Easter, Puppy fun and finances

So we have not posted in a really long time. There have been numerous days that we have both individually thought about our need to blog and we have talked about it, but we have just never carved out the time to do so. To say that we haven't had time, would not be entirely true. I guess this has just not been a very high priority for us lately.

We do want to post more regularly, and hopefully we will do so.

So rather than try and give an update on the past 2 months of our lives, I'll just skip to more recent things. We were able to go up to Virginia over Easter weekend, which was a great time with my (Brett's) parents. We hadn't been up there since before Christmas, so our visit was long overdue. My parents' church has been building an addition over the past year or so, and we got to see the final product. It is so strange to be in the church that I grew up in and everything look completely different. I am so excited for their church and the ways that the Lord will use this new facility to enhance and broaden their ministry.

This was also our first trip with Cali. She did great! It was so much fun to travel with her and she played really well with my parents' dog, Hershey. Thankfully, Hershey was very patient and put up with Cali's puppy playfulness.

We are still really enjoying our church and "Marriage Foundations" Sunday School class. Recently we have been learning about how to honor God with our finances. We have really enjoyed this series and have made some decisions and commitments to seek God and honor him with our financial decisions. It is truly humbling to grasp that everything that we have belongs to God. I have always "known" this, but to really understand and apply this to life is very challenging. We are so blessed to have examples in our life of people who have honored God with their finances and can see how God has abundantly blessed their lives. We trust that as we begin our marriage on this foundation, that God will bless our marriage and our finances.

One very eye-opening thing that our teacher shared on Sunday was that everything in our culture is motivated by 3 things: greed, fear and pride. I have been trying to examine my actions and decisions over the past few days and it is truly my desire not to do anything motivated by these things, but rather motivated by faith, hope and love.