One day left....

Well....Tom only has one more final to take tomorrow and then he will officially be done with his first sememster at graduate school. It's unbelievable to both of us that we're already done with one sememster. Only 2 1/2 years to go!!!!!! I think Tom's pretty tired after taking so many tests with such a vast amount of information. So, i'm glad that he gets about 3 weeks off between semesters. As far as the shoe world goes, things are going well I would say. I do get a pretty great discount on shoes. And being around all those shoes is quite tempting to say the least. I have about 2 weeks left that I know of. Not sure if they will ask me to stay on or not. So, I guess I'll see. So, things are going pretty well for us here. The Lord is good and He provides what we need.

Meagan and Chris' Wedding 11.25.06

Thanksgiving 2006

For Thanksgiving this year, Tom and I invited his parents and sister to join us at our place this year, and they took us up on the offer. It was great to have tom's sister, Lynnette, here too since she often can't get work off. We had a wonderful meal, and I made a carmel pear pie that was so delicious.
We were able to play rummikub together. Although, Lynnette kept winning most of time.
We did have an enjoyable time together, and I'm so thankful for the holidays we can share together.
I can't help but miss my parents too. It's hard not having them here for the holidays. So, parents if you are reading this message....we love you and missed you at Thanksgiving. And we can't wait 'til you are home to share some of the holidays with us in the future. Love you!!!! (ps. hope your turkey from germany turned out well!)

It's already November...

It's unbelievable that Thanksgiving Break is almost upon us. Time is going by rather quickly.
As far as how is life going? Tom just had mid-terms not too long ago and did pretty well. Right now I'm sitting in the science building doing internet while Tom is studying in the anatomy lab. He has a test on Wednesday.
I do have some good news and bad news to share. Monday Tom and I were having a blast playing some volleyball with some of Tom's classmates, when Tom landed on another person's foot (while jumping at the net) and twisted his ankle. (I'm sure that Mike or Brent would have some good advice for the "PT to be" about how to take care of that ankle after having such injuries at the beginning of this year. Tom has decided that he WILL NOT play basketball intramurals and I was glad to hear that after such a rough season last year in the church league games. All those from Bethany will understand what I'm talking about.) So, he's done playing sports for a while.
On the other hand, I had good news this week as the Lord provided a job for me at Younkers working in the shoe department for the Holidays. So, that should help the finances out a little. The Lord has been good to us...providing what we need. Many of you know all too well about paying for school and everything else on what seems like so little. Do any of you have some great stories about how God provided your needs miraculously?

Life at College in your late 20's to early 30's

Going back to school has been a good experience for both of us. It is different when you're older and going back to school with people who are 5 years younger than you. It really makes you feel OLD. It's been a little difficult having my husband studying 24/7, but every once in a while I can get him to take a break long enough to have dinner with me. Daily, I continue to remind myself that this is only for 3 years.
Tom has been involved with intramural sports here lately--volleyball and soccer--and it has been fun to watch. I've gotten to meet a lot of his colleagues through this and he really does have a great group of people to be around these next 3 years. The first two pictures are of his intermural soccer team and in the second picture from left to right is Tom, Jen, Rachel, Chris, Kelly and Dave (I'm pretty impressed with myself right now for remembering their names. There are 40 classmates all together and i'm slowly learning everyone's name.) The last two pictures are from 3 on 3 Volleyball intermurals. Tom, Leah and Chris played together and they did very well. They ended up taking first place in the A league division, and won the 3 -3 tournament earning t-shirts that said volleyball champions on the back.
Those are a few things I wanted to share from our very hectic life. While it is hectic...we are also enjoying every bit of it. The Lord had us wait a while to get to this point and we are so thankful for His leading and guiding. Who knows...maybe 2 years ago we wouldn't of been so excited to be here. Anyone else having a pretty hectic life right now? or are there any other graduate school wives missing their husbands? Maybe we should start a club called the Graduate Student Wives club.

Life...

