new home, new time zone, new season

Greetings Friends! So much to update everyone on that I DON'T even know where to begin. We packed up our life in a huge white budget truck and left Illinois on June 31st. (Sidenote: If you are moving DO NOT USE BUDGET.. worst, most STRESSFUL experience I have ever encountered) My wonderful, generous, precious parents came with us. We arrived in Denver on July 1st and moved into our apartment.

We spent a couple days in Denver and then drove to Jackson, WY for the 4th of July. It was SO beautiful there and the fireworks were unbelievable! The entire show was literally a bunch of grand finales! So impressive! It was such a relaxing week.. we hiked, went bike riding, visited Yellowstone (A man got attacked by a bear like 10 miles from where we were hiking the next day!) I have 452340598 photos from the trip. But here are a few:

Hottie in the Tetons

Bike ride with the most breathtaking scenery!

Yellowstone spillway

BUFFALO galore

Yellowstone

My parents headed back home last Saturday (lots of tears). Nate and I have been getting settled. Moving is such an intense, stressful process! I cannot imagine moving with an entire family! Our apartment is mostly settled. I will post pictures of our wonderful new apartment soon! We are so thankful to be here! This has been a dream of ours since we were dating so it is so exciting to actually be here. We have been spending lots of time with our PRECIOUS friends Tara and Brandon. They have been the biggest help and we could not have done it without them! They have been so helpful, welcoming, and generous with their time! I am so excited that they are our new neighbors! We have also spent lots of time with the infamous KELLY LUND! Nate and I love Kelly so much and are so happy to be living life with him and his beautiful woman! Having such gooood friends here has already made this move so much sweeter.

Lots more to update on. But I just wanted to give a little update. I am going to TRY to update this more to keep family and friends posted on our new adventure. Nate and I are so thankful to have such supportive friends and family! You are all missed SO MUCH! We are so excited to see what God has for us in this new season of life. If you think of us, pray for us! That we would find good jobs, a good bible-based church (We are missing our Journey Belleville family SO MUCH), and that I wouldn't miss home too much : ( Above all, our prayer is that we would continue to seek Him and His will for our lives. I already can see that this is going to be such an incredible season of depending on God and looking to Him for direction and guidance. He is SUCH good father and cares so much for His children!

Have a wonderful day!

love, the parkers

gooood women

Tuesday afternoon I met up with these lovely women. We ate, talked and explored downtown belleville. I am SO THANKFUL to know these women!! I feel like I could cry typing this. Nate and I have the GREATEST friends here. We leave for Denver one week from today. As exciting as that is, I can't even think about saying goodbye to these precious friends. We have known each other for so long and I have such sweet memories with each of them.

But, let's not think about goodbyes yet! One more week in the glorious midwest! This weekend we have a wedding extravaganza to attend which will be SO FUN! If you could see our men on the dance floor you would understand why. It will definitely be a gooood time. A perfect farewell weekend.

two peas

Being married to the funniest human being ever keeps things exciting.

I am convinced that laughing (and praying) together is the secret

to years and years of happy marriage. But, who knows, we are only one year in.

This Sunday is ONE YEAR! Can you believe it?!

Pi and Cup

Spent the day yesterday with one of the GREATEST, SWEETEST gals I know, Jocelyn Berry! We met up for lunch at Pi in Central West End... one of my favorite places in St. Louis. Then Jocelyn had the brilliant idea to walk down to The Cup. I had heard several good things about this place, but had never been and it was DELISH. Nate and I will have to go back before we move. (WHICH IS TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY!)

