Well, for our anniversary #5 (hard as it is to believe we're at that one already!) we decided to take a little trip to Niagara Falls, since I had never been there, and for some reason my husband likes to do things that I want to do! :) Because of everything going on, we had very limited time in which to take our little trip... so we opted to just make it a one-night, one-day thing, and travel through Canada since that would be faster than going all the way down and around. So, Thursday night we left the church at around 9 PM, and despite some heavy rain, made it to the Canadian border by about 10. Now, in our haste to pack up the car, we had forgotten one little thing that had been riding around in our trunk since we were in Wisconsin last... 

A chainsaw. 

And as we pulled up to the border and handed the guy (who appeared to be about 12, by the way) our ID's and birth certificates, unbeknownst to me, Troy decided that it would be better to tell him the truth when he asked us what we were carrying with us in the car, rather than try to cover it up. Which was a swell idea, right?, but for me, with no warning, and no hint of an idea that we actually even HAD a chainsaw in our trunk, it just so happened to strike me as HILARIOUS that we would be attempting to cross the border with a chainsaw in our trunk. Here we are at the border, a young pastor and his wife, headed to Niagara Falls for our anniversary, and we have a chainsaw in our trunk! Maybe it's not as funny as it was to me at the time, but when Troy said the word chainsaw, I started to get the giggles, there was NO stopping it! So this guy thinks that obviously SOMETHING isn't right with us, so he asked us to pull over to the side to be searched. Ugh. So we pull over, get out of the car, and stand in front of it as 3 or 4 guys - trying desperately to be as intimidating as they possibly could - go through our seats, suitcase, my purse, and the entire contents of our trunk as we stood there feeling like criminals!!! Seriously, they did everything short of frisking us. But obviously, they didn't find anything else to be questionable, and within 15 minutes we were back on the road again with nothing taken from us but a little bit of our pride. Note to self: next time traveling over the border, take the chainsaw out of the trunk first. Other than that little rendezvous, we had a wonderful time at the Falls, took some BEAUTIFUL pictures, and just enjoyed being able to spend some time together without having to think for a day about the big things coming up! And after a great time of sightseeing, one of the best parts of the day was the less-than-one-minute stop on the way back into the US, where we were very heartily welcomed HOME!!!

Life has been SOOOO busy the past month or so getting ready for this church-plant. I'm startin to think that it's actually going to happen! We're 4 weeks away from our first service, and almost every day it seems we hear of someone else who is interested or is looking for a good church in the area. It's so exciting to think that soon it will be more than just an ambiguous idea... that it will actually be a real, tangible, functioning, THRIVING church! We have great faith that it really will be thriving, too! God's going to do something awesome!!

As for the adoption, we have an official invitation to begin orientation with our agency on October 7! I can't wait to see how our lives are going to be different one year from now! :D So excited!