where o where have the maneys been?

We've been in lots of different places and have been doing lots of different things! May has proved to be (once again) super busy for us. For the past four years, Paul has spent 2 weeks every May at REC week - InterVarsity's annual week-long student conference. Paul has to be there for two weeks because schools in the region don't finish up at the same time. So, Paul pretty much lives at Camp Buckner outside of Marble Falls for half the month. This year, my sister graduated from high school (yes, there is a large age difference...13 years to be exact). So, I flew to Houston for her graduation, and Paul was able to meet me there for a weekend away from camp. After returning to Lubbock for less than 48 hours, I flew out to Austin to be with Paul at REC week for the last three days of the two weeks. It was a lot of fun to see everyone as well as say goodbye. Paul and I have both felt really mixed emotions. This is my second time to say goodbye to InterVarsity since I left after 5 years of staff about four years ago. There is a sadness to saying goodbye to something you have given your life to. Paul and I flew back to Lubbock this past Friday in time for a long Memorial Day weekend. We have been anticipating what our new routine will be like as Paul begins his job full-time with Conetrix this coming Friday. The entire time we've been married, we have ridden to work together in the mornings and home again at night. We eat lunch very regularly together. Now, we will take separate cars to work in the morning and will have to make plans to see each other at lunch. It is going to be different.

We have really enjoyed this long weekend together. We've spent the entire weekend hanging out together and enjoying each other's company. We celebrated my birthday on Saturday by going to the movies and eating fajitas and drinking margaritas on the patio of On The Border. We've spent a lot of time looking for a new house (you can pray about that with us...we are looking to rent, so please pray for something that we can afford that meets our space needs in the area of town we would like to live). We also go my birthday present...A NEW BIKE! I am really excited about it. You know Paul is really into biking, and I have wanted to get into as well. So, for my birthday, I got a pretty, new mountain bike.

The past month has been good and hard and sad and exciting. We are really missing our family and friends that live far away. We are excited about the new cadence our life will soon have. We are sad about leaving InterVarsity. We are ready for the summer routine.