Break so far...

Brad and I have pretty much been bumming around the past few days. On Saturday I went to work, graduation, and to a friend's wedding. It was a really nice wedding. They definitely put their personal touch to the ceremony, but it fit them perfectly. She came down the aisle to a song from Phantom of the opera. The reception was small, but nice. Sandwiches and cake and punch and such. It was a lot of fun. :) After the wedding Brad and I had a little Christmas celebration. I got him lots of little things, and he seemed to like them all. I got him a hat for the cold weather, the DVD of The Princess Bride, The Tales of Beetle Bard by JK Rowling (it just came out), a screw driver set, and some undershirts/boxers. The last was more of a joke because I made him throw out some of the nasty ones. Haha.Brad with the present to be opened. And there's the book and the hat I got him below.

I wasn't sure what Brad had gotten me. I was really surprised and really liked what he did get me...

Look closely, do you see the gift? It's a set of pearls! Real ones! It came with earrings, a necklace and a bracelet.

After opening gifts, we built a gingerbread house. I think it turned out nicely. Here's the Front finished:

And the rest of it:
And it even made it through the night! Surprisingly, it's still standing. I think it's a lovely little centerpiece for our little table. :)


Today, I'm going to finish up the Christmas gifts I made everyone and I'm going to finish up my Israel scrapbook. I'll probably put in a movie and just spread out all my stuff on the floor. Brad is going to go into work at 5 and won't be home until 9, so maybe that's when I'll do my pages.

Tomorrow is youth group, and instead of a lesson we're going to walmart to buy gifts for a family that had their house burn down recently. It should be a fun time. Brad is going to come this time too because he doesn't have anything else to do, and Jerod needs as many helpers as possible, especially when he's turning us loose in walmart. Haha. It's those middle school boys you have to watch out for...

Thursday morning we're planning on heading north. We're going to get up early, and leave by 8 and drive until we can't anymore. Hopefully we'll get a good 10 or 11 hours in. Maybe 12 if we don't get too grumpy. Brad's car doesn't have cruise control though, so he has to stop and stretch more often than if we had cruise. We just bought him a lumbar pillow, so hopefully it will help a little bit. It even has a massager in it... Plus I'll probably drive some of the way too. It can't be too hard, we just go until we get there. See y'all soon!

~Beth

P.S
Did you guys get your Christmas cards yet?

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!

I finished finals. Woot! I spent the afternoon addressing Christmas cards. I'm missing a few addresses, but I'll get them soon enough. :) Hopefully I'll get them out tomorrow morning, or maybe this afternoon on my way to work.

Tonight we're having Matt and Gordon over for a celebratory dinner. I'm making Chicken, rolls, stuffing, an broccoli. Hopefully it won't taste like crap. Haha.

From here on out, it's just relaxing time until we leave for the Great White North. I'm working this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon, and Saturday morning. Brad is going to go to Graduation while i'm at work. Then we have a wedding to go to for one of my friends I work with. After that, Brad and I are exchanging Christmas gifts and building this Ginger Bread house thing we found at walmart. Hopefully it won't fall apart.

I'm gonna have to go shopping for Brad's gift tomorrow afternoon. I have no idea what to get him. He bought the movie earlier this week that I was going to get him. I'll just have to wander the store until I find something that he would like. I have a couple ideas, so that's good at least.

Well, I need to get ready to go to work. See you all soon!


~Beth

Anna Got Engaged!

YAY! Here's her Ring!

Marshall!

We went to Marshall with Anna and Jeremy last night to look at all the lights. It was super cold so we walked around for a little bit, just enough to take some pictures, and then we drove around. It was pretty fun. We showed Anna and Jeremy where Brad proposed last year, and then did a cheesy little re-enactment. After we got back, we all watched Home Alone (Matt and Gordon came over too). It was really fun. Tonight I think Matt and Josiah are going to come over to play settlers of Catan.

So far I haven't done a whole lot today. I'm letting my brain rest before finals week. Regular classes are over, finally. It was a really good week. Since I got most of my work done before I left for Nashville, I didn't have a whole lot to do this last week. Which made it relaxing, in a weird way. Brad had to stay up late a couple of nights in a row to get Senior Design documentation done. He finished it, but he put a lot of hours into it.


Oh, and no ring for Anna yet. Soon, I expect.

Christmas Tree!

Brad and I had to put up the Christmas tree before we left for Thanksgiving, so here it is! I think it's cute. We couldn't put any big ornaments on it because they kept making it lean...

