more wedding photos

The compilation of wedding photos links - updated!:

Proofs from wedding photographer (e-mail me for the password)
Alexa's pictures (Need to activate free Snapfish account)
Mom's pictures (on Flickr)
My pictures (also on Flickr)

tile?

Our refrigerator is now sitting in the midde of our living room next to the stove, which is strangely disconcerting. We finally finished tearing up the floor in our dining room and kitchen. We had a bit of a history lesson.. instead of just pulling up a carpet and pad like we thought we would be doing, we ended up finding a layer of flooring from each decade, one on top of another! We started by ripping up the 90's berber carpet, underneath which we found a very 80's patterned carpet (country blue and mauve, of course, like everything else at the church). Under that carpet was a sticky pad, which had cemented itself to some very red, very 70's "faux brick" press-and-stick tile. We attacked that mess with roofing tools and finally putty knives and hammers to reveal the original green 60's linoleum underneath. Phew. We went out and bought our new backer board and slate tiles, had them delivered, and then the tile guy didn't show up. I am hoping that our new living room decor (ie the fridge and stove) is very, very temporary.... oy vey!

clouds have lifted

Finally, the rain has stopped here after a solid grey, wet week. September is here in all its glory. On the right are some type of lily that is planted frequently in the gardens all over campus, and they turn these beautiful shades of orange and yellow. They were especially striking by the Natural Science courtyard fountain today, where the benches are in danger of being gloriously overrun with vibrant, robust vines. The trees are starting to show signs of turning also, but still have another month or so to go.

Along with the sunshine I've felt God's peace returning today. It feels so awful when we drift into such relentless self-centeredness for a time...When the understanding that it's really about more than you comes back, it's such a welcome relief, like a glass of cool water. It's so hard sometimes to just let Him care about you instead of wasting your own energy on yourself. I'm sick of me. I'm glad He's still there.

Our grand, baby-inspired house project is about to begin! Justin, Matt and I began clearing out the basement last night to start preparing for its transformation into our master bedroom. I am especially excited, though, to FINALLY tear out our stinky, nasty, stained, doggy carpet in the dining room and re-tile that and the kitchen floor. This weekend, Justin and I are deciding on tile (or slate, or brick) for our floors and will get the material to start on Monday.

This weekend is also Jake's 2nd birthday, which gave the "boys" an excuse to go toy shopping earlier this week. With the amount of enjoyment that Dad and Uncle Mattie get out of toy shopping, our child is never going to lack for things to play with I can tell you that! :-)

the big event

Alison and Taure's wedding was beautiful. I have a bunch of photos here at my Flickr site. Tropical Storm Ernesto decided to show up and make us forsake the outdoor gazebo, but the room where we had the ceremony and reception had a panoramic view of the stormy waves. I was so glad to finally meet the bridesmaids, Alexa, Tracy, Antonia, and Cheryl. They were all gorgeous in their pink and green dresses, but no one was as beautiful as the bride!

Justin performed the ceremony, and even in spite of a mix-up with the pianist everything went smoothly. Everyone seemed to have a great time and was dancing the night away. It was great to connect with family and friends that I havent seen in years as well as meet my new ones. It was especially fun to hang out with our new niece and nephew, Mercedes and Dalton. Mercedes had to know ALL the details of how Alison and I misbehaved when we were kids!

On Monday we went up to see Nana and Dudley in New Hampshire. It has been far too long since we have been to see them. Nana took us to a farm to get ice cream and a beautiful apple orchard... and I forgot my camera. Of course. Nothing can capture the smell of fresh, piney, mossy New Hampshire air though.

After a long drive back to Michigan, we're catching our breath and gearing up for the rest of the month. It's going to be a rough one at work for me as I am very busy with the returning students. School's back in with a vengeance!

what a month can bring

First of all, my apologies for my lapse in posting! August and September have been so full of news and trips and work. I think I have filled most of you in personally with the events of the month, so I will now go ahead and put them up here.

