Pigeon Forge

We just arrived in Pigeon Forge. Our home away from home for the summer. This summer we will host around 140 college students in the Smoky Mountains. They will work at Dollywood theme park, live in a hotel, and be involved in intense bible study, evangelism and discipleship training for 8 weeks.
This blog is about to become a whirlwind of random pictures, stories from PG Las Vegas and mountain adventures. Here we go!

Melissa

5 years baby!

Today I celebrated the fifth year of marital bliss with Mr. Teten. We had brunch at our favorite local restaurant, went to a nursery and dreamed of future gardening, drove up the coast to a cute little town to walk around, read at a coffee shop and have dinner, and stopped on the drive home at the beach for the sun setting, more reading and watermelon for dessert. What made the day special was spending it with my best friend. I love him. He surprises me, holds my hand when I need him to, gives me butterfly kisses (don't tell him I told you so) and I even love the way his deodrant smells. The Lord gave me a great thing when He gave me John. I CANNOT wait to see what the next five years will bring.

One of fav things about summers in Jax is movies at the beach. A little picnic, a little wine, a little sea breeze and a classic movie.
This time we even invited friends into our little secret.

anniversary

tomorrow we celebrate the 5 year mark. This adorable card was sent to us from John's mom and I needed everyone to see it. More tomorrow about the love of my life. :)

in love

I have discovered some new things to eat! I had no shortage to begin with, but I am trying a whack diet to see if I have any food intolerances. So I have been gluten, dairy, sugar and depending on the day caffeine, chocolate and alcohol-free for almost three weeks. As a friend in town put it, its basically a food-free diet. Or a convenient-free diet. So I have been making yummy smoothies with spinach, drinking almond milk and eating more corn tortillas than I ever wanted to.
BUT . . . I have discovered a new convenient friend called Larabar. They are gluten, dairy and soy free and are usually made from three ingredients, totally raw. And after all that they manage to be yummy. They have flavors like coconut creme pie and banana bread. Come on! And to my delight I learned they are as cool as I am because they originated in Colorado! Thanks Larabar, for meeting my needs right when I was crying into my only-thing-I-can-eat-on-the-menu-yet-no-nutritional-value-iceberg-salad. I think a blueberry muffin is calling my name.

here she is!

Our floor is in the finishing stages. We finished the boards at 4am this morning and we could not be happier to say goodbye to the glue and trowel.

men at work

We are laying (glueing) a wood (bamboo) floor down in our house. Wood floors was on the bonus list for us when we were house shopping. And because the previous owners had a kitty who littered in the hall closet, we are getting our bonus wood, for free. 
It is, however, costing us much labor. In order to get sweet floors withing our flooring allowance we decided to put them in ourselves. Let me rephrase that, we decided John would do it. And his brother arrived just in time to get them started. 

We bought face masks and protection glasses for the sawdust, but as is common around here, we couldn't find them when we needed them. So bandanas and sunglasses it was. I call them rogue carpenters. 
David was a mighty help, but I think John got used to being able to bounce ideas off of someone right next to him. I have never heard John talk to himself more than this week. Its a constant stream of "oh thats true" and " yeah, I guess you're right". He is getting a good laugh out of it too. He just told me that he has started pep talking his tools: "you're really coming through today screw."
The best is when he has fit something perfectly and says something like "whats up now?" or "yeah baby" with a whistle. But the ultimate was when, to his own surprise, after cutting and fitting a board perfectly he yelled out "There is no Santa Claus!" Why? We are just not sure. 

it is the Lord's

Last night we dedicated our house to God. John's brother and his sweet wife were here to help us get our house in order. Before we started we spent the evening writing verses, prayers and praises to God on the our bare concrete subfloor. We each silently asked God to fulfill His word in specific ways in this home. And then we shared some of what we wrote and why. Finally, we prayed together to give the house back to the Lord, for His purposes and glory. It was pretty emotional for all of us as we imagined what God might do the years we occupy the home, the lives changed in our living room, the meals shared, the protection needed from the enemy, and the worship of God.
May this be the foundation of our home.

