Offically the Karhoffs!

I'm sitting here enjoying the beautiful Wyndham Sugar Bay, sipping on my Diet Coke with Lime next to my HUSBAND!!  Its been a while but I think most of you know whats been going on.  We have officially been Mr. and Mrs. for 8 days and have loved every moment of it.  Our wedding was perfect!  I have no idea how it got this way but we literally had everything we wanted!  I'm so excited to see the pictures!  If you want a little sneak peak, my uncle has posted a few on his blog: kellykerr.me.  Lets skip to whats really exciting for now.  We are in ST. THOMAS!!!!!  Unfortunately tomorrow is our last day, but it has been the best trip!  We've sat by the pool, ate awesome food, ventured into down town to get some deals on a necklace for me and a watch for Geoff, even Roscoe got something! We SNUBAed and petted sharks and star fish and watched the waves crash in our feet.  Tomorrow we are, well Geoff is going golfing and I'm going along to catch some supposedly fantastic views!  I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm kind of excited to get up at 5am our time 6am STT time!  I'll leave you all with a few pictures for now.  Of course more to come when we get home.  We should be back state side Tuesday evening, pretty late.  Then back to JOMO on Wednesday morning!  Can't wait to share our stories with everyone!!

On the plane when we landed in St. Thomas

At the pool, in the process of getting burnt

Downtown on the water front! 

Geoff petting a nurse shark!

Oh, ok. 

Us after we SNUBAed

Geoff said its time to update our Blog.... (I can't think of a good title!)

Its amazing how time flies.  It seems like it was just yesterday Geoff and I met, Graduated from High School, went off to college, the proposal, and I started student teaching.  Here we are 41 days from the wedding, my last day of student teaching was Friday and now I graduate from Pitt in just 5 days!!!  Summer is nearly here and with that means our lives get busier and busier.  

This weekend we got to celebrate our Moms.  Yesterday Geoff worked so very hard to clean up the outside of his parents house for a Mother's Day surprise.  He cleaned the siding and replaced some missing pieces from a wind storm a few years ago.  I have to say, the house looks great!  I am so lucky to have him and know that someday when we have a house, ours will look just as nice!  We also went shopping on Friday for some awesome picture frames for our moms.  Today we got to go to church with my mom and then took both of our moms to Grove for some catfish at Catfish John's.  We ended the day with a nice nap and just some relaxing.  I absolutely love weekends like this!

 There is also some exciting news going on with my job situation.  Starting Tuesday I will be subbing middle school choir in the mornings till the end school.  Its so crazy to think that I'm done student teaching and literally graduation is just days away!  I'm excited to actually get to do some "real" teaching on my own.  Well as much teaching as you can get done as a sub during the last month of school. 

Its been busy for the both of us lately but we are going to try to do a better job of updating more!  Until next time!

Earth Day/Easter Eggstravaganza!

Hello folks!  What a busy week we've had.  As of last Tuesday when Geoff talked to Louie (the district boss) its officially official that we will be moving to Lincoln, NE on July 9th!  I cannot stress how truly blessed we are.  Now people, start praying that I will be able to find a job!! 

My last day for the week was Thursday.  With Mom still recovering from her hospital visit with a "nasty" UTI and kidney stones, she was pretty pooped that evening.  I decided that I was going to tackle dinner all by my self!  Geoff had requested enchiladas so I went shopping for supplies and created a pretty gosh darn good meal of beef enchiladas, rice and beans , if I do say so myself.   So we may not starve after all when we are on our own.  That evening Joanna, Darren's fiance, stayed with us on her way to meet her parents in St. Louis for Easter.  Even though it was a short visit, it is always so nice to spend time with her.  I'm so glad she is going to be apart of our crazy family. 

Friday was Earth Day and in the Kerr family its a BIG deal.  Dad had several local TV interview spots to promote the big Earth Day activities at the scrap yard.  He is like the Santa Clause of Earth Day!  He works the hardest one day a year, rewarding all the good little boys and girls that recycle with free t-shirts, hats and hot dogs!  Although he worked hard all day, when he got home all 5 of us loaded up the Freestyle and headed to Ada for Easter. 

It has been years since we have been able to spend Easter with our immediate family due to church commitments, but since this year we didn't have any, we got to go!  It was great to spend time with everyone, but as usual it was never long enough.  Luckily we will see them in a few short weeks for mine and Hannah's graduation and then a few weeks after that for the Wedding!! 

This past week has definitely been jam packed full of fun and this week is no exception.  All of my major projects for student teaching are due on Thursday and I am getting observed twice this week by my advisers.  Its hard to think that my student teaching experience is quickly coming to an end.  Only one more Monday left for me!  I'm ready for summer and to start getting tan for the wedding.  I think I've procrastinated enough, back to my Teacher Work Sample! 

Here are a few pictures from this weekend for you to enjoy!

Roscoe sporting his CMC recycling hat!  

Geoff and I on this rainy Easter at my Grammy and Grangrad's House

We're Moving!

Thats right folks, you read it correctly.  Geoff and I are moving to Lincoln, Nebraska in July!  Since Geoff has been working at CED he has really enjoyed it and has decided to enter the management training program.  After completely destroying the entrance tests (I've got quite the smarty pants on my hands) he was offered to enter the program at the Lincoln, NE store location.  Two weeks ago when Geoff asked me what I thought about this I was really leery, in fact I kind of thought it was crazy.  Me a southern girl, moving to the land of corn huskers?  I love my fried chicken and time by the pool to be that far north, and I couldn't really form an opinion about Lincoln because I had never been there.  So after doing about two weeks worth of research we headed up there this weekend to check out the store and to discover Lincoln in person.  At this point I was almost 95% sure we could do this, I just needed to go there first. 

