Saturday, July 6, 2013

We’re moving to Oklahoma… Say What???


 The Cunningham's are on the Move!

Drew and I moved to the Beautiful Bay Area a little over 6 years ago this summer. We were newly married and ready and excited to start a new adventure together. It only took a few weeks for me to fall head over hills with the area and to begin to feel at home… (I am sure all of my Bay Area friends can relate). It's a place that steals your heart… and when you leave you feel the constant tug to come back home… even when we would go on vacation.

Throughout our time in the Bay Area we had a lot of friends move away and I always felt so sad for them…that they had to go somewhere else… to leave this amazing place. How could you ever leave? Thankfully Drew and I both have the same love for the Bay Area and to us… this is Home. I imagine us sitting on our back porch in 60 years sipping coffee, watching the sun go down on the Pacific with complete peace knowing that we followed our dream and made living in this beautiful (but super expensive) place work.

About a year and a half ago the Lord started to pull on both Drew and I’s hearts that it was time for a change and Drew began to fill a very clear call to be a lead Pastor. I always knew that Drew had this in him… he just didn’t know it yet ;) Over the course of that year we prayed, we asked, we applied for jobs and sought the counsel of many friends, family and mentors. The call that he had for us became very clear… to church plant.

We have started that journey and are starting to dream up what that is going to look like. Our hope and prayer is that Santa Cruz, CA is the place that we will start this church. We initially planned to move there in August (one month from now) but Drew has been given the opportunity to join an awesome staff for a handful of years in Oklahoma where he will get to serve under one of the greatest (in our opinion) and most successful staff/pastor teams in the country. We are super excited about taking this position & investing here in the OKC/Edmond area! 

What does that mean for my business? I will definitely scale back on my CA portrait clients and will start doing some portrait clients in the Oklahoma City/ Edmond Area and Wichita Falls, TX area. As far as Weddings in San Francisco I will become a “Destination Photographer” for the Bay Area. I plan to do about 6 weddings there each year…flying back 16 times a year with two babies seems impossible… 6 I can handle! I am already starting to book weddings for 2014 so if you are thinking about booking me for your wedding photographer for 2014… reach out now!

Oklahoma City and Wichita Falls friends I am excited to start shooting more Weddings and Portrait in the area!

I am also really excited to start blogging again! I want to keep an account of these years and I think blogging will help bc we all know how fast time goes by!  I am so excited to get to live close to both of the kiddos grandparents {also known as our Parents ;)} and to reconnect with some of my sweet college friends!!

Today we are hitting the ground running house hunting so if anyone has any tips for us in the  OKC/Edmond area... please send them our way!!


2 comments:

  1. Shannon, it was good seeing you on the DFW>SFO flight last week. Thanks for sharing your BlogSpot on FaceBook. I will look forward to keeping up with Drew, you and your family over the next couple of years. If you do a newsletter be sure I'm on your list. I'll look forward to your return to the Bay Area.
    Dr. McCoy

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  2. Shannon,
    I am excited for you guys. I feel like I can identify with so much of this post. There is something about living in Mill Valley that has impacted my life deeply but I feel like only a handful of friends who have lived there truly understand.
    Also, wanting to see you guys do ministry in Santa Cruz would be amazing. Yet excited for your family to have a little sense of home somewhere after living the life of transition for so many years.
    Just excited that God is so much bigger than us and is at work in your lives and in ours and we can see evidences of it even if we have no idea how it all fits together.
    Love you all and praying for you!!!!
    Thanks for the update and adorable blog by the way:)
    Hope your still planning in a trip to the other O State!!! Seriously:)
    Stacy

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