Spring Cleaning...and Gardening!

This is the closest I could get to a "spring theme" on the template choices. I must admit, I'm a bit bored with the options they give me. Please forgive my frenetic behavior--I'm too visual for my own good. But, I must reflect my joy in the change of the season in a change to lighter colors. I am celebrating the fact that we will be breaking ground for our community garden here on seminary campus-right outside my apartment building's front door in fact-on April 9th.

Since leaving the hugely therapeutic garden that Chip built for me in Asheville for my birthday, I have been itching to sink my fingers into the soil once more. Not two weeks had passed since we arrived here, that I began to poke around, looking for suitable spots for a raised bed garden. I also began the emailing process. We all know how bureaucracy works--well, amazingly enough, this one worked quickly! It is only 7 months after my first email went out--beginning of the growing season, and they are building the frames for not one, but 10 raised beds....The designer set up different shaped beds in the semi-circular plot we will be planting in, piecing them together like a jigsaw puzzle, and it looks beautiful. I mentioned they are in the front of our building, a place where ideal sun (full) and bed lay-out (east-west in length) combine; I should also mention that the plot is right next to the new playground (which was completed in October, in perfect timing for my daughters' 3 and 1 year old birthdays). What great blessing! A space for the wives (and husbands who need a study break) and a place for the children; a place for community to happen...and a place to sow and reap and learn about taking care of this beautiful world of ours...of His--it is wonderful. I am encouraged.


FAMILY UPDATE
As some of you may know, January, February and the beginning of March were marked by continual battles with illnesses for my family. My parents arrived to begin their residency on seminary campus, and came down with respiratory flu, which laid out my little family as well. Chip still wrestles with a sinus infection in the aftermath of "the crud", as we like to call it. Please pray for our health, particularly as we enter the allergy season of the area, which from what everyone around us says, strikes hard and leaves late...

We are well, now, and looking forward to summer and the small breaks it will afford us. We are getting on our feet financially, bit by bit, and hope to work as much as possible to lighten the loan load for the fall. Thankfully, this summer scholarships will apply to language classes for M.Div students, so Hebrew is on the books for Chip in order to spread out his class load. We are so grateful!

McKenna and Murrin blossom and grow like I hope our new garden will this summer. If everything around us grew and developed like they do, we would be living in a rain-forest. They are gorgeous, strong, creative, good friends to one another, and just a ton of fun to be around. I am learning the joy of motherhood, and I'm so glad as this age is a tough one for me. Murring chirrups like a little bird, and talks constantly, mimicking everything she hears--she clowns around, and already knows how to tease and joke with us at 17 months old--a definite goofy girl, as her daddy dubs her. McKenna climbs trees, monkey bars, rocks, buildings....She amazes me with her strength and grace. She takes things seriously, like her mommy, but the two of them are an amazing blend of us both. I love these girls.

There is far more to say than I can follow through on at the moment, but I had to try to plow through a bit. Hope you are well, dear readers.