Yes, it's official... I'm pregnant! I found out a week after I got back from Alison's shower. After a flurry of doctor's visits and worrying that everything was OK, an early ultrasound confirmed that the baby is in the right place and growing normally. As of today I am 9 weeks and 3 days along, and my due date has been bumped up to April 9th. If Murphy's Law is in effect, I will be having the baby on Easter Sunday and the preacher will have to miss church. :-) It is too early to tell if it is a boy or girl, but we will find out as soon as we can. Justin is already making grand plans to renovate our basement and move his office into the house.

I have been feeling pretty sick for the past few weeks but hopefully will improve once my first trimester ends in the beginning of October. I never though Indian food, Thai food, and chocolate would sound disgusting to me, but just typing them makes my stomach turn! bleeeah!

Also since my last post, we've had a visit from Jeanette, and just got back on Tuesday night from a trip to Connecticut for Alison and Taure's wedding. Lots and lots to write about. I will put up details and photos in other posts soon. I'm still trying to get my suitcase unpacked and house put in order from the past few weeks. We'll see if that gets accomplished tonight!

new england weekend

I'm paying the price for gloating about sitting on the beach on Sunday morning. I look like a tomato. But it was worth it... I wish I could go again today!

Had a great time visiting Alison and Taure out in Boston for the weekend. After getting up at 3AM, driving to Detroit, and flying out, Alison talked me into getting a pedicure... something I have never done... but I think I'm hooked! We shopped like madwomen (here is Alison waiting for the T to take us into the city) at the original Filene's Basement and other downtown bargain locales. Such a deal! We literally almost dropped at the end of the day, especially since I had been up since 3. It was definitely worth it, and Alison and I even found matching dresses. We were going to wear them to the shower but I chickened out at the last minute. I decided to save mine for the rehearsal dinner. I also went "shopping" in Alison's closet and came back with two full suitcases. I'm not going to need new pants for a LONG time!

Alison's shower was Saturday, and went really well. It was great to see so many friends and family, and to meet my new family-in-law. I have lots of pictures of the shower and the rest of the weekend up here. We hung out at Taure's mom's house in Providence on Saturday evening, had dinner with Dad, Lynne, and Auntie D on Saturday night, and hit the beach at Nantasket on Sunday, where I fried to crisp. I got to have a lot of my favorite New England foods... lobster, steamers, a half-sour pickle, a real hot pastrami sandwich, Polar birch beer, Cabot cheddar cheese, Portuguese chourico sausage, Richard's garlic olives, and even Carvel ice cream cake! Not all at once of course! I missed out on smoked bluefish and fresh tuna this time, but I don't think I would have had any place to put them! We're going back at the end of the month, so Del's frozen lemonade and a D'Angelo's #9 will have to wait till then as well. Ahh, the tastes of home. :-)

VBS expolsion...

Monday night we had 4 kids in our class of K-3, Tuesday we had 8, and Wednesday we had 18. It's like our entire neighborhood converged on the church all at once. It was fantastic. I think we had over 80 people on Wednesday night. Justin informs me that last night 20 of the kids came to evening service as well. We need to keep these kids... we need to step up. Shame on us if we let this opportunity go by. Please pray that we can figure out how we need to adjust for the sudden influx.. and soon!

VBS Day 2

I think my favorite thing about little kids is their honesty. Last night two of our adorable first grade cousins were sitting quietly during the Bible story when Kevin started talking about prayer. "But McKenzie and me don't know how to pray!" Dylan said, with eyes as big as saucers. I wish we would ALL admit that when it's true! Kevin made the most of the teaching opportunity and I hope these little ones will start talking to Jesus now.

Tonight we get to give away the electric scooter to the kid who brings the most friends. The competition is pretty fierce right now... both for the scooter and the boys vs. girls mission offering. Ray rigged up a pulley system with two buckets - one for the boys and one for the girls. Whichever one is heavier with change sinks lower. Right now the girls are kicking booty! The losers have to serve the winners cake at the end of the week, and there has been so much smack talk going on (mostly between Kadee and Andy the Arctic Ranger) that it will be a really fun time no matter who wins. Of course girls RULE!

countdown of craziness

3 more days until I hop a plane to Boston, Jeanette flies in, and everything needs to be done! Combine that with VBS every night this week and you get extreme busy-ness. VBS was great last night, Kadee and I get the fun of having the 1st-3rd graders as our charges. That is such a great age... they're in prime learning format and not "too cool" for VBS yet. We only had four in that age range but they all got lots of attention. We have large preschool and youth contingents this year.