Well, this week was profitable. I recieved a phone call for a piano student. She will start this week.And i do have 3 other potential students. So, hopefully they will sign up with me soon! I really do need other students and maybe a part time job too. So, if you would add that to the prayer list, I would really appreciate it.
Yesterday we had a great surprise! Our friends Mike and Kelly were going to be in the area and we were able to meet up with them for lunch. It was good to be with friends and around familiar faces. So any of the rest of you reading this blog are also welcome to visit.
These past few weeks I have had the wonderful opportunity to have my mom here with me. She came from oversees and helped us move and get settled here in our new community. She has been a wonderful encouragement to me and it is just so nice to have my mom home with me for a few weeks.
Hope all is well in the blogging world. I've felt a little out of touch with everyone since we don't have internet at our home. So, that's why you haven't gotten to many comments on your blogs. We usually run to Big Apple Bagel or Panera Bread to jump online. It will probably be like this for quite a while too. So, don't think that we aren't reading your blogs and emails. It just takes us a little long to respond. So, until I get the next chance to jump on the internet....hope everyone has a great week.

Pictures from moving

Well, i finally got some pictures to put on the web for all to see. We are doing well and surviving. The first picture is all of us (tom's parents and my mom) having our first meal in the townhouse. The following pictures are of moving day with all the boxes. We were so thankful for Jessie, Doug, and Mike who offered to not only help us out in packing up the moving truck, but they also followed us across the state to help unload our truck too. We could not have done it without them, and are so thankful for the great friends God has given to us.

Wombish???

In our hunt for a good church here in our area, we are running across all different kinds of churches. Our first sunday was spent at a church we like to call "Depression Baptist." It was so discouraging that is made you want to run out of the place. They were facing many difficulties there with money and the pastor got up and talked about it for quite a while. Anyway... for our evening service we went to another churdch that was much better and was more like a church we might go to.
This past sunday we decided to go to a church that we had heard so much about from friends. It was one of those types of churches that you see on tv with their rock band and people waving their hands in the air. Well, Tom and I had never gone to anything like that before agreed that it would be quite an experience for us. I couldn't understand how so many people at one time in their building. Well, it was eye opening to say the least. Every part of the service was so shallow. The music was so repetitive and we wondered how many verses they wou ld sing to this song we'd never heard of. We got to the message and learned about how we could be "wombish." Yes, that's right...he said, "wombish." You may ask yourself what on earth does that mean? And i would ask the same question along with you. I guess it meant something about providing a safe and secure environment for others. (???) Not quite sure what the point of the message really was, but I sure do remember this word. We walked out of there shaking our heads and wondering how people could be so blind. But they just want their ears to be tickled wit the message they want to hear.
So, the search continues.... So far we've found one church we could go to. And that church looks more andmore like the one we might go to. Continue to pray with us that the Lord would make it clear where we should join in membership.

Missing Friends....

Well, I finally got a chance to sit down in the midst of unpacking and actually write a blog. We are adjusting to our new surroundings quite quickly. It's a beautiful area and we are definitely going to enjoy living here. But I do have to say that we miss all of our friends from church. The picture to the side is of our friends the swanks. They have been such great friends and we are going to miss not having them close by.
Our place is SLOWLY getting unpacked. We did have the priveledge of having Tom's parents and my mom here to help us unpack. That certainly helped speed up the unpacking progress.
School is already getting underway for Tom. Wednesday night was an orientation class for school, and Thursday was another orientation metting that lasted most of the day. We're excited that we are finally here at school and a little apprehensive at the same time. Continue to keep us in your prayers as we look for a new church here in the area. Check back often to our blog as we post all the new changes in our lives.

Unpacking....

Well....we made it here to our new home. We are living among the boxes in our house trying to find things that we know are in the boxes, but just can't find the RIGHT box. You know how that goes. So, we'll try to write more later to let you know how things are going. It may end up being pretty long in between our updates b/c as poor graduate students we are internet challenged. Thanks to all who are praying for us during this time of transition.

Family Overseas

On July 12th we headed down to Illinois for a quick trip to see Tom's sister Tami, her husband, Steve, and their 3 kids--Ashley 9yrs., Andrew 6 yrs., and Melissa 2 yrs.--before they headed back to the mission field. We arrived late but were able to spend some time helping them with their luggage. On July 13th we all headed out around 6:30am to the airport. Everything ended up going smoothly for them at the airport which was quite a praise.
It was hard to see them leave knowing that they won't be back for another few years or so. The kids grow up so fast, and we miss seeing that. The oldest, Ashley, was crying b/c she is old enough to understand that leaving means not coming back for a long while. I'm so glad that we were able to make that short trip to spend the day and a half together with them. When you think of it, pray for the missionaries your church supports and their families. It's hard to be so far away from your family.

