Kayaking or Whitewater Rafting?

Yesterday was a weekend day for us, and it was a glorious, glorious day. We had a leisurely morning at home, and I was able to work on some things for my speaking engagement later this month, and then, we pulled Fletcher out of storage and got him all prepped for a trip down the river!!

Our temps hovered in the mid-seventies, we didn't have a single cloud dotting our bright blue sky, and there was a delightful breeze. (Keep that "delightful breeze" part in mind, would you?)

We arrived at the boat launch at the same time as the portapotty guy!!

We hopped in the kayak and headed out toward the river - and though the trees somewhat halted on the color explosion that started a couple of weeks ago, we still found beauty out there on the water!

We turned around a bend, and there was one patch of trees that were just brilliant. I wanted to just park right there and stare at them all day!

We went down another little cove and found a fisherman - and a pontoon out for an afternoon float!

We turned around to come back, and when we got into the main part of the river, the "delightful breeze" kicked up, and that kayaking trip turned into a complete workout! There are no pictures because I was just trying to keep my balance and do something that might resemble helping. Ha!

Even Ryan had to laugh at how extreme it was. A couple of times it definitely felt like someone was holding onto the back of the kayak and we weren't moving at all, though we were both paddling with all our might. (And yes, one of us has more might than the other.) I told him I thought we had crossed over into whitewater rafting, and he just belly laughed. (He actually HAS been whitewater rafting, so I guess he is allowed to laugh.)

But we made it back. As we exited the water, a woman was just setting out in her kayak. She asked us how the water was going, and we told her it was a beautiful day - but she should be prepared to get a workout! She kept going, so I guess that didn't scare her.

It may not have been our most leisurely trip ever, but it sure was beautiful!

An Engagementversary

This weekend we celebrated our eighth engagementversary. One of our tenants was totally fascinated by that word and our choice to celebrate, but I told her it was such a sweet day for us that I always want to give it a place of honor in our lives.

We were on duty Sunday, so we couldn't go too far or be gone too long, but I think we made a good celebration out of the day!

It started with this delivery brought to me while I was in hair and makeup before church:

Isn't he the sweetest??

He wanted my picture with it, even though I didn't have a face on yet:

It was so good!!! (White chocolate caramel latte.)

We did get a good picture before we left for church. It was a cold and rainy day, so I told him I didn't think the hair would make it. We needed to document early.

After church (and running one of our tenants on an errand) we had lunch in our apartment and then headed out for our treat: an ice cream sundae at DeBrand! I've blogged about DeBrand before - and those of you who are from around here need no explanation or introduction. But if you're not from around here, you should know it's an AMAZING chocolate company based here in Fort Wayne.

Here are a few times I've talked about it before:

1. We went there as part of our adventure on our third anniversary outing/Allen County tour. Fun fact: we also had coffee at Mocha Lounge and got our Christmas tree at the St. Joe Christmas Tree farm. There is now a second location of Mocha Lounge just down the road from us and we live not far from that very tree farm! Who knew that in just five years...

2. One year for Valentine's Day, we had an at-home date, but I got a box of DeBrand truffles to have for dessert after our fondue dinner. Delish! That was a fun date in the middle of our chaotic commuting days!

3. The year before that on Valentine's Day, we went for a special date and ordered the Ultimate Float. We shared it, and it was DELICIOUS! (And the picture of us sharing it is still one of my favorite pictures of us.)

And now we have one more date to add to it!

I love this picture of the building...if only it hadn't been raining, right?

We got there right after they opened, and other than a couple of people coming in to purchase things from the case of chocolates, we had the place to ourselves! We shared a sundae and some coffee, and it was so very good!

Before I show you that, though, here's another view of those delicious truffles!

The sundaes look different now than they used to, but they're still just as good. We shared one with caramel and peanut butter sauce - and nuts. So delicious!

I'm drooling just looking at it!

We licked the platter clean and proceeded to take silly pictures of each other:

And then the date was over! We went back to WillowBridge and resumed our work - while reminiscing about the fun day had the day we got engaged.

94 Months!

Thank you so much for all your kind words yesterday about our new Abby girl! We are excited to begin our adventures with her - and of course we'll let you come along for the virtual ride! :)

Today I wanted to tell you about our 94th monthiversary, which was last Friday. We were on duty for the day - so we had to dovetail celebrating with working!

I told Ryan we needed to do our picture early in the day before the wind killed my hair. It was a beautiful day - but a breezy one!

Ryan wanted to treat me to a special breakfast, so he cooked up one of his signature omelets. It was delicious as always!!

