Thanksgiving

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. We did; we went home to Indiana on Wed. night and came back Friday morning. It was great to see family that we haven't seen in quite a while. Christmas will be here before we know it, and we will get to see everyone again! We also had company this weekend. My good friend Paul and his wife Tamber came to the city this weekend, and we had our first guests stay in our apartment. A grand time was had by all ... we watched Elf on Friday, and went downtown on Saturday. Do yourself a favor, don't go to Chicago on Thanksgiving weekend. The crowds were CRAZY down by the water tower. We did get to see the storefronts at Macy's; the theme was Mary Poppins.

Anyway, the semester is coming to an end. I have a few more class periods, a few papers, a bunch of reading, and finals, and I will finally feel like I have started to accomplish something. Seven more semesters really doesn't sound like that long, seeing how quickly the first has gone by. Time doesn't wait for anybody, that's for sure. It's amazing how quickly it goes. I wonder where we will be, or what we will be doing three and a half years from now? I still wonder what I'm cut out for ... what can I do with the gifts I have? Hmmm... if only there were a profession where you play guitar, drink coffee, talk, build weird stuff out of other weird stuff, work on stuff, and think about things that other people probably could care less about, then I would know what I want to be when I grow up. I guess for now I will just study music and the Bible, and see what I come up with. It's working out pretty well so far.

Busy, busy, busy...

The last while has been pretty slow at work...busy days here and there, but generally pretty slow, so I was hoping that the closer the holidays got, the busier it would get...and it has been SO busy the last two days! Not to the point where there were just tons of people waiting in the lobby, but our door was pretty much a revolving door all day yesterday and today, and I have already done almost $400 in services just the last two days! And considering that haircuts are only $13 apiece...I have had three color clients, but even so, that is a LOT of money in services for only two days! Tomorrow will probably be just as busy, so needless to say, I am so glad that we get to come and spend Thanksgiving in Fort Wayne and relax with our families! Please say a prayer for safety in travel for us as we head back Wednesday evening and will be returning to Chicago on Friday morning!

We made more new friends...I met Danielle at Student Wives, and guess what...she does hair, too! So now, there's me, Leeanne, and Danielle who do hair, plus the coordinator of SWF, Lisa, does hair, too! Danielle and her husband Craig live just around the corner from us, and we had them over for lunch on Sunday, and then I did Danielle's hair Sunday afternoon while the guys were poring over their school books, then they came back over Sunday night and we watched a movie together! They are super nice, and they are both very easygoing, so we get along with them really well! I just praise God for the continued blessings of new friends, that was one thing I was really worried about when we moved! We have so many awesome friends in Indiana, and the thought of starting completely over was just so overwhelming, but God has blessed us so richly...I just have to laugh when I think that two of the first friends that I have made here are also cosmetologists...God is just so awesome! Another thing I was worried about was finding a church...I thought we would search for months to find the right place, and we already are attending a church that we love! And to make it even better, it is about a five minute walk from our house, and our landlord (who works at Moody) is an elder there, so...all of these "Godincidences" keep happening, and as much as I miss Indiana, I can't doubt for a second that we are perfectly in the center of God's will! Thank you all for your continued prayers and for reading this...make sure to keep commenting because we love to hear from you! We love you all, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Another fun weekend!

So this weekend, instead of us going back to Indiana, some people from Indiana came here! On Saturday, Jesse's family (everyone besides Mary) came to our house for a little bit, and then we went out to Ed Debevic's. That is a really fun restaurant, if some of you haven't tried it! It is a 50's style diner, and the staff is just hilarious...they are all supposed to have attitudes and be rude to you, and you are just supposed to play along with it! Then, some of them got up on the tables and they all started dancing to the car wash song...it was great!!! Here's a picture of all of us outside the restaurant...

Then on Saturday afternoon, Jesse and I made our way to a little town about an hour south of here called Minooka for Cory and Sarah's wedding...which was beautiful! We met up with my parents, my uncle Josh and aunt Bonnie, Leroy and Shelli, and Troy and Michelle. They all came to church with us this morning, and then we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant close to Moody. Here is a picture of everyone after we got done eating...

This afternoon, Moody's Oratorio Chorus put on a concert of excerpts from Handel's Messiah. Since Jesse is a music emphasis, he had to be in it this semester, so my parents, Jesse's family and I got to go and see the concert! It was absolutely beautiful, I was just absolutely amazed, and it made me miss choir SO much! I hadn't ever heard more than the Hallelujah chorus and For Unto Us a Child is Born...but it is all just beautiful! Then we escorted my parents to the Amtrak station so they could catch their train home, and here we are, back in our humble abode! :) It was a great weekend, we enjoyed having people here to see our house and go to church with us. That's all for now...keep checking in!

a short note from stephanie

So I realized that I haven't written anything in a while, that Jesse has been updating you all, so I thought I'd leave a short and sweet post! Things at work have been going really well...the month of October was overall pretty slow, but it's already picking up as Thanksgiving approaches! The fiscal year for Hair Cuttery ended in October, so we had a meeting at our salon last night to regroup for the new year and get awards from last year, and I actually got an award for "Extraordinary Color Percentage", just meaning that the percentage of color services that I do is the highest, so that was exciting! I get along with everyone that I work with and have been handing out my business cards and have already had a few repeat clients, so that is great!

Otherwise, I am still trying to make new friends, and I have been hanging out with Leeanne almost every Thursday because we both have the day off! Just today, we discovered that there is actually a Wal-Mart only a few miles from my house...I thought it was a LOT farther, and we had been so Wal-Mart deprived!!! I made a new friend named Sarah, her husband Erik works with Jesse. She is really fun and they live right around the corner from us so we can just spontaneously get together sometimes!

We are not sure if we can make it home for Thanksgiving...the salon is open the day before and the day after, so my hours those days will determine if we could come home or not. We would love to, so just say a prayer that it works out!

a short trip home

We got to go home this weekend, which was a huge blessing to us. Stephanie's boss wanted her to work on Thursday (her usual day off) so she got to take Saturday off. It's hard to believe how long it has been since we were home last, but it was great to see everyone that we haven't been able to see. Keep praying that we get to go home somewhat often so that we can see our families and friends!

The people here, for some reason, have a hard time believing that we lived next door to and around amish peoeple back home. So, in an effort to show them that we were serious about living around amish people, we decided to take pictures. When we took the pictures, we got a bit of irony, too. Take a look; what looks out of place?


By the way, sorry to those of you who tried to post comments and couldn't - I had to change some settings. You should be able to post now, so you don't have any excuse now!