Where in the world is the Mauney family?

My sincere apologies if you now have the "Carmen SanDiego" song in your head.  Oh, you didn't?  Well, now you do.  You're welcome.  I guess you probably have to be around my age to even know what that is so some of you should consider yourselves lucky that it's not going to be stuck in your head for the rest of the day.  But anyhoo...

These past few weeks have been quite a whirlwind!  My poor blog has been neglected because we have not been in the same place for more than a week at a time.  Instead of doing an in-depth recap, here's a quick update in photos of the past few weeks:

At the beginning of the month, our friends from Crossroads blessed us with a going-away shower.  It was so nice for everyone to come together to bid us farewell... or to say "see you later" as I keep telling them!  Jake spent the entire evening "playing" carpet ball with "Grampa Larry" while Josh and I spent some time with the friends that we're going to miss so dearly (and already do).

To cap off our time in Small Town, Illinois, we celebrated Josh's ordination the night before we left.  It was an awesome night and such a moving ceremony.  Because we were sitting in the front row, and because I was on stage with him during the actual ordination, I unfortunately have no pictures.  So if any of you have photos from that evening I would love to have them!  The only photo that I do have is of our family that night... and it's blurry.  In fact, until about three days ago, every picture I took came out blurry.  I think someone might have had their grubby little paws on the lens... hmmm... wonder who that could have been.  So blurry or not, here it is anyway:

So on our anniversary, June 13th, we loaded the car and drove all night to get to Kentucky.  I had to work the next day so we wanted to make sure we got there by morning.  On a sidenote, two years before we had packed the car and drove to Illinois, so it was an appropriate way to celebrate I guess.  Until we sign a lease, which will probably be for a place starting in August, we are staying at my sister's house here.  I think my nesting is earning our keep as she is probably growing tired of going room by room with me as I clean out closets.  We (or should I say mostly Josh... I helped when I could between work and watching Jake) got a lot of ground-work stuff done such as setting up new phone numbers, securing a location for our first informational meeting, and finishing up our very first mailer.  We would have loved to start some other projects but midway through the week we got the news that my Nana had passed away.  It was somewhat expected and I know when the time came she was ready to go, but it was news that we were all sad to hear.  So after being in Kentucky for less than a week, we loaded up the car again and headed north to New York.  It was a low-key weekend with the viewing and funeral on Saturday, and the rest of the weekend spent up at aunts' houses cooking out and playing corn-hole.  The best part was getting Jake back together with his cousin, Adam, and watching them run around together.

Gramma, Aunt Angie, and the boys after the funeral

Hanging at Aunt Carol's house... SO relaxing!

Family game time

The boys and Aunt Carol... their traditional photo!

Even with the nature of the trip, however, we did manage to have some fun and got away for a day to visit West Point.  It's such a special place for our family as it's where my dad went to school, where my parents met and got married, and where I was born years later.  Josh and Michael had never been and it had been years since I last visited, so it was such a neat (not to mention gorgeous!) day.  It was also father's day, which was quite appropriate as my dad got to spend it in one of his favorite places with all three of his daughters... I don't think that has happened on father's day since we were in high school!  We went to church at the West Point Cathedral, which is where my parents got married, and then walked around the campus seeing the parade fields, monuments, and breathtaking views of the Hudson.  What an incredible place!  I have tons of pictures and could do a whole post on it, but I'll just pick a few:

The West Point Cathedral

Happy Father's Day!

The place is all began... almost 40 years later

Mr. Stud Muffin

Fort Putnam.  If you look closely you'll see helicopters flying overhead. 

Like I said, it was a great day!  Both of the little ones were tuckered out and took monster naps when we got home, which was quite nice as we had a cook-out with the family and got to relax.  We had originally planned on heading out that night, but decided to take it easy and wait.  It's an 11 hour drive and Aunt Angie joined us since her family had gone back a few days before.  With all of the activity from the past few days, Jake was a total angel and slept the majority of the way home.  I'm also a big advocate of our new DVD player, which was our anniversary gift to each other!  Ha!  With all of the traveling we've been doing, we decided it would be a good investment.

So currently we're back in Lexington... for now.  Josh has been contacting friends of my sisters, working on setting up lunches and dinners so that he can do some vision-casting, which is one of the things he does best.  Jake and I are headed back to the Midwest on Friday night for a few days to work on some things at the house and visit our respective doctors.  I am in the process of trying to find a doctor here, but as you can see, it's not like I've had a lot of free time to get everything settled.  Luckily it works out that he had to be back for one anyway, so I made mine for the next day.  We will be back for about a week and then will drive back here in time to help my sister, Mindy, and her family move into their new home on the 2nd.  They have been in Florida for the past ten years and recently got a job up in Cincinnati, which is about an hour and a half north of here.  My sisters and I will all live within driving distance of each other... talk about exciting!  Our next big thing, however, is our first informational meeting on July 8th.  Tomorrow we are going to pray over and mail out about 250 newsletter invites with faith that God will give us a good turnout.  If you want to pray for us in any way, that is probably the best way you can help.  Well that, and getting our house sold.  It's only been on the market for a few weeks and we've already had three families look at it, so it has been encouraging.  I know that either way we'll be just fine, but if it would we would be in such great shape financially moving forward.  We have prepared for it just in case we have it for awhile, but I do not look forward to having a mortgage and paying rent, so we're hoping someone comes along and falls in love with it the way we did.  

But anyway, that just about wraps up the current dose of crazy around here.  But don't worry, we're doing great, getting to know the area, and are really enjoying being house-guests to a wonderful family.  It already feels like home.  So even though my posts may be sparse over these next few weeks, I will try to check-in every now and again to keep you all updated.  It's all in the life of a church planter I guess!