I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Really. This past month has just been crazy!

The move went far smoother than I expected. We moved in during monsoon season, so it would seem - heavy, heavy rains during our first few days here kept all of us inside. Then came the heat wave. This led to more days inside and plenty of whining from our preschooler, who was desperate to play in her new backyard. Those first few days helped to get most of the unpacking done, at least. Words cannot express how relieved I am to have some sense of normalcy again! Can I just tell you how much I hate unpacking? Just looking at all of those boxes gave me a slight tic. I don't know what I would have done if Chris wasn't here to help me knock it out. You'd likely find me huddled in the corner with a big batch of cookies, muttering incoherently and adding another forty pounds onto my already chubby behind. Thankfully, most everything is put away, and I have yet to break out the chocolate chips.

We attended our first Mo Group a few days after the move. Mo Groups are small groups of people who get together in peoples' homes once a week to eat great food, play games, laugh at each other, and talk about how the Bible can apply to our lives and how to put that into action. The Mo Group we attended is called Revolution. This was also our first taste of serving Cleveland as we helped build shelving units for one of the local elementary schools. (Did I mention Momentum is big on serving the community?) These units were quite possibly worse than anything from Ikea. It took longer to build eight prefabricated shelving units than it did to load our moving truck! It was for the school, though - which is the bigger picture. All in all, we had a great time. Even our four-year-old helped - she can wield a screwdriver with the best of them! We plan to check out a few more Mo Groups over the next month to see which group we fit in with best... I’m sure I’ll be posting about those experiences, too.

We also discovered that our cell phone did not get adequate coverage in our neighborhood, and we could regularly be found wandering the front yard in hopes of grabbing enough bars every time we wanted to take a call. I don't recommend doing this for a variety of reasons. After three weeks of this, we gave up and finally got iphones. Our neighbors are grateful. Now if I can just figure out how to use the thing...


We're loving Cleveland life. We've met some amazing people, had some great experiences, and can't wait to get more involved. God is definitely up to something in Cleveland.