We had so much fun with everyone Friday night! Hopefully we can have game night again sometime soon.

Steven went to drill at the base this past weekend and he had so much fun. He was selected by his supervising officer to attend a dinner this Friday. The dinner is for non-commissioned officers only. But they were asked to select the hardest working, most diligent soldier in their group (whatever it's called, I can never remember) to invite along. And they selected my Steven without any hesitation! I'm so proud!

We got a chance to talk to someone last night about our big decision. It was an enlightening conversation and we learned several things that we didn't know before but that significantly affects our decision. (Thank you Mom for the tip!) So now we have even MORE to think about and talk over. But, I'd rather have more to think about and be more informed than be uninformed and make a seemingly blind decision. Hopefully all this works out soon, it's starting to keep me awake at night.

Steven finally got a chance to go to Kerry Catherine yesterday, we've almost got this whole ring debacle finished! Almost there...

Sorry for the lack in posting lately. Steven and I have been quite busy. We had a great time visiting with my grandparents a few weekends ago while they were in town. I got to get a few new clothes for my birthday! Last weekend, Jess came to visit us and we had a ton of fun! Friday night we took her out for her birthday and had a blast. Then Saturday Steven went hiking with Malcolm and Jess and I had a girls night back at the apartment.

Speaking of Steven's hiking trip... they hiked all the way downtown then slept in the wood somewhere and hiked to church Sunday morning. My husband is crazy! I don't get the whole sleeping in the woods thing but hey, if it makes him happy...

Tonight we're having several other couples over for a game night. We're looking forward to it. Everyone is bringing their games and we're just going to pick a few to play and order some pizza. It should be fun!

My grandparents are coming today! I'm so excited about getting to see them. Since we stayed in Raleigh for Christmas this year I haven't seen them since the wedding. Tomorrow I get to go super early birthday shopping with them. Yay for new clothes!! 

We got our federal tax refund today, whohoo!! Now if we could just get the state one too...

I'm learning a lot about technology this week. I found two awesome new tools that I'm having to learn but so far am loving the results! Google has two programs, an analytics program and a data feeds program. I just signed up last week for the analytics program and love it! It updates everyday which is wonderful and tells me everything I could possibly want to know about my online store. For example, I get to see how many people visit, returning v. new customers, how many pages people look at, how fast they leave, and the list goes on and on. It's wonderful and is helping me out so much! I can also see which pages people visit the most often which will help me tailor my products. I can't wait to see what happens as I continue to work on my site! The data feeds program is awesome as well. Every week it goes to my store, pulls any new items and adds them to google products search!! Can't wait to see how that affects visits to my store! 

In Volker news: 

• My cousin Stephanie got engaged last night!!!!!!  I am so excited for her and Jacob, they are so precious together! Trust me, there will be more updates on this in the months to come. 

• All of the wedding pictures have officially been ordered! Now we just have to wait for them all to come in. I think between me, my mom, and my grandparents we probably ordered over 200 pictures! I will post some as soon as I get them.

• We went to Steven's parent's for dinner the other night. I got to hold my little niece for a good long while! She's getting so big and she's starting to coo already! So cute! 

• Steven is officially a full time employee at Brinks!! Apparently it was a big upset at work because he got promoted to full time after only three months of work and there are still part-timers that have been there for a year or more. But they really really love Steven because he's a really really hard worker and so they promoted him first! I'm so proud! 

• I am constantly adding new items to my store and hoping to bring in some business. If you know anyone interested in buying anything, pass my contact info along!

• My grandparent's are coming into town this weekend to celebrate birthdays (a little early!). So I get to go shopping on Saturday! I'm really excited to see them. 

• Jess, my college roommate, got to come visit this past weekend. She only stayed for a night but we had so much fun! We played to the Wii for quite a while with Steven and then they tried to teach me to play Mario. Very entertaining to say the least! Poor Steven, I don't think he got to sleep much that night because we stayed up so late talking! I can't wait to see her again!

I think that's enough news for now! 

Steven and I have started discussing what the next step is going to be with the Army and his career. We would both really appreciate everyone's prayers as we continue to talk about this and try to figure out what God wants us to do. We love you and thank you!

Wow. It has been a while since I posted anything. Sorry about that, I guess life just has us really busy lately. So here are some updates.

Steven's ring problem is solved, we hope. Just waiting on his new one to get sized properly. So thankful that it did not turn out to be a huge issue!

I started a new online store called Rhapsody Creative Studios. (There's a link to it from this blog on the right.) I am so excited about this new venture. I am designing mainly wedding invitations for now but hopefully soon will start branching out into baby announcements, shower invitations, graduation announcements, and personalized stationary. Let me know if you're interested in anything, I have no problem doing custom designs! I am really excited and hope that it takes off in the next few months. 

That is pretty much all the news I have for now. I hope to find more time to post things in the next few weeks!