Friendship can be such a complex relationship. Different women view friendship at different levels of importance. It is difficult to find someone who sees the value of friendship and vulnerability the same way you do. I feel that up there with the difficulty level of finding a man you want to spend the rest of your life with is also finding a friend who has the same expectation/outlook on friendship and all that it can be as you do. Jocelyn is one of the those women for me. There are few friendships I have with the same comfort, humor, vulnerability, relatability as I do in my friendship with Joc. She will tell me like it is and I can tell her like it is. We can shop together... which is huge... because I have a hard time shopping with people (mainly because I take LITERALLY hours and try on everything in the entire store and then get nothing... or maybe one thing). She loves the Lord. Is passionate about self-development. Is hysterical. Has a love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels. Loves to shop. Is humble but at the same time I know she will be honest about her opinion. All this to say that I am so thankful for her and our friendship. I always leave feeling so refreshed and KNOWN.

Thank you Jesus for the Body.

girl day

Today I went with my Mom and sister in law to get our nails done.

I chose "fierce red" because I am so patriotic.

It was so nice and relaxing... I went to get a pedicure and ended up getting a pedicure, manicure and eyebrow wax (preface: I haven't done anything to my eyebrows in at least two years... mainly because I don't need to... but the nail lady looked at me as though I had a massive, disgusting unibrow). Those nail ladies are super persuasive! At lunch, my sister and I rehearsed the entire "Nail Salon" sketch to my Mom... mainly because our experience was almost identical to the sketch. I know most of you have seen it... but if not... here it is:

I will try to blog more this next week. I have lots to blog about, lots to update on.. lots of photos to share. I know that the three of you who read my blog already know this, but just to make it blog-official I will share. Nate and I are packing up our life and moving to Denver, Colorado in two weeks! So intense/exciting/scary/wonderful! It has been a dream of ours for quite some time and we are just going for it! We are so excited to see what the Lord has in store for us as we enter this COMPLETELY new and mysterious season. Anyhow, I will share more on that later. For now, I am off to eat ice cream and spend time with my long-haired super good looking husband.

goodnight!

OLD POST that I forgot to post: Sweets with my Sweets

We went to dinner with my parents Friday night and were home by 6. We had all sorts of ideas of what to do for the rest of the evening... Maybe go to St Louis, go to the movies, get coffee.... We ended up taking a loong nap and making sugar cookies! Funny story: I was SO excited to use these cookie cutters I got a few months ago from IKEA. So we made sugar cookies... but neither of us like sugar cookies. haha. So we ate one and the rest are sitting on our kitchen counter ready to be eaten. So, if you are a fan of sugar cookies... come to the Parkers!

Maybe we are boring, but Nate and I are such homebodies. We looovve being in our home together! Tonight, Nate and I went on a trail run(only 2 miles... don't be too impressed) but it was AWESOME! It made me feel like we were living in the mountains of Colorado instead of the middle of little Bellevile, IL. There is an awesome nature trail right by our apartment complex and it is beautiful! Nate and I have been attempting to CHANGE the way we live/eat. We have gotten the exercise thing down and been going steady for the last two months. This month we are focusing on nutrition. As I type, we are currently awaiting couscous stuffed peppers in the oven inspired by my bff Tiffany Valdez. It's been great so far... learning a lot. Eating foods I didn't even know existed a year ago. For breakfast tomorrow... a kale/apple smoothie! Check back in in a month or so and I will let you know how I'm doing. FYI, if I can do it(the girl who LOVES mcdonalds happy meals)... anyone can.

Enjoy your evening!

change

Tonight the Mr. and I had a really awesome conversation about life... where it's going... what we want... what we REALLY want. It's so exciting/scary/awesome/terrifying to be young and have your entire life in front of you. I feel like Nate and I are standing in the middle of a huge intersection with hundreds of roads surrounding us and we must choose one. Some are very straight and would be easy on us... they make the most sense... they are safe. Some have a way more scenic view... but will be tougher to drive on. And some you can only see a few miles of and the rest is a mystery... but we want to see more!

We are realizing that we are at such an incredible time in our life together. We can do anything go anywhere be anything. And right now I want to do everything go everywhere and be everything. So we are praying and listening to see what's next in our little life.

where/what it will be... I have no idea. And that's sort of exciting.

love, alex