A Forever Kinda Love

"Marriage is a taste of heaven on earth"

Eric & Leslie Ludy

Being married to Jason is the best! God has blessed me and us so much. I can't believe I married such a handsome and wonderful, godly man. We have all the furniture we need, all the appliances and dishes and decorations. We have groceries. I have a job. Jason has a job. We have a great job and a forever love. We are so blessed!

Our wedding day was absolutely perfect! I loved every minute of it! And the whole week was definitely the second best week of my life, like I hoped! I will post pictures of it all soon, but I can't get on the internet much and my laptop won't get on at all, I'm using Jason's. Plus I don't have our wedding pictures yet, although I can offer you a sneak peak!

This is a summary of our wedding week and all the days since, when you haven't heard from me:

Monday, July 25: My best friend Monica arrived to town, so she did errands with me and we got to talk and hang out.

Wednesday, July 27: Spa night with my bridesmaids and friends. This night was a blast! Mel, one of my close college friends, and Kate, my college roommates, arrived for the party. I got to be with Hannah, Monica, and Heidi too! My good friend from work, Britten, who is a rockstar at painting nails came to do the bridesmaids and Mel's nails. Another lady I work with, Brandi, did a MaryKay spa treatment on our feet! Kate, Mel, Josie and I spent the night in my room, which was a lot of fun!

Thursday, July 28: My grandmom hosted a beautiful bridal breakfast at the Ranch Club for us! The food was soo delicious, the view was spectacular, and the fellowship will be cherished! This was also the first day we could be at Butler Creek Lodge, our wedding site. So we moved a bunch of stuff up there, started setting up rentals and other stuff. Thursday night the girls spoiled me with a lovely Bachelorette Party! Meaghan and Kate Gillett were there too, it was so good to all be together!

Friday, July 29: This was more setting up at Butler Creek! Jason and I were able to steal away for quiet moments at the creek or walking down the road. The rehearsal and dinner was a good time. Most of our family arrived in time for dinner and we got to spend time with them. My college friends Courtney, Amy, and Jen arrived after dinner and we spent the evening as a big group of girls hanging out in the loft of the Lodge! I love all my friends so much! Heidi, Josie and I slept in a queen bed together. I didn't get much sleep, but it was worth it to spend the night with my sisters!

Saturday, July 30: Was THE BIG DAY! The girls and I went to get our hair done in town at Burtons. We got there super early so I bought us all coffee at Florence Coffee Co and we went to Ft Missoula for a bit. Burtons did a marvelous job on our hair! We all looked soo pretty! Once we got back we all got ready with our dresses and make-up. Then there were pictures and lots of hanging out and laughing. Our bridal party was the absolute best! Our ceremony started a little after 3. From here on out you will have to wait until I post the pictures with the details of everything else that happened! =) For our wedding night we went to a secret location that held special memories for us.

Monday, August 1: We arrived back in Missoula and opened gifts. We also just hung out with my family and went to Mackenzie River pizza. We stayed the night at Red Lion on Broadway, because in the morning we were flying to....MAUI!!

Monday, August 8: At midnight my mom picked us back up from the airport and we spent the night in a TWIN bed at my house!

The rest of the week was spent with our families, playing baseball with Josie, and shopping and packing for WYOMING! Heidi got back from Germany on Friday, so we spent some time with her too.

Saturday, August 13: Jason in his Honda led my mom in her Yukon plus trailer and me in my Ford on the 13 hour drive to La Grange, Wyoming! We did stop at Goodwill in Billings, that's why it took a couple extra hours.

My mom stayed till Tuesday morning and we all worked hard to clean, unpack, and set up our new apartment! We have a cute apartment on campus, an 8-plex with 7 other married couples/families (Yes, half of them have kids/babies!) as neighbors. Our apartment has two bedrooms, a kitchen/laundry room, a dining/living room, and one and a half bathrooms. It's perfect too! All our furniture is from Jason's mom...either her old stuff, her mom's stuff, or garage sale stuff. The only thing Jason and I paid for is our desk, which was like $15 at an auction! We are soo blessed!

