Christmas Time

So it's been christmas lately.  I phrase it that way because with so much family close our christmas extended pretty much over the entire weekend.  Here are some highlights:

 Sarah got a backpack to carry all her camera equipment.  She was very excited about it!

 Dan's parents got him a patriots sweatshirt.  I'm fairly certain he hasn't taken it off since. except to sleep.

 Earlier this month i took a bunch of pictures of my brother, and chose the best one to make into this canvas for my mom.  She was showing him what it turned out like.

 One of my gifts was an adapter that allows me to fit an older pentax lens on my nikon.  With this lens, i can take pictures of the stars, such as this one of Orion.  I'm super excited about astrophotography!

 Our christmas tree.  Dan and I decorated it last week.  It's pretty and you can't have christmas without a tree, right?

Reindeer.  Need I say more?


How was your Christmas?

November

So last saturday Dan and i went to downtown annapolis with Beka, Joel, Corrie, and Meimei.  After eating, we opted to loiter around the naval academy.  Ok, not really.  I was taking pictures and they were humoring me.

Inside bancroft hall is a bathroom done entirely in marble.  For no apparent reason.  There was a HUGE mirror so i took the opportunity to get a picture of myself.


















We hid in bells. (this is not me).

Dan and I with a tree that looks kinda like a christmas tree.  I believe the plan is to put this one in our christmas letter.  So here's a sneak peak.


















And this is probably close to the only tree in Annapolis that still has leaves on it.  It was such a pretty golden color I couldn't resist taking a picture.





For the record, I CANNOT believe it's nearly Christmas already.  Today is December 1 (don't let the post title fool you.  I do know what month it is.)  I guess I need to get busy working on christmas gifts; I'm rapidly running out of time to get them finished and to finish my shopping.

Anniversary

Dan and I have been married for a year now; where has the time gone? Of course, that year has been really busy, what with moving twice halfway across the country and back again. We went out for dinner tonight at outback and ate yummy steak.

I got a job at Payless and i start there tomorrow! I'm excited except that I can't wear tennis shoes. So that could be interesting since at the moment tennis shoes are the only comfortable shoes i own. We shall see how i survive. But I am working over thirty hours there this week. I also have a second interview at old navy, to work with the shipping and receiving crew, so i'm optimistic about getting that job as well. I'm pretty sure i can work my schedule so that i can take both.

Dan has an in person interview some time in the next couple weeks with a church in South Carolina, and we are excited about that as well. He also has a Skype interview with a church in Kansas next week, which is also exciting.

Exploring Saint Joseph

So we have a lot of time on our hands these days; on account of packing up most of our stuff already and being unable to pack up everything else until the last minute (because you have to have dishes to cook)

So we went exploring saint joseph yesterday. Mostly because i wanted to take pictures before we moved.

This is a view of the River, looking toward downtown. This overlook would have been really nice if only the car next two us hadn't had a couple scary looking people in it...

This is right along the river. Dan's being goofy, and clinging to the support of a bridge. You know, like spiderman, or something.

Most of this path (riverwalk) was closed due to flooding. It's been over a month since the river receded from overflowing it's banks and there are still huge pools of standing water all over the place. and it smells BAD. stagnant water is kinda gross.

And the river itself. With a bunch of washed up trees. I'm guessing they were uprooted and washed downstream in the flood....

This lovely building is the nature center. I didn't even know saint joseph HAD a nature center. It was however, closed at the time, my guess is on account of flood damage or something. If you notice, the building is raised up off the ground, probably a good 8-10 feet. Definately taller than me, anyway. Not that it's hard to be taller than me. But anyway, it looked like the building might have flooded.

Look, I do clean!

Occasionally, anyway. This room seems so big and empty with the furniture moved around...and some of it gone...

On the other hand, it at least looks nice now!

moving is messy

This is the current state of my living room. Not exactly stellar as we've cleaned out three of the rooms in the house and closed them off so i don't have to clean them again. But hey, i'm moving. It's no big deal. I can live with a little mess.

Except the landlord called today and he wants to start showing the house on Thursday. Um...yeah. ok. Well, there are gonna be boxes all over the house. Nothing I can do about that.

But i guess i can try to keep the floor vacuumed and what not. In theory, anyway.

Moving...

Moving is no fun. Well, actually, i take that back. I think moving is lots of fun. You know, as long as it's once every 2-5 yrs or so. Moving twice in less than a year? Not so much.

