Merry Christmas!

Yesterday, we were able to have all of Heston's family over for Christmas Eve dinner. I will have to get pictures from some of them since I didn't have my camera out. We had a great time being together.



Heston and I woke up for the first time in our own house on Christmas morning. Heston was anxious to open presents so we went down to open our gifts. He actually gave me two last night because he couldn't wait. He got me 2 scarves and gloves, and the nativity scene from Willow Tree to go with the Creche he got me for my birthday.


My gift this morning was an earring and necklace set with diamonds and rubies. It is beautiful and was very unexpected. Thanks, Babe =)

I got Heston a brown leather jacket and gloves and I think he liked it.

Phoebe got a new bed for the living room which she has already broken in.


We went over to Heston parent's house around 2 and had wonderful dinner with everyone and then opened presents. Then we watched movies and played games. We had a great time!


Heston's Parents opening a gift.


The three little kiddos together.


Mady


Logan asked Santa for John Deere underwear and that is just what he got =)


Victoria looking pretty in pink.

My family in CO has lots of snow. The guys have all been out plowing/shoveling since early this morning and are back out now. Crazy weather, but at least they got a white Christmas and can make a few extra bucks. Heston wishes he were out there.

Tomorrow is back to work for me, but Heston has the next few days off to do some things around the house and to relax a little bit. We leave on Saturday to go visit my family in CO. Brianne is back from Africa as of this past Wednesday. It will great to be all together again.

Hope you had joyous Christmas!!

Our New House

We have been in our new house for a little over a week and we have loved every minute. Not every detail is finished, but it already feels like home. Phoebe loves it too =) Here are some pictures for you to enjoy! Sorry they are not in order.

The Happy Couple =)



Our Bedroom

Bedroom #3

Basement

Another view of the laundry room

Phoebe investigating her new house

The Dining Room

The Kitchen

The Living Room

Bedroom #2

Heston & Brad packing the truck

Our tree lined street

The laundry room - I LOVE this room!!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

The day has finally arrived. As of tomorrow, we will once again be homeowners! When I began the countdown to closing I thought it would never come, but like all things, it has finally come. We are very excited!

Our realtor has a moving truck that they allow they buyers to use for free (besides gas) so we are picking that up first thing in the morning. Then we are headed off to our storage unit to pack up our belongings into it. We then have our final walk through at 2 and then closing takes place at 3. We are hoping to begin moving into the house around 4. We hope we can get A TON done on Friday evening because I have class all day Saturday and Heston has to be at LBC for 2 bastketball games. We know it will all work out and we are so excited to be in our own home. I even think Phoebe is excited. She is use to it being just her in the house and not having to be around dogs.

I will be sure to post pictures once we have them. Thanks for all of your prayers as we have gone through this moving and buying/selling process. We have seen God work in our lives, even in the small details.

Snow, Thanksgiving, and our New House

I know I know, I never post on this anymore. Sorry! We woke up to our first snow fall today. I didn't feel prepared for it at all! That is not a good way to start a Monday Morning, especially since all of our winter wardrobe is still in storage.



We are looking forward to having Thanksgiving with family this year. We have had our own Thanksgivings the past several years that we have been married. The last time I was with family for Thanksgiving was when my family drove up to MN and surprised me my freshmen year of college. That was a fun time!
We are definitely looking forward to the break from work, the great food, spending time with family, and of course shopping on Black Friday! If anyone knows of any furniture deals, let us know.

Lastly, we are counting down the days till we move into our OWN HOUSE!! When we wake up in the morning, it will be only 10 days. We are both so excited. It has been great living with family and we greatly appreciate your generosity as we go through this transition, but we are excited to be on our own again. I think at times we feel like we are still visiting. I can't wait to have my own dishes out, see my own things and just be the two of us. It occurred to me the other day that this will be the first Christmas of our married lives that we will wake up in our own house!! We have always been in CO with my family or here in PA with Heston's family. Heston was so excited about that, especially since he LOVES Christmas. I am going to have to make sure there are some presents under our tree, even through our big present to ourselves is our house. I will definitely post pictures! Please pray that things continue to go smoothly with the house.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

House Update

God sold our house in Wisconsin!! It is amazing to see His faithfullness displayed in our lives. We closed on our house 2 years ago, October 15. If our house would have sold before that date, then we would have had to pay taxes on what we made since it was within 2 years of our purchase date. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking to myself that God wasn't going to sell our house until that date. And guess what? The papers were drawn on that date! We serve an awesome God!

We are now in the middle of deciding what to do regarding housing. We had an apartment lined up to live in until our house sold, but now that it did sell, we are not sure if we still want to rent or if we want to purchase a house.

Heston is actually out looking at houses today, but last night, we found a house that we think would be ideal for us and our future family. We are going to go look at it tonight and I am so excited!

I don't know if God will work in the same way as He did with our last house purchase, but on the way home from turning down a rental contract, we came upon our house in WI. With that house, it was as if the Lord was laying it in our laps and we couldn't deny His perfect hand in it.

I have been praying that we could make enough money off of our house in WI so that we would be able to purchase exactly what we need for our family. I am excited to see how the Lord is going to work!

