Writers Block

I have had writers block for about 4 months. After extensive psychological testing, blood work and cat scans the doctors and I realized that the cause has been a common but often rare form of firstyeayofteachingoloisis. Its wednesday Im at school finals were given monday and tuesday (half days for the students but not teachers)so now Im writing because we have to be at school all day with pretty much nothing to do as grasdes are in the data base. SO I though I would give everyone a sampling of teaching in the city. DISCLAIMER:Take this all with a grain of salt as I love all my students and many are on thier way to good things.
Things you never thought you would hear in high school:
Quotes from the PA system:
Administrator "If we catch anyone in the hallways fighting (long pause)YOU WILL GO TO JAIL!"
Quotes from students
"Your last name is Reefer?"
"Hey J.T. I need some help"
"Easy J.T."
"Hey Mr. Reeve you look like Harry Potter."
"Mr. Reeve you look like that Hobbit we just saw in that clip."
"Hey Mr. Reeve your wife is fire." (pronounced fieuuur)
..................more to come

Some Mid December Thoughts...

Well... Dan's first semester of teaching is finally winding down. I don't think we've ever felt we needed a break more! His long nights and early mornings have been pretty tiring. He'll be done with students next Tuesday and his last day will be Wednesday. We fly out that Friday for Seattle!! It's great to live in a city with a major airport. I think I've mentioned this before... but it's so nice to leave your house only about 2 hours before your flight! I'll never forget those long travel nights after work in Chico when I would fly up to see Dan when he was living in Seattle. At least the flight was short!!

One of the big highlights of this month was last night! U2 was playing here in St. Louis. We bought our tickets back in March. Dan and I didn't really agree on how much we paid for the tickets... but I have to admit our front row seats last night were awesome! It's worth it to be able to see the faces of the performers.

Another highlight of this month was our first big snowfall last week. I'll post some pictures when I finally get my film to the store... one of the not so joys of being a one car family. We got about 2 1/2 inches last Thursday. It was great because Thursday is my day off. I loved listening to Christmas music and watching the snow fall outside. It wasn't so fun walking to work in it the next day... but it was still pretty.

Well... I think that's it for now. Hopefully Dan will have some time to write on his two weeks off from school.

Thanksgiving

I can't believe it is already December! The last couple months have flown by. I woke up this morning to snow flurries outside. It's fun to live in a city where it actually snows every year. Dan hopes desperately every day for school to be cancelled for a snow day. He must have walked to the door at least five times during his lesson planning last night to see if it was actually snowing. Hopefully one of these days he will get his wish.

This year we are so fortunate to get to spend Holidays with both sides of the family. The Tuesday before Thanksgiving last week, my Dad called and asked if we would like to come home for a couple days. I almost burst out crying on the phone. Every year my family spends Thanksgiving with my Grandfather and Aunt in the San Francisco Bay Area. I was devastated that my entire family would be there this year... everyone except us. So, we flew into Oakland (and surprised my Mom) last Thursday and had two amazing days with my family. Thank you Dad!!!!! Our super cool brother in law Scott took this picture of us (on a family walk). You can see San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge in the back. For some reason it was extremely hard to come home after this trip. Dan and I were giving each other pep talks as we walked to our gate in the airport. We kept telling each other that it was okay... we won't be out here forever. Not that we don't love it here, we're just really starting to miss living near family on the West Coast. I can't wait for the day that we can drive home instead of fly.

Christmas this year will be with the Reeve clan in Seattle. I love it that our families live in areas that most people go to for vacation. This will be my first Christmas with Dan's family. It's hard when everyone is so spread out. He has a brother in Idaho, a brother in Montana, and his parents live in Seattle. We're really excited to get to spend Christmas with them this year!

Well... it's time to go eat some breakfast.

My Most Recent Attempt at Creativity

I love trying new ideas out of magazines. First it was the wheat grass and now it is the pumpkin address. I thought it turned out pretty good. The idea is to put Christmas lights inside the carved out pumpkin. We tried that... but our pumpkins are too thick to be able to see the light. I love Fall!!

Tomorrow Night

Dan asked me to his High School dance tomorrow night. I am so excited!

We're actually just going to be chaperones... but I still think it's pretty fun that we get to go to a High School dance together.

