new look.

Ok, so the whole look is not new, but I hope that you like the new top banner for our blog. I figured it was time to spice things up a bit.

And as for updates, well, our Christmas Tour 2008 is not yet complete, so hopefully we will fill in some blanks after that.

snow!

After two weeks of bad predictions, we finally got a significant snow! Hooray!

Here's a lucky shot I got of Amelie watching Eric shovel the snow. (I put it on here in enormous size so that you could see what's going on more easily.)


If you're interested in seeing a few more pictures of our snow, you can go here and click on "Neighborhood Scenes."

fun times

This past weekend, Liz and Matthew came down to visit us, which was great fun, as usual!

We had shared with them a website that we get a kick out of, where people hold record covers up to their faces (or other parts of their body) to make themselves a continuation of the picture.

We thought we'd try a few of our own:

Liz, Matthew, and Eric as the Bee Gees

Liz as Eric Clapton

Matthew as John Cougar

If you'd like to see the website that inspired us, visit Sleeveface. It's amazing.

Christmas cards

When I was in high school, I vowed that I would never give/send out Christmas cards until I had a place of my own. Eric and I started sending them out after we got married, but a couple of years in there, they became Valentine's Day or St Patrick's Day cards because of our inability to budget time to write a letter and prepare the cards during the appropriate timeframe.

I have often wondered what the point is of sending Christmas cards to people that you see often or on Christmas or around Christmas, but this year, for some reason, Christmas cards seem very important to me. I'm not sure whether it's the fact that I'm home much of the day by myself or whether it might be that I don't feel settled yet in Binghamton and want reminders of all of the people that I care about.

Or maybe it has something to do with the sweet set-up we have for displaying Christmas cards:

(I took this picture several days ago, so if you don't see the card that you sent, don't worry--it's probably up there by now.)

This is not intended to guilt you into sending us a card! It's just to express my excitement for Christmas and for hearing from loved ones.

pictures

Some of you may be thinking, "Sarah hasn't started a job yet--why the heck isn't she posting on the blog more often?" This is a very valid question. The problem is that I don't have a good answer for it.

So to satisfy your curiosity for now, I will probably be posting a few entries this morning.

Also, I have updated our picture website, so you can mosey on over there and see what we look like these days!

cool thing

This past Monday, Eric and I, along with several other members of our Binghamton-area young adult fellowship group, went to the Oakdale Mall for a Community Gathering of Peace. Members of the Whittemore Hill UMC had folded almost 1,400 paper cranes, and they were hung on Christmas trees and on the nativity scene in the mall.

There was quite a sizeable gathering of people, much to my surprise, and there was a brief service with thoughts shared by the pastor of the Whittemore Hill church and songs shared by two different UM church choirs. Then the entire crowd sang a few songs together. As we sang "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan, Eric leaned over to me and said, "Grampsy is smiling." This was one of my grandfather's favorite songs, and social justice was incredibly important to him.

I think Eric was right--Grampsy was smiling. It warmed my heart, too, to be able to gather with people of faith in a shopping mall, of all places, to remind one another that Jesus' birth is about love and peace and saving grace and not about Barbie dolls and Jonas Brothers CDs and iPods--Christmas is about remembering to love each and every one of our neighbors, no matter what they think or say or do, because Jesus loves each of us, no matter how foolish and arrogant and sinful we are.

It's easier to buy gifts than to love, isn't it?

Thank you, Whittemore Hill UMC, for reminding me what I should be thinking about during this season.

If you'd like to read more about the Community Gathering for Peace, click here.

on being a housewife

I don't have a job.

It's a strange sensation not to have a job. The last time I didn't have a job was when I finished grad school five years ago. Since then I've been pretty busy, working part time or volunteering or doing something to get out of the house. Now, I'm just waiting....hovering.

It's weird to go from the person who made almost all of the income in the household (while Eric was a full-time student) to being the person who is dependent on the other for financial support. I used to be pretty proud of the fact that I could take care of my husband, put him through school. Now I go back and forth between feeling free and feeling almost useless.

Today I had an interview of sorts for a job at a bookstore for college textbooks. The problem is that I committed to doing a church thing during four of their busiest days of the entire semester. I'm not terribly optimistic about getting the job. That's not the end of the world, really, because it's not my dream job, but it leaves me hanging....still.

