Blizzards of Blessing

Over the past couple days it has been snowing, and snowing....and snowing. Truman State has some sort of record for never cancelling school, so although we had 8 inches we were still trekking through the snow to class.

Zach and I still made sure we got out to enjoy it, though. I took the picture below at the Conservation land that is down our street. We are blessed to live so close to beautiful escapes from civilization :)

We took Hoss out with us to explore the area. Oh, wait...let me introduce you! Hoss is our new foster dog. (June was adopted!) He is a Alaskan Malamute/German Shepherd mix. He looks sort of half bear/half wolf--but he has the spirit of a shy mouse. Needless to say, he loves the snow as much as we do :)

But even more than snow--he loves laying around. Especially if you'll lay down with him... He lived in an outdoor kennel for a year before he came to us, so he loves getting to be with people. He seriously follows me from room to room in the house. (He'll even wait outside the bathroom door for me) Not the most intelligent guy, sometimes he even runs into the wall--but he is so wonderfully loyal and loving to us.We also built this snow fort in the back yard. You're never too old to play in the snow. There is also our terribly beat-up snow man. he has an orange peel on his head...and Hoss likes to pee on him (as you can see).These are the awesome little sentinels we made to guard our front porch. They look pretty threatening, eh?Since we haven't been able to work on fixing up the outside of our house, we've been concentrating on the inside. Here is something we made just a few days ago. The fram is actually an old glass window we found in our garage. The photo is the one I took at the conservation area, also in negative form.
This was made from an old kitchen cabinet door painted black, and then we broke tiles from the old kitchen countertop we tore out of the house. We liked how both things turned out, and it is cool to have parts of the old house in with the new :)

Besides that, we are just trying to get the most out of each day. We're currently trying to decide WHAT we are going to do this summer. We really want to serve God somewhere, somehow--just waiting to see where that is going to be.

Life is such a blessing and every day we are reminded of how beautiful and big our God is... what an amazing life that we are called to live. Tonight in our small group we were studying Ephesians, and talking about how the same power that raised Christ from the dead is the power that God has given those who believe in Him. Wow... That speaks depths to the type of lives we are to lead. God doesn't give us that sort of power so that we can live meekly, getting by just going to church or reading our bibles.

This time next week we will be in St. Louis visiting home, and cannot wait to see our families! God is soooo good!