Happy Halloween

As you can see, since we don't have kids (yet) Ryley became the butt of our Halloween fun. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday, Wife

Yesterday was Jessica's birthday. Her and I actually celebrated it Sat. as we spent the day shopping. We went to Merrillville, IN, which is our favorite place to shop. We didn't buy a great deal of stuff, but that's alright, we have plenty.

I had made reservations for her birthday at a restaurant up close to Chicago called Giovanni's. It's a really nice, family-owned Italian place, with some of the best garlic roles you'll find anywhere. If I remember right, they make all their own pastas as well. This was the place that we ate at the weekend we came to interview for our job her, and I remembered that we both really liked it.

This week we're getting a bit of a mini vacation. Willow Creek is having their A2 conference, and Jessica is getting to go with me. There are actually 14 or 15 people going from our church, all of which are leaders in our church in some capacity or another. We're both really excited to spend the time relaxing and being challenged with that group at Willow.

Then on Friday, after the conference is over, we are getting a chance to see Pillar in concert in Chicago. They have a concert only a few miles away from Willow and so we're going to go see them. Our hope is that Rob, the lead singer's wife will be there with their new baby. Linda was in our wedding so we're looking forward to seeing her and Rob and hopefully the new baby.

A Change of Pace

This week has been a little different from our normal routine. First, I and the other two staff members that I work with made our way up to the University of Chicago Hospital to see one of our elders. Darryl is one of our elders who has had diabetes (the bad type) and has been on the kidney transplant list for a long time. He found out that his brother is a match, and yesterday they did the transplant. We are very excited for him to have his health hopefully restored. He is an amazing man who loves Christ and loves to disciple others to gain a bit of that passion.

The other thing is that we don't have our normal Wednesday night teen programming. Instead, Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) is sponsoring a nation-wide faith pep-rally called Fields of Faith. There are going to be testimonies from student athletes and a time of worship, all in an attempt to unify the school in its students' faith.

Other than that things continue to go really well. We continue to stay busy, but not at break-neck speed.

Lots of sewing

I've been busy lately sewing. I finally finished Jonathon's golf shorts - the directions were a little frustrating, but I figured it out, and have already bought a little more material to make him another pair sometime. Once I finished his shorts, I got busy with the curtains for our house. Here are the pictures. The first is of our living room. The second is our bedroom, and the last is of the office. We still have the last bedroom (someday will be the nursery) so we have a while yet to finish that one. The dining room curtain is probably my favorite, but the picture did not turn out very well, so I'll have to add that one later.

I have several projects for other people that I need to be working on. One family has hired me to make roman shades for most of their new home, so that's exciting. I also have several pairs of pants from people at work to take in or run up. It keeps me busy.

My good friend, Linda is expecting her baby boy sometime this week, and then my sister is 3 weeks away from her due date....there will hopefully be pictures soon! We're very excited for both of the new additions and definitely thank God for the blessings!