Our Fourth Anniversary

On June 22, 2006, we celebrated our 4th anniversary. For our special day, we went to a bed n breakfast. This Inn was mentioned in a book called Select Registery that we had gotten while on our honeymoon. It's a great book that lists all the great B-n-B places across the USA and Canada. Well, online they had a special running in June for one night's lodging and dinner for two. Our dinner was pretty fancy and it was even served table-side. The whole place felt so cozy. It was a really nice retreat for the two of us and made our anniversary feel very special. We're so thankful to have each other.

Apartment News

Well....our application has been accepted. So, we are finally settled on a place to live. That is somewhat of a relief to know that we have a place to live. Of course, we still have moving to get through in August. I'll make sure to send our new address to everyone by email or mail. I can't believe we only have a month and a half left till we move...unbelievable!!!

Apartment Hunting

This coming weekend we are traveling across the state to look for housing. We have a long list of possible places and are praying that the Lord will show us where He'd have us to be. We did hear from Grad. school's financial aid department, and we did get the full amount one can get from the government for subsized loans--meaning that we don't have to pay interest until we are out of school. But that is only part of the money that we need. So, we'll be looking at other loans to cover the rest. We know that Lord will supply what we need and we look to Him for that provision. We also have a moving date now....August 17-18th. Things are getting closer and the move is becoming more and more real to us each day. One other thing that we'll be looking at is a church plant in the area that our home church supports. We plan to visit there on Sunday, June 18th to see if that is where God would have us to be members. So, if you think about it, pray for us that the Lord would show us what He'd have us to do.

Piano Recital

At the end of May, I had my annual piano recital with Karen, one of my friends from church who also has students. We made it through without anyone stopping and crying while playing their songs....always such a relief! Everyone did very well and we had quite a few people at the recital too. This one was different though in that fact that I'm leaving. It's hard to give up my students to others since I feel so responsible for their learning. But I'm grateful to have had them for so long and hopefully I have instilled in them a good foundation for other teachers to build on.

Our Vacation--part II

The rest of our time on the Outer Banks was great. We really enjoyed ourselves. We got to see the Wright Brothers memorial and museum, many lighthouses, and Roanoke Island. We even went to the island of Ocracoke for a day which included a car ferry. That was a first for me! This island is pretty famous because Blackbeard the Pirate was killed just off of their cost.
We had a great time seeing friends and catching up with what was going on in their lives. On our way back home, we stopped at Duke Gardens. Oh was it spectacular!! Tom had been there before for a friend's wedding, so that is how we knew about it. Of course...we did end up going on the same day as Duke's graduation. So, YES there were tons of people walking around. Not such a great situation for picture taking, but we did manage to get a few.
I believe that wraps up my vacation. It was well worth the trip to see the outer banks....what a great land of beauty the Lord has blessed us with!!!

Our Vacation--part I

 Last monday (may15th), Tom and I returned home from our 12 day vacation. We had a lot of fun and made some lasting memories. We headed down to South Carolina to see Tom's little sister, Carrie, graduate from college. My husband dared his sister to get her picture taken with Dr. Bob III, and Carrie went for it. She started talking to Benneth and soon after Tom was snapping the photo. So, I have to give a shout out to my sis-in-law for completing the dare! Way to go!!
I even saw some people from the college I graduated from there. We had great weather which provided a great day for picture taking. It was my first experience being in a service at this college--one that I had heard so much about from my husband. I got to hear THE Creed and THE song/anthem. So, now when people start joking around about the creed and the song written for this college, I know what they're talking about.
As I said before, my husband's family usually has interesting things happen on their vacations and this one was no exception. We arrived at the campground just before it began to get dark. It had started to sprinkle, but we were able to get our tent up before it really started to pour....that was later that night. We settled in and went to bed. Around 2am i woke up. It had been raining for a while by that time and I wanted to look around and see if the water was coming in our tent. Well, we ended up with a puddle down by our feet. It was a good thing we were on really thick mats and that our tent was on a slope--yeah our tent site was not the greatest, our heads were higher then our feet. Shortly after the 2am wake up, it just started to pour really hard outside and lightning. Needless to say, we had a great first night with little sleep, and a great next day bailing out our tent and letting all our bedding dry. At least only parts of things got wet down by our feet and not everything in the tent. My husband has told me a story about a time when it rained and he and his sisters were floating in their tent on their air mattresses...so it could of been worse. So this is how our vacation began... I'll post more later.

