Hi everyone. As I write, I am reclined in our new living room in West Chicago. It's been a while, so I'll try to give an update.

Early March, Mike and I felt it would be a good idea to spend some time in West Chicago. We are planning on being out here just for the summer. Trusting God to provide a subleaser was hard for me--we'd signed our lease for 827 Beach thru summer of '09. But we both figured if God really wanted us out here, He'd provide. (Rent is about twice as much for less space in Chicago compared to Ames, IA). And some time in April, we found a renter-it really was the perfect situation-she wanted to move in 3 days after we wanted to move out.

One other "trusting God" challenge was finding a place here in West Chicago. West Chicago is not a college town, so there aren't really any subleases or short-term leases available. I just wanted to find a place and lease it--just whatever would work, but Mike's dad challenged us to have faith. He had us come up with a list of things that we would believe God for--ranked from "must haves" to "preferred" to "selfish desires". We looked into several places and no place wanted to do a short-term lease except for this one place that Chris thought wasn't that great. So as of a week ago, we still didn't have a place to live.

Rewind about 2 weeks ago. Joy's birthday was May 8^th. She's now one, and is she as curious as ever! She's getting into everything. She loves taking things out of boxes/shelves, eating popcorn, making a little babbly sound by sticking her tongue in and out of her mouth really fast, and tearing up paper. She's not walking, yet, but is getting closer every day. She's not talking, yet, either, but is pretty good at non-verbal communication (waving bye-bye, flapping her arms when she wants something. And recently Mike taught her how to high-five and to kiss. Cute!)

But I want to express how crazy our lives have been lately. So Joy's birthday was May 8^th, Mike was in Luke and Holly's wedding the next few days. On May 10^th, we found out my sister was getting married on May 14^th. We moved half of our stuff out on May 11^th---packed and moved almost all day. Same with Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday we drive to St. Louis, getting in town just in time to put Joy down to bed and go to my sister's 11pm wedding. (Which was AMAZING for a wedding thrown together in 3 days!) We drive back to Iowa Thursday. Right before we leave to head back to Ames, we find out that we have a place to live in West Chicago. Phew! (At this point we had 2 days until our move and we had JUST gotten a place to live. I'll tell you more about it later.) We pack some more on Thursday night and on Friday...and move out Saturday.

Saturday was a crazy day. Here were two crazy things that happened. 1. A robin made a nest in our garage above our car. It's pretty cute-she must be incubating some eggs because she's always there. Anyway, she decided to give Mike a piece of her mind...er...body, and Mike ended up with brown goo on his forehead and shirt. I'll get to the second crazy thing. We finally head out of Ames at 4pm-ish. Joy gets hungry so I stop in Williamsville while Mike goes on to run some errands in Iowa City. We go to Arby's and Joy is just smiling and waving at everyone and eating a ton. We didn't get out of Arby's for 45 min! Then another series of setbacks occurred. Around the I-80 truckstop we pulled over to feed Joy again. At this point it's after 9pm. Mike and I are driving separate cars full of stuff. Mike gets out of his borrowed van, and somehow it locks with the keys inside. (That's crazy thing #2). He calls AAA and they can't come out for about an hour. We're in the McDonald's parking lot, and right next door is a Days Inn. So we just get a room there for the night. Let me tell you I was excited not to have to drive another 3 hours! We'd both been up since 7am and were so tired.

We end up getting to W. Chicago around 1pm on Sunday. And soon after we get there, all of the SALTers get together to help us move in. We had 4 vehicles full of stuff, and the stuff was unloaded and in the appropriate rooms in about a half-hour. What a blessing! As we're moving in, I'm seeing this place for the first time. This is a huge house with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, dining room, living room, newly remodeled kitchen, and a nice sunroom. HUGE! I keep getting lost. Part of the reason why we got this place for our price range (half of what the owner wants for it) is because the owner is still going to try to sell it for 60 days. If he sells it within that time, we have to find a new place to live. If he doesn't, then Mike's brothers will rent the place out in the fall. As I've been sitting here I've learned that one of the perks is that he is paying people to come and mow the lawn (to keep it looking nice.) Sweet!

We go to bed really early on Sunday. Just exhausted. Joy wakes up 5 times that night. Yeesh. I'm thinking it might be because it's freezing in here. I just hadn't figured out the whole radiator thing just yet. So on Monday, I'm still pretty exhausted. Right when I lay down to rest, I get a call from the realtor that they're showing the place that afternoon. AAAH! We had boxes EVERYWHERE. So Mike and the guys come over around lunch time and help make things look presentable. What a day!

One of the weird things about this place is that just about as many semis drive by out front as cars, if not more, and this is a "no outlet" street. I was not expecting that. On Monday I watched this utility truck drive up and down our street, coming to a complete stop every 100 ft. and then continuing. He did that several times and then I got tired of watching him. I guess this place is zoned for commercial use as well as residential and if I look out one of our windows I see a while bunch of semis parked in a lot.

One of the cool things about this location is that there is a Tasty Freeze about a 5 min. walk away. Su-WEET! We are also just about a house or two away from "the prairie path"-a bike/foot path that goes throughout the county. Joy and I took that to the library yesterday (about a 5-10min walk.)

Anyway, God really provided for us with this place. And I've enjoyed getting to know the area. I went to a Mexican grocery store yesterday. It's now one of my goals to learn a little Spanish while I'm here so I can communicate with people. (W. Chicago is a little more than 50% Hispanic.) I think the hispanic culture is pretty cool. I'm hoping to meet our neighbors accross the street some time soon. They have a little boy about Joy's age.

That's all for now. Thanks for your prayers and support! God's coming through for us.