WELCOME FROM THE FUTURE!

Heidi and I made it in to Chicago on Amtrak, then Bellwood by Metra, and then picked up by Noe on his lunch break where we ate at a greasy burger joint (I had my last Italian beef and sausage combo for a while), and then he dropped us off at the airport. We flew through check in, and now we have about 3 hours to wait before we take off on Aer Lingus flight ei126. The plus is that the weather is super nice and clear, plus it’s A/C’d down to about 70 degrees inside where we’re at, while being smokin’ hot outside. Also, our plane is already docked at the terminal. It’s been a fun and only a slightly busy day.

Hello Again,

Heidi and I arrived in Shannon Ireland where it’s 6 hours ahead of Central and obviously 5 hours ahead of Eastern time. We were expecting to head to Dublin and then go to London from there, but there was apparently a change in flights. Either way, we’re enjoying our time here. The delightful Irish accented flight attendants brought us a wonderful meal including tea. I don’t think I’ve ever had a hot beverage on an airplane before, they sure were polite though. Heidi also enjoys the fact that the Shannon airport has a shower in the bathroom along with a vending machine that sells chewable toothbrushes. The “Gents” bathroom has a nice tile wall… atleast that’s what I thought it was until I saw a little boy come up an start peeing on it…then I realized that the wall was actually a unique urinal. I took a picture, and am posting it for you. The silver pegs that you see actually have a constant flow of water and the drainage flows from left to right down one single drain…yeah, I thought it was awkward too.

Wedding and Final Packing

The wedding went great. I think Heidi's mom is getting good at this. It's daughter number 4 to be married. It was still a hectic day, but other than a couple hickups from the d.j., a flower girl refusing to flower the aisle, and a minor dress stain, there were no other problems. It's a great sight to see two people, who truly love each other, pronounce that love for the rest of a lifetime. Tom and Jessie are officially married. We also found out this week that they are moving down to Houston...only about 3 1/2 hours from Dallas. It's pretty exciting for Heidi to have family within a days drive.

Heidi and I are almost finished packing for Europe, but our bags are a bit heavier than they should be for as much walking we're going to be doing with them. We've been going through and getting rid of stuff that we probably won't need.

I really want to visit my great-grandma's sister, she's 97. I used to visit my great-grandma regularly until she died when I was in my early teens. She was in her 90's when she died. I don't know how healthy my grandma's aunt is, but it sure would be great to hear some family stories.

Well, from here my dad is going to drive us into Grand Rapids, MI where we'll stay the night with my grandparents (the niece of my great aunt Josephine). They'll take us to the amtrak station early Tuesday morning. From there we're heading into Chicago where we'll meet up with Erika. She's volunteered to drive us to O'Hare, where we fly out at 5. We're supposed to land in Dublin at around 5 on the 24th. We then have a two hour layover where we eventually get into London at around 10 in the morning.

Well, I don't know when I'm going to be posting again, but, until next time!

Relaxing Before the Wedding

Heidi and I finished up packing and have been hanging out near our home town at Heidi's grandparents cottage. We haven't had very good access to the internet, so I apologize for not getting more updates to you, but that's pretty much out of my control.

Heidi's sister Jessie is getting married tomorrow. We've been helping out with last minute wedding setup. Heidi is actually getting a manicure and pedicure right now for the wedding while I start packing up our backpacks with our essentials for our Europe trip. Last night I went golfing with my mother-in-law, and it was great! We started golfing at 8pm, and finished at 10pm. We stopped when we were unable to see the hole to putt into if we took the flag out and stood 15 feet away. If our drives weren't landing in the center of the fairway we would have had to stop earlier, but somehow we were able to keep going. We managed to get 15 holes in, and we both golfed quite well...surprisingly.

As far as pre-trip planning goes, Heidi and I got our gore-tex running shoes for our trek through Europe. They're supposed to be very comfortable, light, yet water repelant and breathable. Our shoes were the last of our purchases before we get there. My grandparents also e-mailed some relatives in London, but we haven't heard back from anybody in GB yet. It's my understanding that they might not check their e-mail all that often though, but it'd be great to get in contact with them. Heidi has a second cousin, from the Netherlands though, her name is Ria. We've been in constant communications since about two weeks ago.We are really excited to meet her. It sounds like we've got a place to stay, a tour guide, and transportation while we're with Heidi's relatives.

In case you were wondering, the Brabila's did make it up to stay with us this weekend. We had a ton of fun. Heidi has some pictures of the Brambila kids enjoying their farm trip on facebook. Everything went very well...except Emma isn't a fan of the smell. Not only were the Brambila's able to come visit us, we also sold our car, two great blessings, and slightly unexpected. A ton of thanks go to the Brambila's for taking care of getting our car sold. They did a lot of the grunt work.

I've been studying Greek as we've been relaxing. My goal is to learn the alphabet and pronunciation enough that I can start memorizing vocabulary. I definitely need prayer in that area. Learning a new alphabet/pronunciation/and language is quite difficult in the beginning...and from what I hear, it doesn't get much easier after the beginning. Well, I guess I should stop typing and start memorizing. Until next time!

Packing

Our pod arrived yesterday. It's pretty cool, it's a giant container that's ground level, so there's no lifting to get the stuff into a truck. Kevin B. and Tolee came over to help us move the big stuff into it. Their help was greatly appreciated. They're both very awesome people. We only have a little bit of stuff to pack up and move into the container, but the place is quite empty and it actually feels like we're moving.

We had our "last hoorah" with the graduated seniors as well. We went camping to the Warren Dunes in Michigan. It was such a great time. I can see God doing great things with those students. They're such a solid group of kids, it's been a blessing to be a part of their lives.

We had a huge answer to prayer this week. Noe, Erika, and their children have been planning to go up with us to Michigan this weekend. We've planned this trip for months and their kids have been talking about it non-stop for quite some time now. Unfortunately, because of the amount of time Erika has been spending with AF events and such, she wasn't able to get off of work this weekend. After calling around she couldn't find anybody to take her shift. She called me up...in as much of a panic as Erika gets in (which isn't very much, but it was evident) and said we need to start praying for her to go. Well a week later, and much time spent in prayer, Erika called me up yesterday to tell me that two people have vollunteered to take her shifts so that she can go. God is so good!

Something for you to pray about as well. We currently have a car we're trying to sell. It's not selling. End of story. Please pray that we can sell it before we head to Europe.

Until we write again.

Love

First, I want to thank everybody for the going away party, and cards, and love that we've been shown in the last couple of weeks. It's been really great to be poured into like that, especially at such a crucial transitional period of our life. Heidi and I will always have a soft spot in our heart for Calvary. If anybody is ever in Dallas, feel free to contact us so that we can repay your kindness to us.

Currently, Heidi and I are packing things up. We went out to Target yesterday to buy plastic tubs for filing purposes. I had a ton of papers to file away. School papers, work papers, financial and utilities papers. We've finally organized it enough for me to be satisfied. We've also got so many books, and I'm guessing going back to school is only going to increase the amount of books we own. We have done pretty well at getting rid of stuff though. We mentioned Pudge last week, but we also have gotten rid of his crate, some of my tools, our dining room table, 1 of our cars...and hopefully the second one is going soon, a tv, a ton of clothes, and Heidi's bike. We still are trying to get rid of one of our couches and my bike, but I'd say that we're doing pretty good.

Well, until next time.