It was also kind of fun that Friday was the same day one of the Gateway Woods social media accounts did a get-to-know-Ryan-and-Bekah day!

We had a couple of different plans on our minds to celebrate, but neither one ended up working out with our work schedule. (It was one of those days when nothing went according to plan, so we just moved right along to Plan C.)

And that was...

Oh, my, yes.

One of the flavors we picked was called "Exhausted Parent," which seemed appropriate. LOL!!

(Told you the wind would get the best of me.)

We had to hurry with the ice cream and get back to WillowBridge to resume being on duty, but I was grateful we got to sneak away for a few minutes!

Happy monthiversary, Ryan!!

Our Miss Abby

I had a different post planned for today, but I fear some of you might not survive until you hear the Abby story - and we sure don't want that! So I'll table my original plans for a later day and tell you about Abby instead!

Ryan and I first fell in love with RVs just over four years ago, when we were traveling home from my niece's wedding out in Kansas. It's funny what an 850 mile road trip will do to you! We came home and I immediately began researching them. And for the last four years, I've watched YouTube videos, read a gazillion blog posts, taken webinars, and followed a bunch of RV enthusiasts on social media to learn as much as I could about both full and part time RV life.

And for all that time, we've known we one day hoped to have one of our own, but until now, it hasn't been feasible to purchase one. (We had no desire to take out a loan to purchase one.) Also in that time, we did all kinds of research on what kind of rig we would want to find for ourselves. We very quickly ruled out any kind of towable camper, because the truck we have is just a little guy, and it isn't big enough to tow. We definitely couldn't afford to purchase a new truck AND a camper. Plus, I'm not comfortable driving any vehicle towing something, and Ryan wanted me to be able to drive whatever we got.

It's just the two of us, so we have sort of a less-is-more mentality. We didn't want anything super long, because the bigger the RV, the more costs we would have in fuel and maintenance, so we set out to hunt for a fairly small home on wheels - for someday.

When we sold our house and moved for our new job, we decided the time was right to look in earnest for an RV. This came up on the blog a few days ago, but I'll revisit it here again to further explain our decision. Since we live and work in the same building, when we have our weekend days, we're still here in the thick of everything that is going on. It's not a bad thing by any means, but there are times when we find it a little tempting to get caught up in working on our days off, because we're still here in the middle of work. And since our weekends can be true weekends (usually, anyway), free of yard work or house projects, we have the freedom to get away for self-care if we choose.

As a side note, self-care is heavily encouraged in this line of work. We're still new enough that we don't feel overrun with exhaustion, but we've been admonished to learn to practice it from the beginning, because it is the key to being able to continue a live-in social work job for the long haul.

We prayed extensively about purchasing an RV, made lists, weighed pros and cons, and concluded that an RV would be a great way to allow us to get away on our days off (in non-freezing weather). We can continue our 92 county tour quest this way. We can go visit friends (especially those with yards or driveways we can park in!) this way. We can go visit family and still have our own space at the end of the day. And when we travel 850+ miles to see my sister, we'll have a bathroom on the road!

So that's the long back story of how we came to hunt for Abby. We've been asked how we came up with that name, and here's the answer! We heavily considered purchasing an RV that was named Abby (by the previous owner). She had been so very loved, and we dearly loved her, too. Unfortunately, we couldn't justify her price tag for our budget, so we had to walk away. But we decided that regardless of what one we ended up buying, we would name her Abby, in honor of our almost-first-RV.

Our Abby is a bit older, because that's what is in our price range, but she's in good shape! (We were cautioned about buying an older rig - and we appreciated that advice! We feel good about where she came from and the checks done on her and the improvements made to her prior to our purchase. She's not perfect, and we know that, but she's in good shape.)

Miss Abby is also a bit dated on the inside, but you know us! We love paint projects! LOL!! We have plans to spruce her up a little bit in the coming months - some paint here and new flooring there - and she'll be all gussied up in no time!

She's little. Not quite 24 feet long - which still feels like a charter bus to me when I drive her, but I can drive her. She's got quite a bit of storage for her size, and she has absolutely everything we need to be comfortable in her. I've got so many dreams for her tiny bedroom, her little kitchen, and her little living room. We've got a mental theme of a bright and airy beach-feel for her, and we can't wait to make it happen.

We are so grateful for the chance to have this dream come true for us, and we can't wait to adventure with Miss Abby. And who knows! Maybe someday we'll travel in her full time - which has been another dream of ours for a few years!