So. Right now I'm a housewife. I'm not terribly great at it. I mean, the dishes are done more frequently now than when I had a job, but staying home doesn't make me a good cook.

I will begin volunteering at the library downtown once my background check goes through, and hopefully that'll put me in a better position to be hired by them if a job does come open. Binghamton seems to be kind of a black hole when it comes to library jobs, though.

Today, I ate a fortune cookie, and my fortune was "Good thinks are coming to you in due course of time." I'm not typically one to put a lot of stock in what fortune cookies tell me, but this one was a reminder to be patient, and I appreciated it.

visit to Baltimore

This past weekend, we got a chance to visit Christie and Tim in Baltimore. My mom went down on the bus earlier in the week, and we rode with my dad. Due to some icy road conditions, the trip took us about twice as long as it should, but we were in good humor, and we arrived safely.

It wasn't a long stay, but we got to do some Baltimorian things. We visited the farmer's market down the street from Christie and Tim's house, and we purchased a couple of items from Reid's Orchard stand. We also got to visit a couple of discount stores, and we got some deals (including a pair of jeans that fits me perfect for SEVEN DOLLARS).

Even though it was a short stay, it was WONDERFUL to spend some time with my sister. It gave me a taste of how awesome it will be to have a longer visit over Christmas!

And here's our latest [home-made] family portrait!

quick trip to Philadelphia

Two weeks ago, we went to Philadelphia for a mid-week overnight trip to see Jonah Matranga play at the First Unitarian Church.

While we were there, we got to catch up briefly with a few Philly friends, which was great. Why can't the roads between our cities be shorter?

Jonah Matranga is a musician that Eric really enjoys, and since he makes very few trips to the East Coast, we figured we'd better take this opportunity to see him. It was an incredible show--in a chapel with only about fifty people--and we were in the second pew. I will let Eric go into more detail about the music if he'd like, but I thought I'd share a couple pictures with you.

the return of our cat

For the past two years, our cat Amelie has been living with my very generous parents while we've been in living situations where a cat was not allowed.

About four weeks ago, we felt like we had our apartment settled enough to go and fetch her. Eric said, "Let's go tomorrow to get our cat," and I said, "But it's going to snow." Eric, ever the fearless adventurer, replied, "Let's go anyway!" So we climbed into the pickup and headed down the road, seeing this sort of weather along the way:

We got all of the necessaries from my mom, convinced the cat to climb into her carrier, and drove back through the snow to Bevier Street. She investigated everything inside the apartment and then peeked out the windows. Apparently she did not like what she saw, as she growled audibly and then ran upstairs to hide under the bed.

She spent several days with this sort of behavior, but now she's gotten used to the neighborhood and likes to spend her days surveying the activity in the street.

She's particularly fond of sitting on the steps like a queen and looking down on us in the living room.

It's really great to have our cat back. Since I have yet to begin any job, I especially appreciate her presence on days when Eric's at work. Even though she's deaf, it sometimes seems better to talk to her than to talk to myself!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my parents for taking care of her during these past two years. It's not always been a pleasant task, but we appreciate it very much.

I'll leave you with this parting shot that Eric took of our wild beast.

catching up

Ok, so it's been over six weeks since we've posted anything on this blog.

That
is
TERRIBLE.

And I apologize. To atone for it, I'm going to do some catch-up right now. That will explain the flurry of posts right in a row.

visit to Muddy Fingers Farm

One of the great things about being back in the northeast is that we're in closer proximity to some of our good friends. Last weekend we took advantage of that close-ish-ness to visit our friends Liz and Matthew at their farm in Hector, NY. For those of you who don't know Liz and Matthew (or who haven't heard us talking about them a lot), they own and operate an organic farm and CSA. It's not an easy thing, but they're living their dream and doing their share (or probably more than their share) to preserve our earth for future generations.

We went up on Sunday afternoon, and after catching up a little bit, we walked around the farm with their enthusiastic and energetic dog Gemini. Because it's getting to be late in the year, the cold is slowing things down. While it's not as green as it was earlier in the growing season, you can still see that they have a beautiful place.

We spent an enjoyable evening together, eating well (as we always do at their home), playing Settlers of Catan, and listening to records (yes, the vinyl kind).

