Good things come to those who wait.

  A lot of good things have happened to our family the past couple of months. I finally have a couple minutes to sit down and tell you all about them.
  First, Paul got a new job. This week was his 4th week. He works for a company called Nackard. They distribute Pepsi products along with wine and beer. Paul is a salesman for the wine and beer side of the company. This was a pretty huge promotion for him so we were very excited. He is a little overwhelmed by all of the new things he has to learn but he is doing great. This job opportunity is something we have been praying for for a couple years.
  Next on our list is we moved. We are renting a condo and we love it. Its so much bigger than our apartment was and SO much nicer. We are really fortunate the people who lived here before us thought of us when they were moving out. We moved about 3 weeks ago now and we have loved every minute of it. We are completely done unpacking and decorating. Its so nice to come home from a long day of work to such a nice place. We feel really lucky to live here.
  Ivan is growing and talking and doing great. He is a little gremlin of course. He is 20 months now and I cant keep up with him most of the time. He is a lot of fun though. He LOVES anything that has to do with Elmo. He is a little parate. He tries to say everything that we say. I have taught him that girls have cooties so dont kiss them unless its me. Tonight when Paul gave him a kiss he said, "Icky Kaka". So it looks like I will have to help him with the different between daddy and girls. He is a little ball of energy but we love him. And this now leads to our last piece of news. Ivan is soon to be a big brother! We are going on 14 weeks pregnant on Sunday. I cant tell you how excited we are. Our due date is April 17. Some of you know that we actually miscarried Easter weekend this year which was of course devistating. So we feel so blessed and excited to be at 14 weeks and doing so well. I feel aweful on a daily basis which is good because that means hormones are doing what they should but bad because I have no energy. But in the end it will all be worth it.
  So that is all there is. Lots of good stuff. For those of you who continue to pray for us thanks so much and for all of you Oregonians we miss you!!!!!
 

The world keeps spinning...

Well, in case you were wondering, yes we still exsist. Its been super long since we have updated our blog. Life is just going and going and going.
Whats new with the Sherman's you may ask?...wells lost of things.
Ivan is HUGE. He is talking (in another language) but non the less talking. He can say lots of words. He is healthy and continueing to grow. Currently his favorite thing to do is jump off the sofa. He is a little dare devil. We love him though. We are trying to have another baby and I know he will make an amazing big brother when the time is right.
Paul and I recently made a very hard decision to step down from youth ministry. There are lots and lots of reasons why. Some good and some bad. We love the students SO much so this was a very hard decision but it was one that had to be made. Now we have more time to focus on family.
Both Paul and I are working very hard. Its seems like all we do is work sometimes. But thats what pays the bills.
Here in Show Low AZ we have been experianceing what the locals call 'monsoon season'. Its pretty amazing. Its just down poors super hard and there is really loud thunder. Power goes out and buildings shake. Its awesome. We love the storms.
We will prayerfully be moving into an amazing townhome in October. We absolutly love this place and hope and pray our friends that live there now get there home loan approved so everything works out. We would have SO much more room.
Well I think that pretty much covers the Sherman's update. I will try to get on more often. :)

A new home...

 Well, we are settleing into AZ quite nicely. Actually, to be quite honest we are loving it here. Here are some updates on the Sherman fam.

 We are attending Calvary Baptist church. We became members about 2 weeks ago. Paul is involved in the music ministry for main church and for the youth group. He is really enjoying that. I am helping with the youth group as well. We are really enjoying serving the Lord in this area. The kids are great. I am working on getting to know some of the girls and paul likewise with the boys. The other co leaders are AWESOME! We are having a lot of fun. This church is amazing. We have never experiance a church that is like a true family. People are really close and the Pastor knows every body and has made an effort to spend time with everyone. Its pretty amazing what God is doing in the church and in all of our lives.

We have made some new friends of course. Its so nice having people to hang out with. Its like we have all been friends forever. Although we miss our friends from Oregon very much we are fitting in quite nicely here.

