A Few Pictures with Some Words... to Recap our Spring and Summer!

I know! It's August and I have yet to fill you in on our lives from April! It has been a very busy spring and summer...but wonderful! Dustin has given me probably one the greatest gift he could ever give me...time to work from home and write! After finishing out teaching at the most amazing school, Grace Christian School, we have barreled into our new schedules. Dustin is now working with one of his buddies doing handyman work full time. His hard work (and my teaching paycheck through the summer) has allowed me to take care of our home, organize, manage our budget, rest in the Lord, and write! I am working on two books. The first book Absorbed: Becoming Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually Intimate as God Designed (formerly The Beautification Process but I changed the title to something less cheesy), will go to the publisher in a few weeks to see if they will accept it. So, please pray they do...my writing/speaking ministry career needs to produce some income soon! The second book, The Sufficiency of God in the Storms of Life: Trusting God in the Midst of Emotional Pains, Broken Families, and Addictions. will be published as an Amazon E-book by the end of the month. It is a mini book (about 75 pages) to be a helpful counseling resource (or personally when suffering).

So if you're wondering... I'm not a fancy stay at home wife who goes out on lunch dates every day. I have an office to do my work and I treat it as the incredible job that it is. Most every day I work 6-8 hour days writing. I do take an occasional lunch break or stop to wash the dishes when I need a mental break. Today, well...today I had writer's block (first time this summer). So I thought what a great time to do something mindless like update the blog! With Dustin and I having no kiddos yet, we thought this the perfect time to launch my writing. We desire very much for me to stay home with our kids one day and this will give me a way to work from home (and do the awesome ministry the Lord has called me to).  For now, the Lord has allowed us the means to keep me home writing and finishing school. If need be I'll happily get a conventional job. But, the Nally's don't do much conventionally, now do we!

Class starts in a few weeks. Dustin and I will both be going full time this last year. I am taking my four leveling classes for the PhD program ( and my last counseling practicum) and Dustin is finishing his Master's of Divinity. We will graduate together in May (Lord willing!)...it's been a long time in coming (5 years). So, here goes me trying to catch you up on life through pictures...way more fun than hearing me ramble on! (You can read my books to hear that!).
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The day I finished work, Dustin and I packed out bags for Hendersonville, NC to do a vision casting trip to see if the Lord wanted us to end up there.

Downtown Hendersonville

Floating down Lake Lure in Hendersonville

We had a wonderful time in Hendersonville, love it! Just not sure if that is where we feel the Lord calling us. Our incredible friends, Jordan and Luke allowed us to stay at their house while they were out of town. We got to spend a couple days with them and their precious little twin boys, Tate and Sawyer.

Enjoying our time in Hendersonville

 When we got back from Hendersonville, we watched out friends' kids. We went by a feed store on the way home and there were free kittens. I mean, we already had Baxter...and how to you say, "no" to this precious face!?

New Baby Kitty, Libby. Just 7 weeks old.

Not pictured is our other new animals. I know, we live on a very small farm. We now have 5 chickens too. We were given 3...thought one was a rooster so we bought 2 more ($5 each, chickens are cheap!) So, we have Martha, Ruth, Dorothy ("Dot"), Brie, and Bonnie (old country names). Well, this morning Dot who we were thinking was a rooster confirmed our belief...she is a HE. So in honor of our first rooster who Dustin let fly away (sad, sad story)..Zotavious. We know have Dotavious, the rooster.

 The first week of June my sister and bro-in-law came to visit us for a couple days. They left for the outer banks for the rest of the week and let us watch Abbagail and Ellie! We had such a blast!



Princess Night: Dress up, Paint Toe Nails, Watch Cinderella...what a night!

Train Ride at a park

When Kali and Josh got back from the Outer Banks, Dad came up from Hilton Head to meet at our house so Kali, Dad, the girls, and I could drive to PA to visit the family!

Gram was so excited to see the girls!

Siblings!

Cousins. Ellie is having the most fun!

The whole family!!

Cousins out to dinner

One of my best friends, Lauren, had baby Nicholas and I got to meet him!

Cousin Jordan's birthday party was a blast for Abbagail...blurry from the jumping!

We made it safely home! Ellie was so happy to be out of the car!

A week after I got back from PA, Dustin and I drove to Hilton Head for another preaching engagement at North Island Baptist Church. What an incredible job the Lord did through him! Hilton Head is now an area that we are praying about whether the Lord wants us there. North Island Baptist Church is a hurting church. We would love to be used to see the church revitalized. We got to talk with the elder of the church and he asked us to share our vision for the church during the chicken lunch after Dustin preached. Everyone was very excited. We haven't heard much now two months later...We'll keep you posted as we hear from the church.

Dustin was having more fun entertaining the kids than they were watching (notice Abbagail in the background not really paying attention!)

My Sandman!

Well, peer pressure...Ellie made me do it too!

Hilton Head, South Beach Marina

Back home it's been house projects and kayaking during a few weekends. We have been having a wonderful summer and pray that these next few weeks are as great...but slower. School starts on the 21st, but we are really excited about all the changes we have made to help our family run stress-free (well, less than before) and not be so chaotic with our schedules. We are excited and hopeful for all the Lord has planned.

Every year for our anniversary (which we're coming up on year SEVEN in a few months!) we give the new year a title. 2013 was dubbed: The Year of Anticipation. We are anticipating some exciting things. 

The only little fishies we were catching...pathetic. But, we had fun!

Have a wonderful rest of the summer! We'll keep you posted as things progress.