The Weekend o' College Football

(A great win by Ohio State last week: Go Bucks!)


So this weekend I have labeled the weekend o' college football. The last two weeks, as you may or may not know, have been the first 2 weeks of college football and both weeks I have been on the road. While i have enjoyed seeing friends who I miss and have had fun touring the state of Ohio, I have not been able to sit down and enjoy a Saturday of college football at home. That's all about to change. Not only does Ohio State play Cincinnati (which will be televised here!), but the OTHER games of the day look to be amazing. Florida/Tennessee, Auburn/LSU, Michigan/Notre Dame...wow, what a Saturday. I might have to buy a bag of chips and make some chilli and enjoy the day! It shall be a wonderful day and I just felt the need to share. Hope everyone is having a wonderful Maui Wowie Wednesday (I know I am). Go Bucks, Joe

A Long While and Now School has Begun.

(The Crew in Mexico)

Greetings to anyone who may still be checking our blog. I apologize for being so long in writing, but I thought I'd write about what we've been doing since last you heard from us...

1. Mexico: was amazing! God was totally amazing in the ways that He ministered to the community through our small group of 12, not to mention the way He spoke to all of us. It is so easy to paint a picture of life from the set of colors we have available in the US alone and forget the fact that God includes so much more variety in his own. Amazing! After worshipping with both the Mexican congregation we stayed with and a group of Tarahumara Indians, I came back with a new appreciation for the fact that those who believe in Christ are brothers and sisters in the same family!

2. Our new house: is slowly becoming home. We're getting furniture in place and someday, maybe, we'll empty our final boxes and that will be a joyous day. I got a new corner desk for my office and it's working out so well! It was an AMAZING deal too. Only $70 at Staples! Sure it's not solid Maple with gold inlays and all that, but for what I need it does a great job. We finally met some of our neighbors too, they're an interesting young family about our age and they have a daughter named Emma who is 11 months old. We had them over for a cookout and it was really great to get to know someone who lives around us. We're looking forward to becoming more and more a part of the neighborhood.

3. School started yesterday. It's exciting (and overwhelming) to get back into it after so much time off. As the syllabi pile up and I look at all the work for the classes I have it's easy to get overwhelmed, but I keep reminding myself that this is no different than the beginning of last year's semesters and I made it out alive then too. Of course it would figure though that I had little to no significant design work all summer and now I have one major project that will take the next 2 months, a follow-up project for a previous client, and a lead on a potentially large relationship as a freelance artist for Warner Press right as school started. It's a blessing though and I'm grateful for all that is on the horizon.

So I hope all is well and perhaps I will not be so busy that I can't update this every once in a while. (I'll have to start getting Gwynne to update it too!)

Take care all and cheer on our Buckeyes this weekend as the football season kicks off! Go Bucks!

Joe

Off to Mexico...

Hey all, quick post as it is 4:00 a.m. and in a half hour I have to be at the church. We're leaving this morning for our work trip to Juarez, Mexico!!! Please pray for the 12 people (8 youths and 4 adults) who are going to be there until July 1st doing who knows what as a service project. It will be an awesome experience and I pray that God uses us to spread his love to those we come in contact with.

Just wanted to share before I left!

God bless, see you soon.

Joe

A busy month and a half...

Goodness, but it's been a while. My apologies to all those who may have checked back regularly in anticipation of a new post. The craziness of the past month and a half has pushed the Blog off the radar, but hopefully we'll be better about keeping everyone up to date on what's happening. So let's see what needs to be said in this post.

1. School: well it's almost done for the year. I have two more finals, a Constructive Theology 2 final that is NOT going to be fun and a Beginning Greek 2 final tomorrow (May 3rd) morning that hopefully will not be too bad. I have had good luck in Greek thus far and am looking forward to taking 2nd year Greek next fall, but I will most CERTAINLY enjoy a break from the rigors of academia.

2. Mr. Kitty: If you're hoping for a Mr. Kitty update, here it is....he's still crazy. Not much has changed, but he has become INCREASINGLY interested in the fishes (who are huge now). Whenever I feed them, he has to come and watch and he'll sit for like 20 minutes either on top of the aquarium on in front of it on the floor. It's quite humorous because it looks like he's watching TV.