We recently (on Monday) moved into our own place. We spent all week unpacking and decorating. We are exhausted from it all. We love being on our own again though. Its nice to have all of our own stuff out again.

We are thankful to the Lord for all of these blessing and now we are hoping to add one more to the Sherman family soon. We are trying hard but we know the Lord has his perfect timing. Pray that we will continue to serve Him and trust Him and that He will use us and work through us.

We love all you Oregonians and miss you!!!

It's a zoo out there!

Its been a little while since I have been on here to update everyone. We have had some exciting things happen.

Last week on Monday we went to the Phoenix Zoo! It was the most amazing zoo ever. We got to feed giraffe and pet sting ray. So fun. Ivan really loved it to. He got to run around and chase birds and squirrels.

Ivan has finally completely adjusted to being in a new place. He is now only taking one 2 hour nap a day. He goes to bed at 8 and sleeps until about 7 ish A.M. He is happy and growing. I cant believe he will be a year old on the 25th! He is growing up way to fast!
I will be turning 23 on Tuesday! Yay! I love birthdays! We plan on going back to Phoenix to the Zoo safari...I guess its a little bit different then the actual Zoo. So for Ivan and my birthday that's the plan.
Paul and I are both employed officially. Praise God! Paul starts on Monday. He will be working for Coke. I start the 21st and I will be working for Chase Bank. We are so excited the Lord has blessed us with great jobs in such a short amount of time. He has a plan for us and he is providing every open door needed.
We met with the pastor of the church we are attending. We wanted to know how to get plugged in and involved in different ministries. We know God has us in this little pow dunk town for a reason. Now we are praying and being pro-active to figure it out. It turns out there is a ready big need on worship team (which is great for Paul). And there is a huge need for female leadership with the high schoolers (which is great for me). Also, there is a HUGE need for some sort of young married couples group or Bible study. They have Bible studies for the oldies and the yougies but nothing really for in between. So we are praying and asking God to show us were he wants us to serve. I know my pray is just "Use me Lord". I don't really care where he puts me I just want him to use me. At this particular church we do have to become members before serving in a ministry. Thus, we are working on that. We are so excited to be in a new place with new opportunities to serve the Lord. Its amazing what he is already doing in our lives.

I have recently taken up crafting. When I first decided to start crafting I obviously went on line to try and find a craft store. Much to my dismay craft stores don't exist in this area! I was freaking out. Finally I found a scrap booking store a couple of towns over. I had to drive 45 minutes to get there but it was so worth it. This place was so stinking cool. Its a small family owned business. The girl has collected all of this awesome antique stuff and she has tons and tons of paper and stickers and buttons and whatever else you might want. Here are a couple pictures of some candles I decorated.

Well, I think that is everything for now. We love and miss all you Oregonians!

The things we have been up to...

This last week has been lots of fun. We have been exploring town and trying to get to know the area. We went swimming at the local pool on Thursday. Ivan loved it! He is growing SO much. He is really trying to talk more. He repeats (in syllable form) everything we say. So fun! He is teething like crazy. He recently got his 5th tooth in! He is also finally sleeping through the night again. It took a couple weeks for him to get used to a new place but he has finally done it. This obviously means we get more sleep and we arent so cranky. :)

We also visited the Petrified Forest. It was beautiful!

This is Paul and Ivan in front of the base of  petrified tree.

This gives you an idea of how beautiful the inside of a petrified tree is. It turns into agats and crystals. Pretty amazing.

All three of us infront of the Painted Desert.

This is just a giant petrified log.

As you can see its pretty amazing. If you ever happen to be in AZ road tripping it I recommend going to the petrified forest.

On Saturday we went to Hon-Dah. Its an indian reservation. They had something they call Winterfest going on. Basically they get huskies together and do dog sled races. They then do a do show, dog weight pull and some ice carving.

