living with family | 365daysofmarriage

Two and a half years ago, we moved out of our first home together and moved in my family. What followed was a wonderful season of growth, getting to know my family, growing closer to Christ than we have ever been in our personal lives and in our marriage. I am so thankful for the generosity of my family letting us, well, be a part of the family.

Yesterday, we moved out. There were a number of reasons for this, one of them was that we cut Bret’s commute from 45-60 minutes down to 12. Since the work I do can be from most anywhere, it didn’t matter where we lived. However, the biggest reason we moved is that Bret felt God was calling us to move out because of issues in his heart. He admits that he put off moving out because it was cheaper to live at my parents and because of enjoying the growth in his relationships with my family. But God continued to put on our hearts to move out. So at this time, while we’re not sure where all the money will come from and where God will lead us, we’re excited and having faith to see what He has for us, and the growth that will occur during this next part of our journey. Especially in Bret’s heart.

* Note – Bret was dictating this to me. 🙂

It has been over a year since we moved in my family. You can read about the reasons why in Bret’s post from last year. I realized I totally passed the date when we moved in! It was roughly October 16th-ish of last year.

So how’s it going? Well, it is a full house, for sure. Our room is right under the family room and everyone hangs out in there. There are also two pianos, which are practiced often.

But, besides that, it has been a WONDERFUL experience:

– My brother Jon practices worship music on his guitar for hours. That is a nice thing to wake up to and hear throughout the day.
– We have no windows in our room, which means if I have a super late night of working, I can sleep MUCH easier than if we had windows.
– My sister Jo and brother Joseph make coffee every morning. It’s great waking up to a fresh pot of coffee!
– I have lots of conversations with my family about life…especially godly things. It’s so encouraging to be in a house of believers.
– I’m rarely lonely….except when I hide out in my office.
– I have an AWESOME setup for my office! Where I am is right in front of a white board that was previously used for a biology class, so it’s HUGE! I have my goals, calendar and lots of inspiring sayings up there.
– I’m close to the NCR trails! Bret and I just went for a run tonight!

Here’s a shot of my whole family from a really really really long time ago (over six years or so). I’m partly sharing this particular one so my family is like, WAHHHHHHH, why did you share that old picture? Motivation for a new family picture. 🙂 Bwahahahaha! And because it’s one of the last pictures where I’m not the shortest. I think only my 14 year old brother is shorter right now….

Common photographer problem though….actually photographing your OWN family!

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