The National Youth Worker's Convention was a lot of fun. The speakers all had very good things to say. I felt like I learned a lot from it. The seminars were really good too, I really enjoyed sitting in on the seminars. I'm glad it's over though because it was exhausting.

Thanksgiving was very good. Lots of FOOD. The PIE was the best. Tomorrow afternoon is Brad's family Christmas. There are lots of presents under the tree... it's crazy! I'm not used to the tradition but it seems like a cool one to get involved in. Maybe there will be pictures of it tomorrow. :)

Well I need to get going, I have stuff I should get doing. See you all soon! I can't wait to get back North for Christmas!

~Beth

10 Honest things about me:

1) I am a full time student, and wife.

2) I help lead a small group in the youth group at the Church I go to.

3) Can't wait to have kids, but not for a long long time.

4) I'm a fairly tidy person. Messes bother me.

5)I LOVE to sing. I love music in general.

6) I recently attended the National Youth Worker's Convention in Nashville, TN and had an awesome time. I learned so much to apply to the youth group I will lead in the future.

7) I like the winter.

8) I love to cook.

9) I like to be fashionable, but I only buy if it's on sale!

10) Christmas is my favorite holiday, by far.


I am going to be lame and not pass this on... because I don't know any bloggers!

Pictures of Trick or Treat and my Hair

Today is going to be a picture post! Hehe. I got my hair cut this morning. Just trimmed really, but I thought you all might be interested in it. So here's the front:And Here's the Back:
After my hair appointment, I went grocery shopping. I got stuff for Brad's birthday celebration tomorrow. Apples and caramel, and some tortilla chips and some queso. Oh, and cake and ice cream. But that goes with out saying. :P

Here are some pictures of Trick Or Treat on College Street. Here's Anna and Laura painting faces:

And the Kelp Forest:

And the Manta Ray (he's under cellphane to make it look like we're under the ocean. We made a fake ceiling for the whole room out of blue cellophane. It was pretty cool):

Gordon walking through the Kelp Forest:


I didn't take a lot of pictures with the kids there, because I know I wouldn't want a stranger posting pictures of my kid online. So there's what I had! :0)

November 1st!

I can't believe it's already November 1st! That means Thanksgiving isn't that far away! Crazy! The National Youth Worker's Convention is coming up in a couple of weeks too, which means I better get going on all my class stuff!

Last night was Halloween (obviously) and every year we do Trick-or-Treat on College street. We decorate dorm lobbies and let the community children come in to play games and get candy. We decorated Thomas Lobby as "under the sea" , it looked really cool. I'll post pictures of that when I go get my camera (I left it in Anna's apartment last night). I do have a picture of Brad and I. We dressed as nerds. Haha. You can't see it in this picture, but we both have our pants rolled up to look like high waters, we're both wearing our high tops with socks sticking out the top, and we have our glasses taped. I had some pencils in my hair too. Here you go:We had to let our true colors show through at least one day of the year. Last night was also an AG Silver concert. They're from Grand Rapids, so that was pretty cool that they came all the way down here. They're not really a "big" name, but they're touring around with Blood Water Mission, raising awareness and money for African villages that do not have access to clean water. They go in and dig wells for these villages and teach them how to do up-keep and how to use it. I think it's pretty cool because it's a sustainable way to help. They're not just walking in there and throwing some bottled water at the village. They say that with 1 dollar you can provide 1 African with clean water for 1 year. We weren't able to donate, unfortunately, but I do think it's a very cool cause.

Well, I need to get going. I need to start on my exegesis paper. I'm going to try to get a good chunk of it done this weekend so I can get it done before Thanksgiving. We'll see if that actually works!

Fall Break so far...

We came home from our neighbors apartment (they invited us over for dinner. :0) ) and there were three little lizards around our apartment! I managed to get this one on the camera, because he was the only one that didn't run off! Isn't he cool? I named him Fred.

I'm making chicken noodle soup in the crock pot for dinner tonight. Dessert is going to be Apple Dumplings. I hope they turn out well... I've never made them before, so I hope they don't taste gross!

I really just wanted to show the little lizard off... I don't really have anything else to say. I thought it would be a cool thing to show... because we just don't have lizards like that in Michigan!

Fall Break! WOOT!

That was Brad earlier this week doing the dishes... He didn't want to get his nice clothes all wet. So he put on both of my aprons. Haha. He looked really silly.

This week has been really long. I took all of my tests, and I think I did reasonably well on all of them. Mid term grades went up and I've managed four A's and a B. Brad has about the same. So far, so good!

