Our Father's House

"But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." 

Joshua 24:15

Some of you may already know the big news, but Matt and I are now homeowners! We are thrilled to be in a house and have loved living here for almost a week now. While I would love to tell the story of how we found the house and show pictures of how we have it decorated, that's going to have to take the back burner because there is a much bigger story that needs to be told.

This house is not our house. 

While technically we own the house, and the mortgage is in our name, and this is where we sleep at night, neither one of us feels as if this house "belongs" to us. This house belongs to the Lord through the graciousness of Matt's dad Bud. 

Many of you know that this past summer, while we were on our Honeymoon, Matt's dad passed away suddenly. Through his provisions to us and Matt's sister's family, we have been blessed to be able to buy a home earlier than we expected. As teachers we planned to do the apartment thing and save our pennies until we could find a house. However, as has been the theme of the past few years, nothing went according to our plan. 

This house is a blessing from the Lord and we would be fools not to share this story. The story of his blessings poured out on undeserving people. For this reason, we want this house to be a testimony of His work in our lives. From unimaginable sadness to unspeakable joy, we have been blessed beyond belief. This year we have seen that it is possible to seek and find the Lord in times of grief, and we want to be honoring him and praising him in this season of blessing. 

Perhaps another time I will share all the ways the Lord led us to this specific home and how he provided for us along the way, showing us what to do and giving us peace in the process. But for now I just ask that you would pray for the following:

1. That this home would be a place where the Lord is sought first and that it never becomes about anything Matt and I did to have this blessing. 

2. That this home would provide opportunities to reach out to neighbors and share our story of how we came to live here, and that this in turn would point them towards Christ.

3. That this home would provide an opportunity to serve people at our church, our friends, and our families by opening it up and being hosts for various needs.

4. That this home would eventually one day be a place where we can raise our children to come to know their Heavenly Father, and to know the absolute love their Bud would have had for them if he were still here.

5. That we would never stop being thankful for the blessings that have been poured out on us, none of which are deserved.

"Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"

Psalm 107:1

A Snow Day's Eve

Happy Snow Day to me and the mister tomorrow! Getting a text message at 4 pm that school is cancelled for the following day means a few things:

1. I may or may not already be in my pajamas

2. I have time to write a blog post on a Monday night

3. I will be watching the Bachelor live 

4. A few extra items will get crossed off the to do list with all the spare time I'll have tomorrow (making this type A personality extremely giddy)

As I anticipate my day tomorrow of sleeping in, drinking loads of hot tea, and snuggling under a blanket I am forced to think back on this same time 2 weeks ago…which is now fondly referred to as "Snowmaggedon" or the "Snowpocalypse".

A Series of VERY Unfortunate Events

Monday night (2 weeks ago) -

Me - "it's supposed to be super cold tomorrow and it may snow a little bit"
Matt - "ok"
Me - "think school will get cancelled"
Matt - "I hope not. I don't want to have to make it up"

Flash forward to Tuesday

Tuesday (9:00 am)

Me - "IT'S SNOWWWWINGGGG"
My kids - "cool." [middle school excitement]

Tuesday (9:30)

Announcement: We will dismiss after the elementary schools with the target time for buses to be leaving by 11:15

Tuesday (10:00)

Influx of parents storm the gates of Simmons to retrieve their children (also known as "The Lucky Ones")

Tuesday (12:00)

We serve kids lunch as we try to figure out how they'll be getting home

Tuesday (1:00)

Me: "Surely we'll be able to get everyone out of here by 4:00, it's not that bad"

Tuesday (4:00)

Commence eating my words

Tuesday (4:30)

Walked with a friend to get her dog to come spend the night with us at Simmons

Tuesday (5:30)

Ate cafeteria food for dinner

Tuesday (9:00 pm)

Are we really spending the night???????????

Wednesday (7:00 am)

We really spent the night. *Note to self: make chiropractor appointment*

Wednesday (12:00 noon)

Our rescuer in a white minivan came and took me home!


Reflecting on our time spent in Simmons I've been so thankful for a few things.