Our Neighborhood

I know I promised Dan would be the next to write... but he's taking his usual afternoon nap... so I thought I would sit down a write. I have about five minutes before my cornbread comes out of the oven (there's just nothing like smelling your mom's cornbread in the kitchen several thousand miles from home).
We are heading out to Bible Study in about an hour. Our church has small groups that you are assigned to geographically. That way you can really focus on meeting the same people in your community. We love it because we can walk since the leaders live just two blocks from us! Being so close to everything reminds me so much of Chico! We share a car... which can be a pain sometimes... but it forces me to walk to the 1/2 mile work every day (with our cats George and Eddie who have started following me about half the way there).
There is also a small park two blocks away that has bands playing once a month. You can actually see the Arch from this park... since we live on one of the higher parts of the very flat city of St. Louis. We're going to walk down for a couple minutes tonight to hear the last group of the summer play... unfortunatley it really does still feel like summer here.
Anyways... I was in the kitchen cooking and I could hear the band playing just now... so I thought I would just mention how great it is to be living in such a great part of St. Louis!

Dan really will be the next to write!

September

We have been unbelievably busy lately. I keep telling Dan that we need to try and keep our blog updated... even if it's only a sentence. We have actually had family in town on and off for the last month... either that or we have been out of town. My sister Cari and her husband Scott spent two weeks with us at the beginning of the month. It was great! It was their first time out to St. Louis and we made sure they saw as much of it as possible. St. Louis can't really compare to San Francisco or Seattle... but there are still some neat areas here. This our famous arch picture that we take of anyone who comes to visit. You have to lay down on the ground so you can get the entire arch in the picture. Scott and Cari are now in New Orleans helping organize teams to help with the hurricane clean up. They process hundreds of work orders and then send out surveyors and teams to different locations. They'll be heading back to St. Louis in a couple weeks to pick up their dog Ranger here at our house before they start the long trek back West.

My Dad and Mom were with us for about a week after that. My Dad always finds out about great little day trips whenever they come out. A week ago Saturday we went to an apple farm in Illinois.

We road a "tractor train" out into an apple orchard and picked a couple bags of apples. It was great! After that we visited the arch...

and then took a river boat ride on the great... dirty... Mississippi...

It was definitely not the prettiest boat ride I have ever taken... but it did have some interesting views... a sunken barge for example.

Dan has been super busy with school. He loves teaching... but it does have its challenges. He has had two lockdowns in the month that he has been teaching (one of which I found out about on the morning news!!). We would have never thought at this time last year that he would be teaching at an inner city school here in St. Louis... but it's great to see how the Lord moves you in new directions! We miss California tons... but love St. Louis at the same time.

Well... that's it for the month of September. I promise to make Dan write next time!!

What Not to Buy

I have to start out by saying that I love guacamole. Everytime our Bible Study has dinner together we bring it. Today we stopped by Trader Joe's on our way home to pick up some avocados (we have Bible Study tonight). I had just bought some there two days ago so I didn't think they would be hard to find. I circled the produce section two times and didn't see them. I was a little frustrated until one of the Trader Joe's employee's pointed out some huge green guava looking fruit. They were Slim-Ados. Don't ever buy them! It made my guacamole making go by a lot faster... since they were HUGE... but they taste horrible! On the sticker is says they have 50% less fat. How do you grow produce with less fat? I'm sure there is some scientific answer... but I don't care. The Trader Joe's guy said we could take them back if we didn't like them... but that's a little hard now since there is a huge bowl of Slim-Mole sitting in our refrigerator!!

Dan the Man

We created this site so we would be better about communicating... it hasn't work so well!! We are really going to try and be better about writing. This summer has been busy! Haiti was amazing. It was so eye opening to be in a different country... one that compares in no way to the US. It was hard to come back to paved roads and air conditioning... what an adjustment after only a week away. To somewhat explain how poor of a country Haiti is I have to tell you that the President of their country was on our flight in from Miami. I have never seen so many guns (once we landed) in one place in my life. I had serious thoughts about not getting off the plane! Seriously though... it was amazing to see how the Lord works in different places. We had a chance to do VBS with about 100 kids. It was so great to listen to them recite memory verses that they had learned throughout the year. They were so happy! I was so blessed to be able to go with Dan and experience just a tiny piece of what it might have been like for him to spend three years on the mission field in the Philippines.