Jason started classes and work at a ranch yesterday. I started work yesterday as a veterinary assistant at a vet clinic that is about 47 miles away in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Yes, the drive is long, but the job is a blessing. I will work 40 hours in 4 days, then get three days off, although I will work every other weekend.

We are loving married life and aiming to keep Christ the center so that our love will be the forever kind.

I will post more about each event mentioned above, including adding pictures, as I can. It's a bit tricky with working so much and with our internet being sketchy, but I will get it done eventually!

Old Friends & Good Friends

This weekend my family drove to Salem, Oregon, to attend my cousin Ben's wedding! It was so much fun to see my old friend, Salem, and my good friends, Courtney, Amy & Jen. It was also a pleasure to attend my cousin's wedding!

While with my old friend & good friends I...

...ate at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse! I highly recommend this restaurant. Their meals range from $8-$12, and this includes a good sized entree, salad, bread, and dessert!!! It was so yummy!

...walked to Dutch Bros with Heidi and Nathan to re-live the taste of an iced kicker!

...ran with Amy (for a bit) and my dad through Bush Park AND Minto Brown Park!

...soaked up the sights of my old favorite spots.

...enjoyed my cousin's sweet and simple wedding!

And then we spent an extra 2 hours on the way home, taking the "scenic byway"!

But it was worth it!

CU* L8r

*pun intended

It is so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that I am done here, at Corban University. I've been to my last chapel, my last meal at Aramark (our dining hall), my last class. I've run repeats up Schimmel hill and gone to 6am morning weights for the last time. I've worked my last shift at the gym and tutored for the last time. After two great years, God is calling me elsewhere in life. And I sure won't complain! I'm super excited to be the wife of Jason Paul Koemans and to pursue God and ministry together!!

This is what I probably won't miss about being at CU:

- 6am workout classes

- cafeteria food (minus the dessert!!)

- dorm life. not that it's terrible, it's just not my favorite thing, especially when all my friends are off- campus or in different states

- dirty pop music in the bathroom

- laundry only on certain days

- searching everywhere for a private space to make phone call

- not having any space that's truly just mine

- 5hr shifts at the gym, leaving no time for homework and no chance at a good bedtime

- eating alone in the cafeteria for 70% of my meals

- being 18hrs away from the love of my life

- the lonely and sometimes dark walk uphill from dinner to my room at night

- hours and hours and hours and hours of homework and studying

- only seeing my family over skype

- a gross & messy shared kitchen

This is what I probably will miss:

- friendly mail-room ladies, and the excitement of getting mail

- chapel 3 times a week

- rooming with Kate Tracy

- collegiate running

- the team, especially the distance crew...I'm gonna miss them a lot.

- Aramark dessert

- studying at coffee shops, especially Broadway, Ike, and Clockworks

- running at Bush Park

- the sunsets

- the green grass all.year.long

- the rain

- the flowers

- the professors, especially Shannon Simmons and Anne Jeffers

- Trader Joe's & Fred Meyer

- Sweet Papaya's frozen yogurt

- staying at the Fanny House (where Mel and Courtney lived)

- Mel, Courtney, Christi, Amy, and JenJen

- running and talking with the distance girls

- steeplechase

Regardless of missing this and not missing that, I am so looking forward to the next chapter of my life!!!!! Marriage!!

Did you figure out the pun?

Thankful.

There are so many things I am thankful for. To start off with, I'm thankful to be home finally! After two days of traveling on snowy roads, a trip that should only take one day (11 hours), Jason and I made it safely home from La Grange WY. (I had flown there on Monday afternoon so that I could see his campus and our house! And also drive home Tuesday together...which turned into driving to Billings on Tuesday, staying the night there, and getting to Missoula today!)

I'm thankful for this handsome man that I'm going to marry
 and spend the rest of my life serving God with.
He has such an incredible heart for God and for me.
 I am so blessed. We're crazy in love!

I am thankful for our housing opportunity for next school year in La Grange, Wyoming.
IT'S FREE! Yes, it's not much to look at, but I am so willing to make it work.
It'll save money. It'll be our own place. All we have to pay is utilities.
Disclaimer: it's not set in stone yet, but a very likely possibility!

