I'll Be Home for Christmas

One of the nice things about ending up back in Binghamton, is that even though many of my friends have moved out of state - their parents still live in Binghamton, so they have a reason to come back every once in a while!

Two friends from forever were in town this past week to celebrate Christmas with their families. We were able to get together for lunch to catch up!

It's nice to stay in touch long-distance with phone calls, texts, notes, and pictures, but there's nothing like getting together in person and really spending time together.

While we used to get together for girl-time, we had two husbands and a fiance join us this time! It's been wonderful to see God's plan unfold in each of our lives and the new adventures we've each had since we were in high school together. Although times together with these friends are sometimes few and far between, the Lord has allowed our friendship to continue as we each look forward to the unique future He has in store for us.

Not only were Heather and Pam in town for Christmas, but my sisters both came home for the week of Christmas!

Amy is now living in Arizona, and Julie is home for a few weeks before her final semester of college. I'm on vacation from work all this week, so it'll be great to spend time with Amy and Julie while they are home.

I'm glad Binghamton is still considered "home" for family and friends that have moved away!

Another Airport Rescue

My sister, Julie, was studying abroad in Lithuania for the semester. Her travels home began on Tuesday, and when she made it to London, her flight home was delayed 8 hours.

Julie's friends has planned to pick her up at the airport in New York City Thursday night at 6:30pm, but her new arrival time was around 2am!

Nate and I both had the day off, so we offered to travel down and pick Julie up.

As we were preparing for our journey, the snow started coming down and the roads became slick.

We ventured off into the dark storm at 11:30pm - slowly making our way through snow, rain, and fog.

To add to the crazy weather, the exhaust on my car had been getting worse in recent weeks, so we endured the loud noises from my car every once in a while.

Four hours later we finally arrived at the airport where Julie was anxious to see us and complete her last leg of the journey home. After greeting Julie and loading the car up, we were headed back home!

As we were leaving the City, the rain was still coming down, and we hit a huge puddle of water - and then we heard something dragging below the car. Eventually we found a safe place to pull over, but realized there was nothing we could do about the part hanging from below my car. Nate assured us the vehicle was still safe to drive, and we continued home.

Later we found out the item dragging on the ground the whole was home was the catalytic converter - with this dragging and the exhaust and muffler totally shot, we sounded like the lead car in a Nascar the whole drive back to Binghamton! VRRRROOOOOMMM!!!! It was unreal.

The trip would have been stressful enough with the dark night, rainy weather, and lack of sleep - but combine that with a noise so loud you can hardly concentrate - and it was a trip we will never forget!

We safely arrived home around 8am and promptly took my car to the shop.

Nate successfully completed another airport rescue, Julie was finally home after days of traveling, and my car now sounds brand new!

Laura Tischer's Final Birthday

"Don't eat breakfast tomorrow." -Nate's subtle request the night before my birthday...

He showed up at my house in the morning with breakfast he had made! He called it Keishomelette - an egg  and venison creation that was rather tasty! Breakfast together was a great was to start the day before I headed off to work.

My co-worker and I share a birthday, so it was fun to celebrate two birthdays and a friend visited me for lunch. Between phone calls, text messages, birthday cards, and Facebook messages - many family and friends helped celebrate my birthday throughout the day too!

Nate picked me up from work and we drove up to Syracuse for a birthday dinner. Nate had looked up a couple restaurant options, and we ate at an Italian place with the best homemade dinner rolls!

After dinner we went to the Lights on the Lake display and drove through 2 miles of Christmas light displays. It was a fun little trip to take together, and on the way home while singing along to Christmas songs on the radio Nate started changing the words to birthday songs about me - he knows how to keep me laughing!

Nate had the day off from work and made a gift for me after shopping for supplies at his two favorite stores - Harbor Freight and Lowes. He made a wooden box and filled it with some thoughtful presents from one of my favorite stores! Overall it was a fun day and a reminder of the many family and friends that love and care for me.

Birthday Weekend

We had our first birthday celebration at the new house! We combined a work day with a pizza party and birthday cake!

On Friday, my parents and Nate's dad joined Nate and I as we touched up trim, scraped wall paper, prepped ceilings for painting, and got other projects done around the house!

We took a break for pizza and wings and then another break for cake in a cup - and all the extra helping hands at the house was a greatly appreciated birthday present!

My dad and I went back the next day and painted mine and Nate's future bedroom - the first real color we put on the walls! It's been exciting to see the transformation that fresh paint can make!

My parents took me out for lunch after church, and then I went to the mall for a birthday shopping spree. I felt somewhat guilty when the cashiers kept asking if I needed gift receipts for my items, and I was only buying things for myself - but I did enjoy updating my wardrobe a bit with birthday money I received.

It was fun to celebrate my birthday throughout the weekend in a few different ways!

Keeping Everything in Perspective

This picture is from the day Nate proposed. We got engaged in June.

Little did we know what all engagement actually entailed.

We've successfully made it through 6 months of being engaged, and with only 3 months left to go, I've come to realized that the engagement period is this really unique time of transition full of anticipation, planning, self-control, expectations, and wishing you could go back to the days of care-free dating!

Overall, these months of our engagement have been a period of learning and growth.

Two weeks after Nate proposed, he closed on a house that we have been working on fixing up to move into after the wedding.

One month after we got engaged, Nate started a new position at work and is now a truck driver at Frito Lay. This meant long hours and an unpredictable schedule and requires a lot of patience and flexibility.

Throw planning a wedding into the mix and preparing for marriage and you have a whole lot of life changes happening all at once!

Instead of becoming overwhelmed by everything going on during this period of engagement, we've really tried to keep things in perspective:

• The wedding day will be one day out of our entire lives. I enjoyed planning events ever since high school. I pictured planning my own wedding to be a wonderful experience, but in reality it's been hard to find motivation at times to keep moving forward with plans and making decisions. We've decided to keep the day simple, but are still looking forward to celebrating the significance of the day with our family and friends in a memorable way.
  
• This house we're fixing up will most likely be our home for the next 10+ years. Nate purchased this house with plans to pay it off in 10 years and eventually move to a house with more land - and perhaps more than the one bathroom this house currently has! We are grateful for the opportunity to work on this house together as we make it our home. It's fun to think about all the major life milestones that could happen at this house as we dream about our future together. We're putting significant time and money into this house know, trusting that the investment will pay off with wonderful memories there in the years to come.
  
• Our relationship as a couple will last a lifetime in marriage. As we've been looking forward to the wedding day and moving into the house, we're also looking for ways to continue developing our own relationship - because without that, these other plans are meaningless. While this engagement period is a busy time of planning and preparing, we're still making time for us as we continue to learn more about each other. We're seeking advice on marriage and have plans for pre-marital counseling. This is a unique time for us to prepare ourselves for the forever commitment we're about to make to each other!
  
• Far beyond each of these three areas and time frames I've mentioned, our relationship with God will last for eternity! All of our plans here are on earth are nothing compared to what God is preparing for us in heaven. Nate and I try to remind ourselves that with everything going on, we need to keep an eternal perspective. There's a line in a poem which says, "Only one life, it will soon be past; Only what's done for Christ will last."

Nate and I might have the best wedding day ever. We may have the best house around. Maybe we'll even have a perfect marriage relationship. But none of that would matter if each of those aren't also glorifying God and moving His purpose forward!

Would you pray for us as we finish out this weird transitional time called engagement? Pray that we'd be able to keep everything in perspective and keep Christ in the center of all we do!