Last night we went to a Mud Bugs hockey game. It was a lot of fun. We actually played the Texas team, but we still rooted for the Bugs. They won 5-1. And there was even a big fight near the end. They threw little lobster/crayfish toys on the ice every time the bugs would have a goal. And of course there was the obligatory "You suck!" shouts for the other team. It was a really fun time though. I enjoyed myself a lot, and I think everyone else did too.

Fall Break is official, as of yesterday afternoon. This weekend I plan to get homework done, finish thank you notes, and scrapbook some more of Israel. We'll see what I actually get done though. ;)

And the count down begins...

Starting next Friday after classes it's fall break! We all like Fall Break a lot. It gives us a chance to relax a little. Anna and Jeremy and Laura and Abe are going to Colorado for the break. Brad and I and the rest of our friends are going to stay here. On friday we're all going to Shreveport to see a Mud Bugs game. It will be fun. I've heard they're a fun team to watch. And I like Hockey, so that's good. :) For the rest of my break I plan on working on homework, ordering wedding photos, and finishing my Scrap book for Israel. That way I can start my wedding scrap book over Christmas Break (maybe). I'm having a hard time picking out wedding pictures and then deciding if I want them in color or Black and white. I keep changing my mind. I guess I just have to pick something and go with it. Haha.

This week I have a test every day starting on Tuesday. Tuesday is western civ, wednesday is Romans, thursday is psychology, and friday is Greek. So this weekend/week is going to involve a TON of studying. But that's better than doing homework, in my opinion at least.

Brad is doing well. He's working hard on homework and projects. He's looking forward to next semester because its going to be less work, at least he thinks so. We've both been looking at our schedules for next semester, and he has a few time conflicts. He's a little annoyed at that, but it should all work. I think I'm going to take my lab next semester, instead of over the summer. The lab that was over the summer (Astronomy) seemed interesting, but it meets MWF evenings, which means I would have to miss youth group for 5 weeks. I could do it, but I would like to be there because Jerod needs me. So instead I'm going to take one of my other required courses over the summer (Fine Arts) and maybe an extra Bible class. I'm done with Bible classes, but I would like to take more. Brad and I decided it would be ok if I just took a couple extra classes over the summer "for fun" so it'll keep me busy. I can't really get a full time off campus job this summer because we don't have a second car and don't really have the cash at the moment. Also, I already need to take another class. I'll probably just work on-campus and see where that gets me. :0)

Well, I better get going on homework. Lunch is going to be soon and Anna and I are running to the mall really quick after lunch. She needs to look at some stuff, and I haven't been off campus to do just some window shopping in a while. :0)

Talk to you all later!

Saturday!

Well today is Saturday (finally). It's been a long week. Brad and I both managed to catch the cold that's going around. We were finally getting better by Thursday. Today I think we're both doing ok, just the residual sneezing and coughing. So at least we're mending! We both have abstracts for our Romans class due on Monday so today is a library day getting that finished up. I don't mind doing abstracts, it's just a fancy outline. I really hate writing the exegesis paper. I just don't like research papers of any form, let alone one about a biblical passage. My passage is Romans 13:8-14. I picked it because it seems like a random place to put these particular verses. It's right after the part about obeying the governing authority, so it's kind of weird to start talking about debt/love in the same passage. We'll see what my research reveals.

Last night was grocery shopping night. We splurged and bought brownie mix and ice cream. When we got home we baked the brownies and put ice cream on them. It was pretty good. We got the Duncan Hines mix, and it my experience it had been pretty good... but these brownies weren't that great. The batter was gritty (red flag number 1) and then I baked them for less than the time the box said and they were all dry and stuff. It was weird. I will probably stick to Betty Crocker next time.

Hopefully tomorrow afternoon (after I clean the apartment) I will be able to sit down and look at wedding photos again. I've let them sit for about a month. I hope to get the order to Grandpa by Fall Break or shortly there after. We're also (slowly) working on thank-yous. They're about half done. We just need to finish them and get them out. Those will also probably get done by fall break.... which happens to be not far away at all! I think it's like two weeks away or something. I think on Friday the 17th we're going to try to go to a MudBugs game. They're a hockey team out of Shreveport. I'm pretty excited about that. I hope it's not pansy, southern hockey. We'll see. I'm sure it won't be as exciting as the wings ;) haha.

