Today I turned a quarter of a century old. Finally, I have reached an age which sounds somewhat adult-ish, somewhat credible when you are meeting with professionals in Omaha who have been doing what they’re doing since you were learning to speak.

I had such a fun day with Tyler yesterday, well, this whole weekend. Let me break it down for you what its like to be in the Cooper fam, one of the “Coops.”

Friday - Charlestons (woo!) & 3:10 to Yuma

Saturday - Camille’s, walking around downtown looking at art, sneaking around the DoubleTree Hotel, driving up through the hills near the Lewis & Clark “Council Bluff,” party with the family.

Sunday - picking up African refugees in the morning, helping take care of 10+ kids belonging to various Coram Deo-goers, getting the Refugees & 60 sandwiches and drinks organized at the Zoo and then spending the afternoon walking around looking at the animals (baby tigers), watching a scary movie until I am really creeped out, going to a Theology class/discussion, watching another movie until passing out in bed.

Monday - driving up through cute and also creepy small towns in northern Nebraska and Iowa, eating at a strange cafe with mismatching table cloths and a VHS rental shelf of taped-over movies & family vacations, walking around on reconstructed Lewis & Clark boats out on a lake, walking through a 3 story boat made into a museum in Sioux City, driving up through Yankton and back home through the beautiful hills.

Tuesday - back to work, bagels in the morning, lunch at Zio’s, cake tonight at our Bible study thingamajigger.

Woo! Its been fun. What a great year 24 was, so exciting, so full of change and blessings, a new best friend, a new life with my new best friend, a new job, a new home literally and also in my heart with my community and a growing, fuller one with my family of Collicotts. It was a wonderful year, full of newness and change.

This year should be an adventure. I’m hoping for a year of growth and learning. I hope its full of growth in maturity, growth in wisdom, and learning how to love Jesus and therefore others in a new level of authenticity and trueness. I’m also hoping for fun and excitement, and lots of time with loved ones, most of all my wonderful husband, Tyler, who is the best gift I can imagine (there Jill, that answers one of your bday questions).

Four more days until the wedding! Tyler & I can NOT wait until we can actually just be home together. I’m sure many of you also remember that feeling right before your wedding date. Its like this invisible line you cross over. Right now you are on one side, and in four 24-hour spans you will be on the other. Forever united in the eyes of the Lord, and promised to one another for the rest of your lives. Wow. Four days until my life is that significantly changed. I can’t wait.We live 30 minutes from one another right now, and it is horrible to leave one another at the end of the day. I’ve heard it said many times, and know it personally now, how unnatural it is to be without that person. You are truly part of one another, and feel a little weird when that person is gone. I think that it might sound as if we are losing part of ourselves to meld into one, but what Tyler & I have been so excited to discover is that as we grow closer together, we actually are becoming more and more who we truly are. Having a man that wants to lead me and provide for me and to lovingly guide me toward truth and beauty in life is making me into more of a woman than I have been before.

It’s a great design, this love thing.

And…..back to my last day of work….

Seriously, I do. More pictures to come soon.

Tyler & I just got back from visiting his family in Strasburg, Colorado. Okay, well, actually I was meeting them for the first time. It must be quite a shock for them to meet someone that is going to be in their lives forever so suddenly, but I think they handled it quite well! I had such a wonderful time, driving through the mountains with Tyler’s parents, meeting his brother & sister-in-law and grandparents.

The best part by far was getting to see this man that I believe God prepared for me before I was born in a new way. All of a sudden Tyler became more “3 dimensional” to me. I know him so well here, his life here with me, but I didn’t know the man that was before, I wasn’t there while he was growing up, I’ve never seen the places I’ve heard crazy stories about, and I’ve never seen the pictures of him as a cute little boy & young man (and he was CUTE). Tyler & I are always here in Omaha, where we’re a part of each other’s lives, and where we are molding our 2 lives into one. But this was the first time that I was somewhere with Tyler for no other reason except that we love each other. That was the only reason I was there in Colorado.

