Happy Birthday to YOU!

Two birthday congrats today!

1. Daddy Kevin, HAPPY BIRTHDAY. My favorite father-in-law celebrates his special day today and we wish so badly we could celebrate it together. Yet another successful year, and much fun ahead! We love you, are thankful for your example in our lives and cannot WAIT to see you this December.

Here's a photo of Kevin with Drew, Drew's best friend Troy, and Duffy, Troy's dad, while at Priest Lake last summer.
2. Sister Sam, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Her birthday happens to border the due-date of our first niece/nephew!!). Sam, you have a big year ahead and we couldn't be happier for you and Reid! We are thankful to be so close to you for the birth of Baby Hambo and look forward to the many evenings of baby snuggling ahead.

Here's a shot of me with Reid (my brother) and Sam when in New Jersey a few summers ago. This evening followed a full day of riding roller coasters at Six Flags and watching Reid's baseball game (with Brent & Erin Raska, while they were at Princeton).

We love you!

Tennessee Chronicles Part I: Family Fun

Boy has it been a full few weeks! I kicked off the traveling season with a trip to Indianapolis, where I presented my research at the Society for Music Perception and Cognition. Returning on a Friday, I drove straight to the dentist's office where I had some yucky surgery performed (I'll spare you the details!). In order to make my recovery a little less miserable, we packed up our bags as soon as I was mobile and drove to East Tennessee for a visit with my extended family, puffy cheeks and all. We had a lovely trip and they were very gracious with me while I healed. We were SO glad to have this time with family and can't wait to share with you about it!

I'll post some photos in three parts. Here I give you Part I in the Tennessee Chronicles.

We stayed with my Mammaw Lucille (my mother's mother) in Pigeon Forge. This is a hot tourist spot, just bordering Smokey Mountain Nat'l Park. Many of our other relatives (aunt & uncle, great aunts, cousins, second cousins, third cousins...) live in the surrounding areas (Sevierville, Dandridge, Gatlinburg, Seymour). We spent a fair bit of time driving around to our different relatives' homes to chat and see what they've been up to.

Last weekend we had the opportunity to visit my Great Aunt & Uncle Nina and Lawrence. They have apple orchards and honey bees and are situated on beautiful mountainous property. Below is a photo of Drew & me with Mammaw down below some of their orchards.


Here we are with Nina on her front porch.
Back in the "holler" (translates to "hollow" or "valley") is an old two-room shack that has a fair bit of history to it. This is the shack where my Aunt Nina and my Papaw (grandpa) Virgil were raised along with their siblings. Nina showed us where they fetched their water, how they kept their dairy products cold (in the spring) and told us stories about harvesting sugar cane & making molasses, among other things.

I have always admired my Aunts Nina & Ruby (her sister) for all they accomplished professionally. Both of them raised children while working full time as educators & educational administrators in addition to supporting their husbands in their agricultural and professional endevours. Beyond this, they had very little growing up yet built successful lives for themselves once they became independent. These are hard-working and highly capable women! One story they tell about their road to success is how they learned to read by exploring the newsprint that their mother stuck on the inside walls of their home for insulation. I found a spot inside the shack where you could still read the words on the newsprint and took a photo. It seems this print is from an old Sears catalog.


To the side of this house are stacks of honeybee hives. Drew had never seen these before and was enthusiastic about exploring them, though I made she he was careful to maintain his distance (allergy alert!!).
This was a sweet visit! We also spent half a day with Aunt Ruby and her daughters and had such a lovely time catching up. We can't wait to return!!

I'll close this post with a photo of my cousin Andrew playing with Mollie. Andrew and his brother, Logan, kept Mollie well entertained during our vacation. Drew & I had no idea she could play for so long and Mollie was thrilled by all the attention and Mammaw's fenced in backyard!

Pastoral Interim Team

Drew has recently been hired as one of four pastoral leaders for our church during an interim period of at least one year, while we make decisions about how to proceed now that our head pastor has retired. This new position is timely for Drew, having just completed his first seminary degree and ready for more intense ministry involvement (refreshed from our two years of intense work in the DR!). As we were meditating on "what next," Drew was offered this position.
He is honored to serve the church in this capacity.


