it's been a while

i tell you, it's rough not having the internet at home. i usually have to post from the in-laws' house or coffee shops. i've not had much coffee lately and i forgot my computer at our weekly monday night date with brian's parents.

correction: to my horror, i discovered that the "i just can't help myself post had cut off part of my letter about brian and was missing part of one paragraph and all of one or two more at the end. that unfortunate problem is now fixed.

we've been busily preparing the house and yard for a visit from my parents. that's been about all we've been up to. i've included some pics. we love our yard.







this is a view of our really big red tulips and the baskets of strawberries i was planting. we now have five hanging strawberry baskets in the back yard which should add some quaint color as well as delicious snacks come summer time.







here brian is fixing our hanging flowerbeds. they came with the house but were built so that they would drain down the side of the house and rot out the siding. brian fixed them and soon we'll plant "supertunias" in them. they look like petunias but apparently they are something special. i guess they are disease resistant and low maintenance.





this is the inside of our suprise purple tulips. we didn't know they were there!








these are two of the strawberry baskets i did. they're right outside the kitchen window of our little house out back. happy dishwashing!







these are the walla walla sweet onions brian planted. they're really good, especially on the grill, but we don't know if we killed them or not.








last but not least, this is our carport. no one can drive a car to it because of the way the houses and the garden are, so it is more of a covered patio area. it's messy right now, because of all the gardening and garage sale stuff, but we plan to have it cleaned out by the time my parents come. it's really fun to hang out there on warm summer nights.


now that you've all seen how splendid it is at the van houten residence, you should all come visit!

still waiting...

this picture really has nothing to do with the post. in an effort to keep people engaged and checking the post i feel compelled to post a picture. i find that when people don't post often and the posts don't have pictures, i have to really be interested to keep on reading.

so here is the ship that brian and i went on our honeymoon in. it was great fun. we'll probably be posting some of the pictures from our trip soon. so consider this picture a preview.

brian is coming home late tomorrow night. yay!

poor megan

brian had to leave today for a trip to anchorage. it was particularly not fun saying goodbye this morning. :( maybe he'll bring me chocolates.

i just can't help myself

so, i had intended not to use this blog for the spewing of personal feelings and more reflective entries, but i am a newlywed and that permits me certain lapses in resolve.

the following is a copy of a comment i made on a friend's blog. as i was writing it, it became not only a bit of a love letter to brian, but the kind of stuff i would talk about with friends in those late night conversations that i miss so much. so, here it is. i want to share. i also want to hear what you think.

married folk, engaged folk, here is the chance to gush and rave about how the one you love has changed you. single fold, married folk, everyone, what have your friend/work/family relationships taught you? here's mine:

i don't think that a struggle with just about anything makes a person "unmarriageable." i think that when two people meet and they are really supposed to be together, God opens their hearts and eyes to each other in a beautiful way.

the way i see it, people are flawed in ways that they themselves are aware of and some that they are unaware of. for me, being in this relationship from the start as friends all the way to now as a married couple is causing me to reflect on both of those kinds.

those that we are aware of cause us to feel ashamed and unloveable. the "how could anyone love me while i still do/have/can't do __________?" takes root in our minds and the instinct is to hide them away and hope that no one notices them.

for me with brian, i have found that i can't hide them. some are amazingly transparent. i never knew this until i was becoming more serious with brian and we were having conversations on the heart level. he would mention something about a flaw i had and it would shock me. 'oh my gosh, he's noticed that?' but the expected catastrophic loss of love and respect and relationship as a result of this flaw never came.

as i began to notice this incredible grace he was extending towards me, i wondered why. the answer was simple, i was doing the same for him as regularly. “love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 peter 4:8). i realized that there really is no point in hiding a weakness from brian because he likely knows it already or will soon find out. i trust that God has brought us together in part to illuminate these flaws and to push each other to improve.

those other flaws, the ones I didn’t realize, were a different kind of creature. we’re at the nine month mark in our marriage right now. living together allows for lots and lots of together time. my first instinct as someone who is usually not too aware of my own interpersonal relationship-type flaws is to be defensive, get angry, or think that brian is just being too sensitive. i've had to learn to listen to what he is saying and realize that it is all too often valid. in spite of occasional imperfect presentation by him in these moments of hurt or annoyance that i've caused, i'm growing from these conversations. and i get to give that same gift to him.

so while there were plenty of things about me that i figured would be insurmountable obstacles for any guy of quality, i found someone. right in a place where i wasn’t looking at a time when it was far from my mind, God pushed this equally flawed and gifted man. i like him.

oh boy. we got our x-box back

after a very long abscence, brian's faulty x-box has been repaired. not only repaired, but modified to be a super x-box capable of storing like
50 trillion gigabytes or something of memory. we can now put games on it and store all our movies and our cds and games. brian is now revelling in the glory of old games such as q-bert. this brings back wonderful memories of his childhood playing games with his sister. there has been a lot of x-boxing going on in the van houten household.






this one is for christy.








perhaps some of you noticed that one of brian's interests in our profile is "pirating." this has been his game of choice lately.








this is his really tough pirate look. i think he is a cute pirate.

Springtime at the Van Houten's

Here's a view:



We planted grape hyacinths....


Tulips with a few remaining daffodils...




And a few suprises like these purple tulips we didn't know were there.

gosh, i feel computer illiterate. i'm trying to make a blog and i can't seem to find a way to make a profile photo, but i can put one in the posts themselves. hmm. i guess i need to make a call to someone...

Well, I think I've determined that you have to have a post before you can find a blog online....am I right?? Don't answer that, this is a self-test.