1. I wasn't in this:

2. I've made great friends at Simmons

3. We had heat, plenty of food, and blankets brought by members of the community

4. I work at a middle school, so there wasn't any diaper changing! (Hunter Street Church had 50+ young children spend the night there)

5. We got the next three days off school!

3 Cheers to this snow day being spent at home instead of at school! 

Merry & Married

The holiday season just wrapped up and we loved celebrating our first Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years together.

For Thanksgiving we didn't have a lot of time due to teaching schedules, so we drove to my family's house Wednesday and celebrated with them Thursday. We then went to Wetumpka to see Matt's family on Friday and drove in to Auburn on Saturday for the epic Ironbowl.

After the Ironbowl we came back to Birmingham and got to decorate our apartment together for Christmas. This was a fun way to start off the Christmas season together, and Matt was a great sport about decorating the tree with me. 

Another fun thing we did this year was go to the Alabama theater to see It's a Wonderful Life with Matt's former roommate Tyler and his fiancé. The theater is beautiful and it was fun to spend the night with friends.

Christmas was then split between Montgomery, Wetumpka and Lake Martin. Here are a few pictures from our first Christmas together!

These first few pictures feature the first time EVER that our family has completely matched for our Christmas pajamas. Christmas PJs is a tradition in the Bradley family but to celebrate our welcoming of Matt into the family mom decided that it was time to go all out. 

We were very excited to get to facetime with our brother who is in East Asia serving the kingdom. We were sad that he wasn't able to be with us but were also very grateful for what technology can do!

Some family members then came down for Christmas dinner from Birmingham and we had a good time catching up with them that evening.

After Christmas Matt and I came back to Birmingham to work on our project list, relax and prepare for our next semester. That didn't stop us from counting down the New Year with some friends last night, and the clock cake was fun to make! (Also notice how much my brother stands out from his friends...)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Better Late than Never

My last post on the blog was August 13th... Life took over after that. This post will be an attempt to recap our first semester as teachers, life in Birmingham, family updates, Auburn excitement and a few other things that have kept us so busy the past few months. Buckle in, I'm going to try to hit all the high points!

Jobs:

We have them! This is such an answer to prayer and a reminder that God is faithful. On January 1 of last year Matt and I had yet to begin internships, let alone real jobs. We had no idea where we would be working or how the Lord would provide those jobs. He did and we are thankful. (My job just happens to include coaching 14 middle school cheerleaders).

Now that we got jobs out of the way, here's what has been keeping us busy in our free time.

1. ENGAGEMENTS

We were so excited to fly up to Bloomington, Indiana to celebrate with Matt's stepbrother Alex and his soon to be fiancé. Turner had no idea that we had followed her up there to celebrate Alex's birthday weekend with him. We love Turner dearly and are so excited to celebrate with them in May!

2. WEDDINGS

Kendall, Matt's cousin and my puzzle-loving soul sister, got to marry the man of her dreams at the end of August. We LOVED being part of their day and celebrating with them.

3. ENGAGEMENT PARTIES (& Awesome Festivals)

Matt and I also traveled to Dothan, Alabama one weekend to not only celebrate the engagement of one of my dear friends Katie and her fiancé Michael [Big Mike] but also to attend the Peanut Festival. The pictures below should demonstrate how much fun we had...(Roasted corn on a stick...enough said)

Aside from everyone we know getting engaged or married there were a few other things that happened.

1. Auburn's incredible season

Matt and I were very lucky to be able to attend many Auburn games during this amazing season, including traveling to Tennessee, being there for the "Miracle in Jordan-Hare" - Auburn vs. Georgia, being there for KICK BAMA KICK - Auburn vs. Alabama, and traveling to Atlanta for the SEC championship...

Our good friend Nate got to attend the Georgia game with us...

Ironbowl. KICK BAMA KICK. Storming of the field. Themed cupcakes :)

SEC Championship in Atlanta & seeing dear Katie

And you'll have to check back next week for a Pasadena update! 12 of us will be traveling to California this Saturday to cheer on the Tigers (and NOT roll the palm trees...)

Coming up in the next post: our first Holiday season as married people. The joy. The traveling. The joy.