A Southern Vacation

Tomorrow, Tom and i will be taking off and heading down to South Carolina. Tom's youngest sister, Carrie, will be graduating from College on Saturday. After graduation, we're going to be heading to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week of relaxation on the beach! Tom's family is actually going to be with us for the first few days at a campground. Then after wed. tom's family is heading home and we are heading to a hotel on the outer banks. It'll be nice to spend time with tom's family...of course, I've heard stories about their vacations and they are pretty interesting. I've even seem some actual video footage of the stories i've been told. So, i may end up with some pretty great blogging material by the time this thing is over. lol

Happenings in the Trumbulls lives

This past Sunday night our pastor did his second message on what is Worship. The first thing people in America think of when someone says worship is......music. But worship is so much more than that. I'm looking forward to the study as pastor goes through the old testament meaning and new testament meaning. And then talks about how it relates to our worship today.
This is one of the many things that Tom and i will miss about our church...the great teaching that we get every sunday. Our pastor doesn't tell well meaning stories or take one verse and comment on what he thinks about it. He teaches the people the one meaning that God intended for that passage of scripture based on the immediate context and surrounding passages. Our sunday school class with him has been on Biblical Hermanuetics. I had this class in college, but of course when it's a class, you're just trying to learn and get a good grade. It's been so good to just sit and learn this time. It has reminded me of a lot of things i had forgotten about.
Tom and i are praying about finding a good church in the area that we are moving to. I think we'll start making some trips over there sometime soon b/c we want to find a place to live near wherever we find the church God would have us at. Right now we are currently waiting for the DPT class to be filled. Then when that is filled they will send tom's name to the financial aide office so that we can apply for loans for school. Until that all goes through we have no idea what we will be able to afford to live in. So, that is what we are waiting on right now. We're hoping to move in the beginning of August...but we wait on the Lord's timing. We know that He already has the church and house/apartment picked out for us....and He'll let us know when the timing is right.
Hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter celebrating the Lord's death, burial and RESURRECTION!!!

Happy Birthday to Us!

Tom and i had our birthday week. His was last monday and mine was yesterday.

For Tom's b-day we had breakfast together at Bob Evan's before he headed across the state to work. He's still a youngin' at only 28.

It's so hard to believe that i'm leaving my 20's. Yes, i'm afraid i just hit the big 30. Truthfully i was dreading it, but i did end up having a good birthday. Since tom and i were in jr. church this month, we brought cupcakes to church for my b-day. The kids thought that was just great! Then after church, we went out for lunch at a cute little sandwich place.
It was a good day.

Family returning from overseas

On march 16th, Tom's sister and her family came home from Russia. We were so excited to be able to meet them at chicago O' hare airport. For us, this was quite a treat since we hadn't seen our nieces and nephew for one and a half years. Their ages are 2, 6 and 8. I haven't gotten any of the pictures developed yet, but i will post some as soon as i do. They are so adorable. The kids were going crazy being here in America again. This is one area I do completely understand since I lived over in Russia for a while. Coming home is quite overwhelming at first including hearing all of the english being spoken at such a fast speed. Of course, the littlest one really didn't remember anything...and that included us. That was a little hard to deal with since you just want to hug her and can't. But eventually she began to warm up to us. They will be here for a few months before they have to leave again in July. Even though it is a short time, we are so thankful that the Lord allowed them to come home and that we were able to spend some of their first hours with them here in the states .

And the envelope please...

Today, i anxiously walked out to the mail box, just like i've been doing for the past several days, hoping that the letter we've been waiting for from graduate school was in our box. Well, today the letter showed up.....and....Tom has been offered a position with their DPT program!!!!
My eyes filled with tears as i read the letter and praised the Lord for His answer to prayer. I quickly called Tom and told him of the good news. He was so excited. I could just imagine his beaming face knowing that all his school work has finally paid off.
Thanks to everyone who has prayed on our behalf before the Father. We are excited to see what the Lord has in store for us and we'll be busy getting everything together before school starts in August.

