Jungle Mania

Thanks to some friends from church, we got free tickets to what they called "an overpriced South Florida attraction", Jungle Island. It's basically like a small zoo. The animals looked sad, though. 

This was a sedentary tiger. Note the claw marks on the glass.

Swinging monkeys

Lazy gators

Squawking birds

And Nathan's fave, the lions. Here he is sweetly introducing Mikey to the cat in the distance.

Wow, that's mighty close.

Oh, you want to offer our child to the lioness as an after-school snack?

The male didn't seem to mind.

While my crazy hubby was baiting the lions with our baby, it started raining, then raining harder, then raining cats and dogs, then raining lions and tigers and bears. Oh my! We got absolutely soaked. All three of us.

I asked Mikey if he liked pina coladas and getting caught in the rain.

He thought I was pretty funny.

I probably asked him the same question 20 times, and he laughed each time.

Gotta love that!

Those smiles were what got me through the following two hours of him screaming in the car on the way home. Oy.

Three Things We LOVE About Living in Florida

There are many places I have lived. There are things I've loved and things I've hated about each place. Or as the British would say, there are things I quite liked and things I rather disliked. 

Here's the beginning of our Florida list.

1. People have asked us many times what we loved about living in England. We always said, "Our church." People are now asking what we are loving about living in Florida. Our number one answer is the same - our church! The people there have welcomed us with open arms (literally... they're very huggy!). Nathan and I are so blessed to have a new church family that is warm, friendly, and loving. The church is incredibly diverse - so many cultures and ages and stages and family structures represented. They are an amazing picture of the body of Christ.

So what else do we love about living in Florida? 

2. Weather (the number one thing we hated rather disliked about England). It's warm every day. While the rest of the country is frozen over - I've heard of some cities that have experienced more than 70 straight days  of below freezing temperatures - Miami is experiencing the third warmest winter in its history. So shorts and t-shirts and air conditioning every day it is!

3. Produce. Most people know that I'm a huge avocado fan. I was a little sad to discover that most of the avocados around here are not the Hass ones from Mexico or California I would usually find in the supermarket, but instead the big, fat Florida ones. Well, I wasn't sad for long because we are staying near an avocado grove. We arrived at the end of the season and found several avocados just lying on the ground, begging to be eaten.

I ate this whole bowl of the stuff straight up. Just salt and pepper. This was only about half of the flesh on one avocado. IT WAS HUGE!

There is also a starfruit tree on the property, and we enjoyed a few at the end of the season. I've never had starfruit before. It's really tasty!

These beauties are wild lemons from a church friend's tree. I get so excited when she offers them to me. They are mild and oh-so-juicy, and tonight we had them with our salmon. Yum!

There are more thoughts to come!

The Next Chapter of Life

What's that Mikey? What are you trying to tell us? Are those palm trees and alligators on your blanket? Why the bright green onesie?

What my key lime cutie pie is trying to say, is that we're moving to Florida! Yes, the Lord has answered our prayers for full-time ministry work. It's finally official and public news. Nathan has accepted a position as the senior pastor of Pinelands Presbyterian Church in Cutler Bay, Florida.

We will head to Atlanta as a family on a red-eye flight on January 4th to see family and friends and collect our belongings, and then we'll make the drive down to our new hometown on the 18th. Nathan will preach his first sermon on February 2nd. To hear Nathan's candidating sermon preached at the church a few weeks ago, you can click here.

Since our departure from England - well, our whole lives, really - God has provided for us in amazing ways, from housing to transportation to wonderful people who have loved us incredibly well. We look forward to seeing the ways that he will continue to provide for us in Florida.

In the mean time, you can pray that God would help us in the following areas:

- Saying goodbye to my family in Bakersfield (I'm crying already!)

- Traveling with Mikey and all of our stuff on planes and long-distance drives

- Finding a permanent home in Florida (the Lord has already provided a temporary place with a church member)

- Beginning healthy ministry habits

- Loving our new church family well

- Strengthening our bonds as a married couple and as a family as we go through all of this change

Start planning your next vacation to south Florida and come see us! We'll be very close to Miami, the Keys, and to all the cruising ports.

While We Were Apart

Nathan and I had to spend two weeks apart this month, as it wasn't recommended that I fly after 30 weeks and Nathan had some job things to wrap up in the South, including a job interview in Florida. I left the camera with him so that he could take lots of pictures of our potential future home state. To his credit, he did take a few good ones, but only after I admonished him for taking only the following two pictures one day.

A raccoon. Cool.

A take-out restaurant called Takee Outee. I wonder what kind of food they serve...

During our time apart he also went up to North Carolina to where his grandparents used to own a cabin.

And this is a stereotypical American sight: a big truck, a state flag, and a McDonald's.

When Nathan came back my family and I went to the beach.

See? We're reunited.

And then the camera ran out of juice. Gah!

More pictures coming soon. I have been trying to nest and get ready for the baby to come, but I think I waited a bit too long... or I have unrealistic expectations of what I can get done in a day. I get so tired so easily! Thankfully in our house we will have a ratio of adults to children of 4:1 so he won't be neglected when he gets here.