Thankful Things

It is hard to be away from family, especially on special days like mother's day. My mom deserves the honor and attention and pampering that come with the celebration. She has been such an example to me of a patient, honest, loving and sacrificial mom. I am so thankful for the woman she is and the relationship we have today. This photo was taken on my parent's honeymoon I believe. If you look close enough you can see the sparkle in her eye that was one day to be me. :)

On this day she had no idea she would be the mother of three. She is so young and hip in this picture. I wish she had saved all her late seventies clothes for me. And I love her wild hair, somehow my hair is neither thick nor curly. Bummer. Maybe my kids will have better luck.

Well, Mom, I hope you enjoy your picnic tomorrow. And I wish I was there with you! I would make you seven layer dip (with no beans of course) and then ask you to search our basement one last time for that yellow tank top.

wiith a lotta love,
Melissa

We closed today! Let the people rejoice we did it. And we also happened move out of our apartment and into our home today! I am SO tired. And SO thankful. I will post pics of today and share more later. Hooray!

Waiting . . .

We were scheduled to close last wednesday. 6 days later and we don't even have a date set to close. That is how unsure our lender is on when they will get their paperwork together. Shouldn't closing on a home be a little more seamless? This is their profession for crying out loud. We wont even mention the fact that they might have lost our paperwork three weeks ago, I say might because they haven't fessed up to it. They just wanted us to sign those 40 some papers twice?

Praise be to the only God! He has provided perfect righteousness and payment for sins in His Son Jesus! Thank you Jesus for living perfectly for me, dieing for me and changing my heart of stone into a heart of flesh.

                        

thankful things

One thing we knew in Gainesville. We did not do a good iob of building close relatuonships with our friends in town. Sometimes we even wondered if we had them. We were surrounded by awesome students who did become friends. And our church and staff family were a great network of friends. But outside of work? Peers? . . . (cricket sounds).

We moved to Jacksonville knowing we wanted friends. And Jacksonville has been anything but lonely. There have been so many connections with people throughout the city. And we have made friends! Praise the Lord!
Two of those friends are pictured here. They don't know I took this picture on our last doublie-do date. Sharlie will know once she hops over here to catch up on all things Teten.
We are blessed by them. They are our peers and are not on Navigator staff, already we are off to a good start. He loves sports! She bakes bread!
Even more they share a love for Jesus, are like-hearted and can sympathize with us in our stage of life! I am thankful that Jesus has friends for us along the way of painful seasons who can cry with us, pray with us and play ticket to ride with us.

What do you do when its friday and all your stuff is packed in boxes because you were supposed to move on thursday and you have found out that theres no chance you are moving until monday or tuesday or wednesday?
You spend your day at the pool. And then begrudgingly start unpacking because you need to eat, and you need pans and plates and forks and salt, which are all in different boxes. Humphfff.

a delightful surprise

We had dinner reservations at the melting pot tonight because we were
taking advantage of their free cheese fondue promotion. To my
surprise, John told me once seated that he intended to order a full
four courses in celebration of our first year of ministry in
Jacksonville! What a man I married. We talked about what we will
remember about this year, about our new house (closing on Wednesday,
Lord willing), and about our last dinner together at Melting Pot,
November of 2005, after John propsed to me. That dinner five plus
years ago was also filled with excitement and anticipation as we
dreamt in our private dining room about the future. About dates,
places, guests . . . I called myself Melissa Teten out loud, and only
took my eyes off John long enough to look at the sparkling ring he had
just placed on my finger.
Memories.

flop

I have never practiced labeling things I put in the refrigerator or freezer. Tonight proved why that is a good idea. Our pot pie's flaky crust turned out to be sugar cookie.

thankful things

To John,
I am thankful for you! I am thankful that you love me so well. I am so very thankful for your commitment to Christ and leading our family to follow closely after Him. You have been a solid comfort to me. And you are the only one I want to live this life with, with all its blessings and afflictions. And I am thankful that I can beat you every once in a while at Words.
Love,
the wife of your youth

Sitting outside at night in 80 degree weather with my husband listening to music by candlelight. Playing words with husband (an app). A delightful sunday.

we just heard that the whole A/C unit is being replaced in our house.  At no cost to us.  Because of new requirements in Duval County the old system was not up to par.  Hooray for God providing for us in a crazy weird way.  Who knew how long the old system would have lasted?