"Couch" Surfing Part I

Who knew that when we moved out of our cozy 1 bedroom apartment, we'd be moving into a mansion of sorts.  After Sara was done with work on Friday we biked to Fitchburg (about 30 minutes away on bike) to stay at our marriage mentors house, who were at their cabin at the time.  We are so blessed with people's generosity.  They let us have full access to their very nice, large home and everything in it.  To put it in proportion:  their master bedroom is bigger than our entire apartment was.  

We'll be staying here until tonight when we bike to Middleton to crash into Jon and Mary's house.  Watch out, the word on the street is if you leave for vacation we'll be at your house in 24 hours.  

Update on our travel plans.  Anne and Sara talked to a principal of a school in Pune, India and it was very promising.  Here are a collection of my notes about the school for those interested in details: 

 The school is KC Thackeray Vidya Niketan English Medium School.  Long title, so hopefully they have a shortened version of that.  It is a gov't and private funded school (the private funds come from an education foundation: Thermax Social Initiative Foundation)). They have 13 staff and about 300 kids (in elementary grades).  All or most of the students are from very low to middle class.  They really need help and seem open to exactly where we'd help but have also had help before and have structure already to their system.  They need help with 1 on 1 with students, reg. help after and before school, support staff to help with teachers, help with curriculum...she said a lot of their students need help to stay up or catch up to their grade level.  
The school has a computer lab, a library, projector, and English is spoken all the time.  It would be about 10-15 minutes from the area we are looking in to live.  
When asked about what challenges the school has Shalini responded: there are many different levels of abilities in the classrooms and trying to meet all those needs is very difficult.  They also need technological help to analyze the data from the school to measure their progress.  

The plan is to leave still in the middle of September and we are waiting for one or two more emails regarding addresses and apartments to apply for our visas and buy our tickets.   

Now the Unknown

Up until now we've been looking forward to June 27.  Now that the wedding is over and we are MARRIED, we have the next step of our lives...and soon.  We are moving out of our apartment August 15 and into the complete unknown.  We've never had so many unknowns in our lives.  We don't know where we will be living, we don't know what country we will be in, we don't know where we'll work or volunteer.  However, we are actively trusting.  Trusting that someone bigger and more knowing has our best in mind.  We'll keep you updated but as of last week, India seems relatively promising.  We'd be moving to Pune, India mid-September with our friends Andrew and Anne.  We'll be there until either February or May depending on placements and living situations.  That's all we know for now, but we are loving being married and enjoying all the newness it comes with.  

The Journey Begins

In a little over two weeks our lives as Mike and Sara Ullmer begins. It has been a long time in the making. Who knew that when we met our freshman year, 5 years ago, we'd be getting married. Who knew that when we wrote letters back and forth every summer we'd be writing our vows together. Who knew that when Mike asked me to have a dessert picnic two plus years ago, he'd eventually ask me if I'd marry him in a snowy picnic.
There have and will be ups and downs in our love and friendship, but we are ready to make the lifelong commitment to grow in our love with each other! It's coming fast!