I'm thankful for my awesome family. I have parents that walk in righteousness and lead our family to do the same. They provide everything they can for our family. I have a great sister Heidi who is such a close, sweet, friend. She is a talented athlete. I have a very tall brother Nathan who is...very smart. He always helps me with my computer problems. Ya he's a nerd, but it's great! And I have a precious sister Josie who smothers me with hugs and kisses and says she's misses me everyday. She also steals my bed and sends boxes of her toys to college with me.

I'm thankful for my great, lifelong friends, Monz and Meaghan. I'm thankful for Corban and learning through a Christian world-view. I'm thankful for my cross-country team at Corban. I'm thankful for my roommate Kate!  God has blessed me in so many ways. So so so many. I could go on for a while.


Our God is so good and so faithful. He has redeemed me and saved me from His all consuming wrath, which I don't thank Him enough for!

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words



On Sunday was Corban's beach party at Bob Straub St. Park in Pacific City. (This is the same beach my family and I have been to several times and Jason got to join us there last Christmas!) It was a great day for being at the beach, until like 5:30pm when the fog rolled in and we had to stand in line for over an hour for dinner! All in all it was enjoyable but I REALLY missed Jason!!

On Saturday Kate and I went to the Portland Market and Voodoo Donuts with some girls. It was a beautifully sunny day and we had a lot of fun! Voodoo Donuts wasn't all that it's cracked up to be though...I wasn't impressed. That night Kate and I joined Alethea for a Catholic Mass at a church in Portland. It was an interesting experience...most of it was in Latin! And there was a beautiful sounding choir that sang Gregorian chants!

Roomies in Portland!



Roomies in Portland!




The last week of August my cross-country team had a retreat/training camp in Sisters, OR.
This is the team at a lake there.



Courtney and I in the lake during the XC retreat



To Infinity and Beyond

Last night my family (my mom too! she got home just in time!) and Meaghan and Jason and Monz and Monz's parents and brother Will all went to Toy Story 3. Josie LOVES Toy Story and has several Woody dolls, a Jessie, a Buzz, a Slinky-Dog, and a Bullseye. She was so fun to watch as she got really into the movie! It was a really good and funny movie and we all enjoyed it! It was funny too because we saw 3 kids that used to be in our class, so it was a mini class reunion. It was also funny because kids that used to be in our class would see us and say "Oh is that Meaghan? And Monz too? And Jason?" and they'd stop. They never noticed me!

Then this morning Meaghan and Jason and I went to Farmer's Market and then Meag took pictures of Jason and I at the graffiti wall!

Sisters Basically

Memorial Day Weekend

We spend our weekend as a family (with Jesse, Nate's best friend and stand-in-brother) at the lake. The Hartzells also camped at the end of the road, so we hung out with them a bit too! I ran my first over-distance since conference...13 miles! Boy am I sore! We played a lot of board games and read a lot, because it was rainy =) Heidi and I also had the privlige of joining the Hartzell crew in Hot Springs, MT, for a soak in the hot mineral water! That felt great! These are the only pictures I got. They are of Nate, Jesse, and Josie's fort:

Bass Creek with the Gang

...summertime...

Enjoying Life...

(yes we have matching shorts! mine were my birthday present from him!!)

Jason got here on Wednesday, my birthday, morning, and it has been so wonderful being with him and showing him around here! After I picked him up from the airport in Portland, we went to Ikea, then came back to Salem to go to Costco and Walmart to get groceries for our team bbq (aka: my birthday party). Then most of the team piled into cars and drove up to Silver Creek Falls for an afternoon of hiking, having fun, and eating burgers! It was a very simple party and a lot of fun for everyone and a beautiful day! Then today Jase and I went to a yummy waffle place for breakfast and headed up to the outlet malls in Woodburn where I shopped with my birthday  money and got a nice pair of nike flip-flops, 2 running shorts, 2 running/summer tanks, a polo, and capris and a shirt for Jase! (thanks mom and dad!) We came back for my practice and then 2 rounds of disk-golf with some of the team, dinner, worship, and Chariots of Fire! It has been a great two days to spend with the love of my life!!!