Tonight is the fall fest banquet. Brad and I decided not to go this year. Mostly because for the amount of money we would spend on it, we could get just as good of a meal elsewhere (with out all the stress of the banquet). So instead of going to the actual Banquet, Jeremy and Anna and Brad and I are going out to dinner. We're getting a little dressed up so it will be fun. We're going to Johnny Carino's, they serve "countryside" Italian food. I've been there a couple of times and it's really good. They have this amazing chocolate mountain ice-cream dessert thing. It takes about an army to eat it all. Haha. I don' t know if we're going to get that or not... we might just stick to real food. :P

Anyway, I need to get going to the library before I run out of time!

This week was a pretty good week. No being sick or anything! I took two tests this week, I think I did well on them. They still aren't graded, but I feel really good about them. The tests I took last week one I got a B on and the other I still haven't heard back. Apparently my profs this semester take a long time to grade!

Last night Brad and I went to a highschool football game with some people from Church. It was a pretty boring game, really. It was supposed to be a good game because the other team was supposed to be really good, but White Oak trounced them 55 to 7. It was pretty sad, really. I almost felt like we should give the other team fans their money back.

The rest of the weekend is just business as usual. I have an essay to write for Western Civ and some other minor homework... then the rest is just cleaning the apartment and doing laundry.

I was looking at the National Youth Worker's Convention schedule (you can check it out on www.youthspecialties.com) and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. David Crowder is going to lead worship and so is Starfield. Shane and Shane are going to be there... Plus a handful of speakers, half of which I've read their books. So it's going to be fun. It looks like I get to pick some seminars to go to and learn stuff I want to learn about. I'm not entirely sure what exactly I'm going to pick yet because it all looks pretty interesting. I'm going on that in November. The 20th-24th. Then I'll be back for Tuesday the 25th, and then I'm off to North Carolina at noon on the 26th. We'll be up there until Sunday the 30th. It's going to be some busy busy times for me. All that traveling! The good thing is the classes I'm most worried about getting behind in, are actually canceled the days I will be gone. The bible department (so for Romans and Greek) is going to some conference or something, so they'll be gone too. Also, the Wednesday I have to miss Greek to go to Brad's, Dr. Hood is also leaving to travel for Thanksgiving. So that works out... and I'll only be missing one session of Psychology and of Western Civ, so all I have to do is catch up on my reading when I get back. It's really good that it all worked out like that, or I would be dying.


Well, I need to get going on my homework!

Hair Cut!

I really like it. What do you think?

Thank Goodness it's Friday!

Today is friday, and that is good. Today will be a weird day for me though, because I am playing catch up. I was too sick to do anything yesterday, except go to the doctor. So today I have to go meet with a professor, make-up a test, and take a test that was scheduled for today. I'm still not feeling amazing, so I'm forgoing work and in place of that I am catching up with everything. But if I get all caught up today, I won't have to freak out about anything later on! :0)

I think I'm basically ready for my Greek test. I studied a lot yesterday, which is good. I had lots of time to focus on my studying. I also wasted some time watching TV, but you can't just study all the time. That would be boring. :0)

Tomorrow I'm getting my hair cut at 1:30. I'll definitely post a picture after. I'm pretty excited about it. My hair is getting pretty long and it's harder to take care of! And it's always going in my face and that's really annoying. Tomorrow is also another ballroom dancing session. We'll see how I feel, but the plan as of right now is to go to that. I hope I can go, by then I'll have had three days of antibiotics. I've been feeling mostly better, I think half of my problem is unrelated to the illness and more related to everything else.

Talk with you all soon!

We survived Ike!

Well... It wasn't that bad, really. Here's a picture... You can't really see it in this picture, but it's pretty windy. We haven't really been out yet, so I don't know what exactly all the aftermath is, but we haven't discovered anything horribly wrong with our stuff or our immediate surroundings yet.
Other than Ike, nothing too exciting has been happening around here. Just doing the school thing and getting everything ready for that. We had our first yearbook meeting on Thursday, so I'll be starting with that soon. I'm doing the "student" life section, so it should be a lot of fun. I'm really excited for it. :0)

anyway, I need to get going... I have homework I need to start!

This week has been moderately uneventful, which is good I think. Classes seem to be business as usual, nothing hectic yet. I'm still waiting on two of my books... But hopefully they'll be here soon! I'm keeping busy with greek and my other classes. I have a paper due for psychology on Tuesday, but it isn't bad. I think it's only 2-3 pages.

