Quick Update

We have one week until Call day at Seminary. You are all invited to view the service at www.csl.edu at 7:00 pm on April 27^th. At this website, you will be able to watch the service, view a map of the call placements, and access church stats. We are looking forward to learning of our Call and starting the next chapter of our life.

Along with the Call Day we are anticipating the birth of our second daughter Eleanor (Ellie) in approximately 4-5 weeks. Baby is growing well and we have an ultrasound scheduled for Wednesday this week. Adams Graduation is about a month away as well and he will soon be able to say goodbye to homework. Yeah! Hope this small update finds you all well. We will keep you posted on our adventure.

Love the Pecks.

We're having a baby GIRL!

We just found out today that we are having a baby girl in May. Everything is going well and our little girl is growing just how she should. God's knitting her together perfectly in Rachel's womb. He already knows her, and today we got a little glimpse at her. Here are a few of the pictures.

3D picture of baby's face with one hand up near her right eye.

3D picture of baby's face

"Footprint"

Profile of her head

Profile of baby's left side: chest and part of her head

So who do you think she looks like? I'm not sure yet.

Visiting with Santa

On Wednesday December 16th, 2009 we took Audrey to see Santa Claus at the mall for the first time. She ran right up to him and sat on his lap. Once she realize whose lap she was sitting in the fear set in. Maybe fear is a strong word. An unsure feeling set in as evidenced by the look on her face. For being almost two years old she did pretty well. She didn't cry and she told Santa that she wanted a Christmas tree for Christmas. She was more excited about all the Christmas decorations at the mall than sitting on a large bearded mans lap. Audrey really has little to no fear. She is a very independent little girl who loves to explore her world. It has been fun to watch her grown these past 21 months. She keeps us on our toes and brings a lot of happiness and laughter to our family.

Mery Christmas

The years seem to be going faster and faster. It is hard to believe that 2009 is drawing to a close. We once again have had a busy year and it seems that life is not going to slow down any time soon.
We started 2009 living in Edmond, OK. Adam completed his vicarage at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in August, and we packed our belongings once again into a moving truck and headed back to St. Louis for Adam's concluding year of classes. The transition back to classes for Adam went well, and he is continuing to learn how to balance homework, activities, and family life. Since our return to seminary, Adam has really enjoyed being involved with intramural sports and the seminary soccer team.
We are living on campus this year because of the tight schedule we are keeping. Rachel was a stay at home mom until she returned to St. Luke's division 6600 as a RN on September 1st. She is currently caring for Audrey in the morning and working full time in the evenings. The transition back to work as well as the transition back to seminary life has been a little harder on Rachel. She does not have much energy to spare, but God has continued to provide.
Audrey is now 21 months old and has quite the little personality. She can repeat her letters and numbers back to you. She does not quite have them memorized yet, but she is working on it. She repeats just about everything that you say now which can be quite entertaining, some days. Audrey is very social and loves people. She seems to have adjusted to her new home quite well. Being closer to her grandparents has allowed for more frequent visits with them. She has made a few friends on campus and loved going to Adam's soccer games this past fall.
We are looking forward to 2010 and all the joyous occasions that will take place. Adam will receive a call to a LCMS congregation somewhere in the United States. this past fall we began the call process by interviewing with the placement staff at Concordia Seminary to help them formulate our profile. Now that it is completed, churches that are interested in calling an associate pastor may view our profile and decide whether to interview us. Interviews will take place in January and February. During March and April, the calls will be finalized, and April 27th, 2010 we will receive our call. Adam will continue classes until graduation on May 21st.
April and May will be busy months. As if call day and graduation were not enough, we are expecting the birth of our second child the day after graduation, May 22nd. We hope that the baby arrives just a little early so we can actually go to graduation. We have been anticipating Adam's graduation for some time now, and it would be a shame to miss it due to being in the hospital.
Another joy we are looking forward to is being able to settle down somewhere and purchase a home of our own. We have been looking forward to a little more stability. Our hope is that Rachel will be able to stay home with the kiddos and Adam will be able to support the family as an associate pastor. We know that these plans may not line up with God's, but we are trusting that his plans will be the best for us. We will see what happens. You can tune into a live broadcast of the call service on the evening of April 27th, at www.csl.edu.
May God bless you this Christmas Season ad throughout the New Year.