Monday morning, they kindly let us sleep in while they started in on their work. Then we layered up against the cold and went out to do some harvesting to prepare for the farmers market on Tuesday. Like I mentioned earlier, it's late in the season, so there isn't as much to harvest. We helped dig up some potatoes, and then we helped to clean them and the parsnips and leeks and onions that they had already harvested.

With the harvesting done, we decided that we should go for a hike. We made a stop to see a friend who works at Wagner Vineyards, and then we headed to the Finger Lakes National Forest. It was perfect weather for hiking: chilly but good once you got moving. Here are some snapshots from our hike:

That last one there is going to have to go on my list of most favorite pictures ever.

When I was transferring pictures from my camera last night, I found this picture that Liz must've taken while we were sleeping:

Thanks for having us, Liz and Matthew--we had so much fun, too!

apartment tour

Ok, after several tries at uploading, we finally have a video tour of our new apartment. The quality is not so great, but I needed to make the file size smaller, so we had to sacrifice clearness of picture.

Let us know what you think of our new place!

upon returning north

Well, friends, as you may already know, we are back in the northeast. We have moved into our apartment in Binghamton, and we're starting to settle into it.....but we have not yet settled into a routine.

Eric will start trainings for his job with Youth Advocate Programs during the first week of November. I have started doing some online algebra tutoring with Tutor.com, but this is only (hopefully!) a temporary situation because I really want to get back into a public library.

In some ways it's good to be back, and in some ways it's not. It's good to see friends and family and to have more options when it comes to being earth-friendly. I still have mixed feelings, though, about living in a city. I've never paid attention much when Eric was driving us back and forth between meetings and social gatherings before, but now I'm going to have to learn how to navigate the streets and avenues and bridges and parkways and giant shopping centers. Yikes.

Here are some things that I forgot about living in this area while we were in Kentucky:
- The autumn here is beautiful.
- Wegman's is awesome.
- I love recycling.
- It's stinking COLD here!
- We are on the go a lot.
- It's nice to have a cell phone.
- We have a LOT of stuff.

We hope to continue with this blog...we will see what direction it goes!

Nashville pictures

I posted pictures from our trip to Nashville several days ago.
Sorry that I forgot to let you know!

getting ready

As I read Scott's comment, I realized that my last real blog entry was the one I wrote of the extreme pain I felt at the thought of leaving here.

The pain is now not as sharp as it was that night.

The fact that Eric's job and the apartment fell into place so quickly make me think that we are doing the right thing by heading back north. This confuses me. There is so much need here--so much that we could help with--why is God making it so easy for us to return to where we came from? It must be that he's got something else for us to do.

I know I shouldn't try to guess what God's planning, but I'm the type of person who wants to know the answer, so I'm going to try to figure it out. Here's one possibility: Before we came down to Kentucky, I had envisioned this year as one of tremendous personal growth. Ok, maybe "tremendous" is a little too strong--let's say "increased personal growth." It didn't turn out that way. I feel like I did some good, but there were occasions when I felt like I wasn't being challenged....or maybe that I didn't challenge myself. Maybe God is giving me an opportunity to start fresh--or maybe he's got a new challenge for me.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong, and there's something completely different in store for us.

a new home

I found us an apartment! It is at 48 Bevier Street in Binghamton. It is easy to get on the highway and is a few blocks from Otsiningo Park. It is a one bedroom townhouse but all of the rooms are large. Downstairs is a living room, dining room, kitchen and 1/2 bath. Upstairs is the bedroom and a huge full bath, I'm trying to figure out what the most ridiculous thing to put in the bathroom because it is so large (maybe a christmas tree).

When looking for an apartment we wanted to be deliberate about not moving to the 'burbs or a complex. We wanted to be safe and have a nice place but also did not want to insulate ourselves from the realities of poverty in our area as well. After looking at this apartment I knew that it met these criteria. It is not the worst neighborhood in town but there are people living there who are trying to pay the bills day to day.

The plan is to start moving things on Monday and drive to get Sarah on Thursday, returning on the 13th.

Standing in the living room looking at the dining room and kitchen.

Standing in the bathroom upstairs, looking onto our bedroom.

gainful employment

I have a job, mostly, it's complicated let me explain. I have secured part time (20 hours a week) employment with the Youth Advocacy Program in Susquehanna county PA as a "mobile therapist" seems like I should have a couch in the back my truck. I will be doing counseling with 4 or 5 youth at their homes and school. It pays well and offers insurance for both of us. I have another interview for a half time position tomorrow (Friday) to fill in the rest of the time. I am still apartment hunting, I have looked at some rough places but have a few potentials.

he's north.