Open Skies

Praise Him under open skies

Everything breathing praising God

In the company of all who love the King

I will dance, I will sing

It could be heavenly

Turn the music loud, lift my voice and shout

From where I am

From where I've been

He's been there with me

He's built a monument

His very people

So let his people

Sing, sing, sing

And it's so wonderful

Just to be here now

Praise Him under open skies

Everything breathing praising God

In the company of all who love the King

Let us dance, let us sing

It could be heavenly

Turn the music loud and sing

  Lift your voice to heaven

Lift up your head and sing

To the One who gave his love

This is our offering

Lift your voice to heaven

Lift up your head and sing

To the One who gave His son

Here our lives we bring

["Open Skies" by David Crowder -- our theme song]

Today the Jen, Courtney, Amy, Kate and I drove to Lincoln City and spent a beautiful day playing on the beach and then walking around the outlet mall. After that we drove 8 more miles south to Depoe Bay and ate this amazing and expensive seafood dinner at Tidal Rave. It was a very local, classy, and well known restaurant -- we were the youngest people in it! And we met about 4 elderly couples that were all very friendly to us! It was fun!

Longest Weekend of My Life!!

This weekend has been the longest weekend of my life! On Friday night I went to bed at midnight, because I stayed up to pack. Then I got up at 9:30a on Saturday to eat, pack some more, and leave by 11 for the track meet, Pacific Twilight, in Forest Grove, OR. At the meet is raced in steeplechase for the first time ever. This is a 3K (almost 2 mile) race, which means it is 7.5 laps. Each lap has 5 steeple barriers on it, 4 "dry" and 1 "wet" (water-jump). As I posted before, my coach wanted me to try this race because he thought I had the endurance and stamina and would qualify for conference and score points for our team. Well, the qualifying time was 14:10. My goal was 7 min miles, and I finished mile 1 at 6:37. I finished the race at 12:36!! Which was faster than my goal AND qualified me for conference!!! Here are some pics:

Jumping one of the "dry' barriers. Notice my tongue. Yes, I stick my tongue out when I jump hurdles and they caught it on camera!

Approaching the "wet" barrier. My teammate Jen is in the water.

Landing the "wet" barrier. I need to work on my landings a bit...

Coming out of the water pit.

It was a really fun race and a lot easier than I thought it would be! I'm very happy I qualified and that it's in a race where I have a good chance of scoring for our team! And, because I qualified, I get to stay for Conference, which is May 13-15. I race on the 14th at 4:30. I told Jason that if I qualified and had to stay I wanted to fly him out here for my birthday (May 12th), Conference, and then the drive home with me. So last night I bought his ticket!! Woohoo!!! Nine days!!

After the meet I went to Solid Rock church in Portland. It was a great church service! I really enjoyed it! I got home around 11pm. Now, my team-mate Mel was going to leave at 4am on Sunday. The rest of us running girlies wanted to surprise her with breakfast and coffee and card, so we had to get up at 3am. Because I was gone most of the day Saturday and on Sunday by 5pm we had to be completely moved into our new dorm for these next two weeks, I had to stay up and pack. I took a short "nap" from 2-3am, got up and surprised Mel for breakfast. Then I took another short nap from 4:15 to 5:30am, when us running girlies again got up to be there for a team-mate. Two of our XC girls were running the Eugene Marathon, which was an hour away and started at 7am. So we drove down to that, spent the morning trying to figure our how to get to where they'd be on the course, missed them finishing, and then had to rush back for a 1pm mandatory orientation in our new dorm.

This is a picture of a dog I saw at the marathon:

After orientation, it was moving and cleaning. It took a car trip down for my stuff and later one for Kate's stuff. We had to move all our stuff down from a second floor room, to the car, and then up to a second floor room in a dorm with no elevator!! It was a lot of work!! And we had to deep clean our old room too which took about 1.5 hours!!

Once we finally got to our new room, I still had to get my over-distance (long run) in for the day. After I skyped my family, I drove to Bush Park to run. I had to quit the run 30 mins in because my shin was shooting pain up my leg and I couldn't put any weight on it, so I could barely move.

After my run I still had to come back and unpack my room before I could finally get to bed at 11:30pm.

Whew.

This was my weekend, on a little over 2 hours of sleep!!