Our big news of the summer is (no we are not pregnant... which we get asked at least 3 times a week!) that Dan got a teaching job!! What a huge answer to prayer. He will be teaching High School English in a school in the city... only 7 miles from our house. We were talking tonight about how amazing it is to live in somewhat of a big city and to be so close to everything. We live .4 miles from my work and church! I love to be able to walk to work in the morning!! Anyways, Dan will be teaching one period of World Lit. and four period of African American Lit. School started the day before he was hired, so he won't actually be in the classroom until school has been in session for about two weeks.

We are heading down to Atlanta this weekend (my first time to the south) to visit some good friends from Seminary. Should be lots of fun. We'll write again soon!!

Q-Tips

Has anyone ever noticed that on a box of q-tips there is a warning stating, do not insert in ear? Only in America can an iconic brand of cotton swabs on a stick state on the box that they should not be used in the very way that thay have been marketed upon for decades. So i cannot wait to see "do not insert into mouth" on hot pockets.

Nick

hello family and friends. We've returned from Haiti and actually didnt want to come back. It was great for us to walk in a different pair of shoes for awhile. Our internet has been down, it seems that there is a trade embargo against the import of DSL modems in the St Louis area, something about Fidel and DSL tobacco seeds.
We also came back to some tragic news, one of the young men from my youth group in Seattle, Nick Bloem, was killed in Iraq last Wednesday when Alyssa and I were in Haiti. He was a marine and a day past twenty. Please pray for the Bloem family and friends in this time. Alyssa and I are heading out to Seattle on Friday for the funeral. It is at times difficult to understand the affects of sin in this world, but Nick knew Christ who overcame sin and death. So we trust the Father even though our hearts break at the same time for Nick and the Bloem family.

Jorbs

Hey friends. Just wanted to let you all know that you can be praying and pulling strings for me as I am seeking a teaching job for High School English here in Missouri. I am currently in a temporary certification program that is contingent upon me getting job first, after which I begin to take education class at 9 invites a year for three years, after which I'd be 10 units away from a masters of education. That's a really bad sentence. Any ways all is well out here and we are two weeks from heading out to Haiti and in the mean time its hard to be in the uncertainty realm of job hunting with such an unconventional resume. I was really hoping that I would have a job before heading out to Haiti but we will see what the Lord has for us. Well just a short blog as I need to go grind out a stump, turn in an application package, pick up a log pile, deposit a check, and fill out a questionnaire for my Pastor's DMin project and hopefully waste some more time before I start all of that (are there any new movie trailers on apple.com/QuickTime/trailers?)

Wheat Grass

A week or so ago I wrote about trying to grow wheat grass. It really works... and now I have to admit that I am obsessed. I have planted it in 8 different containers in our house and today am going to try planting it outside. Plants grow amazingly fast here with the humidity.

Scott and Cari

I am so excited... my little sister Cari and her husband Scott are taking a road trip... and St. Louis will be one of their stops! This is a picture of Scott and Cari with my Dad that shows all the cool stuff we miss out on in Chico.
Anyways, anytime we do anything fun, I add it to my list of stuff to do when they get here. For example, we went to The Muny on Thursday night. The Muny is a huge outdoor theater. We saw "Annie Get Your Gun." It was great because once it got dark, you could see fire flies everywhere. One of the great things Dan and I discovered about St. Louis is all the free stuff to do. The Muny saves several rows of seats at the very back that are free... all you have to do is get there early.
So... I just thought I would write about how excited I am to see them next month. They will be driving out in my Mom and Dad's old orange VW van with their dog Ranger. I thought I would post some pictures because I just figured out how actually upload images into my post. Pretty cool!

Real Simple

So... a bunch of girlfriends out here subscribe to this magazine called Real Simple (Dan wants to create a sister magazine titled "Totally Complicated." I found that pretty amusing). I glanced through it a few times over the last year and didn't really think much of it until someone loaned me about five copies. I have been hooked ever since! I love a section that talks about new uses for old household items (for example: lighting candles with a piece of un-used spaghetti... it really works!). Anyways... a recent article (out of another magazine called Cottage Living) explains how to grow wheat grass in small containers for decoration. It looks so cool. On Sunday I made Dan drive around St. Louis to find the perfect wheat grass seeds (what a great husband!) and today I planted them. I'll have to post a picture if they really grow. My Dad and two sisters (Erica and Cari) are really the ones with the green thumbs in the family... so we'll have to see how it goes.

