It's hard to believe that we are celebrating one year of marriage today!

We spent two months adventuring in Africa and Israel only to return to "real life" to find the adventures continued! As we celebrated with dinner at Johnny's Cafe last night (thanks D+C!) we attempted to make a list of everything that stood out to us over the past year.

New roof and windows
Pigeon wars
Grandpa Weed
Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter with family
Jacob & Lindsey
HolyCow Design Gal
Renew Omaha
Ethiopian Cafe
Home Community

and much, much more...

We certainly realize now more than ever how thankful we are for you, our family and friends. We have realized the ways in which God designed marriage to refine us and help us grow. We are thankful for the support you've given us along the way that helped prepare us to love each other.

There is certainly more to look forward to, but for now we're soaking in today :)

Love to all of you,
Aaron & Laura

P.S. Wedding Album

We bought a house!

It's a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house nestled between midtown and downtown, close to I480 and minutes from the Old Market, Creighton and the Med Center. The home has wood floors on main level; fenced in yard; off street parking; laundry and storage in the basement.

As you may know, we want to take the lead in recruiting "strategic neighbors" to help re-neighbor the community.

Our goal is to bring new energy, vision and resources to help support a stable, mixed income community that is safe, socially and spiritually healthy and economically viable.

You can read more at http://renewomaha.com. We are very excited!


Front Yard


Upstairs Bedroom 1


Upstairs Bedroom 2


Upstairs Master Bedroom with walk in closet


First level bathroom of the kitchen


Looking from dining room into kitchen


Looking from living room into dining room, great space off the dining room could be a room, office or family room.


Looking from the kitchen toward the front living room.


Great backyard!

Put The Plant In The Bottom, Soil In The Bag, Water In The Top And You're Done!



This year, the Easter Bunny (a.k.a. Julie) included the Topsy Turvy® Tomato Planter --"the most ingenious invention to grow nice delicious tomatoes". A "must have" according to many and Steve Hambeck, Walgreens Manager and good friend of the Brookers, agrees they've been flying off the shelves almost as fast as the ShamWow :)




Here's how it works

Because the Topsy Turvy® is upside down, gravity pulls the water and nutrients directly from the root to the fruit, giving you (up to 30 Ibs. they say) of deliciously ripe tomatoes per plant!

It's so simple to use and works perfectly. Just place any tomato plant in the planter, add your favorite potting soil, hang it up and water.

The sun warms the plant like a greenhouse, the root system explodes and thrives inside the planter. Plus, hanging in the air helps reduce ground fungus, harmful bacteria, cutworm damage, use of pesticides, digging & weeding and backbreaking work.

It was easy to assemble and thanks to our good neighbor J.J. who brought shared some tomato plants with us! We will see how things progress. We'll let you know, so check back for no bull updates on the TT.

It was absolutely beautiful here over the weekend! While Aaron was at a men's retreat with core community and I spent the whole weekend getting the weeds out and the flowers in!

I planted flowers in the hanging baskets on the patio.



Bought a lovely planter box I'd been eying since the middle of winter ....



... and re-potted some colorful flowers along the walkway.



The monster of the weekend was this strip of 'blah' that was between our fence and the sod we laid last fall. As you can see, the sod is quite healthy (too healthy, needs a trim!) and the area along the fence has been home to all kinds of weeds. Not any more!



This area (West side of yard) was also landscaped last fall and required some serious weeding and cleaning up. Now it is all ready for hostas, native grasses and flowers.




After it was all said and done Aaron was so surprised and I was really tired! It was a weekend well spent and once we get a mower we'll have our own little urban paradise. Well, getting there anyway!

Love to you all! Come visit soon!