Anyhow back to work. It's going to be a whirlwind week. I'm really excited for Alison's shower on Saturday, and for hitting the beach on Sunday! ;-) Although I hear that there are some major jellyfish this season... maybe they haven't made it up to Massachusetts yet.

irish? oh wait....

So I was working at AOP this morning and saw a guy wearing a kilt. It wasn't your normal tartan kilt and he wasn't dressed up in any Scottish regalia. In fact it looked like it was made of Carhartt material and even had cargo pockets into which he was stuffing all his AOP tchotchkes. I was fascinated so I asked him about it. He was very excited about his kilt and proceeded to tell me about utilikilts.com (photo from their website... check out some of their photo galleries, they are a hoot!) for the next 10 minutes. Apparently it is all the rage for dudes to wear these. It was surprisingly manly looking too. I wonder how much one would have to pay certain guys I know to actually sport one. I think it would be worth the reaction on some of the folks' faces if all the guys walked in weaking kilts with a jacket and tie on Sunday morning!

where adventure meets courage???

I never thought I would say this but I think someone at LifeWay actually has a sense of humor... or else they are so clueless that no one thought there was anything weird about putting the blow-up moose's inflation tube in such a strategic location. When it comes time to deflate him I think we need to put the flapping end of a whoopee cushion over the tube for the full, lifelike effect. Ray is demonstraing VBS values here by summoning all of his courage to put that air hose where the sun don't shine. By the way, we won the moose as a decoration for our "Arctic Edge" VBS theme at out training retreat this year... I'm thinking now no one else wanted the job of inflating it!

pear season

Chelsea is in full pear-hunter mode now that they are starting to ripen on the tree. Full pear-hunter mode entails acting like she has to go out to do her business, but as soon as she gets out she runs to the tree, grabs a pear off the ground, and lies down in the grass so you can't drag her back inside. It also entails jumping and biting every low hanging-tree branch that she encounters thinking it might have pears on it. Yesterday I was taking her for a walk around the neighborhood when I noticed that she had something in her mouth. Now I hadn't even seen a pear tree anywhere on the route, but she had managed to find one and pick it up nonetheless. Never doubt a dog with OCD!

Justin and I took a mini-road trip on Friday night to a small lake southeast of Lansing. We've decided to search in a 30-minute travel time radius of Lansing for a spot that one day we might be able to have a house. Out first jaunt was to Pleasant Lake, near Leslie. It reminded Justin a lot of Oklahoma. It was fun to explore and find a place near here that we've never been. Michigan is quite pretty once you get out of the city.

a vomitious notion...

Apparently an airline wants to put ads on their barf bags. For what, air freshener? Read the story here...

a year in the blogosphere

Wow, I just realized that my first post was a year ago today. Oy vey, that's a lot of blogging! Thanks to all of you for hanging in there with me and I hope I haven't bored y'all TOO much. :-)

YOU'RE HIRED!

Yes, it is official... I wrote my first ever letter of acceptance this morning in response to the official job offer from the MSU Libraries! Praise the Lord! This means so much for Justin and me both... primarily as an answer to prayer for whether to stay here in Lansing and continue to invest in ministry on campus, plus it is going to help us out tremendously with finances. I really feel like God has put me here strategically - right in the heart of things at MSU - both for opportunity with students and my friends and coworkers here at the library. This whole past nine months I've had a peace about my work and being in the right place at the right time. It's been obvious to me that God has been helping me with everything from providing opportunities for projects to doing my everyday tasks and giving me an extra push of confidence when I'm speaking. I've really felt His presence and peace at work unlike ever before. I'm so excited for what that could mean for ministry opportunities for us. If you remember, please pray for me that I won't miss out on what He's doing... that I would recognize it instantly in whatever situation I'm in and take the opportunites that He provides. You know me... only able to focus on one thing at a time. Pray that I'll never be so focused on work as to be unaware of His working.