Some friends gave us tickets to a musical tonight. I am really excited since it is done outside in a huge theater. Fortunately tonight is one of the cooler nights in St. Louis out of the past two weeks. It gets unbelievably hot here! I guess it is more the humidity that I have a hard time dealing with. It feels like you're breathing in flour... not really... but it's still pretty bad.

From Left: Dan, Toby, Steve, Jen, Ellie, Ada, and Alyssa 

Transition

Today is the first time in weeks where I have actually had nothing to do! It's so strange... I have been looking forward to a day like this, but now that it is finally here... I can't decide what to do. On a side note... I'm still trying to figure out why Dan titled his entry below Lilly Pad and Sam.

One of the reasons today has been so uneventful is because of the end of a school year and the beginning of summer (finally!). The end of the school year also means transition with people moving on. We have made so many dear friends here in St. Louis... I posted a picture of several above. Our good friends Toby and Ellie (and their daughter Ada) recently moved to Atlanta, GA. I am so excited for them, but really sad at the same time. It's crazy to think that we have been here for 2 1/2 years. Many people coming to the Seminary sign up for the three year program... so that means that a lot of the people we met our first semester here have moved away in the last couple of weeks. So... I felt sad today.

Speaking of three year programs... someone needs to ask Dan why he didn't post his recent career news!!

Well, it's almost time for Oprah. That's my motivation to head to the gym where they have cable!!

Lilly Pad and Sam

Well Im not sure if anyone will ever visit our blog again becuase of the infrequency of our postings. Yet with that said Alyssa and I are doing well. We always think summer is a time to slow down yet we seem just as busy as when I am in school. Actually we are heading out to Haiti in about five weeks and we are in the preperation mode for the missions trip. Im hoping to try and email or blog each day when we are out there but I may have to do an eight day time delay blog. The trip is causing both excitement and trepidation in the both of us but I think more excitement than nervousness. Well Im off to grind down two customers stumps but I just wanted to see if I'd get a bite in the great sea of blogging

Finals are Over!!

I posted the picture below to show what Dan looked like during finals week. Thank goodness it is finally over!! Those of you who know Dan, know he is not one to get stressed out very easily. This was one of the few weeks of our marriage that I have actually seen him worry. He had little time to study... but always managed to make the most of his time. It has been funny (and frustrating) to see how he handles his school work. For example, the hardest test of his seminary career last week had 12 chapters he had to be able to translate and exegete. He only had one night to have it all memorized... so he spent a good chunk of his time elimanting passages he didn't think would be on the test. Amazingly... he was right!! The text he studied the most, was the one on the test. I couldn't help laughing out loud when he told me... that is so Dan!

Later this week we will be off to California. It's always amazing to be back on the West Coast. As much as we like Missouri... there is just nothing like home. Congrats to both of my sisters... Erica and Cari... who will be graduating from Chico State this weekend!

Dan and our good friend Toby during finals week. 

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

2 hrs and 18 minutes until I take my last final, which is arguably the harest final here at Covenant (Acts and Pauline epistles), and then it is all over. I dont think Ive wanted a semester to be over as bad as this one. The past few weeks have been a bit crazy, the Jetta catches on fire, my truck has its brakes go out, I'm not able to work for a week, the buisness slows down I take on hours at the seminary and then the buisness starts going crazy with calls and jobs and it rains and jobs start getting back logged and then boom all of a sudden its final week. I feel like I've been exposed in all my weakness, thinking I am the one juggling, organizing and handling the logistics of life. Alyssa has been wonderful dealing with me and all my stress, worry, cramming, complianing, and smoking. Yet over all what studying Acts and Pauline Epistles has revealed to me, in ever clear and brighter light, is the reality of the headship of Christ over every aspect of life. I'll expand more when I dont have to be studying for my final. Consider this part 1

Happy Birthday Grandpa

Well, I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to my Grandfather. I know he has started to look at the blog recently. He will celebrate his birthday on Sunday, May 1st. My Grandfather's name is Floyd... he is one of the most encouraging people I know. Ever since I can remember, he has always talked to me about the importance of my education. I will never forget our family trips to visit him in the San Francisco Bay Area. He would always take the time to sit down with me to go over my times tables... not that any tutoring ever helped me in math. But, it made me feel important to be able to sit down at his desk and use one of his pens and pads of paper to go over and over the numbers. He is also the best omlet maker I know. One of the great parts of our visits has always been to wake up and sit at the bar in his kitchen while he fixes our omlets, toast, and bowl of fruit. When I was younger he would take myself and my two sisters, Erica and Cari, on trips to the Merry-Go-Round. We would always get cotton candy afterwards. I'm sure that was a nightmare for him, three young girls with pink sticky candy on their hands, but he always made sure we had the best time in the world. So, I just wanted to say Happy Birthday to the Greatest Grandfather ever. Happy Birthday Grandpa!!

