Beautiful, Busy Fall

Hello! I won't even bother to apologize for taking so long to post...I guess once every couple weeks is going to be normal!

In September, some of the church men got together for a prayer breakfast.

Aaron's been spending some time in Badger helping a church with some construction.

This church bought an old house next door, and is remodeling it into a nursery, classrooms, and guest apartment.

Aaron also went with one of the kids from our church to the youth conference in Ill. with my parent's church. He had a good time - they got to go to our friend's corn maze and in spite of some van trouble, made it home safely. He was also at a Pastor's conference last week, so I'm very glad he's back!

The whole group that went - you can't see Aaron very well - he's in the blue shirt in front of the red door.

While Aaron was gone, I worked on our wedding album a bunch (maybe I'll post some more of those pictures one of these days...) and helped out at the corn maze some since a lot of their regular help was gone.

The baby still seems to be doing fine - I'm due two weeks from today, but that's a little hard to believe. We went to the hospital one day and toured the "birthing wing" - it was pretty nice and I'm glad to be able to picture it better. Also, we ordered cloth dipers and I've been trying to wash the clothes we do have and things like that...

As far as the garden goes - we've canned as many tomatos as we could handle, froze some of the sweet potatos in puree form, pickled some jalepenos, as well as some beets, and are trying out some sauerkraut.

Aaron and a couple others from church worked hard and made and put on baseboards in the church's hallway/lobby area. They look very nice!
Since we both love salsa, we had fun making some together - we might even try a batch sometime with twice as many peppers...
Aaron cutting peppers...my hair was a mess or something like that, so he got to be the model. I thought when we planted this big garden, I was going to have to harvest it all myself, but Aaron enjoys the garden work and he's the one that decides what needs to be harvested each day.
We used a gift card we got for our wedding to buy this Kitchen Aid attatchment. We canned 8 pints that day and have done 7 more since and hope to get another couple batches ( and maybe some other tomato things.) I know that doesn't sound like much to all you big-family-expert-canners, but we were pretty happy :)
Aaron and our cabbage - we've also been harvesting more peas, corn, beets, and cucumbers. I have a feeling this cool September weather is going to slow things down now though.

The Announcement You've Been Waiting For...

We're expecting our first child :) !!!!!

The baby will probaby be born in late Oct./early Nov.

We told our family for the first time on Easter, so you aren't really behind on things...

I've haven't been very sick at all, which is a huge blessing!

There's not a whole lot else to say, except we're really excited and you can all be praying for us!

As for other news that we haven't been good at keeping up on - we've been staying very busy and everything is going well. Aaron and another guy put in this counter-top and cabinets in the church fellowship hall. Since we're using the church kitchen, they'll use this for potlucks and things. Recognize these people? We had Amos and Rebekah and their family over for supper one night.
One day we got a good dusting of hail! It was pretty good size for around here, but not big enough to cause any damage.
The only other really exciting news, almost as exciting as the baby...., is that we just got a new used tiller - It's a Troy-built with very little use on it and we got it for a great deal, so even though out garden is still very muddy, Aaron was excited and had to try it out.

Kitchen Makeover

Hello! If married life always goes as fast as it's going now, we'll be having our 25th anniversary in just a few months! :) We thought some of you might like to see some pictures our our kitchen. It's actually the church's kitchen downstairs (we have an apartment upstairs) but we made a deal with them where we get the kitchen most of the time (they don't have potlucks every week!) and the plan is to put in a serving area and sink for them.

Anyway, above is basically the north and west walls of the kitchen from before.

On the east wall was a closet...

... and this is the south wall - notice the funny lines in the drywall from a door that used to be there.

Aaron started this project after Christmas and got a lot of it done before the wedding. He took off all of the sheet-rock on the wall and started over.

He boxed in the duct work (a big job!), hung new sheet-rocked, mudded it, sanded it, and painted it. Then we put the sink and dishwasher back in place.

I came over one day to "help out" - we did some dusting/cleaning, took off the wallpaper border, and did some sanding.

Priscilla came along too (I think my family is glad to have a break from chaperoning :) ) - she's wiping down the door we put on the closet/pantry.

While we were gone on our honeymoon, some of the church people put in a new floor, then when we got home, we spent basically the first week finishing the project up and organizing all our our wedding presents in the right places!

Here Aaron is putting new shelves in the pantry. They're very sturdy and it's big enough to hold all our food.

Almost the end! Aaron says there's still a few little things that need to be done, but it's very nice and I'm loving having "my own" kitchen! In addition to the other things I mentioned, we (ok, Aaron) painted, moved in a different fridge, put in a new light over the sink and did more rearranging and cleaning (well I did help with that!).

You might get to see it someday because we're planning on having lots of company - theoretically :)