House Updates Have Begun- Two Rooms Done!

Here are the promised house updates! We're still working on several rooms, but we have felt a sense of accomplishment this past week as we can now count the remaining big projects on one hand. We'll begin with the rooms that took the least amount of work and have changed the least. Mostly because they're the only rooms that are actually finished...

Bathroom: This was the room that we had absolutely no recollection of what it looked like until we moved in. I wasn't sure what I thought about the tile at first, but it has grown on me. It reminds me of Seville every time I walk in (minus the bidet). All we had to do for the bathroom was buy a shower curtain, shower hooks, and a shower rug, and we were set to go!
Before:

After:


Laundry Room: This is technically a little cubby in our basement, but I refer to it as the laundry room. We've tried making it feel homey by adding the carpet that we removed from upstairs. It was quite a project to get our new washer and dryer down the stairs. When the Sears men came to deliver them, they wouldn't fit down the stairs. They left with our washer and dryer and told us we needed to go to Sears and find a washer and dryer that were one inch smaller. We went to Sears, but they only had one washer and two dryers that were the right size. However none of them were the same brand, they were not high efficiency or front loaders, and they were more expensive than the ones we already had! (We got a great Memorial Day sale on ours.) So we decided to tear off the trim going down our basement stairs and saw off an overhanging wall, and called Sears to bring back our washer and dryer! It was a VERY close call, but they made it down the stairs. At one point, the man said it was stuck and wasn't going to fit, but with a little maneuvering, they made it down. Whew!
Before:

After:


More to come soon!

Howdy from AK Rowdy

We're back! After a month and a half without internet, we are finally connected to the Cyber World again. A lot has happened since our last blog update. We have been working on lots of house projects since we moved in, and are still in the process. Our house is starting to feel like home and we are settling into Akron (AK Rowdy). Josh has begun working as the youth director at Goss and is really enjoying it. Also, I accepted a teaching position last week at CVCA (Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy), a private Christian college-prep school about 25 minutes from our house. I will be teaching 8th and 9th grade English, and I am really excited. However, I am not excited that I start working August 10 so my summer is coming to an end.

Josh and I also celebrated our second anniversary this week! Josh surprised me with a "Welcome to Akron" scavenger hunt and took me to some popular Akron sites.

We began the day with Toy Story 3 in 3-D. (Okay, maybe this isn't a popular Akron site, but we had been wanting to see it.)


Next we headed to the gorge for some hiking, after stopping for a shake at Swenson's Drive-in (our favorite Akron restaurant).

After our hike, we had dinner at The Spaghetti Warehouse. I asked if we could sit in the trolley, and we had it all to ourselves! Then we went to see an Akron Aeros game. Josh was excited because Cabrera and Choo (Cleveland Indians players) were playing with the Aeros this week while they were injured. And we had dessert at the game, Dip n Dots for me and a $1 hot dog for Josh.


After the game, we came home and watched our wedding DVDs. It was a great date day to celebrate two wonderful years together.

Stay tuned for house updates!

Come Roam Through Our Home!

We finally closed on our house this past weekend! We got our keys on Saturday and then spent the weekend working on the house. A few of the rooms were new surprises, as we had only been in the house about 15 minutes with our realtor and forgot what a lot of the house looked like. We are excited to begin the adventures of home owning!

Allow me to take you on a virtual tour...

We're excited to be new home owners!

Kitchen

Dining Room

Living Room

Master Bedroom

Guest Room

This is the back of the house. We are looking forward to having some cookouts on our deck and patio. There's also a pool in the backyard, but we are removing it so we can have some grass and a garden.

Josh and my project for the weekend was the loft area. As you can tell, a young girl and her mom lived at this house. For some reason, Josh wanted to remove the stickers and repaint. We primed the loft so it will be ready to paint next time we're there.

Before:



After:

We were very blessed to have both of our families come help us start the house projects. They scraped off wallpaper, painted, spackled, cleaned, and finished some little projects around the house.

Joanna washing the windows in the living room. We got all of the wallpaper scraped off of the walls in the living room and upstairs hallway.

Ben hard at work :-)

We will post more before and after pictures once we finish our projects. We're planning to spend a week painting and fixing up the house to make it our own and then moving all of our stuff from Huntington. We have two and a half weeks of work left in Huntington, and then we will be heading back to our house to begin life together in Akron!

This girl & this guy = leaving the Indiana sky.

This blog post (according to many of our friends) is long overdue. As I sit down thinking about what I need to update the cyberworld on, it is a bit overwhelming. Perhaps this is why I keep putting off an update. Change is coming for sure for the Millers, and it is exciting, nerve-racking, stress-relieving, stressful, and boom-shacka-lacka-tastic all at the same time.

Early on this year, I applied to be the youth director at Goss Memorial Church in Akron Ohio. This church also happens to be the church that I grew up in. After quietly going through the process, I was offered the job, and Kristi and I decided to take it! We spent a great deal of time thinking about this decision and thought that the move would be good for us. I am very much looking forward to working in a church, and Kristi and I are also looking forward to being able to spend more of life together.

So with this new job, obviously comes a move to Akron. We are currently in our last month in Huntington, which is actually very strange to type. We are finishing out the school year in Huntington, and then will be moving the first couple weeks of June, and I start at Goss on June 20th.

Along with moving, we have decided to purchase a home! It has been a very stressful process buying a home from out of state, but we are in contract, in the process of acquiring a mortgage, and have a tentative closing date of May 14th on a house. This house, which will soon be our home, is only a block and a half away from Goss, as location was the top priority in our house search. I think I have faxed a total of 20 sequoia trees so far during this process, and actually even faxed in our original contract from Vegas.

It has been a very busy month for us, and with all the transition coming ahead, we are sure that we have a couple busy months ahead of us. We are not looking forward to leaving our friends and connections in Huntington, but we are excited for this new adventure.

When you pray, please pray for us as we are transitioning out of Huntington and into Akron. Pray that the great things that God is doing at Huntington North and the Boys and Girls Club would continue, and that we would be prepared to join His work in Akron. Pray for open and closed doors with Kristi's job search. Pray for me as I will be spiritually leading teenagers.

Oh, and if any of you would like to meet LeBron, I'm sure I can arrange it. He will pretty much be our neighbor.

Loving the Snow Days, but Ready for Some Sun Rays

Well, winter in the Midwest means lots of cold weather, hot chocolate, and my personal favorite, snow days! The first thing I have done every morning since December 1st (after pressing snooze a few times) is check for school delays and closings. And I love when "Huntington County Schools" pops up and I get to crawl back in bed. I've had five snow days so far, which unfortunately means I am now teaching into June, but it has been fun while it lasted! We've also had several relaxing weekends in a row, which does not happen very often. It has been the longest streak of free weekends in a row since we have been married, and it has been wonderful. We're starting to get cabin fever after being stuck inside for so long, but have enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan (our record is twelve games in one day- don't judge us), trying some new dinner and bread recipes, starting our vacation scrapbook, intramural soccer for Josh, and sledding (or Josh rolling down the hill in a tarp). We also got to go to a Derek Webb concert at our church this weekend, which was a-mazing.

Overall, it has been a beautifully boring month for us. We have enjoyed time at home, while at the same time are looking forward to our next adventure and some sun rays.

Spending our snow day sledding with some of Josh's co-workers


We just had to include these pictures of our nephew, Elijah, These are his 9 month pictures. We really miss seeing him through each little phase that he goes through. Isn't he adorable?