Recuperating...kinda

They put in an IV, I remember talking for about 2 minutes and I woke up an hour and half later with two less teeth. They were two extra teeth so that made it worth it. My recuperation has been awesome, with Sara hanging out with me almost all the time while I eat/slurp soup, yogurt and apple sauce. This is the life!

Sara's been working hard makings lots of cards. She has a goal of making 30 a day for the next 60 days so she's ready for her big trade show in October. She's gonna do great! She has a few scrapbook jobs lined up as well before her sidewalk arts festival booth in September.

Sara is so gifted at her scrap booking and card making. You can scroll down on this page so see pictures of her work. Have a wonderful day!

Andy, Sara and baby to be named

Getting Settled at Home

Coming Home and Cleaning Up!

Sara and I have been home for a few days from camp and have had a great time getting settled. We've spent a lot of time together and that's been a great change from camp where I had to work about 15 hours a day (loved every minute of it though!). We've spent the first few days home not working (since we worked 18 days straight at camp) at our jobs and more working on our marriage. Since we spend so much time at home we thought we'd go ahead and clean up our clutter a bit. Yes, that's an uncluttered desk...for now.


Sara's Showing!

Sara is officially showing now and here's a picture to prove it. She also wanted me to remind anyone viewing this picture that she ate a large piece of lasagna before the picture was taken:) She's in our fourth month and is feeling well, other than the daily naps and occasional headache.



Major Furniture Sale

There's a furniture store here in town that we like to go browse at...but never buy anything there...until now! We bought the piece of furniture for our front entryway that we can store all of our shoes in as well as hang all of our jackets and hats. We got it for about 60% off so we were pretty pumped about that deal. We also bought a small recliner for Sara to rock the baby in. It's small so it'll fit in our baby room pretty well since it's not any bigger than our bedroom.




Sara's Upcoming Arts Festival

Sara's going to be showing off her card-making skills at the Sioux Falls Sidewalk Arts Festival(Click link for more information). She's going to be sharing a booth with her friend Sara Rasmussen, who is a very gifted artist herself! Please stop by the arts festival on Saturday September 8th anytime between 9am and 5pm!




Transitioning Out of Young Life

I'll be done working for Young Life at the end of the month and will be working on getting things ready to hand off to our committee as they work on who is going to run the area next. We're still working out how much we're going to be involved in the next year as we start a family and I start my new career but at the very lease we'll most certainly be following up with kids that we went to camp with this summer as well as kids that didn't go to camp but are still keeping in touch with us throughout the summer. Their school year starts Monday morning!


New Job, Here I Come

I start with Thrivent Financial on September 1st and am really, really excited about my new career! I get to help people make great choices with their finances and give them peace of mind through the products I'll be able to sell to members. I'll be working with a friend named Bryon Meyer and he's really good at his job and I'm so excited to learn from him and the other people at Thrivent. I truly believe this is a great fit for my gifts and passions and am looking forward to helping friends, family and strangers find peace and growth in their finances.

We love you,

Andy, Sara & Baby to be named Traub

Coming home soon

Dear friends,
It's been a wonderful 17 days here in Minnesota. Sara and I have made many new friends and we've both been working hard at our jobs. Sara's been frustrated that she has to take a few naps a day b/c of the baby, but she's come to realize that right now nothing is more important than for her to take care of herself and through that our child.

I'll post a few pictures of my characters that I've been playing (Dale Dowinski, Kickflip the skateboarder, Mr. Safety and Skip Holiday the game show host). I hope to post some of the video we took to YouTube as well so you can watch some of our performances. Young Life camp is an amazing operation and b/c of that we've been working very hard and had little time to update our page. Now that we're heading home and taking a few days off and then transitioning to a new job for me (Andy) I'm sure we'll have more news to share with you.

Please pray for safe travel for us home to Sioux Falls tomorrow and we'll post some updates in the next few days.

Take care and drop us a note if you'd like!

- Andy, Sara & Unborn Baby Traub

Where we live!

Here's some pictures of where we live (the one with the large porch) as well as the Adult Guest Lodge here at Castaway Club in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. We'll keep you posted. Feel free to leave us a message!
- Andy, Sara and baby to be named Traub

Here are a few pictures from a meal here at Castaway. We've got one week of Young Life behind us and we're on to WyldLife so we'll keep you posted on this week's progress. We'll have more time to update you so stay tuned!!
- Andy & Sara & Baby to be born Traub

We've had a busy morning preparing for our departurE to camp. We'll update ourblog later tomorrow with pics of our trip and camp. We luv u!

All Decked Out at JCPenny's

My new clothes
Sara and I spent way too much time at JCPenney's this morning but our trip was very productive. We saved about $450 b/c there was a huge sale on men's clothing that our friend Chris Nelson tipped us off to. So now I've got a few good suits to wear to start of my new career right! We'll send out

Departing tomorrow AM
We're leaving for Castaway Club tomorrow morning after I go to the local library for a "media" sale they're having. I love the library. It's either free or it's dirt cheap. I guess that's why we pay taxes! Sara is busy getting the house cleaned and us packed for the trip. We'll keep you posted while we're there through this webpage! Thanks for checking in and please post a comment so we know you're reading this stuff.

- Andy & Sara & Baby to be named

Sweden, Camp and Drought

Sweden comes to Sioux Falls
Per and Jenny, our new friends from Sweden stayed at our house last night. Their band played a show at our church last night. They're newly married (5 weeks) and were really cool. They answered all of our silly questions that I'm sure they get asked everywhere they stay and bonded with Maggie, our lovable pup.

Leaving for Camp
Sara and I leave Friday for three weeks to our Young Life camp in Minnesota, Castaway Club. I'm very, very busy preparing for that and Sara is busy getting dog-sitters and getting our lives in order before we leave for camp. We'll be posting pictures and updates from camp so stay tuned!

No Rain
By the way, it hasn't rained a significant amount in Sioux Falls for about a month and we're in a serious drought. Good thing I don't like to mow grass! It's about 94 degrees here this week but we just stay inside and stay cool. We hope you're well too. Post a comment below and let us know how you're doing.

Blessings,

Andy & Sara and Baby to be named

Andy Accepts New Position

I (Andy) accepted a position with Thrivent Financial this week. I will become a financial adviser after two months of study and test taking and will be able to help people with a very wide variety of financial services; investing, saving for college funds, life and health insurance and finding ways for people to save money during their day to day living so they can put it towards their future!

The interview process was very thorough and I really appreciated the time they took to talk with me about my talents and dreams for my next career. I have a very good friend that works for Thrivent and I am very excited that he will be mentoring me from the very start.

I am starting with them on September 1st of this year and hope to be certified in many different areas of finances, insurance and investing by the start of November. Thank you for those of you who have been praying for me. The first few years of a career in this field require a tremendous amount of time in order to build a customer base. Sara will be spending her time making greeting cards, putting together scrapbooks for clients and spending time with our newest nephew Max.

We'll keep you posted!

With Love and Thanks,

Andy, Sara, Baby to be named

Sara's Greeting Card Creations

Stop being jealous of Sara's talents! You can own one of these creations for as little as $2!

Contact her at saratscrapbooking@hotmail.com
if you'd like to purchase some!