A little update...

We had some guests in town this weekend! Andy and Laura were in town to see a friend, so they came over and spent the night last night and came to church with us this morning. After church, we went out to eat at a Thai restaurant over by Moody and drove around a little bit and came home. They left soon after we got home, but it was so fun to have guests overnight! We just relaxed this afternoon and watched most of both football games that were on (how ironic that the Bears and the Colts are going to the Super Bowl?!?) and I baked some incredible chocolate chip cookies...yum!!! :) Next weekend, Eric, Wahli, and Jono are going to come for the weekend, so we have more guests to look forward to, and we are really excited!

Things are still going well at work...last week was pretty slow, as I guess January usually is in the salon, but yesterday more than made up for it...we were SO busy and I was SO tired by the time the night was over! As an assignment from my district leader, I am supposed to challenge the girls in the salon to surpass our goal for retail sales this week, so hopefully, that goes well! She should be back at the beginning of February for a follow-up to see how my numbers are. Thank you all so much for your prayers and I will do my best to keep you all updated! My friend, Danielle, is going to start at my salon tomorrow, so I am really excited about that, she is such a sweetheart! Well, that's all I have for now, have a great week!

my commute

new year

Well, Christmas Break will soon be over, and we will once again settle into a routine. It has been great to visit home over break, and we will be returning to Fort Wayne once again this weekend.

Stephanie has been doing a wonderful job at work. This week her area manager came in to talk to her about getting her on an "action plan." She is planning on promoting Stephanie to Assistant Manager as soon as some of Stephanie's numbers increase! I don't think we expected that to happen so soon, but Stephanie is very good at her job.

I don't have too much else to say, I just wanted to let everyone know about that and say that we're very excited to come home this weekend.

Christmas...

It was great to be able to be home for Christmas! We got in late Saturday night and stopped at my parent's house to see everyone before we went down to Dustin's for the night...it was kinda weird sleeping in our old house! We went to church in the morning on Christmas Eve and then spent the afternoon at my grandparent's house for my dad's family Christmas. Then, we went to the annual candlelight Christmas Eve service at church, which was beautiful, as always! We opened our presents with my family that night and then had breakfast with them on Christmas morning. We spent the rest of the day at Jesse's parent's house, opening our presents with them and just hanging out. I got to play Dance Dance Revolution for the first time ever with some of Jesse's siblings, and it was so much fun!!! I came home Christmas night with our friends from the area who are at Moody because I had to work on Tuesday. It was kinda depressing to be here all by myself, so my friend Sarah came over on Tuesday night and we gave each other pedicures and dipped our hands in her paraffin wax pot...it was so nice to just relax and have some girly time! Jesse stayed in Indiana until Wednesday afternoon and spent some time with his friends and jamming with some of the guys on worship team at church :) Oh, yeah, he also changed the oil and spark plugs in the car. Here's a fun picture of my family after the Christmas Eve service...we had three couples and then Evan, so...

My sister finally got home from Guatemala on December 21st...for those of you who didn't know about her trip, we have a link to her blog on the side of our page, so check it out, she's got some pretty cool pictures and stories! She got in at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday night/Thursday morning, so Jesse and I went to surprise her and pick her up! We brought her back here and she got to spend a few hours here trying to sleep before I drove her and my friend Leeanne to the airport to catch their early-morning flights. I was kinda nervous about driving to and from O'Hare by myself...I was entirely convinced that I would get lost in the ginormous parking lot there or something, but everything went fine. Anyway, there were tons of people waiting for my sister at the Fort Wayne airport, including Dustin, who had a very important question to ask her...and now he is my future brother-in-law! I couldn't be more thrilled for them!

We will be in Indiana again this weekend; at my grandparent's house in Middlebury for my mom's family Christmas and then in Ohio for a New Year's Eve party, and then next weekend, we will be home again for Jesse's dad's family Christmas...three weekends of traveling aren't so fun, but three weekends in a row to see our family and friends...PRICELESS! :)

laundromat musings and a couple of thank you's

So I finished up classes without failing. It's amazing how I am working almost full time now, yet I feel like I have so much free time that I don't know what to do with myself! Work is extremely slow, since most of the students are at home for Christmas break. I'm loving Christmas Break, though. Most of my time is spent reading and playing the guitar, with some video games thrown in.

Yesterday was a pretty lazy day. Stephanie and I went to do the laundromat yesterday afternoon and washed just about all of our clothes. While we were sitting there waiting on the washers, I noticed the employee there folding laundry. At this laundromat (and possibly other ones - I don't know, I'm not an expert on laundromat services) they offer drop-off services, so some people just leave their clothes there and the employees wash, dry, and fold them. Anyway, I noticed that the employee was folding this person's unmentionables, and thought to myself 'Wouldn't that be awful to have to fold a stranger's underwear?' I doubt that guy gets paid well, so I felt kind of bad for him.

And last but certainly not least, we had company last weekend. Aunt Lisa, Damon, Hailie, Grandpa and Grandma came up to visit, and to get haircuts from none other than my fabulous wife. We really enjoyed the company, even though it was ridiculously cold that day. Grandpa and I tried to go on a walk in an effort to escape the salon, but the -150 f wind chill made us decide to cut the walk short. We only made it around the block, and barely.

So that's a summary of what's up in the City of Wind.
P.S. wanted to make sure I got that last part in, after seeing the possible consequences ;)