California Dreamin'

Phew! After a couple days of stressing about getting tickets for this summer's California vacation, I was finally able to get all of my reservations taken care of! Next step: finishing reservations for the kids...

For those who may not know, Cami's taking a road trip this summer w/ the kids! They're getting to her family's place in Paradise -- Paradise, California -- via Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Luis Obispo -- all in all, probably around 4,500 miles. Me? Well, she's planning on taking somewhere around a week to make that trip, and my vacation time would be stretched a little thin that way. So, I'll be flying out to meet them in Phoenix, after which we'll take a day to visit the Grand Canyon before making the trip to San Diego for a couple days. We've got some special plans for the kids in San Diego that I'm excited to see -- or to see them see... :)

Stefan

Starting with Posterous

Well, I figure the more ways to update our blog, the better (seeing as it otherwise rarely gets updated...). So, I'm going to be hooking up Posterous and Facebook and hoping by updating one, I can update all... We'll see how this works... Here's a fun pic to start...

Update: Ok, well, Posterous is closing up shop, so I'm moving all our old posts to Blogger. Let's see how this works...

Retiring pastor revs up for cross-country motorcycletrip

[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Ready. Set. Ride."]

[/caption] May 31 was Mark Coleman's last service as Pastor of North Shore Community Baptist Church. After having served for 20 years at NSCBC, and 41 years over his career, Mark's retiring. Today, he embarks on a new adventure - the adventure of a lifetime. Check it out... Retiring pastor revs up for cross-country motorcycle trip - SalemNews.com. He's riding across America to benefit Peace and Hope Trust, an organization that serves the remote regions of Nicaragua. Mark and Sybil, we love you both very much. You will be dearly missed.

Darienne at Baker's Gymnastics

Darienne's in her 3rd gymnastics meet with her Level 2 team today at Baker's School of Gymnastics in Salem.

Tomorrow Shall Be Our Sledding Day...

Actually, we decided to go today instead, and it was a blast! Jess H. showed up for a pancake breakfast (Cami made yummy chocolate chip ones...), after which we took the kids out to the little hill beside our building -- perfect for the little ones. John and Grace were out too. We had a few saucer sleds out -- which makes avoiding trees an interesting proposition as you're going down the hill backwards, but otherwise works rather well. I'll try to post some pictures this weekend. We have another snowstorm coming in this weekend... :)

White Out

The first significant snowfall of this winter season has arrived in New England! Some will look at that first statement and say, hmm... he almost seems excited about it... And you wouldn't be wrong. I love snowy days. When the snow becomes slush and freezing rain is when I say no thanks. But snow? I love it. It's beautiful, it's fun to play in, it's peaceful. Yeah, you have to shovel it out but again, it's that slushy wet stuff that's the nasty stuff to shovel. The light powdery stuff we had today is wonderful. It's good for sledding, though not so much for snowballs and snowmen. And if you're looking for the picturesque, photogenic New England winter, this is the stuff you want. That said, it did take me about an hour and a half to drive home from work today -- a drive that normally takes me about 35 minutes. But at least folks were driving mostly sane, which is saying something around here. Hopefully we'll be able to get the kids out to play in it before it all melts...

Habits

Well, old habits die hard... Or rather, new habits aren't always easy to start. We haven't posted an update for quite a while now. The last couple weeks of August and into early September are admittedly a crazy time for us as a family. Cami picks up her college schedule again with the beginning of RD training in early August, followed by Darienne starting school again near the end of August, followed by Micah starting preschool again after Labor Day. My life meanwhile remains mostly routine -- except where I interact with the rest of my family... However I was out in Oakland, CA on business for a week in the middle of September, and have been dealing with changes in the contract I'm working on, so I guess my life's been somewhat hectic as well. In any case, we're still alive, and actually doing pretty well. I'm going to try and pull some more pictures of our cute kids (yes, I'm biased!) and hopefully be able to fill in some more about what's been going on with them soon. I deeply and sincerely apologize to the many of you who we haven't seen or talked to in quite some time... Know that you all are in our thoughts and prayers!