"Now to Him Who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works winthin us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:20-21

Battling the pounds

I don't know about the rest of you, but i sure have noticed how hard it is to keep the weight off after getting married. It just seems to come on gradually without me really noticing that anything is wrong. Then one day i check my weight and I am flabbergasted by what i read on the scale. I start to think how did this happen and realize that each month i put on 2-3 pounds...not much...but sooner or later it all added up. So, i've decided to do something about it by exercising. My aunt recently showed me a dvd put out by "Biggest Loser" and i've been doing that here and there. I know i need to be more committed, but so many days i just don't feel like doing it. Anyone else struggling? Maybe we need to encourage each other in the pursuit to be fit and healthy.

The Interview...

Well, we got back this afternoon from our trip for Tom's interview. Tom thought that things went well. Now, we have to wait until mid-march to find out if Tom got accepted into the program or not. He did find out that there were 152 applicants for the DPT program and of those, 70 were given invitations for interviews. So, 70 people (including Tom) have interviewed for 28 positions. Just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers. The drive over there was treacherous through the bad storm we had yesterday. It was just crazy driving through a thunderstorm in the middle of February with the temps hovering around 33-34 degrees. We arrived at my aunt and uncle's house where we were to stay the night, and found it to be quite dark. They had lost power to their house because of all the ice, but fortunately they had a generator that provided power to some of the house. So, it was a rememberable trip to say the least. Now we just rest in the Lord and what He has for us.

Interview day is approaching...

Time is flying by and the day of the interview is almost here. Tom and i will be taking off on thursday night in order to get a good night's rest and be ready for that Friday 8:45am interview.
It is hard to believe that tom has been working for the past 3 years for this moment. The first time he applied in 2004 for the 2004-2005 school year, the school lost his letter of recommendation (which we didn't know about until august) and therefore, he didn't get an interview. When we found out that they didn't have the letter (that he had already sent), he re-sent the letter and hoped that maybe a position would open up. But that did not work out. It was after that year that the school changed their requirements to get in. So, Tom has been working to get his GPA up to a certain level in order to apply again. And this is the week we get to put all that hard work to the test. It would be easy to become frustrated and mad at the school if we did not know Who controls everything. But we know that nothing happens by accident and that God has a plan for us. Needless to say, it's hard not to be nervous about the whole thing, but we continue to remind ourselves of Who is in control.
We do appreciate all the prayers.

Little known fact....

When it comes to video games....tom and i are hooked. I think it has to do with the fact that we were that original generation of gamers as children. What i think is so cool is that Tom has games on the computer that i used to play as a kid on Coleco Vision and games from Atari 26oo that he used to play.
Of course we do have the ps2 and enjoy playing games such as Rachet & Clank, Ty, Spyro, and some others. Crazy, i know...most people probably wouldn't see me as a gamer, but i just can't help myself.

Good News...

Today, Tom recieved the email he's been waiting for for a very long time. It was an email saying that he has been asked to interview for the Doctoral program of a local University for Physical Therapy. We are so excited and praying that the Lord would make His will evident to us. Tom's interview is on February 17th at 8:45am. If he does get accepted, we will be moving over there sometime before school begins in the fall.

God's perfect plan

Tom and i have been married now for 3 years. I'm so thankful that God directed us together. For those who don't know, our story is quite amazing.
I was over in Russia serving on the mission field with my parents after graduating from college. It was during this time that my parent's mission board had a meeting in Irkutsk, Russia for all Russian missionaries with our mission board. Little did i know that Tom was planning to come over to Russia with his family to visit his sister and her family(who are with the same mission board) in Irkutsk, Russia. His dad was also to be a speaker at our conference. What is so crazy is that i had met Tom's dad while i was up at college and Tom had met my parents and my brother while they were traveling around to churches. But Tom and i had never met. Obviously, it just wasn't the Lord's timing.
So, this is how tom and I met. We hit it off right away and it didn't take long before we were engaged and married.....about a year to be exact.
We're currently waiting to hear from graduate school for tom.