shuffleboard, snow and Guido de Bres

Hey everyone - its been about two weeks since we have posted - yikes. There are many reasons - ie we've been busy. Here is a short update.

1. Shuffleboard: Hillary and I went on a min-vacation with some free airline tickets and accomodations. We stayed in St. Simons Island, GA and got to hang out on Sea Island - where you see Hillary tearing it up in shuffleboard. It was in the upper 70's, so we walked the beach and swam in the pool!

2. Snow! We were back in Hartford for about a day when it started to snow and didn't stop. We got 13 inches and this is a picture of our grill covered with a snowy hat.

-as you can see there was lots of shoveling to do. Our sidewalk isn't too large but our driveway is way too long. Now I know why the majority of my neighbors have snow blowers.

3. Guido - he is the author of the belgic confession, which was written in the 16th C. during the Reformation. I've been studying a lot for ordination exams (I need to pass them to become ordained in the Presbyterian Church) and one morning my first thought on waking up was of Guido de Bres - isn't that wierd! So if you remember me during the next week please pray for me as I'll be taking the written portion of the exams.

feeling 27

So I turned 27 yesterday and I am already feeling it. I had a fun day with some great surprises but by the end of the evening my throat was bothering me, my head hurt, and my body ached. I felt mostly the same when I woke up this morning and I was teling Hillary that I am feeling my age! It is strange to be in my late 20's. I know you have to age and that everyone who's older than 27 is thinking, "just wait" till you reach___." I don't know why getting older is hitting me more this year, but it is.

zeroing in

It looks like everything is coming together for me to take my ordination exams in late December. This has been a long process and it is exciting to be drawing to a close but there is a lot to do. I'm memorizing all sorts of things, like where you could read about Gideon, the years David was King of Israel, and differing views of God's decrees. Some of this is will be very usefull and other parts I will likely forget after the exams. It is exciting to prepare and go back over all this stuff I learned in Seminary, but it can be a little overwhelming at points. I also need to write a paper or two, so pray for me - the written materials are due by Christmas.
Hillary and I are heading down to my parents for Thanksgiving so that will be great. Seeing friends and family, eating good food, and time to just relax - we are both looking forward to it.

some long awaited pictures

So here are some pics from the past few weeks. I'll give some captions with each:

Here is Hillary's Uncle George helping celebrate her Dad's birthday when she visited in September. Yes, he is using a blow torch to light the cake.

This is our dinning room upon first arriving. This is my dad and I putting the finishing touches on as we install a new chandelier. The room is a lovely red.

Next is the living room in progress. It is a fun yellowish green and I am wearing a hat so I don't get paint in my hair. At various times Hillary and I will finish painting and be out and about suddenly realizing that we have paint in some unknown spot. My favorite was the splotch of paint we saw behind Hillary's ear - I think I noticed at Crate and Barrel. The reason you don't see Hillary in many of these pictures is because she is always the one who remembers to take pictures. She does lots of the work but won't get the credit online.

This is one of our favorite cows in the West Hartford Cow Parade. It is called meloncowly - hahaha. West Hartford is joined by Istanbul, Marseille, Milano, Copenhagen and other cities as they currently host cow parades. It is funny to see West Hartford on that list.

Last but not least is Hillary (finally a picture of her) as Dad shows her the controls on his new four wheeler. We both took cruises around the farm and had a blast. I was almost trapped in the corn field you see in the background. I was going down this path trying to get back to the house and it kept getting narrower and narrower until I was afraid of running the corn over. I couldn't get into reverse and was feeling a bit foolish, but it all got worked out. We went to Hillary's Dad's to relax for a day and then Hillary helped him out at a craft fair down in Albany, NY. The last picture is the set up for the craft fair.

This was quite a lengthy post, but we've had it coming since there have been all sorts of fun pictures we haven't shared.

mondays are tricky

This was a pretty cool weekend: youth bonfire type thing Friday night and my parents in town the rest of the weekend. We painted our living room a fun green color (we need to post some pics) and got to enjoy time together. Saturday morning was the second week of a guys bible study which I am leading. It is a blast.
Monday is an odd thing to know what to do with. I see lots of people on Sunday so it seems kinda repetitive to get coffee or hang out on Monday, but by mid-afternoon I am largely demotivated as I stare at my computer screen or page through another book. I realize that connecting with people and being around them is important for me but I haven't figured out how that needs to happen on a daily basis. I am working things out with my schedule so I am with people and seeing them most days of the week, but Monday has eluded me so far.

kayaking, sleep over, and pad thai

We have had a full but fun weekend. This is world awareness month at our church here in CT and there have been various events to help us look beyond ourselves. It all culminated this weekend with an international dinner, where people make food highlighting their heritage or ethnic background. It was a lot of fun and I made Pad Thai. No, I don't have any Thai heritage but thought people should be aware of wonderful Thai food. It took me longer to prepare than I expected so I made us late for the dinner, but it worked out. After the dinner some of the teenagers from church came over our house to watch a movie and sleep over. It was fun having people here. We worked really hard this past week to paint the dinning room and half-bath. (I'll try to post some pictures soon.) In addition to all this fun stuff I got to go kayaking for the first time. This picture isn't actually of us (my friend Mark and I) but gives you a good idea. It was a scenic river that had beautiful stretches but was only about a 25 minute drive. There were some really cool rapids (I got capsized at the end) and we had such a great time. Overall we are doing well here in CT and are slowly adjusting to life in a new place. It will be better when we are more connected to friends here and have the house together, but it is going well.

tearing it down

We closed on our house this Tuesday. It is kind of anticlimactic as you sign document after document acknowledging all the ways you can blow your mortgage agreement. In talking with our attorney he told us that when banks forclose on a home and he has to do an eviction they actually take all the stuff out of the home and leave it on the curb - just like on TV. That would be unimaginably terrible. The main point of all the paper signing was "pay your mortgage and you'll be fine, otherwise we'll break your legs." Just kidding, that's if you get your mortgage through the Connecticut Mafia.

Since we actually own the house now we have started to tear down wallpaper. It has been easier than I expected and we might actually paint 2 rooms tommorow. We went to the grand opening of the Crate and Barrell store in West Hartford yesterday and had a blast. There is all sorts of beautiful furniture, rugs, and all other types of home goods. Here are pictures of two things we really liked: a cool chair and a snazy bench. We would have liked to purchass one but firgured it would be better to pay our mortgage. Anyway, neither of these pieces would look good on sitting on our curb.