Bermuda , Bahama, Come on pretty mama... part 1

So let's rewind to about 2 weeks before my last post.

When my husband and I graduated from seminary in May, we were so surprised when his parents offered to take us on a graduation trip to Bermuda. We said yes of course, and were whisked off to an island full of beauty and culture.

This post will be Bermuda in Pictures...(does anyone remember old slide reels? Pretend we're sitting in my living room with a sheet on the wall and I'm clicking a slide reel...it's much more nostalgic that way)

Dan and me about 30 seconds after we got to the hotel. It was BEAUTIFUL and made me want to buy a sailboat.

Sailboats everywhere...

More sailboats...

Dan and me swimming out to this massive rock. I am, in fact, wearing a swimsuit. 

The hotel's sister resort had an amazing beach with these cute waitresses serving you round the clock. Dark n Stormy at 11 AM? Don't mind if I do! 

This is a huge cannon in the quaint little city of St. George. St. George is the oldest settlement in Bermuda and the third successful British settlement in the Americas. It was first settled in 1692! 

Bermuda also played an important role securing America's independence: During the revolutionary war Bermudians stole much-needed gunpowder from a magazine which supplied neighbouring the forts protecting St. George's, and then smuggled it out of Tobacco Bay(over the hill from St. George's) to George Washington. Cool. huh? Thanks Wikipedia for the reminder...

This is a European-style cathedral that was never finished. It was near completion when the church members had a disagreement that was so disruptive that construction was stopped and this beautiful Cathedral was never finished. How's that for Christian love and brotherhood.....It's from the 1870s. 

We had to take a minute and read the Summit Daily News while we were there. The Summit Daily is from Summit County, CO, where our vacation home is located. We actually sent this picture in, and it was printed a few weeks ago.

Daredevils...D and his dad jumped off of these rocks, even though they were strictly instructed not to. We're glad they survived.

This little lagoon was possibly our favorite little spot on the island. The sand was pink and the water was warm. It was like something from a movie.

We had a great time...Stay tuned for part 2. More pics and stories to come! 

Happy Birthday, America

America has it's faults, but we sure are thankful for our country today.

We are spending it in Colorado with many of our family members. Us, my parents, Dan's parents and Dan's sister's family (minus her husband) have been having a fantastic time in Frisco, CO. It's a comfortable 75 degrees in the middle of the day...Florida we love you but you can't beat CO summertime.

I have some posts in the works, and will be posting more soon.

Graduates

We. Did. It. 

 Dan and me

These are some of Dan's good friends- they call themselves the Oviedo 7, even though there are 8 of them. Go figure. These men and their wives and children have been a blessing to us throughout the last 3 years. We are so thankful for our little RTS family. We're spreading out all across the world, (Florida, North Carolina, Japan, Bangaladesh, England) and I will miss these people dearly. 

 These are the 14 people that have walked this journey together. MAC 2012- I love them. They all have supported me and challenged me more than I would have ever dreamed, and it has been hard but wonderful. I will miss so many things about each of them as we all go our separate ways. 

2 of my besties! Elizabeth and Kim- We need to keep thirsty Thursdays going. Skype maybe? 

Dan and me with Dan's parents after the ceremony

Dan and me with my parents and brother, Neil after the ceremony

We are extremely thankful for our families and for their support and encouragement over the last 3 years. They have supported us emotionally and financially and through their prayers, and we could NOT have done this without them. We are SO blessed. 

Love this man! We were so blessed by being able to go through seminary together. Graduating together was such a unique experience, and I am so thankful that we are DONE! The Lord has been good to us even in the midst of incredible trials that we never would have expected. The last 6 months have been so, so hard and I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else but him. I am so proud of him, and he is going to be a great pastor. 

So the question on everyone's minds: What's next? We have a few exciting things in the works for the next few years. Dan has accepted a position as a church planting intern with our church, New City. Through his apprenticeship, he will be preparing to church plant sometime in the next few years. We have a pretty grueling assessment to get through in July before that can happen; please be in prayer for us! 

I will be working June-August at RTS filling in for our clinic director while she is on maternity leave. After August, only the Lord knows. I have some options for starting a priviate practice, but Dan and I have both decided that some time off would do my heart and my soul good. I'm planning to spend a lot of time at the beach decompressing from the last two years and the intense last 6 months. 

I'm also planning to spend LOTS of time in the kitchen experimenting with sprouting, fermenting, tincture making, etc. It will all be documented here on OCF, so buckle up!

I'm going to get back into blogging soon...there's OH so many things I want to write about, but can't do until graduation! It is only 10 days away!

Until then-- check out this AWESOME giveaway over at Kelly the Kitchen Kop. You could win your very own Berkey Water Filter!

Good luck!

No Debate? Hardly.

As I was driving to work a few weeks ago, I saw this advertisement for TG Lee Tru Moo Chocolate Milk on the truck in front of me. I laughed out loud.