Hey, y'all--

I just wanted to let you know that Eric got to Endicott safely this evening at around 6:30pm. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

busy, busy, busy

In the past two weeks we have been very busy, here's an update with some of our activities.

• Saturday the 13th my father came down to get a truck load of stuff to take back home.
• My mother drove down following him to stay the week, more on that later.
• Sunday the 14th we went to speak at the Lower Beech Fork and Thousandsticks UMC where Steve and Dianne Springer serve. Sarah's home church has a supportive relationship with them and my first interaction with Appalachia Kentucky came on a mission trip to their church. We told them some about what we are doing and had a great lunch afterwards.
• Our friends from the Park Terrace Community UMC in Apalachin NY came for a week of work camp. I worked with them most of the week. We sided a home, and were done on Thursday, I had some tasks of building greenhouse tables, picking gourds and catching some loose piglets to keep us busy on Friday.
• On Tuesday night we took a late night road trip to Cumberland Falls state park for the moonbow, My mother and Mike Tupper joined us, it was well worth staying up until 1am. We were disappointed that Sonic was closed on our way though.
• Last weekend Sarah, my mother and I went to Nashville for the weekend. We got to see a show at the Grand Ole Opry, go to the Country Music HOF as well as trip to a good music store, and dinner with live music.
• This week I am finishing up projects and getting ready to head north. I am driving up Sunday and have several interviews next weekend. It's not easy to leave the friends that we have made here, but it is exciting to have new possibilities. Sarah will be staying here for a few weeks while I interview and if that is successful find an apartment, it will be odd as we have only spent a few nights apart (besides sleeping on the couch due to snoring) while being here.

not ready

Eric is leaving in a week for some job interviews, and I don't think that he's coming back, except to pick me up. This means that our time at Henderson Settlement is quickly coming to a close. It's been on my mind a lot this week, and it really hit me hard at the closing worship for work camp this evening.

I'm not ready to go.

I'm not ready to leave Mike & Lori, Mark & Linda & Rachel, Kim & Lisa, Lona & James.
I want to see what happens with the Settlement.
I hate for the library to be left hanging in limbo.
I'm not thrilled about living in Binghamton.
I'm afraid that I'm not going to find a job that I love.
I'm nervous about going back to the way things used to be.

I know that there are good things about going back north, and I know that it's time to go. Right now, though, I feel really sad about leaving this place.

farming

This past weekend I took some mums, ornamental corn, gourds, apples and the last of our sweet corn to a farmers market in Eagan TN sponsored by the woodland community land trust. It was a great day, there were other folks selling quilts and jerky and baked goods and produce. I bought a pumpkin roll, pears, tomatoes, eggs, and some deer jerky. I met some neat people who are working there doing some of the same work that the settlement is doing a little further south. Someone brought their banjo and others just belted out a few songs without any accompaniment.

Being at this market along with other time spent thinking over the past few weeks has me thinking about agriculture as an occupation. Some of this probably comes from the job hunt that I am going through currently as well. I hate the cliche, but it's in my blood, I have zero formal education in agriculture but between growing up on a farm and working for my uncle I know enough to be dangerous and not enough to be employable. So I'm not sure what my future involvement in agriculture looks like but I know that I would like it exist.

haircut

Every now and then we'll have someone come to the Settlement that offers services to the community beyond home repair. This week we have a couple of hairstylists, along with a manicurist, that have been offering free appointments to the local folks. Monday morning was set aside for staff members, so I hopped on the bandwagon (just in time, too, because I was beginning to look like one of the Hansons again).

Here's the result:

lost and found

Occasionally, when looking through the books that come into the library from our various donors, I find stuff that people have left in books, probably as bookmarks. I have found a couple of dollar bills, tissues, etc., but this is by far the best thing that I've found yet.

defeating small oil

Over the past few months Henderson Settlement has been in talks with a local oil company about the possibility of drilling oil on part of the 1600 acres here at the settlement. They were prepared to give a donation of $10,000 up front and a percentage (12.5) of profits, which would go to GBGM as they are the land owners and could choose to give us all or some or none. They would essentially build a road to the site of drilling and have tanks on site that a tractor trailer would come to daily...weekly depending on how much of a gusher it was.