Grandpa at my College Graduation in 2002 

Random Stuff

Well, I'm excited that Alyssa has surprised me for my 30th birthday and is flying me to Boise Idaho so that I can go camping with my Dad and two older brothers in May. Its been a long time since we've done anything of that nature. The last time was in 97ish when Dave my dad and I, Shane was not able to come, went camping and climbing near Donners Summit near Tahoe. Unlike my friends going to school in Canada, I still have three weeks of school left so I can not yet get real excited about the trip. I've put off 12 weeks of translations that I need to get done in two weeks (in two different classes). Don't tell Alyssa or she will revoke my Game Cube privileges.
I also preached last Sunday evening it was my second time doing so, but the first time I hadn't finished any preaching classes I was the only intern around during that Christmas break, it just causes me to realize how wonderful and amazing it is that the Lord uses broken vessels to minister his Word to the world.
And lastly has anyone read the play by Anton Chekhov, The Seagull, if you have give me your thoughts.
Also Alyssa and I have tickets for U2 when they come to St. Louis in December and check out The Kings of Leon, they are opening up for U2 this tour. They are straight rock and roll.

Seminary

I think one of the best parts of being in Seminary is seeing how the Lord has provided for us over and over again. Moving to St. Louis (which seems like halfway around the globe) was pretty hard... Especially when you are used to living in the same town as your immediate family for 20+ years. When we first moved into Seminary Housing we didn't have a washer or dryer for about 6 months. It was horrible! One of the great things about living in Seminary Housing is people moving and leaving things behind. One day coming home we saw a washer and dryer sitting in the "leave behind pile." We jumped out and wheeled them up to our apartment. We tried them outside first to make sure they worked. They did! I can't begin to tell you what sweet music it was to my ears hearing the sound of a washing machine coming from the basement. They weren't the best... but they worked... for about 2 months. I was crushed when the washer went out. There was no way we would have been able to buy a new one, and it almost made it more difficult that I had finally experienced what it was like to have one. I begged Dan to try and fix it. He finally went down one day while I was at work to take it apart. Just as he had begun to work on it the door bell rang. It was one of our neighbors wondering if we needed a washer and dryer. Some of their friends were moving and didn't need one in their new place. We were dumbfounded. She had no idea about our situation. Situations like this over and over have been a constant reminder of why we are here and Who we are serving. All of that gets me to the real reason I am writing today. Wednesday my dear husband Dan was running to Kinkos for me and the engine of our Jetta caught on fire. Fortunately there was coffee (there is always coffee somewhere in our house or car) sitting in the cup holder and a bottle of water in the back seat. He was able to put it out with no harm to himself. However, our one car family quickly turned into a no-car family. I only work a couple blocks from our house, so one of our church intern's was able to pick Dan up and we were able to walk home. When we lived in Seminary housing it was always easy to get rides places, but now we live about 20 minutes from there and 20 minutes from the Seminary. I called a fellow Seminary wife to see if her husband would be able to give Dan a ride to school in the morning. She began to say that was fine and then stopped herself. She has family in town and they have a third car until that family leaves. Not only did they give us a car 30 minutes later, but told us we could keep it for several weeks. What an amazing God we serve!

Alyssa with her first notch 

Alyssa is now joining the family buisness 

the tree on its way down 

Alyssa cutting down a dead oak 

Caleb spotting a salamander 

Bayley and Sidney 

Some of the Reeve clan last August from a lost roll 

NCAA

Last minute poll:
Illinois or North Carolina?