This guy was pretty crazy.

He made a yeti.

He then went on to make a dog sled with a little eskimo.

This is just a family picture right after the winterfest.

Come Saturday night it was Ivan's bath time. Always a fun way to end the day.

And that ends our third week in AZ. Monday we will be going to the Pheonix Zoo! I am so excited. Obvisouly there will be pictures to come.
We love and miss everyone. Have a great week!

Wind turbines and first haircuts....

Paul and I finished our lego wind turbine last night!!!! It took us three days!

This turbine had 722 legos we had to put together! Lots of fun.

Today Ivan had his first hair cut.

He looks like a little man now!

We also went for a long walk and tried to ware Ivan out for his afternoon nap.

He loves his shadow!


Paul and I started a work out regime this morning. Its going to be hard. We have to whip each other into shape. :)
I also received a call from one of the companies I applied for! Yippee! I will be scheduled for an interview sometime next week.

Job hunt!

Yesterday marked our first official day of job hunting! Yikes. I have applied at a few banks and a couple county jobs. Paul applied at coke and Pepsi and hopes to do some part time firefighter volunteer work.
We went into Show Low today to get out of the house and turn in some resumes. We are making dinner tonight for John and Ruth (Paul's parents). We will be making Jena Walkers famous lasagna! I am so excited. I hope to make it as well as Jena. :)
We are currently working on putting together a huge lego wind turbine. I will post pictures on facebook once we are done.
We love everyone and miss you all!

Over 1000 miles later here we are...

After three days and two nights of travel we are so excited to be here in Arizona. It was a very long drive, but it had its highlights.
Day 1: Friday morning we wanted to leave by 8:00...that didn't happen by a long shot. But the Lord had a reason for us to be leaving late. We didn't actually end up leaving until 10:30. Thankfully so because Larry Elliot dropped by to pray for us around 10:00. On top of that as Paul and his dad were trying to hitch up our Subaru this random guy who works for U-haul was there to help. If he hadn't been there I don't know if our car would have made it to AZ in one piece. So after all of this excitement we hit the road. Approximately 12 hours later we made it to Reno Nevada. Going over the pass was a breeze. No snow or ice on the roads at all! Praise God. Friday night we stayed at Paul's sisters house in Reno. We hadn't seen Nichole (Paul's sister) since our wedding 2.5 years ago. She got to meet Ivan for the first time and we got to meet her boyfriend Vern and there crazy dog Tucker. After visiting for awhile we all hit the sack.
Day 2: We woke up and ate a yummy breakfast that Nichole and Vern prepared for us. We hit the road around 9. About an hour later we stopped in Fallon Nevada. This is the town that Paul grew up in. We met up with his best friend Daniel and hung out for about an hour. Paul really enjoyed seeing Daniel. We also hadn't seen him since our wedding. In fact Daniel wrote and played the song I walked down the isle to. Around 8 we stopped in Las Vegas for the night. We ordered room service for dinner. I would not recommend that to anyone. We were in the process of calling in our order and literally everything we chose off the menu they didn't serve anymore! Update you menu! An hour later our food finally got there and it was okay...
Day 3: We hit the road around 8. We stopped a couple times. We were all pretty anxious to get home so we made the trip as short as possible. We got to our new home around 4. Nothing to exciting happened on day three.

In the end it was a good drive. Ivan did well. One of us was always sitting in the back with him to feed him or play with him. He really didn't fuss much at all. He did learn a new word though...He has learned how to say NO back to us when we discipline him. Can you believe it? Now we have to figure out how to make a 10 month old stop talking back.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us. We are getting all settled in to our new home. Today we worked on unpacking all day. I will be posting pictures of our drive on facebook sometime tomorrow.
We love and miss everyone!!

Packing, packing, packing...

Today begins our packing extravaganza! We have boxes everywere, Ivan is running around getting into everything, and we have no food in our apartment...Im thinking we are ready for the week to be over already.