And I tell you what, I may be off, but that just does something beautiful to a woman’s soul, to be somewhere with the man she loves for no other reason but that one. It is a beautiful design, this love thing that God made. Sometimes when I’m learning something hard or something really beautiful about our relationship and what it means to love someone truly, I try to catch myself and wonder how this is reflecting God’s love for me. After all, marriage is God’s design to show us how intensely He desires us, and how deeply He loves us. Every intricacy of marriage should be able to reveal to us a smidgin of this, right? It seems that way. I’ve just been thinking about how my heart felt such a love and need for Tyler when I was with him in his town, with his family. How I felt so alive with the thought that this was the man who wanted to marry me forever, who wanted me to become his new family…and here he was bringing me before his family & parents to show them proudly who I was. What a small glimpse into how our hearts should be responding to our Savior, doing the same thing before His own Father.

Anyway, the funnest part of the weekend was hopping on the back of a 4 wheeler and having Tyler illegally whisk me all over Strasburg at dusk, holding on for dear life. I got to see all the ins and outs, all the places Tyler has almost died from motorcycle jumping accidents, the homes he grew up in, the place that builds miniature trains, the museum, the high school, the places he ran from the police, the wall he got thrown into by the tornado, the trails that he used to spend hours and hours on with his 4 wheeler, and a Strasburg high school baseball game. Just a typical day with Tyler Cooper.

Last weekend, my parents & Tyler & I went to North Newton, Kansas, where my grandparents currently live. They have lived in Inman, Kansas, a small town of 1000 people for most of their lives, but have had to move off of the farm to be closer to medical assistance.

It was a wonderful time, it was so fun to see Tyler playing baseball with my cousins, and to be back in the Kansas countryside, a place that always makes me feel truly at home and loved. My family also threw us a surprise wedding shower, which was right as Tyler got done playing baseball, leaving nice damp spots all over his shirt for the pictures.

My grandparents’ farm was built by my grandpa, and my mom grew up there. I spent almost everyday there while we lived there, and have gone back time after time since we moved away. The farm has always been very special to me, and the place that I sometimes imagine when I’m feeling overwhelmed with life. I remember watching the cows in the fields, swimming in the slimy cow tank (yes), being chased by angry geese, playing gray wolf until we had to go inside, sleeping in piles of cousins in the living room, and waking up to the sun rise as I heard the clock chime.

I also remember taking long walks down the dirt road as the sun set, and watching the breeze sweep through the wheat, dreaming about my future, dreaming about the day when God would bring a husband into my life, dreaming about where God would take me and what sort of adventure my life would hold.

It was an altogether sort of different day this weekend, bringing my fiance there, and yet not having my grandparents there to greet us, and not having my cousins playing football in the front yard. No strange inbred white cats running around the yard, either.

But, God is faithful, and Tyler was able to meet my grandpa. And that means a lot to me. And my grandpa seemed to really like him.

Some of my life has really changed since I was a little girl, walking around the farm. Some of my dreams have disappeared, some have changed dramatically, and some have been fulfilled. Some of the dreamer in me has gotten lost in the shuffle of reality and busy-ness. I want to find some of that again, the peace and the quietness.

I haven’t had much to blog about lately, it’s the holidays and my mind has been in a weird place, a good weird place. Just, not really thinking concretely, but just being really happy. Things are going really well and I keep finding more and more ways that God continues to faithfully literally remove things from my life that I want to keep for my own reasons. It’s a weird feeling, I hope you know what I mean. It’s almost like I don’t have anything to fret or stress about because God has ripped things out and seared my heart back together in new ways these last months and I guess those transforming moments are beginning to have an effect in my life, because I find myself really surprised that my mind isn’t going in circles all the time with worries or insecurities.

It’s bizarrely freeing. I have to rediscover what to do with my thoughts.

So, I was at the high school overnight for New Year’s eve from 2 to 6 (and thank you to Tyler for going with me! And for “unlocking” the door…twice…I’m still impressed…), and there Mitch tried to connive me into going to the ski trip in Winter Park, Colorado. So, needless to say, I skillfully manipulated him into a free trip and some extra benefits in exchange for my fantastic chaperone services. Actually, I wasn’t trying to manipulate, I guess I’m just naturally a ruthless negotiator.

So, I’m sitting here in a condo, with a moose head staring at me, by the fire, with the mountains outside, eating mac & cheese just made by two 14 year olds. I’ll be back on Saturday night.