Love from the Pecks

On the move

August 9^th we said our final goodbyes to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Edmond, OK. The day began with Adam giving his last sermon at all four services and then a potluck lunch followed. After lunch a special farewell and god speed service was held for us. The congregation shared stories from our vicarage that reached every emotion within us. We laughed and we cried. We received very nice gifts from the church and from some of the congregation members but the best gift are all the memories that we will hold close to our hearts. Adam’s parents attended all the festivities with us and helped take care of Audrey while she squirmed and ran around the gymnasium. Ellen had to return to WI but Steve stayed and helped us finish packing and helped with Audrey.

Packing seemed to take forever. What can I say; we are blessed. We picked up the moving truck on August 15 and started to load it with the help of some of the congregation. We had about 10 or so people helping pack up and the Collisons even brought lunch. We were so blessed by everyone who came to help. The truck was loaded by about 4:00pm and then the clean up began. We finally finished by about 6:30pm. We ate some dinner at good old McDonalds and started driving toward St. Louis, MO. We drove about 4 hours that night and stayed with a friend and pastor we know in Springfield, MO. Audrey pretty much slept the whole way. That was a blessing all on its own. They graciously welcomed us at 12:00 that night even though he had to get up and preach the next morning. It was nice to visit with them even though it was a short stay.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and then headed back on the road. Adam and Steve went straight to our apartment with the moving truck and Rachel drove to her parents home to drop Audrey off for a nap. The drive could not have gone better. Audrey did well and she seemed to stay in her routine pretty well. We had about 6-7 individuals-some seminary friends, some friends from our fieldwork congregation, and family come help us unload the truck into the apartment. Almost everything was out of the truck and then the sky opened up and it rained for about 30 min. When the rain broke we had our bedroom set to get inside then all was unloaded. Yeah we had moved again without breaking a thing. We are quite the moving professionals these days.

After the unloading process, we started to unpack Audrey’s room first. I figured it would give her the most stability. She really did well through the whole process and we are truly blessed that she was so cooperative. After Audrey’s room was finished, the kitchen and our bedroom were tackled. In the days to come we slowly but surely were on our way to settling in.

It really took almost the entire year to adjust to living in OK. Moving is a hard adjustment, whether you have lived there before or not. We had to acquaint ourselves with hwy 40 construction and figure how it was going to affect my commute to work. We had to relearn the operation and hours of the food bank and resale shop on campus. These are just a few of the adjustments.

Adam has been adjusting to the new schedule at Seminary. He is balancing caring for Audrey, reconnecting with fellow seminarians, and studying. Not a moment is wasted. He is enjoying the time he has with Audrey after class, but it is straight to the books as soon as she is asleep. Adam has also been finding time to play soccer and tennis this fall.

Adam has had plenty of time with Audrey but not a lot of time with me. I went back to work on September 1^st. I work at St. Luke’s Hospital as a RN on a Cardiac Telemetry unit. The only fulltime position that was available was an evening position. I leave the house at 2:15pm when Adam gets back from classes and I return around 12am. I sleep until Audrey arises and then proceed to take care of her while Adam is in classes. He gets home at 2:00 and the process repeats. On the upside, we don’t have childcare cost. On the downside there is not much family time or time for me to connect with friends. We are praying that a day position opens up so I can have more days/nights off to participate in Seminary activities as well as spend more time in the evening with Adam and Audrey.

Audrey seems to be adjusting well to the move. She is making friends and is enjoying taking walks around campus and to the park. She misses daddy when he is at school and mommy when she is at work but I think she is starting to get the hang of it all. She is still working on teething and this fall we will be starting to do a little potty training. Audrey has become more and more vocal these past two months. Her vocabulary has grown significantly and she is mimicking a lot. She is growing up so fast. She is able to climb up on the couches and she has learned to climb the steps up to our apartment. She has really grown over the past two months.

Hope this update gives you all a better perspective of how we are doing. I am sorry that it has taken this long to post but this was low on the priority list for the past couple months. Hope all is well with you and your family. God's blessings.

Saying our first goodbyes

Today was the last Body and Soul class for the summer here in OK. I think the hardest part was watching Audrey say goodbye to the nursery helpers at Quail Springs, Hope and Vicki. Audrey will certainly miss them. She will miss all the other little children as well. Here are a few pictures from today.

Moving Soon

We are moving back to St. Louis on August 15th. We are going to be living on the Seminary campus for Adam's final year of Seminary in STL. We will post our addrress and other contact info soon.