Mike Tupper who is on the board took it upon himself to investigate the location itself, where an access road would have to go and spoke to other gas and oil companies about their operations and how this work progressed. He and I spoke many times about the benefits and drawbacks of this. As a self admitted tree hugger I was worried about contamination and what happens after the oil is gone or not worth drilling anymore. There were also questions of how much oil this would produce and its a gamble even according to the oil man.

In the end the board voted to not accept their offer after not much debate and a good argument put forward by Mike. So here is to defeating small oil and not taking 10 grand that we could really use at the expense of our land and community.

photos from Knoxville

Hi friends!

Eric and I went to Knoxville this past Saturday. I had to get my allergy shot, and Eric wanted to see a baseball game, so we wandered around downtown in the meantime. You can see our photos here--they're in the Knoxville album.

great finds

We haven't done this in a little while but here is the latest installment of great finds at the thrift store.

I found a vintage camera bag for Sarah, and her new camera even fits in it.

I found two shirts like this, western shirts with flowers and pearl buttons, Sarah likes them, so do I.

I found this jacket for the River Oaks Soccer Club, on the back it has embroidered the name Ambrosio, which makes me look like a great Italian soccer player.

camping in the wilderness

Last weekend Mike and I decided it would be a good night to hike into the mountains here at the Settlement and spend the night. We packed our tent and food for dinner and enough stuff to last us a week but we were going for less than 24 hours. With our packs loaded down we went out here. (The blue is our campsite, red is our apartment). We got there in time to see the sunset and then made some pizza sandwiches but Mike had forgotten the sauce so they were really like grilled cheese, but they were good anyway. It was nice to be so far away from everything and just relax out in the woods.

what's the plan?

We have talked to many of you about this, but for those who haven't been in on the discussions, here's what we've been thinking about and talking about:

We committed to spending a year at Henderson Settlement, and that year will be completed at the end of September. Although they'd like us to stay indefinitely (isn't that nice of them?), we're feeling like it's time to move on and time to be closer to what feels like our true home. Plus, our student loans are calling our names, and although they might be able to be pushed back, they won't go away on their own.

We've started applying for jobs in the Binghamton area, but we've not really heard anything yet. We've decided that we'll stay here 'til one of us finds something, so it's looking right now as if we'll be here past the end of September. Eric is determined to be back up north by Christmas, though, job or no job.

And the grand plan? Well, the long-term plan involves us both getting jobs, using one salary to live on and one to pay off the loans, and being pretty much free of debt in about five years (or less, depending on how things go). Then we hope to be able to back into full-time volunteer/mission work. The details of that are still in the very fuzzy stages, but we will be exploring some programs through the United Methodist Church and probably some others, as well.

So pray for us as we start this new leg of the journey. And let us know if you have any job leads!

oh, and....

I've updated our picture page again...this is current as of today!

sunny day

We've had a string of bright sunshiny days, including a few days with high temperatures only reaching the low- to mid-eighties.

This is our kind of weather.

Eric was lifeguarding last Saturday, and I went to hang out with him for a while, and I took my camera. Mike was there, hanging out with a couple of the local kids, and he mentioned that he missed seeing himself pictured on our blog...so here you go, Mike!

mural

At the beginning of the year, Jerry and Harry came around and asked if there were any projects that I'd like done in the library. Right inside the door of the library was a blue wall:

Nice but not interesting. I asked if they could put a mural on the project list, and so they did.

When I got back from being up north in May, I had a message to call a woman named Peggy in Michigan about a mural. I phoned her, and we talked for a while about possibilities. I suggested book characters, and she said, "Oh, like Tom Sawyer?" That wasn't what I had in mind, but after she said it, I knew that's what we should have: book characters that are not known by Disney cartoons, but only in the imagination of the reader.

So I made a [very rough] sketch of what I had in mind:

When she got it, she called, and we talked some more. It turned out that she'd be here with her work team during the week that we were up north in July. I was excited to see what would be on the wall. When I got to the library, I was blown away. The mural far exceeded my expectations.