Alyssa Has Nothing to Complain About

For goodness sake, one month out of the year I demand complete control of the remote and get giddy like a school boy about the last pure **sport out there and Alyssa feels the need to complain. Maybe there should be a short season in which movies such as The Ice Princess, Sweet Home Alabama, The Notebook, and The Princess Diaries I and (Lord take me now) II, so that just as Alyssa is subjected to a short season of March Madness I would be subjected to a short season of horrible Disney princess movies as well as the little know but greatly revered(in my family) genre of “American President movies” and sub-subgenre of “American President’s daughters movies”.
**Side Note
For descriptions of what activities are considered sports please see Rob Barnes, An Exhaustive Concordance of Know Sports, Crack House Publications, New York & London, 1998. This is the authoritative guide to see why activities such as field hockey, soccer and volleyball are not sports. Here is a short example of some of the criteria present in the book:
1. use of whole body in the execution of the said activity
2. whether participants are “soft,” “European,” or “’soccer’ player like”

i.e. only goalies can use their hands in “soccer” or “football” (this field activity can not even figure out what it should be called), the participants in this activity frequently fall down acting as if they just shattered their tibia or femur, only to jump back up fix their hair and begin running around again.

I don’t have the time or energy to run through the known list of activities in order to demonstrate why they are simply modes of transportation, games, or social outings, but feel free to comment if you have any thoughts

March Madness

Well my least favorite time of the year arrived today. College basketball on TV for what seems like weeks on end. I HATE watching sports!! It may be because I grew up in a family ruled by girls. I have just never seemed to be able to get into it. Even Superbowl parties. I love the party... but never get into the game enough to even know who's playing. Anyways, this is Dan's favorite time of the year. He talks about it all year long until it finally comes again. It's like Christmas for him, except it lasts for like a month. Tonight, for example, my sister Erica and niece Lexie are in town and what do we do... watch basketball! I posted the picture below because of the look on Dan's face. Lexie was able to rope him into building a castle while the game was on. I do have to give him credit though. He has tried everything possible to get me interested. Last night he had me fill out a bracket. Since I know nothing about any of the teams that are playing (or basketball really) I made sure my picks included all the teams from California. I'll let you know how it goes!

Lexie and Dan building a castle 

Oh the Pain

Alyssa and I just joined the local community rec. center on Thursday. I thought it was a good idea until I tried to move faster than a walk for the first time in about a year. I warmed up on the treadmill, stretched and then played basketball. Its hard to play when you have memories of playing when jumping and running didn’t actually cause physical pain. Well hopefully in a few days it won’t be so bad and then I can dunk on Base, Luke, Dray, Nevens and Aunt Dread when I see them next, just like the good o’days of Chico church league basketball on the hallowed carpeted floors of that church off of Vallombrosia on Filbert.

Lexie and Erica in CA 

The Magic Drug

Well its 1:20am and I just finished my take home Gospels mid-term. Its due tomorrow at 8 in the morning, so I wont get much sleep tonight though I did have five days to finish it. I’ve always thought that getting older (but seemingly not wiser) would be the magical drug to cure my chronic procrastination. Maybe there’s one out there called Willpowtrix or Nowbitrol possibly even Initiatrol, Im sure the positive effects of the drug would be outweighed by diarrhea, intestinal bleeding, lose of appetite, insomnia, hairloss, passive-aggressiveness, movie marathons and an overwhelming desire to write a post and not a paper. But the commercial would be great, a cosmopolitan man or women walking, bag in hand in the middle of a city park flanked by tall mature oak trees and people having picnics. This person would be smiling like a person relishing in a secret only they know. They would sit down unfold a sandwich wrapped in wax paper (demonstrating the care and time they took preparing the sandwich) place it next to them and pull out of their bag a newspaper with the days date clearly marked on it, Feb. 12. Time elapse to the person tossing the sandwich wrapper into the trash can with newspaper tucked and folded tightly under their arm. The camera would zoom to this person’s face showing the same gleeful smile as before as they approached a mail box, then the camera would move to the person’s bag as this individual draws out a parcel of mail. Raising the parcel just slightly higher than their head, as if in triumph, (showing the audience the address there on) the man or women would drop their completed taxes into the mail. Fade out as the person walks away from the mail box with a contagious sway in their stride. Sweet I’ve wasted another thirty minutes.