Last Sunday's service was devoted to commissioning this new team. I was disappointed that it coincided with my departure for Indianapolis (for SMPC's biennial conference) but appreciated Peter's photos, shown here. Members of the congregation washed the new leaders' feet and the church prayed over them in an act of commissioning.

I, for one, am thrilled to see his pastoral gifts again in action and look forward to his leadership in this capacity.

Joel & Tori: Superstars

As I mentioned before, we LOVED having Joel & Tori with us a few weekends ago! I also mentioned that we are terrible picture-takers and made it out with... oh... NONE. But that one. With the red eye.

All right.

So Joel & Tori mercifully sent us the photos they'd taken and here they are! These two are from the motorcycle "really high & scary jump" Red Bull event.

Miss you two already!

Dowtown at Twilight

Charity and I spent a night at Taste of Chicago, which is a huge fair consisting of miles of food booths hosted by restaurants throughout the city. The even takes over a large part of downtown, near Buckingham Fountain/Jackson Avenue. The night we went featured a Counting Crows concert and we got front & center seats, close enough to see the lead singer's individual dreadlocks. We were sure to catch Mr. Jones and Anna Begins before weaving our way out of the crowd.

After spending our food tickets wisely (and carefully documenting each consumption with a photo), we wandered over to Grant Park to see The Bean and this new installment (I forget what it's called, designed to "frame" different views of the Chicago skyline.


We ended the evening at the Hancock tower (of course), where we took plenty of photos from the windowed bathroom (who needs to pay for an observation deck?!). Oh, Chicago. And oh, Charity! Can you believe we've been friends for 15 years now??

Zookeeping

While Drew's at work Mollie pines away. The other day I found that she'd dug out one of Drew's house shoes and snuggled up next to it by the door, awaiting Drew's return. A boy and his dog--so precious!


Tink seems to be getting more and more confident, no longer afraid of big groups of guests or shy with new people. For those who don't know, she was Hurricane Katrina kitty, caught up the storm but lived to tell about it. She was rescued & shipped to Chicago, where her previous owner adopted her. Her first year post-storm she spent alone, as her new owner worked long hours. She was very sensitive to noise and movement when we first brought her home (definitely skittish) but gradually became more and more comfortable--now not sensitive to much at all and desperate for cuddles and affection! Good thing we love to be providers of cuddles and affection. Here she is snuggling with me last night while I got into a new book.


I'm used to waking up with Tink snuggled in the covers by my tummy, or nestled down at my feet. This morning I found that she'd sought out a new snuggle buddy--she was so cute crammed between Drew & the pillow that I just had to snap a shot!

Oh, the adventures of zookeeping. Happy Saturday to you all! I'm off to work but am committed to spending at least some time in the sun before the day is through.

Lovely Summer

Visitors have legitimately made our summer this year. We have had such a lovely June and July, honored to play host & hostess to friends and family. We kicked off the summer with visits from Drew's parents and Charity. In the past few weeks we spent a handful of days with Erin and Brent Raska, who currently live in the Upper East Side of Manhattan (think "Gossip Girl"!) and are preparing to move to Zambia for the next year. Joel and Tori Barbour visited from Spokane for four days, during which we toured the city, ate deep dish, watched movies and--most importantly--witnessed a motorcyclist break the world record downtown for the highest motorcycle jump. Let me tell you, it was high (I watched from a distance with Mollie, from Buckingham Fountain)... although I found it funny that he was breaking his own record. We also had an evening with Jenna Bott, in from Kansas City--what a treat!

Unfortunately, we have all of one picture to show for our time with guests! Guess we were too busy having fun. Below, Joel & Tori's friends spent an evening with us in the city. Tori did her best to get Olivia, a darling 2 year old, to ride Mollie. I'm not sure Olivia was as excited as Mollie was about it (please forgive the red eye--we really need a new camera...!).

Chicago is so fabulous in the summer that is *almost* makes up for the horrendous winters. I've been camping, beach bathing, biking and BBQ-ing and I just can't get enough of the outdoors! Drew and I are looking forward to our anniversary camping trip later this month. What could be better than 'mallows, reading in the hammock and sleeping under the stars with my husband?