all up!!! He has done this in such a way that it has taken me a week since officially closing to actually attempt to blog about it because it is so wild.. SO, this may get long, but I'll do my best to be as brief as possible while not minimizing the BEAUTY of it all!!! I can promise you with all confidence that it will be worth the read.

*SQUEAL!!!!*

A few months ago when I was driving back to Austin from Tyler I was in a VERY serious accident. Long story short, I was driving about 75 mph in one of those zones where the concrete walls are directly against the lanes (no shoulder), hydroplaned, realized it was going to be very seriously (possibly take my life) and I closed my eyes and said, "Lord Jesus put your hedge of protection around me, I pray that your arms will physically surround me...." and didn't stop praying until the noises stopped. What had happened was I hit one wall head on (at 70ish mph), my car spun around and hit the back of the car on the same wall and that shot me back across to the other side head on into the other wall. No other cars hit me, I was not injured in ANY way. I had one tinsy scratch on my wrist and didn't even get a bruise from the seatbelt. It was fully wild and OBVIOUSLY a miracle. So, the car was totalled. We got the money from the insurance company to replace the car, but everytime we started looking neither Ryan or I felt a peace about it AT all, so we decided that we would just carpool until God showed us what we were supposed to do.

In the meantime, our lease for our condo was is up in October, and with Ryan working full time, in school pursuing his Master's full time we had started asking God if we just needed to resign for another year, move to a smaller place to save money, or buy a home. There were a lot of concerns but the greatest was that it would just be MUCH to much to buy a home while Ryan was working and schooling it full time. So, we just laid it down and asked God to direct us.

Sooooo, one of Ryan's friend from work was leaving to go to another company and we went to his going away party. As we were leaving to go home, we went upstairs one last time to say goodbye and these girls asked us to sit down. Thinking that we really 'should' we do, they find out we're newlyweds and want to hear our story, then one girl looks at the other and says, "Kelly! You have to tell them your story." Long story short Kelly shares that she has quit her job, and is moving to DC in September to marry someone. She says, "So, all I need to do now is sell my house here and find a job." She said flippantly, "It's right next to Gateway (where I work) so if you know anyone send them myway!" Something in me perked up and I was thinking, "We need to go see her house!" But i didn't want to say anything to Ryan because I didn't want him to feel pressured at all in thinking I wanted a house. SO, I prayed that if it was okay for me to say something, that Ryan would bring up something about buying a house. That weekend we go to Ryan's brother's house in Dallas, who has just bought a new home, and on the way back to Austin Ryan looks at me and says, "Just and I were talking and telling me what they paid and we can TOTALLY buy a house." And my heart lept and I screamed, "I know and I think we should go see Kelly's!!!"

SO, now come the bullet points to TRY to sum this up:

• We go see her house... it is PERFECT for us: 3 bedrooms, 2 full bath, it's on a green belt so noone will ever have a house right behind this one, it is blocks from a community center and an elementary school and it is less than half a mile from the church where I work (Hello!! Remember, I still don't have a car and could literally WALK to work!!)
• She bought it as a repo and has COMPLETELY gutted and redone the house so EVERYTHING is brand new as of two years ago.
• Before leaving she tells us we HAVE to meet her neighbors, we go over and the guy is someone Ryan had met at church and really liked!
• We tell her to pray about the price, commit that we won't talk her down from whatever she thinks is fair, she gives us a price that blesses our face off and THEN suggests that we just buy/sell ourselves without agents and that she will just rent from us until she moves in September.
• The house never had to go on the market (Blessing for her in not having to deal with that AND blessing for us as houses in this price range are snapped up in almost 7 seconds in Austin)
• We are given an amazing interest rate on the loan and get a SWEET down payment deal since I'm a first time buyer.
• We were able to buy Homeowner's Insurance at HALF the going rate through Progressive! (crazy!!)
• ANNNNNNNNNddddd, we only saw the house two times before we told her we were in. We never even had to stinking look at another home! We just KNEW because of all of the things we had prayed and God lined up that He was telling us to keep walking, so check THIS out. As we leave her house after telling her we are going to buy it, I ask Ryan how his day was and he said, "It was a good day, but I went to register for the summer semester and I missed the deadline by two days." YOU GUYS!! During this ENTIRE house buying process Ryan has been out of school, we signed on the house and he starts school again next week! I KNOW IT!
• We were scheduled to close last Thursday and it got bumped four times. It was weird because it was the ONLY thing that had gone 'wrong' in this entire process.... the ease of this process has been jawdropping, everything from inspectors to appraisors to neighbors, to sellers, EVERYTHING. At every step we have told God that if this wasn't His desire to just close the doors and that would be okay. So, when closing kept getting pushed back we went to Him again and said, "this is still yours, just let us know." Wellllll, the day we walked in and ACTUALLY closed? MY 30TH BIRTHDAY!!!!! As we are signing the closing papers, I start giggling and said, "God just gave me a house for my birthday."
• Another 'kicker' and with this I really will close as we have now come 'full' circle... When we started praying about buying a house we didn't have the money for a down payment, we just knew God would make it happen if it was supposed to. ... The money we were given from the insurance company for my car was the same amount we used to buy this house.

Amen and amen and PRAISE THE LORD!!!! Thank you!!!!!!! We are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO eager to see what You will do in and through this home. It is Yours.