Here are a few pictures from the day we picked her up. It just so happened to be National Coffee Day so our very first activity was to drink coffee in the RV! Perfect, right??

I can't wait to have some good before-and-after pictures for you! :) All in good time, right?

The Shafferland Shuffle

Happy Sunday, my friends! Today we're celebrating eight years since Ryan proposed and I said yes! We are excited for this day! :) While we celebrate in real time, here are some of the highlights of our last week!

* Last Sunday afternoon I took pictures for one of our tenants with her son and boyfriend. They are all so photogenic, so it was a fun photo shoot! She wanted them taken toward downtown Fort Wayne, so after I was done, Ryan and I stuck around for a little bit, wandering around one of the parks and seeing what we might want to come back and see in more depth later! It was a beautiful day and a fun afternoon!

* Monday was the first day of our weekend, and it was not quite as pretty a day as we hoped. We had plans to travel to a pumpkin patch to get mums and pumpkins, but when we arrived, they were all out of mums. Sadness. We did get pumpkins at a great price, though, and we stopped at a Wal-Mart on the way home to get mums there. It may have been a rainy day, but it was still a fun date! 

* Tuesday was a monumental day in Shafferland! Props to Gerri and Katie for guessing it in the Saturday Six yesterday - we did indeed finally have a multi-year dream come true in purchasing an RV! There is so much more to this story, and I will tell you about it this week, but Tuesday was the day we picked her up and brought her home. Her name is Abby and we love her already. We have some dreams for giving her a little bit of a facelift on the inside, but we are excited to have her and look forward to adventuring with her!

* We returned to work on Wednesday, and I spent some time in the office catching up on administrative stuff while Ryan worked on potting the mums outside. It wasn't the ideal day for outside work, but we wanted to get the building decorated! And we did! Carried all the mums and pumpkins out in the rain and set them up. Looks pretty cute to me!

* Thursday signaled the start of October AND National Homemade Cookie Day. Now there's a holiday I can embrace!! I made brown sugar cookies for our tenants and co-workers - and us, of course. :) It was a pretty day, and Braeya enjoyed working neighborhood watch while Ryan and I worked around the building. We took a walk that night, and I had to grab a picture of this gorgeous store in town. It is my favorite building. Always makes me feel like I live in Walnut Grove!

* Friday marked our 94th monthiversary, and even though it was a work day for us, we tried to sneak in celebrations throughout the day! Ryan made breakfast for us, and we went out for ice cream that night. (Trying to sample all the ice cream shops in the area!) AND we happened to be featured on one of the Gateway Woods social media accounts that day - so it was fun to read what they had to say!

* Yesterday was a pretty quiet day in the building, so we took advantage of the time to knock out some projects. Ryan worked on paint repair in some empty bedrooms, and I worked on some new strategies for our tenants. Ryan got a craving for Chinese food, so we tried out a new-to-us takeout place for dinner. And then I worked on our scrapbook while watching Dateline - apparently with Spanish subtitles. I knew every ninth word. ;)

The Saturday Six

One.

I don't like doing puzzles - mostly because I'm too impatient. (I can admit that.) Maybe if I could complete one in time-lapse speed, like this video, I would like them more. (Ha!) Even though this picture is beautiful, there is NO WAY I could handle this many thousand pieces. How about you? Puzzle lover or not so much?

Two.

Callie's post about cozy fall life has me all cozy inside. Any of this resonate with you?? And also - am I the only person who has not seen the Gilmore Girls?

Three.

Our September one-second video is DONE! :)

Four.

Anyone else miss traveling? I do! This post got me all in the mood for a good fall trip - and reminded me of a few years ago when we were in New York right about this time of year. GORGEOUS trees!!! Anyone have a favorite fall destination?

Five.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on the blog before, but if you are on Instagram and you're not already following Susie Larson, I'd absolutely recommend adding her. She's prepping for a book launch, and her posts and previews are filled with quotes that are so soul-filling! I love reading what she has to say!

Six.

Saw this tag this week and thought it was pretty cute! If you're giving any masks as a gift, this is the perfect tag!

Eight Years of the Best Yes

Today is our 94th monthiversary! I remember when we finally hit double digits in the monthiversaries, and now we're not far from triple digits!

I'm excited for this day and for the 94 months we've had the privilege of sharing, but I'm also excited for another milestone we hit this weekend - Sunday, actually - and that is our eighth engagementversary!

Eight years ago I had brown hair (and a subpar flat iron, I might add) and no idea that I was about to get the biggest surprise of my 34 years: a marriage proposal.