We arrived in Lincoln Friday afternoon.  Geoff went to the store (or as CED calls it the PC or Profit Center) to meet with the manager and the rest of the staff.  I decided to chill out and watched a really good Lifetime Movie back at the hotel.  When we got there, it was SNOWING!! Yes snow in late April, yuck.  After turning on the head and adding some layers we met Bryce (the manager) and his family for dinner at Fireworks, a wood fire grill restaurant.  Then we drove around and decided we better walk off dinner at one of the malls in town.  The more we drove around and saw the more we liked it. Well everything but the snow. 

On Saturday we woke up and Bryce picked us up at the hotel to give us a tour of the town and took us to lunch at a really fantastic pizza place, I think it was called The Isle.  Even though Lincoln is a rather large city and the capitol of Nebraska it doesn't feel huge.  There aren't any major freeways and for the most part the streets are no more than four lanes and are pretty easy to navigate.  The most exciting thing happening this weekend in Lincoln was the University of Nebraska spring football game.  Let me tell you, these people LOVE their football, especially Corn Husker Football, much to Geoff's dismay.  The town was pack to the max with Red and White and Nebraska stuff everywhere!  That might take a bit to get used to.  After lunch Geoff and I ventured out on our own.  We knew we wanted to check out a few apartment complexes we had seen online to at least narrow down our search.  We first went to a complex that was brand new and was really, really nice.  Unfortunately it was nice enough for our taste, but too nice for our budget.  So on we went to stop number two.  This complex was older but still pretty nice.  It had a dog park so we knew we had to see it for Roscoe's sake.  This apartment was a bit too much like dorm life for our tastes so on to the next place. 

We made our way out to the north end of town to visit The Links.  This is a chain of apartments based out of Fayettville.  Geoff's dad had an apartment at their Bentonville location when he was managing the CED there.  Geoff knew that it was built on a golf course, had a swimming pool and tanning beds and a fitness center and pretty much everything we could ever want.  Lucky for us they would allow our 45 lb basset hound to be waved of the 15 lb pet limit, so off we went in the golf cart around the complex to see our options.  After viewing their floor plans we decided we liked the two bedroom, two bath model. And lucky for us it was in our price range!  Pretty soon we found our selves applying for an apartment and putting down a deposit. Geoff had told me that we weren't going to decided on an apartment and put down a deposit until later, but we both commented on that it just felt "right."  They would even hold an apartment on the first floor facing the golf course for us until July!  And this evening we received a phone call saying we are approved and will be living at the Links come July 9th!! Praise God!!  Here is there web site: The Links.

After driving around some more and checking out a few shopping centers, we had really started to fall in love with Lincoln.  There is so much to do there!  Every one is really active.  All over town people were running or biking or walking their dogs on the city trails, fishing at the lakes, visiting the brand new penguins at the zoo or out shopping.  That evening we went downtown, amongst the Corn Husker fans, to the Haymarket District for dinner at Lazlo's, which was fantastic!  Then it was back to the hotel.  I was exhausted and I know Geoff was too plus we had to get up in the morning to drive the 6 hours back to Joplin. 

Overall this was a fantastic weekend.  I know this is where God wants us.  He has opened doors that we never thought imaginable in the past two weeks.  Its been fast and frantic but its also been easy and stress free.  As Geoff said this evening, "its got to be a God thing."  It feels so right.  Although we would have had a happy life in Eldo, we wouldn't be living at the potential God has set for us.  We had boxed God up and set him on a shelf.  What would the world be like if more and more people didn't place limits on God's amazing grazce, mercy and love?  I am so excited to see what He has in store for us next! 

The only question now is will we be Lincolneers, Lincolnites, Lincolners, Lincolnians...? 

Its only the begining...

I have kind of been interested in blogging for quite a while.  I read a few blogs and knew I eventually wanted to start a blog of my own.  And considering the past events I think now is the perfect time to start.  Just to catch everyone up Geoff and I got engaged on March 13, 2010 in Holly, CO.  We are getting married on June 18 (62 days!!) at First United Methodist Church in Joplin.  Until recently, we thought we would be living in El Dorado Springs, Mo with Geoff and I both working for the School.  We even had a cute little house we were renting and would be starting our newlywed lives in.  Well in January that ALL changed.  Due to circumstances really beyond our control, Geoff resigned from his job, moved back home to Joplin and started working for Consolidated Electric Distributors.  This meant that we both were living at home with our parents and didn't have a place to live once we got married.  And to top it all of, due to some personal issues we were churchless and pastorless as well!  It was really rough for a while.  We are both planners and thought we had it all figured out, but God had different plans.  So much has changed in just a few short months.  It took God taking us to rock bottom, for us to be out of control, to realize that we had put limits on what we were allowing him to do in our lives.  I've always said I will never put God in a box, but I did!  How shameful I am of this.  Through our journey, and trust me He is not even close to being done, we are realizing just how much better He had for us.  Someone recently asked us where we would see our selves in 5 years and we just laughed.  How do we know?  If you would have asked us the same thing two months ago our answer would be worlds different from today's answer.  So here we go, the beginning of our blog.  So many exciting things are happening, just stay tuned!