"Mrs. James Troy Stewart, Jr." or "Mrs. JimBo" as I was referred to by many Temple Baptist Church members.

I'm not sure I could have imagined on that day that JimBo and I would be living in New Orleans with one crazy boy and another on the way. My mother had threatened him before we walked down the aisle that if he "moved us Africa she'd shoot him". I doubt living in one of the murder capitols of the country was her second choice.

But honestly, these last 5 years have been amazing. It's been a crazy roller coaster ride. But he warned it would be when we first started dating. As he put it, "You do realize that I'm God's sitcom, don't you?"

JimBo and I met when we were 19. And have basically grown up together. In a few weeks we'll both turn 27. 8 years flies by.

In my head this post was more eleoquant that I have words to say at the moment. Suffice it to say, that every morning I get to wake up next to my best friend and serve God in a city where for the first time in my life, I am a definite minority. I have an amazing 2 year old God has given us to raise, and what I'm convinced is a "future kick boxing legend" in my tummy right now.

Is our life perfect? Not in the least. But we are happy. We are challenged. And we are where we are supposed to be.

I love you, JimBo Stewart. Thanks for asking me to be your wife. Thanks for asking me to be the co-star of your sitcom. Thanks for being my best friend.

Artily

*sigh* I should be researching lesson plans right now, but I kinda hit a brick wall. So I thought I'd stop to update you guys on what's going on with us now that we're on the "westbank".
Sorry for the long absence... since moving into our new house, our internet is sketchy at best. Plus, we still haven't slowed down. The house has been such a wreck, I've felt guilty devoting time to anything other that it when I'm here, plus last week was jam packed with activities.
My end of the year program was a success. I was really proud of my babies. I teach 3-4 year olds at FBC New Orleans 5 days a week. Since summer is coming and I'm losing most of them during the fall, I wanted to do a special presenation of some of the cute songs/ect. they've learned this year. The theme I stole from my previous pre-school. It was a zoo animal theme. Most of the school came to watch as well. I think the parents really enjoyed themselves. I gave out "yearbooks" that I worked on for each of the kids and JimBo helped me put together a slide show that we showed at the program. I got to send a copy home with each kid and JimBo designed a really cute cover for it. It was a lot of work, but it really paid off.
As for the house, we finally have most of the rooms unpacked and mostly organized, (still have my room and the nursery/scary room to uncover). We finished that on Saturday, just in time for our new summer room mate to move in. He's a student from William Carey and will be serving as our summer youth worship leader/intern. He's a really nice guy and he's staying in the guest bedroom.
His first night here we took him to a Zephyr's baseball game. It's our local minor league team. Our friends the McDuffys from the seminary went with us. Our team won, but I think the guys were really excited about the concert afterwards. "Mini KISS" was playing that night. For you non-Mini KISS groupies out there, I'll elaborate. It was a KISS cover band featuring "little people". And it was a freakish as it sounds. Luckily, I'm pregant and we had a 2 year old who needed to go to bed, so we didn't stay too long.
Next weekend we have 2 weddings in one day. Tripp is going to stay with his grandparents (my mom and dad) on Friday night and we'll get him back sometime the next week.
JimBo leaves for youth camp a week from tomorrow. He'll be gone Monday-Friday.
Then when he gets back, we get to have our family vacation. I'm not sure what the exact plans are yet.
I know we're spending time in Arkansas at the lake and in Conway. And we are spending 2 days with Tripp's god-parents. (They are about to move to China for a year.) And I have a wedding in Tupleo I have to make the following Saturday. Ha... even our vacation is busy. We're such goobs. It's either feast of famine with us, I suppose.
Going to bed now. Hopefully, inspiration will strike me in my sleep about how to educate my students on the wonders of Lousiana, since I couldn't find anything on the internet tonight.

It's a boy!