Brad got the car inspected today so we can get it titled tomorrow. It's the last thing on our list of "to-dos" for business type stuff that needs to get done. Brad has been keeping busy with business things and school. So far I think he's liking his classes. He has a lot of homework already, but that's the life of an engineer. Projects are already getting underway, but I think he's having fun. The guys come over to work on homework a lot, which is awesome. They work well together and get it done a lot faster! I think eventually Brad wants to put a big white board up so they can work out problems on it. They like to do that...

This weekend is going to be full of laundry and homework. I guess it's business as usual!

Wow! What a day!

Today was a pretty long day, for some reason. I got pretty tired by dinner time. Part of it is the weather, it's really cloudy. Hurricane Gustav is on his way, but he's been downgraded to a category 1 and we're getting the tail end of it. Basically they're just predicting a lot of rain and a little wind. Nothing like what Lousiana got or anything. They probably won't even cancel classes tomorrow. But he's rolling in slowly but surely.

I also decided not to do the internship I was going to do for the First Year Experience gal. It just seemed out of my knowledge area and too much responsibility for the small amount of time i had to offer. I would have been doing a half-way job instead of a very good job like she expects. She was ok with it and didn't seem too upset about anything. I have, however, decided to help out with year book. With my time freed up from the internship, I can fit in doing some yearbook stuff. I can do it on my own time (weekends and evening) and it pays just a little through out the year. I'm pretty excited about it. It's something i've always wanted to do, but never really had a chance to do... so now i'm going to do it!


Last night we had a little cook out. We had over Jeremy and Anna, Matt, Gordon, Laura, Kelley, and Josiah. We grilled burgers and dogs on our new grill.
He didn't even burn himself up! And the food was pretty good too. We're going to work on grilling chicken next.

I also discovered today that our freezer causes freezer burn pretty quickly. I was a little sad, but I cooked the chicken anyway... It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't the best. How can we prevent freezer burn? Any good ideas?

Anyway, I need to get going to work. I'm hoping the weather holds out until I get back to the apartment!

Today it's my birthday!

Hello everyone! Today was a pretty good day. Just doing the class thing. :) I finally met with Charli, the new first year experience person (in charge of the PAs), and it looks like the internship will work out. My main responsibilities will be to get together the Contact Sheets from the PAs and put together a newsletter for the freshman parents (it's an e-newsletter). So we'll see how it goes. If it gets to be too much, i'll probably step down. But Charli is aware of my other commitments and is willing to work with me. So all is well with that. Classes don't look extremely difficult, which is good. It should be a good semester. A good balance between challenging and not so challenging. Well, that's my mini update for the time being... I have some Greek to study!

More pictures for you viewing pleasure!

We stained some boards and made some shelves for our bathroom and put them up. :0)



We also got a big wall clock for the dining area. It was on sale for 15 dollars at Kohls. I like it a lot.


And we got a table finally! It came today and Brad got it all put together. It was even done in time for Dinner. It's smaller than I thought it would be, but it's ok. Any bigger and I think it would be cramped. We just have to eat Buffet style when we have company.


Today was also the first day of classes. Everything seems to be going well for the most part. I don't have many of my books yet, which is a little annoying because I do have reading I should be doing. It was especially annoying because for Western Civ, I borrowed the book because its really expensive and I didn't want to pay for it... So I got to class, and he TOTALLY CHANGED THE BOOK. And it's a brand new, just published book...so I can't even find it used online. But I did find it for significantly cheaper than the book store had it. I also found out that our apartment is pretty far from everything... My feet/legs are a little sore. At least I know I won't get fat!! Haha.

~Beth

After Pictures

The Bedroom:

Here's what our room looks now! :0) We still have some tweaking to do, but here's the general idea:



The Office:



The Bathroom:

The Living Room:


The Kitchen:

Just For Grandpa

There's the TV. We don't have much, but we do have a really huge TV!!! :0)

Apartment...Before...

Hey all! I decided to take up my blogging again. I figured this would be the best way to communicate instead of sending out mass emails. This way you get to choose whether or not you want to hear about my life. ;-)

Anyway, I thought I would start off this blog season by posting some "Before" pictures of our apartment. "After" pictures will come after we get things done... hopefully sometime today or tomorrow. But Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will our apartment be organized and ready for presentation in a day. ;-) Enjoy!

From the outside:


our tree!

Kitchen/Dining Area:





Living Area:


Spare Bedroom:


Our Bedroom:

The Big Closet in our Room:


And the Bathroom:





That's all for now. I'll post after pictures when we're all ready to roll!