My husband mentions often about my lack of blogging. Sorry!! I have a more time consuming job than I once did and a lot of times I don't feel like I have a lot to blog about!

I do thank you for keeping up with us and for your prayers; we greatly appreciate it!

No matter what happens with the house we are praying about, we will be moving somewhere in 2 1/2 weeks as Hillary & Steve, Heston's sister & her husband, who we are living wiht sold thier house and they have to be out the middle of November. We know God has all of those details under control.

Update on the Frey's

I know, it has been WAY TOO LONG since I last posted. I enjoy looking at everyone else's blogs and forget about my own. Plus, I always like to upload pictures and I haven't had any recently. I also don't have time to post things at my new job.

We are both doing well. Heston is very busy with his job, but he enjoys it. I am enjoying my job as well and also my grad courses that I am taking at LBC. I am excited to be in a job where I will be able to use my counseling degree. The Lord had that planned perfectly.

Heston & I looked at an apartment today and we will be on our own soon. We are excited to be settled. We are still praying for the sale of our house. We know God has those details planned out, but it is hard to wait!!

We found a great deal the other night. We went to K-Mart to get some curtains for my new office and we just happened to look at their clearance section. I saw a tv/entertainment unit that held a TV, 1 cabinet, and 4 shelves. It was marked for $28 and I knew we couldn't pass that up. When we went to check out, the lady scanned it and it came up to $13.99!! We couldn't believe it. We left our previous entertainment center in WI since it was so big, and God led us to this smaller, more appropriate for our apartment, unit. It is neat to see that God cares about the little things.

Hopefully soon I will be able to post pictures of our new apartment!

Great Weekend; Bad Monday

This post is a week overdue, but I thought I would share it anyways. Last Friday, Heston & I went to Maryland to spend the weekend with Heston's parents on their boat. We had a great time. On Saturday, Heston spent the day crabbing. He actually caught 19 crabs!! He had so much fun. We got a lot of sun on Saturday and we both got burned pretty bad, even though we put sunscreen on. That part was not fun at all.

That last part leads to the bad Monday. Well, Monday morning, my car wouldn't start. We thought we had "fixed" the problem over the weekend, but apparently not. Thankfully I only work 1 mile from where we are living so my boss came to pick me up. Heston was working on my car that night, getting under the car, cleaning things, changing the battery, etc. He was using WD-40 and some other cleaner and it ended up dripping on him, especially his hair. Well, he came in and took a shower. Suddenly, we hear screaming coming from the shower. At first we thought someone flushed the toilet or something, but the screams and yells kept coming, louder and louder! Heston's sister, Hillary, is a nurse so she ran to his aid and asked what was wrong. He was writhing in pain. We put bags of vegetables and steaks all over his back and his shoulders, but nothing seemed to help the burning and stinging. Benadryl wasn't working either. After about and hour and a half of intense pain, we took him to the ER. I don't think they understood how much pain he was in. We think what ended up happening was the chemicals from the car cleaners got into the newly broken open blisters on his back. He said on a pain scale of 1 to 10 he was at a definite 10. Life is always interesting with Heston! Glad you are feeling better, Babe.

Here are some pictures of the weekend.

4th Wedding Anniversary

Our 4th wedding anniversary was last Thursday, August 2. Neither of us could believe that 4 years have gone by already! We were planning a get away, but decided we probably shouldn't spend the money. So, I decided to plan a surprise anniversary celebration night for Friday night. I bought gifts as clues for each step of the date. Before we got into the car, I realized that the whole surprise thing was not the best idea for Heston =) He really didn't like the fact that he did not know where we were going!

His first clue was 2 sodas and our favorite chips Flamin' Hot Cheetos. I got our favorite pizza from Papa John's. Yum!

We stopped by Heston's parents house to eat since it was close to the next clue and they were away for the weekend. I then gave him the second gift, which was a DVD copy of our wedding video! you have no idea how special this was. That was the FIRST TIME we had ever seen a video of our wedding. Someone recorded it at our wedding, but it seems to be a never ending project. Apparently a guy at our church had video taped the wedding and had it filed away. That was a GREAT anniversary present.

The next gift/clue was movie theater candy. We went to see the Bourne Ultimatum on opening night. It was a great night, but I won't be making surprise date night an activity for the future.

Thanks, Heston for a wonderful 4 years. Thanks for the beautiful card =) I love you very much and I look forward to many more years with you.

Weekend on the Boat

After Sharon Jordan's wedding this past Saturday, Heston & I drove up to Maryland to spend some time with his parents and go out on their boat. We got there around 6 pm and we went by boat to a great restaurant. It was so fun! I wish I would have had my camera out the first day because the next day was pretty rainy. It was great to sleep on the boat Saturday night, but we felt like we were still "floating" even after we got off of the boat. Sunday morning we had breakfast at a neat little restaurant and then we also bought about 2 dozen crabs for the Frey clan to enjoy. It was also Heston's mom's birthday so it was fun to be able to share that with her. Thanks for a great weekend, Mom & Dad Frey! Here are some pictures of our weekend.

