Craft Fair this Saturday!

Hope to see you there!!!!!

Deutschland April 2011

We got to go back to Germany last week!!!! It was just a 5 day trip but it was soooo good for my heart to be there again with so many amazing people as well as new and old friends. In case you don't know, Ryan and I work for a church planting organization called KontaktMission and last week was their workers conference/ retreat.

A week ago, Sunday, was the main conference day where different KM missionaries got to set up tables to showcase their different ministries as well as tell a huge crowd of other workers and supporters about KM and the work that they are doing all around the world!


The very first picture on this post as well as the one below are both of the view from our hotel room our very first night at the conference (sooooo beautiful)! After this first night all of the mission workers all went over to a different little village to a retreat center to have more of a retreat/ community building/ sharing time for the rest of the week.


We had a wonderful speaker come to the retreat who shared great lessons on living and working a holy life within your church as well as your family. It was great to have a time to be filled with encouraging lessons and stories. There was also a lot of time devoted to sharing about our different ministries, singing (in a crazy little combo of English and German), laughing, crying, dreaming as well as planning, meeting great new friends as well as reconnecting with old ones. It was such an encouraging and heart warming trip- We can't wait to go again next year!!! It was especially good to see the people that we worked with in Jena again! I had missed them so much!



The whole experience really left me with a sense of family. Even with so many different cultures, languages, ages, and talents- these are the people who get me. These are the people who I'm going to turn to for answers to my questions, for advise, for help when I can't figure out how I'm supposed to raise my children in a foreign country, when raising support is too overwhelming, when I don't know how to do Visa stuff, when ministry is at it's best ...or worst. So all in all- it was one heck of a short week given all the traveling that was involved, but it was so worth it!

Hi, remember me?

I'm finding it really difficult to try and balance both blogs that I have. (Well I haven't actually been trying that hard) So hopefully some of you have gone over to my other blog to see what's been going on in our crazy lives!

Anyway- we leave for Germany on Friday! It's too bad that it has to be a SUUPPPER short (5 day) trip, but we're also very excited to go to the conference and see some familiar as well as new faces :-) It will be so good to be in beloved Germany again, but also hard since we will have no time to go up to the city that we lived in last year.

No worries though... just a month after we get back from this trip, we're heading out to Germany again! And this time we're making sure we have time to go back to Jena for about a week to see our friends that we have been missing so incredibly bad! Another really cool thing about the trip happening in May/June is that Ryan and I are actually going to lead a missions trip! It's a trip that we went on as participants about 4 years ago- and now we're leading it! We're so excited! Especially Ryan- he's the one who will get to drive a van full of American college students all around Germany, Austria and Belgium for 2 weeks :-) Anyway- I may post a copy of our support/ info letter that we finished last night just to give you all a bit more information.


So, just to let you know- I am going to be trying harder to remember to post on this blog some more. I would just drop it and go completely over to my other one... but I love this one too much to abandon it! How are you guys doing? Hope you're all having great weeks so far!

xoxo elyse aubrie

Heart Felt blog is up and running!

I know, I know.... I have abandoned my poor little blog these last couple weeks :( I do have some pretty good excuses though, I promise! First of all I have been designing a TON of things for my new Heart Felt adventure. Getting the logo all finalized and then figuring out blog banners, etsy banners, profile avatars and so on and so on! It was really exhausting and even more fun :) So after a good couple weeks of sketching, designing and stressing I finally have my Heart Felt blog up and running! And actually I may be focusing more on that blog than this one now. I do want to keep some separation because I want that blog to be more for promoting my little business and this one to be a personal thing, but there my also be some overlapping going on :) So, here it is!:




Just click HERE to go to the blog!

Please tell your friend about it :) There will be more than me just ranting and raving about wool and felting! Tee heee. I will also have posts on fun DIY projects, handmade living, and vintage treasures on the new blog! My Etsy shop will not actually be up and running until the end of Feb., so you'll just have to wait until then!

Okay, on more of the personal side of things... Ry Guy and I have been in a bit of a transitional mess. I don't know I have been going through reculture shock exactly since we have been back in the States, but I have really been having a hard time adjusting being so close to family, having to leave some of the best friends I have ever had all the way in Germany, going back to school (taking 24 credit hours!), not seeing Ryan as much, and some other things. I didn't think it was really going to be this hard to come back to "real life". But anyway, we have been in search of an apartment these last few weeks. We knew we were going to take it slow with apartment hunting seeing as how I'm not working this semester and Ryan's taking a leap of faith by pursuing his app. programing gig full time, but still.... we're used to being on our own and we've been craving it more and more lately. The only problem is money. Ughhh... it's so stupid, this whole money thing! :) We're trying to listen to what God is telling us to do but we really just don't know! So, keep us in your prayers as we try and figure this whole life thing out :)


Soooo I really should be doing my homework but instead, I'm going to go over to the Heart Felt blog and do a post on some SUPERRRRR cute vintage Pyrex bowls I found today! Check it ouuutttt!!

-elyse aubrie

Finally!

I was finally able to do some felting tonight! First time in like almost 3 weeks! Ah, it's good to be back :)

Community

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When we were back in California last week we got to go to a vert special church! This is a picture of the church that my uncle now works at with his lovely wife and 4 children and my parents also go there now as well. It was sooooo nice for us to come to this church after being in Germany because it really reminded me of what our church in Germany was like. Small, relational, intimate and just super awesome :) I know my family is so happy to have my uncle, aunt and their kids back in napa and I think it is just so amazing that they have this wonderful community to be a part of together! Just wanted to share :)


I know i have dropped the ball with this whole blogging thing lately. I will try to do better, I promise!

ALSO!!!: new Heart Felt blog coming soon!!!!

Celebrate

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Happy new years from napa, California! It's great to be back in the states with our family and friends!

Hope 2011 holds great things for you as well!