virginia is for lovers

this weekend was exactly what i needed.

it was awesome walking in the house and watching my mother absolutely flip out when she saw me. she was so excited, she hung up on the person she was on the phone with. she got her wish- all of her kids (plus Tim) home for mother's day.

tim and i signed a lease for our new apartment! i'll post pictures later. i love the place, and we're going to be living in the building next to nick & lindsay (friends from home getting married this summer, also) so it's going to be a blast. it worked out great that i went home, since we couldn't get the apartment unless i was there. it was a little bit surreal to walk around an empty apartment and realize that it would be our first home.

dad got a nice sized gift card from work to a fancy steak place in downtown Virginia Beach, so to celebrate Mom's birthday, Mother's Day, and my parents' 25th wedding anniversary (yeah, Mom's got it real good this time of year), we all got dressed up and had a night on the town. we did the whole thing...appetizers, steaks, desserts...everything. this restaurant has the best steak i've had in my entire life. i'm not going to mention the fact that the average entree was $40-50. we had a great time, on someone else's dime, of course! ;)

church today was very encouraging, as well. Northside's congregational vote for my call into ministry is next week, so there were a lot of people coming up to introduce themselves to Tim and I. it was very encouraging to have so many people express how excited they are of us coming back to Northside, friends and strangers alike. it's amazing how much peace we feel about this whole thing, and how it all just fell into place in a matter of a month's time! God is good.

all in all, it was hard to leave. it was so much fun being home with the entire family at once, celebrating so many fun things. only five more weeks and i'll have it all back! :)