Erica and Lexie

Well, we had a great visit with Dave Lim. It's always a little strange to see someone from Chico in St. Louis. It's like mixing two completely different worlds. We had lunch at our favorite restaurant... Schlafly Bottleworks. It's a micro-brewary here in our neighborhood. You would think we would visit Anheuser Busch, which is based in St. Louis, but Schlafley has some great organic food (you don't see much of that this far away from California). A week from tomorrow my twin sister Erica and niece Lexie (pictured below) will be out for a visit. They get to stay in our guest suite on the second floor. It's the perfect size for Lexie. Anyone who is over five feet can't stand up. Lisa Moran was our first guest to stay up there and she said it wasn't so bad. Anyways, we'll probably take Lexie to the St. Louis Zoo and Science Center. The Science Center is great because it has a walkway the runs over one of the main highways here. You can clock the speed of cars as they pass under you. Very cool! Well, I should probably run since our house is a mess and I am having Bible study here in about 40 minutes.

Erica and Lexie at Cari and Scott's Wedding 

Welcome To Our Blog

We're excited to introduce our blog. Check out the pictures of our new house... and the newsletter at the bottom of the page. We have 50 copies printed... but never made it to the Post Office.
We get to have a little connection to Chico tomorrow when David Lim stops by for lunch. If anyone wants to fly out and join us, feel free. We love to have company!

winter 

Fall 

Winter

Tree Trimming 

Dan and Alyssa in St. Louis 

Newsletter that we never mailed

January 25, 2005
Dear Friends and Family,
After three years of marriage we have finally figured out how to write a letter (we both missed that lesson in 3rd grade). Well... we are in St. Louis, Missouri... "Missoura" if you’re a local. Dan will begin his third year at Covenant Theological Seminary this month, so he’ll be able to answer any questions regarding the nature of the universe in about one more year. He’s interning at our church which means he plans the Men’s Camping trip once a year... and somehow that means he gets to have his name under "Intern" in the church bulletin year round. Needless to say, he’s earned quite a name for himself from the elders in the church regarding his cooking (not preaching) prowess. I’m sure those of you from Covenant in Issaquah wish he had those cooking skills in Mexico.
Dan is learning a lot in his seminary classes, but concerning the Biblical languages, you know what they say, "It’s all Greek to me." He has enjoyed his professors and the seminary community (which means watching baseball on opening day in the afternoon with four other guys, all of whom had wives at work, working to pay for seminary). I have to admit, that has been hard for me to get used to. I guess I can’t be too hard on Dan since he started his own business (The Tree Shepherd) this year. He is not an Ent, but a professional tree trimmer, soon to become a certified Arborist. He even purchased a chipper truck on e-bay that has turned out to be a life-saver. I can’t say I feel great about him hanging from ropes while using a chain saw... but as long as I can’t see him, it’s okay. This business has allowed him to create his own hours, which those of you who know Dan, know that suites his personality perfectly!!
After working two jobs the past year, one at Starbucks, and one at our church, I have decided to hang up the green apron. Even though Dan begs, I refuse to make him coffee at home. I now work almost full time as the administrative assistant at our church (Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship). It’s been great to have first hand experience in the ministry we are working towards. I definitely miss being a part of the TV News business, but enjoy the slower pace of an office. Dan has a hard time tearing me away from watching the evening news. Although he is usually in the kitchen cooking us dinner, so it doesn’t really matter.
We bought our first home right before Christmas and moved out of the seminary housing we were living in. It has been a great and trying experience. We miss the community in the seminary apartments but have enjoyed being closer to our church family and my job. I am now able to walk to work... when it’s not seven below. Dan has been a great fix-it man, I didn’t know he knew how to mess with electricity, gas lines and sewer lines. Concerning the sewer line... that’s a story we really don’t want to get into... although the rubber boots we bought on our Honeymoon did come in handy.
Well, everyone keeps telling us that after the house comes children. However, the only addition to our family we are considering is a pot bellied pig. We’ve even picked out a name, Henry. We also have two cats, Eddie and George, who keep us more than entertained. Unfortunately, my goldfish I had for 6 years who survived the 42 hour trip here, didn’t survive the two inch move to a new tank of water. Dan buried him outside our seminary apartment and even made a little cross for his grave.
So, we are looking forward to a new semester for Dan, and for me more involvement on our church’s Mercy Ministry Team. Also, we will be going on a short term missions trip to Haiti at the end of July. We hope this will be the first of more letters from our neck of the woods, but don’t hold your breath. We miss all of you tons!
Love,
Dan and Alyssa