The Front of the boat

Heston & his mom

Sitting in the captain's chair

Heston loved driving the boat. His Navy days came in handy.

Heston may have enjoyed his crabs a little too much =) I love this picture...


My Captain =)

Just some pictures

Heston and his "Congratulations" cake for his graduation and his new job.


Madelyn loved the blue frosting!


Madelyn and her Uncle Heston


Phoebe playing in Uncle Steve's water =)


Heston and Coach Herron trying on some hats while at a store near Shady Maple where we had lunch with the Herron's and Josh & Anna Beers.


A group of us at Sharon Jordan-Howard's wedding - fun times!!


The Fab Four

Update

Well, we have been in PA for 3 weeks. Time has flown! We are gradually finding our way around everywhere and getting reacquainted with old friends.

The Lord graciously allowed me to find a job at the Caron Treatment Center which is a center for those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol. I am actually working in the Student Assistance Office which sends trainers into the local schools to do presentations on tobacco addiction and also help those who are already addicted. It is a sobering thought to look at the reports and see how young kids start smoking and also for the reasons that they start smoking. I truly believe that this job is from the Lord as He worked out all of the details:
1) My resume fit the job description to a "T"
2) My office is 1.07 miles from where we are staying
3) The timing was perfect
4) My boss is a great woman who is hard working and caring

Heston is thoroughly enjoying his job and is getting things ready for the school year. He has enjoyed getting to know some of the people at the school.

We are still praying for our house to sell. We know God will sell it in His own perfect timing. It is always hard to wait, but God has been teaching us to trust in Him and to look to Him alone for guidance. We are thankful for His faithfulness to us and for directing us in each step of the way. We are excited to see what He is going to continue to do in our lives.

Where We are Moving

Hello to All!
It appears that I haven't made it clear exactly where we are moving and what we are doing. At the beginning of this spring semester, as we started thinking more seriously of our future after Heston's graduation, we started asking about full-time positions here at Northland for Heston. However, God had other plans. Josh Beers, who is at Lancaster Bible College, called Heston and asked him if he would be intersted in a Sports Information Director Position at LBC. We didn't know what to think as we thought we would be here at Northland for years to come. But as we begin to talk about it with others and received prayer and much counsel, we realized that God specifially opened that door of ministry to us. Heston went out and interviewed the beginning of May and accepted the position.

It will be very hard for us to leave Northland, as this has been our home for the past 4 years of married life and then our school for the 3 years before that. We are eternally grateful for the friends we have made, for the decisions that we have made and for all of the lessons that we have learned. We are so thankful for the years that we have spent here at Northland and are excited to see how God is going to use that training in our future.

We are excited to be a part of a new ministry and also to be close to Heston's side of the family. We are praying for the quick sale of our house so we can get settled in Lancaster.

We are looking forward to catching up with all of our friends who live in PA. Please pray for us as we are packing up tomorrow night and then starting the long trek out to PA on Friday morning.

Wow, it has been a while! We have been very busy the past month or so. We had our big grad class the first week of June, the next week I went to visit my family in CO to help my grandparent's celebrate thier 60th wedding anniversary and also to see my sister Brianne who was home from Zambia. We had a wonderful time!

We are packing up our house as we are loading our truck on Thursday night and leaving on Friday morning. We have someone who is interested in purchasing our house and told us they would let us know by tomorrow what thier thoughts are. It would be a huge burden relieved if the house were to sell before we moved!

We will be spending a week relaxing and getting settled and then Heston will start working on July 9. I applied for a job at the school so we will see how that goes.

Thanks for your prayers and words of encouragemet. We are sad to leave Northland, but we are very excited about this new phase of our lives that the Lord has so evidently led us into.

We will definately keep everyone posted! Please pray for the sale of our home and for safe travels.

Here is a slide show of my time in CO. More to come!

Happy Birthday, Bryce!

Bryce celebrated his 27th birthday the Monday after graduation. Brad Gaugler made Bryce his famous "has beans" cake. If any of you have had that before you know how good it is! Thank you very much for making that, Mr. Gaugler!!

Bryce wasn't feeling too hot and he doesn't really like birthdays, but he humored us with blowing out the candles and letting us sing to him. Happy Birthday, Bryce!! Thanks for coming to see us.

Family Pictures

We had a good weekend with my family. I was so happy that it worked out for them to come out one more time before we move. Dad & Bryce helped Heston put a deck on the back of the house. Phoebe wasn't sure what to do with all of the extra people, but she did enjoy the extra attention

We took Mom to Four Seasons for Mother's Day. The food was great and we had a great time.


Kelli, Dad, Colton & Bryce at Moose Jackson's in Iron Mountain


Mom & Dad on Mother's Day at 4 Seasons


The kids, minus Bri


The Deck


Heston & Dad working on the deck


Kelli & Colton on the front deck


A picture of us admiring our newly built deck

Thanks Dad, Bryce & Colton for all of your help on the deck! We couldn't have done it without you. Sorry to put you to work!! It was great to have you all and we look forward to having you visit us in PA! We miss you, Bri!!