January Update

I am so glad to see January ending. That means we're one more step toward warmer weather and all the happy things that come along with it!!!

January has been a blessed month for us. We finally bought a new bed!!!! And we paid cash for it, which feels almost as good as sleeping on our new pillow top :) We also hit our 3-months savings in our 3-6 month emergency fund (Baby Step 3!!). We are going to continue to keep saving that up, Justin wants it to be a 10-month stockpile fund just for safety. Once we finish that then we'll start saving for a downpayment for a house. One day we'll get there. For now we just LOVE our apartment and are happy to stay put! It's fun to own everything completely and to not have a mortgage hanging over our heads. We love being out of debt and loved putting in the work to get here.

Now that we've hit our 3-month emergency fund mark, we're going to start Baby Step 4, which is investing!!!!! We've been so excited to start doing this. We met with our financial planner last Tuesday (one of Dave Ramsey's ELP's in Peachtree City) and will meet again with him tomorrow to actually open our Roth IRA accounts and sign forms, etc... SO EXCITED. We absolutely love this guy and love Dave and highly, highly, highly recommend all of you to this plan. LOTS of hard work and some sacrifice, but TOTALLY worth it!!!

New Year's Resolutions: some are going well, like making new dishes. We had some really yummy new food in January. Lots of things are joining our family favorites list. Working out is going great for Justin - Delta's new gym just opened and so he enjoys going before/after work. Working out for Erin is not going as well, but I really think I'm ready to commit :) At least I'm eating super healthy and getting plenty of veggies - that's all I eat for lunch :) Plus a little peanut butter ;) We're both staying healthy busy and being productive with our down time.

We're really feeling blessed with having some amazing people in our lives. There's a wonderful family we have just fallen in love with. They are truly uplifting and brighten our spirits every day. And while we know that technically we're giving service by being their ride to church/ youth group each week - WE are the ones who feel blessed beyond measure. I don't know how that works but I'm so grateful it does. You would never realize their situation because they are so happy and positive all of the time. It makes us feel much more grateful for all of our many blessings and want to do more to help others out.

In other news, we found out this weekend that...

the Atlanta Temple is reopening!!!!

The rededication will be Sunday May 1, 2011. The Open House, which is for ANYONE who would like to tour the temple before it's been dedicated for worship, will be April 9 - 23. We are SO excited to have this opportunity to share our beautiful temple with our friends and family, especially those not of our faith. Yes, that's what I said, you don't have to be a Mormon to take a tour of the temple during the open house!! So, for any of our friends who would like to check it out, just let us know and we'll be sure to get you tickets to one of the tours. We don't know anything else about tour times/ticket dates right now, but I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, if you have questions about Mormons or our temples, there are answers on this website.


YAY JANUARY! Thanks for being a fan-tabulous month!