dance moves!

Again, a few weeks have passed since I last posted. I imagined I'd be a lot less busy once school ended in December, but that proved to be a dream. After a blizzard shut down nearly every road to Southwestern Minnesota on Christmas, Kevin and I crashed at the Bergeson's for a few days. I finally got to give Kevin his present (that had been hiding in his parent's basement since Thanksgiving: a kayak! He loved it! Much to my SHOCK I got a pair of Ugg boots from Kevin and his family, along with the second half of my blog published in a book. Fantastic, thoughtful gifts. We made it down safely for New Years for a late Christmas with my family. On our way down, the surprise of a lifetime: Namrata Kamath (who I hadn't seen in person for 2.5 years) managed to keep her return to MN a secret, and the girls of KNAK were reunited once again. Great afternoon!

We made it safely to Worthington later that day and celebrated Christmases and Madison's birthday over the next few days. Here are a few photos of that to bring you up to speed: Just so you know, this may end up being a post of many dance moves!

Madison blowing out candles on my first culinary creation! I think I might change professions and become a cake maker now!

On January 3, Kevin and I had to go to Sioux Falls for my final candidacy interview: Approval. By far, the most intense. We picked up a 44 oz real fruit smoothie from Sonic to get me pumped for the interview. It went well. That's about all I can say. I felt as though I was true to who I am as a Lutheran, as a woman, as a 26 year old, and my committee was kind, warm, challenging, and got me. Grateful for the people of the South Dakota Synod for all their hard work these last 4 years with me! We drove back through Worthington and had supper and celebrated with a chocolate cheesecake!! One more think checked off my list!

A week later, we were down in Worthington again, only this time for a quick 24 hour trip to celebrate my sister's 30th birthday! A surprise limo, and a great meal! 2010 is going to be a year of many big happenings, and this was one of the first! We were so glad we could get down and celebrate with our families!

Lastly, my final excuse for not posting is due to three little projects I've been working on. 1. Our Save-the-date cards. 2. Our wedding website (to be unveiled soon). 3. My application for the Graduate Preaching Fellowship. This was the most important of all three, and consumed my life for the last three weeks. I've been perfecting each sentence, meeting with people, reading books, and dreaming big on where next year might take us. Our choices ended up being: Hong Kong, Jerusalem, England, St. Andrew, Scotland, and Stockholm, Sweden. We won't find out until next month if we actually get it (so please begin praying that if God wills this for us, that we'll get it). I handed in the 30+ page proposal today in a bright green folder (attention getting, right?). Insert excited dance move here. Now I can focus on #1 and #2 above.

I also took a two week intensive class starting January 4. Genesis to Revelation. Talk about a whirlwind...it's a crazy amount of information to process in one day. If you want to see more of life's latest details, check out my interview for the NEW Luther website by clicking HERE, and of course, the life at Luther blog I write almost 4 times a week on is HERE.