As you can see, Peggy is an incredible artist. There have been several people who have stopped in to see the mural, and they've all commented on how wonderful it is. My favorite reaction, however, came from a little boy who stood and looked at it for a minute and then walked over and reached out his hand and touched the lion, as if he meant to pet it on the head. It looked so real and friendly to him.

I'm so grateful to Peggy for sharing her amazing gift with us. This mural makes the library so much more inviting and interesting! Thank you, Peggy!

camping debacle

So this weekend we went camping at Cumberland Falls.

The campsites there are close together. By "close together," I mean "on top of each other." Our neighbor's tent was about eight feet from our tent. This wasn't a problem 'til we wanted to go to bed.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got to the campsite early in the afternoon and set up and were relaxing when a trailer backed up to the site on the other side of our neighbors, and three men and two junior-high-age boys got out and started unloading. We didn't pay them too much attention, as we were reading in the shade of a giant tree, but after a while, Eric looked up and commented, "They're building a city." As more men and boys had arrived, he decided to call this city "Manville." They ended up with about fourteen or so guys spread over two or three campsites in about seven tents. They had coolers full of meat and polished off a #10 can full of baked beans for dinner. It was pretty impressive.

We gained neighbors, and we went swimming, and after we returned from the night swim, I began to be ready to climb in the tent to sleep. So we did, but our neighbors didn't. This wouldn't have been a problem except that they were only a few yards from us, playing poker. Also, being August in Kentucky, it was quite warm out and rather stuffy in the tent. Neither of us could fall asleep. I freaked out for a while and then dozed off, and I woke up a little while later to Eric freaking out. So we decided to go for a drive.

We drove the twenty-five minutes into Corbin, and pretty much everything was closed except for Waffle House, and being fans of Waffle House, we decided that it was a good option. As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed that it was pretty full for 12:30am, and we walked in to find the place packed. It was noisy and rowdy, and we pretty soon realized that the bars must've closed at midnight, and everyone went right to Waffle House. There were bikers there and sorority-type girls and cuddly couples and even a elementary-aged girl who was dragged there by what I assume were her slightly drunk parents. It was a wild experience.

By the time we got back to our campsite, our neighbors were in bed, meaning that we could do the same. But the next morning we decided that we'd skip the second night at the campground and go home after seeing the falls. We had already gone swimming, got a slight sunburn, and cooked over a campfire twice, and we were planning to go to a park ranger talk that afternoon. Our mini-vacation was complete.

The morals of the story:
1. Don't go camping in the south in the summer.
2. Do a little more research on the size and spacing of campsites before committing to a campground.

The falls were quite impressive since it's been rather rainy the past couple of weeks. Although you can't tell from this picture, the water falls sixty-eight feet. It's the largest waterfall south of Niagra Falls and east of the Rockies.

trip north - Sarah's edition

Now it's my turn to talk about my trip north.


The beginning is the same as Eric's version, but on Monday morning, Christie picked me up from Jurisdictional Conference in Harrisburg, and we headed toward NEPa.


We spent a day or so visiting with Gramsy and with our cousin Darcy and her family.



Then we went and spent another day or so at our parents' home.


It was nice to relax with them for a while before heading back to Baltimore, where Christie and Tim live. While I was visiting them, I got to meet some more of Christie's friends, which was great.


We had some good Sister Time, watching girl movies (Enchanted and Mamma Mia) and just being together and hanging out and talking, which was wonderful since we don't get much time to do that.


We went to Artscape, which was fantastic. I'm not sure why, but I didn't take a picture of the car covered with singing fish and lobsters. Maybe it's because you had to be there to fully appreciate it. I don't care who you are--it would've blown your mind. Here's a picture of the bus covered with random stuff.


And here's one of the other interesting sights from Artscape--hahahahahaha!


Eric joined us on Saturday afternoon, and that evening we went to see the Baltimore Orioles play the Detroit Tigers. Christie brought her knitting.


The fans were exceptionally rowdy, and the game was exciting right up until the very end.

On Sunday, after attending Christie and Tim's new church, we headed up to Lancaster to the wedding of one of my friends from Eastern College. It was a beautiful service, and it was so good to see some of my friends from school.


Then we headed back to Baltimore and got some more time to spend with Christie and Tim.


And then on Monday, we headed back to Kentucky and jumped into time with family and friends again!

It was a wonderful trip for me--getting a chance to relax and spend time with people I love. I just wish that someday Christie and I could live down the street from each other.