In fact, a Harvard Law Society debate focused on milk just a few months ago. At the debate. Sally Fallon, author of  Nourishing Traditions, (our favorite cookbook and textbook for Real Food) and David Gumpert (“The Raw Milk Revolution’’) went toe to toe with the Minnesota state dairy inspector Dr. Heidi Kassenborg and food safety attorney Fred Pritzker. You can watch the debate on YouTube from the Harvard Law Society link above. The debate is not only super informative, but it is entertaining as well. You can get your debate fix here as we wait for more Presidential election debates to start.

Here at OCF we like our milk raw. We purchase it from the back of a truck from a man in a parking lot.

Why?* Pasteurization denatures the structures of the proteins in milk, and some literature suggests that pasteurization destroys the natural Vitamins A, B, C and calcium.  In fact, the new ultrapasteurized organic raw milk is actually shelf stable, and can promote milk allergies if your gut bacteria are not in great shape. Furthermore, homogenization renders the fat particles so small that they can actually pass through the walls of the intestines making milk allergies and eczema worse. There are some suggestions that it promotes heart disease. There is SO much more to the raw milk vs. pasteurized milk debate.  Click here for more info.

Our family drinks raw milk or no milk at all. We will as long as we can buy it in the state of Florida. If it becomes illegal anytime in the near future in our state, we're buying a cow. It's that important.

Check here to explore the laws regarding raw milk for your state...Don't even get me started on government intrusion on food choices. Maybe that will be a post for another day.

*Don't take my word for it and start drinking milk from just any random guy you meet in a parking lot who happens to be selling raw milk. I'm not a doctor- and I'm not advising that everyone go out and drink raw milk. Do your research, and do what you think is best for you and your family.

When A Heart Breaks

When a Heart Breaks- Ben Rector

Woke up this morning

And I heard the news

I know the pain of a heartbreak

I don’t have answers 

And neither do you

I know the pain of a heartbreak

This isn’t easy

This isn’t clear

And you don’t need Jesus

Til you’re here

Then confusion and the doubts you had

Up and walk away

They walk away

When a heart breaks

I heard the doctor

But what did he say

I knew I was fine about this time yesterday

I don’t need answers

I just need some peace

I just need someone who could help me get some sleep

Who could help me get some sleep

This isn’t easy

This isn’t clear

And you don’t need Jesus

Til you’re here

Then confusion and the doubts you had

Up and walk away

They walk away

When a heart breaks

This isn’t easy

This isn’t clear

And you don’t need Jesus

Til you’re here

Then confusion and the doubts you had

Up and walk away

They walk away

When a heart breaks

Funny that the first time I heard this song, I thought, "Wow...it sounds like Ben Rector had a miscarriage." 

Ben rector didn't*, but I did. 

And though our hearts are broken, we both cherish the 10 weeks we had with that little one growing inside me. We had so much fun telling our families and celebrating Christmas. We dreamt about Christmas 2013, which would have been our baby's first Christmas. December 30 all of our dreams were crushed when we learned that our baby did not have a heartbeat. Three agonizing weeks later, my pregnancy finally came to an excruciating end. A friend of mine said that the moment that you decide to have children your heart is forever changed. My heart is forever changed because of the life and death of our first child.  

The Lord has been so near to us during this time. I have hardly been able to find the words to pray to move toward him, but the beauty of the gospel isn't that I move toward him, it's that he moves toward me in my brokenness. In times when my heart couldn't even form the words, I been lifted by those in my community who have ceaselessly prayed for us. I haven't spent much time in the word in the last few months, but have been more honest and closer to the Lord than I have ever felt.  

 For some reason, God saw fit to have our baby bypass this broken world all together and bring it straight to Heaven. I long for the New Heavens and New Earth where someday I will hopefully meet our child there. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  

*Ben Rector is married...so his wife might have ha a miscarriage. Or...that song could totally not be about miscarriage at all. For me though, it is.  

Crunchy

Here we are...One Crunchy Family*. 

We're crunchy because we do things a little different around Casa de Crunch. 

Hamburger Helper? Wheat Thins? Diet Soda? Basically anything that comes in a box? Not in our kitchen. Homemade yogurt? Soaked Granola? Raw milk? Absolutely. We make a lot of things from scratch, including face wash and deodorant. We question a lot of conventional medicine. We're generally...different. There are so many reasons for this; we'll get into that later. 

Not only are we crunchy in the "natural, hippie" sense of the word. Our lives are full of Crunch lately. A quick thesaurus search on the word crunch made that pretty clear to us! Some of the words that appeared were: Test, tight spot, economic squeeze, difficult, crux, moment of truth, pivotal moment, decisive moment. We know though, that every crunch makes our love and our faith stronger. We hope that chronicling every crunchy moment here on OCF, we'll be able to look back and see how much the Lord has truly stretched and blessed us along the way. 

We love Jesus like crazy, but only because he loves us. We find all that we need and all that we are in Him. I'm a counselor; hubby's a pastor, (we know...our future kids are going to need some serious therapy). We're graduating from seminary in May, and can not wait to see where our lives take us after graduation. 

*Writing a first blog post is incredibly anxiety producing. You can only have your "first time" once, ya know.