3. April 26, 2006 came and went and I am another year older. Gwynne gave me the Wallace and Grommit movie which we are planning on watching Wednesday evening and I got some sweet cash money and gift cards from both sets of parents! Overall it was a good birthday, although I missed the usual crew with which I celebrate by eating lots of grilled meat.

4. April 30, 2006 came and went and we've now been married for an entire year. It's amazing to think that it's already been a year. It's also amazing to think that this time last year we were landing in Jamaica. Somehow I find myself wishing I was there again. Indiana isn't QUITE the same as that wonderful little island. Oh well. We've received lots of wonderful cards wishing us a happy anniversary (which it was) and we're excited to start year 2! But the biggest news to date comes with pictures...

5. WE'VE BOUGHT A HOUSE! This isn't new news for most of the people who check in on us regularly, BUT you also have not seen pictures so I'm posting some now. Yesterday was our inspection, where we found out that we have a very good house. The inspector seemed quite impressed and commented over and over about the good condition all the really important things like foundation, "the bones," pluming etc are in. While I was there I had a chance to take a bunch of pictures and we've gotten excited to plan moving in. We close June 8th!!! Here's some pictures, there are still people living there so it's their stuff you'll see, but it should give you some idea about our pending home!!! yippee!




So you can click on the photos to see bigger versions of each. We're very excited and as the process continues and we get everything finalized we'll post more stuff I'm sure. We'll also post some photos of the new place with our stuff in it, which will be very exciting. So that's all for now. Never forget the hope we have in Christ Jesus and God Bless! Love, Joe and Gwynne

It took him long enough...

...but Brutus finally realized there might be something of interest to him in that big strange box we put in his living room a while back.



Man I hope he falls into the aquarium. That'd be great! Ok that's enough of a diversion, I must get back to work!

Joe

So I've decided that something needs to go up here because the other week, my own mother told me that the blog was boring, and if my mom gives negative feedback, I know she's serious. I know the picture of the ice dancers is fabulous and all, but she's right. You can only look at that guy and his weird face so often before he just gets downright creepy.

So part of the reason we haven't posted anything for a while is that we have been pretty legitimately busy. Joe had a few big papers due the other week, and I have been busy at work. Then we had a Youth Group trip last weekend, which went pretty well. We really love working with this group. It's definitely a lot different than the group at North Metro (we will always love you guys!), mainly because the group is quite a bit larger, but they are a great group, and we have enjoyed getting to know all of them better.

So, hmmm. What else has been going on? They've started knocking down a bunch of the houses around us because the college is building seminary housing on our street. It is pretty crazy. We look out the windows in our kitchen where there was once a huge tree and a house next door and not it is a huge dirt pile and the beginnings of foundation. As of right now the guys that own our house haven't sold it to the school, but they are thinking about it. So, we still might be able to live here another year, but maybe not. It would be a shame if they knocked down our house. It is one of the few around here that is still in really good condition. What else... ? Joe's entering week 10 in school, so soon enough, he will be done with his first year of grad school. Yea! Mr. Kitty is still as anti-social as ever. He reserves his love only for Joe and I. We had small group over here the other month, and he was quite displesased with the extra visitors.

Well, I'm not sure this post has been all that more interesting than the blank page. But at least an effort has been made to post on our blog. I apolgize for my husband's lack of motivation as of late in keeping you informed about our adventures out here in Hoosierland. If there is another big lapse in the posts and I have to take over again, I'll try to make it more interesting.

Gwynne

What a day.

So I'm totally bored out of my mind today. "But Joe, with all you have going in and so much work for school, how can you be bored?" I hear you asking. Well that's what happens when you lock yourself out of your house and all the stuff you have for all your classes is locked inside. So I'm banished to the School of Theology (SOT) all day trying to pass the time. Luckily I was able to borrow a book and finish my reading for my class this evening, but it's not a ton of reading so I've still got 2 hours to kill. I've walked around the library a couple of times, I even ventured to the 2nd and 3rd floors today, places I'd never visited before. I doubt I'll go back.

The SOT lounge is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I'm glad that we worked on remodeling it over Christmas break so I don't have to spend the day with the horrific stencils.

Thus has been my day. Hopefully Gwynne will get home before I have to leave for my 6 p.m. class so that I can get my books and stuff, but if not, oh well. I wonder how Mr. Kitty's doing?

Later,

Joe