I think most of you who read here have been around for a while and have heard this story, but there might be a few of you here who don't know it - and besides, it's one of my favorites stories, so I'm going to share some of my favorite parts of it today.

Ryan and I had talked about marriage, and I knew that he planned to propose. I even knew that it would probably happen within the next few months. We had looked at rings and talked about wedding dreams, but I had no idea that he already had a ring in his possession and a magnificent proposal plan already concocted.

I also did not know that almost every single one of my co-workers knew it was happening that day.

Ryan proposed to me when I worked at WBCL, and that particular day was BLT day. (BLT stood for Bekah, Lynne, Thursday and was a show that Lynne Ford and I shared every single Thursday from 10-11. That day was National Frappe Day, and part of our show's plan included Lynne trying her first ever frappe on the air. (She didn't like it and I could not come to grips with that.)

After we talked (excessively, apparently) about frappes, Lynne asked me to share my favorite memory in life. I looked at my show notes and shared about when my bonus nephew, James, had been born. I had been in the delivery room for his birth and had some specific sweet memories about that day.

When that story ended, I looked at Lynne, expecting her to share her own favorite life memory, as our show notes said she would do.

Instead, she said, "I think after today, you'll have a different favorite memory."

I scrambled to stare at my notes, trying to figure out where she was going. We were live, so I couldn't offer dead air, but I couldn't figure out where she was going! So I stammered around saying, Okaaay...." and then the door to the studio swung open.

People aren't supposed to come in the studio when the On Air light is on - and if they do, they're supposed to peek through the window first to let you know they're coming.

But no one had peeked in. I looked over at the door and saw Ryan coming in! What was he even doing there? Wasn't he at work 105 miles away? Why was he not in scrubs? He walked briskly through the room to my side of the board and I heard Lynne announcing to our listeners who had just walked in the room. I heard her say he had a question for me, and I knew.

I knew this was the very moment. And all I could think was that I surely hoped my mom had a heads-up about this because I knew she never missed a show.

I tried so hard to focus on Ryan's every single word, because I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime moment and I did NOT want to miss a thing!

He had memorized the proposal and delivered it flawlessly.

I said yes twice. I didn't realize he wasn't finished asking and jumped ahead to an answer. :)

It was the best yes. After saying yes to Jesus, saying yes to Ryan was the best decision I've ever made. I say yes every single day of my life, and if he ever decided to memorize another proposal and ask again, I'd say yes again. Twice!

I love you, Ryan! Happy 94 months, and happy EIGHTH engagementversary!

Seeking First

The past few weeks have brought a really beautiful journey to my heart, and I'm grateful.

* When 2020 began, I purposed to do an in-depth study of Psalms, and just a few days ago, I made it all the way through Psalm 150. I've scribbled tons of notes in my Bible and made my way through two extremely thick commentaries along the way, and I've learned there were so many more hidden treasures in Psalms than I ever knew.

* I've been writing a short series of daily devotions for our tenants in an attempt to get them to spend more time in the Bible and maybe even memorizing a verse or two. It's been a beautiful challenge to craft short pieces that don't stay on the shallow end of study, and I've learned some things myself along the way.

* Ryan and I, along with our co-workers (Tim and Justine), have been doing the same study the tenants are doing, and we've been emailing each other every day with our thoughts, prayer requests, and struggles. Since we're no longer part of a small group, this has been a tremendous way to share and study together with the people who share the majority of our days!

* I've started another Daily Grace study - and this one is called Preaching the Gospel to Yourself. It's a great study in how the Gospel doesn't just apply to those who have yet to find the Lord in their lives. It continues to matter to all of us!

So as I study, share, write, and learn, I'm excited about the lessons God has been putting in my path lately. Yesterday, as I scrolled through Instagram, He stopped me in my tracks with this quote from Jill Monaco:

Seeking God first may mean something different for everyone. Maybe it's the first part of your day - or before you share your opinion.

I had never before thought about that verse in a broader context!

In what ways is God asking me to seek Him first?

* Before I make a decision that impacts our tenants...am I seeking Him first?

* Before I choose what I study or write...am I seeking Him first?

* Before I plan my day...am I seeking Him first?

You get the idea.

I'm going to be chewing on this idea for a while. This new season of our lives has changed so much about daily life. We are recrafting nearly everything to find what works best in a new place, new schedule, and new set of circumstances. There is no better time to seek Him first than right now.

And even if you're not in the middle of a whole bunch of new, I assure you that this is ALWAYS the best time to seek  Him first!