But we are busy packing up for our move back to Maryland. And then wherever else God decides we need to live. If that turns out to be California or someplace like that...well...Our couch would, at that point, have something like almost 10,000 miles on it. Which, honestly, is pretty impressive for a couch. They don't usually travel that much. :)

Packing isnt so bad until you get to the kitchen, and you look at all your glass dishes and such, and go...um....yeah. ok. How am i gonna do this? Because, you know, for all that i've moved, like...in six major moves, I don' think i've ever done a kitchen. I always remember the movers coming in to pack up the dishes so that it would be their fault if they got broken. So i'm still working on figuring that one out. I bet i could find instructions on YouTube.

We sold our dining room table and got rid of our extra fridge. We've packed up books, and DVDs, and knick knacks, and most of our clothes. I foresee a lot more laundry in my future as we are both only keeping out about five days worth of clothing. We've thrown away MORE stuff (seriously. Where does it all come from?) We've filled a bunch of bags of STUFF to take to goodwill. It's pretty much insane.

As a final note; people look at you REALLY funny when you go an start pulling newspaper OUT of the paper recycling bins. But we don't get the newspaper and it makes great packing material.

Epic Saga of Awesomeness (with pictures)

OK, not really. But it's still a pretty crazy story.

I'm talking, of course, about replacing the dead battery in the minivan. Sounds simple enough, right? Take off a couple screws, loosen a couple nuts, pull out the old one, put in the new one. easy peasy.

As. If.

First off, the battery was dead, which precipitated this entire process to begin with. Unfortunately, the battery died while the van was in the garage. If you've seen our teeny tiny one car garage, you'll realize how crazy this was. Sometimes it's amazing the van fits in the garage in the first place.

So then we (and by we i mean Dan because i tend to just stay out of the way) attempts to detach the cable from the battery. only to have one of the battery posts fall off said battery while still attached to the clamps. Aw

esome. No big deal, we'll just unscrew it and it'll fall out. Except apparently the bolt melted somehow and fused itself to the metal of the clamp. How is that even possible? It doesn't get that hot ANYWHERE the van has lived. As far as we know, anyway.

So i went to auto zone and bought new clamps. No big deal, except the new clamps don't look anything like the ones on the van. So...interesting. Wonder how that's gonna work? Meanwhile, we've managed to pop the van into neutral and push it out of the garage. Now at least we can see what we're doing.

Ok, after a lot of work on Dan's part it becomes totally apparent that there's no way the corroded battery post is coming out of the clamp. Time for plan B.

With the help of the hacksaw, the old clamp is removed. Now to figure out how to attach the new one. This should be easy, as long as the wires are all touching the clamp it will work! So says my dad, anyway. Which is true, except Dan had to go buy longer screws because this clamp came with little tiny screws that were totally useless.

Finally we get the new screws attached and the whole battery put back together in the car and the cables attached and HURRAY!!!! The van Runs! We have TWO cars Again! This is super exciting!

See? I told you it would be riveting.

Random Thoughts

1. I can't believe it's august already. Seriously, how did that happen? Wasn't it just all cold and wintery outside? This part of the country doesn't have a spring and a fall. we have summer, and we have winter. and one turns to the other in about a week. it's pretty crazy. I am looking forward to cooler weather, though.

2. The heat this last week has been INSANE. insane as in, it was so hot it killed my car battery. and dan's van has had a dead battery for a couple weeks. Nothing is more awesome than having two dead cars at the same time (insert sarcasm here). however, we did replace the battery in my car (because a) it has air conditioning and b)it was in the driveway and so replacing the battery of the van which is in the garage would have been silly) so now at least we have a car to get us around town. we'll fix dan's car as soon as we can.

3. I woke up the other day and realized that honestly, my house is boring. Just because i rent doesn't mean i can't put stuff on the walls. I can't put holes in the walls, but there's a company that makes these awesome velcro hangy things that come off without even ruining the paint. Which is awesome. I think i'm going to try this tutorial on putting photos onto canvas once i can get my hands on the supplies. And pick pictures I like. which could take a while.

4. How adorable is this guy? He's the biggest

Stuffed animal I've made so far and I'm very proud of him. He's a gift for a friend's little boy who's bday is coming up soon. Feel free to ignore the slightly messy coffee table in the background. Being creative tends to be kinda an explosion in stuff lol.

Sightseeing

Last week Dan's family was here. We took them to lots of different historical places near here:

Such as the Truman Presidential Library.

As well as several other historical sites in Independence: The Vaile Museum, and the stone church, and icicle building which is some kind of temple.

Tuesday Dan had to work so we did the historic sites in St. Joseph. This is the Patee House.

And the Jesse James House, where he was shot.

It was all very exciting.