catch up.

I think it is time to play a little game of catch up. Unfortunately, we don't have much exciting to share. Now, that's not to say that life isn't so good. We are blessed abundantly with a warm house and good food and dear friends and family and a cute puppy and the season for hot caramel apple cider and the fact that we only have one little tree in our yard to rake leaves from. Life is good. It's just really busy which means we don't have a lot of exciting stuff to share. Boo.

Here's a look into our typical week:
Sunday - Enjoy a restful morning then attend church at RRC (on a rotating basis we set-up for the service or run sound) and soon we will be starting to participate in the small group ministry that is starting up. We are calling them Intentional Communities and we are both really excited to get to know some new people.
Monday - Steph works at Kuyper, Rob works at Spectrum Community Services. Rob goes straight from work to class at WMU. Alyssa and Hannah come over to watching Dancing With The Stars while we all do homework. Oh, and the puppy goes crazy multiple times throughout the evening.
Tuesday - Steph works at Kuyper, Rob works at Spectrum. Steph goes straight from work to class at SAU (until 10pm!). Rob sometimes works at night (either from home or on the road) because he has to make up hours that he's using for his internship. We collapse into bed by 10:30pm.
Wednesday - Steph is to work at Compass College of Cinematic Arts by 7:50am to make a million pots of coffee to help the students make it through the day. Rob spends the morning working at his internship with Hospice and then spends the afternoon working at Spectrum. He heads straight to class after work. Steph has dinner at church and then hangs out with awesome middle schoolers at Youth Group. (Then we watch an episode of Criminal Minds.) 
Thursday - Steph works at Kuyper and Rob works at Spectrum. We FINALLY have a night when we are both at home. Usually we're too tired to do anything. We get to make supper together and catch up on the week's episode of Biggest Loser that we missed on Tuesday.
Friday - Steph works at Compass and Rob puts in a full day with Hospice. At night we try to do something fun - last week we went to ArtPrize! (If you haven't gone, DO IT.) This week we're celebrating Alyssa's birthday.
Saturday - We spend the morning trying to clean the house up from the craziness of the week and do laundry so we have clothes to wear again. In the afternoon we have puppy training so that we can learn to control the crazy ball of fur that lives with us now. *Insert mental image of the crazy ball of fur sleeping peacefully by the back door right now...* At night we usually have to do homework and maybe get to work on some projects around the house. (And then we watch more Criminal Minds.)
And then we do it all over again...whew.


As we were getting ready for bed last night I said to Rob, "When people ask how things are going, I don't like to respond because I always just feel like I'm complaining that we're so busy...but really, I'm not complaining." We have both come to realize that God has created this season of life for us and we're so grateful for the things we are learning and the ways we are growing. And we're thankful for a puppy to cuddle with at night, Mountain Dew and Diet Coke, and our bed that catches us when we collapse at the end of the day.

Here are a few pictures of some things we've been doing to try and relax and do things we enjoy.

It was definitely time to replace that yucky old light that was falling apart outside our front door. We had been on a hunt for quite some time for a light set that we could put on the garage and on the porch but everything we found was so gosh-darn expensive. And then it happened. One Saturday morning Rob was looking at the Menard's ad and found a 2-pack of lights for $14.99 - SCORE! So, we picked up 2 packs (4 lights total) and we put one on the front porch, two will go on either side of the garage and the 4th one will go on the back patio. Behold the goodness of a new light below.

And Oh! what a beautiful light it is. The glass is textured. And I love it.
(I also just realized that these two pictures could be one of those "What's Different?" games.
Feel free to play if you'd like. Consider it our gift to you.)

We also wanted to find a cheap solution to our nasty old garage door that is completely miscolored. It actually sort of looked white when the old tan siding was on the garage, but now that we've replaced the old siding for this shiny white vinyl stuff, the garage door stuck out like a sore thumb. So, I went for it with the industrial strength, flat white spray paint and primer. This is obviously an in-progress picture and it's a bit more completed now but it still needs another coat (weather got in the way, then life did). 

Like I said, we're also in the process of puppy training. We're going to a class on Saturday afternoons in Allendale where we learn how to train Beacon and then we come home and practice. The picture above is one of the few times he's actually sitting still (the puppy, not Rob). Right now he only sits when we have a treat in our hand and are pushing his nose up so he has to sit down. We're also supposed to be teaching him "down" and "heel" this week too...but something makes me think that we're not going to be the star pupils in class on Saturday. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. He's cute though, huh? (This time I'm talking about both Rob and the puppy.)

And there you have it. Life as the Bergman's currently know it. Crazy...and great.