Winter has Arrived

Winter pays no attention to the calender apparently. We had our first good snow of the year the other day and its snowing now. It is exciting to see it again. The kids are having a great time playing in it with their friend in the neighborhood. Everything else is going well. I finished my comprehensive exams. I have already heard back and I passed all of them. All is well with Wycliffe too; we are going to be in Orlando from Jan. 17-31 for our initial training. We are also looking forward to being home (in Spartanburg) for a little while before we go. There was a commissioning service at school today for all the people graduating this semester . There are 16 of us if you count the TESOL people too. As you can see from the picture we have also put up our little Christmas tree. Silas is very interested in the ornaments. I hope the new wears off soon.

Great News

Hey, everyone I just wanted to tell you that we heard from Wycliffe last night and we have been accepted. It looks like we will be going to Papua New Guinea. We are very excited and look forward to talking to all of you about it. We miss everyone very much. We will be moving back to Spartanburg for a while after I graduate in December. We are planing to visit everybody and renew some old friendships. Thank you for all your prayers. Please feel free to call us we would love to hear from you. I will keep you up to date with details as they become available to us. Again I just want to say thank you.

Mattica Lives On

Carrying on in the tradition of his father Matthew has had an extended birthday. He started the past saturday with a party in Wheaton. It had a pirate theme. He had a good many of his friends there. today was his actual birthday and we went to eat at a missionaries house here in Waxhaw. They knew that it was his birthday and they made him a cake and gave him a present. It was very nice and also very unexpected. We are going to see Nana and Papa on our way back up Friday in Charolette and I think they are going to have something for him there. And I also suspect that Grandma and Grandpa have sent him something that will be waiting for him when we get home. In adition to all this we have not given him his present from us yet either. It must be great to be 5. He has realy been a great sport about all the caious around his birthday. We are enjoying the sunny weather here in NC. All is going well with our interviews and working with them. They are great people. I have also built a sset of stairs for them since I have been here. Tomorow and thursday I will be working in a house helping to finish a kitchen.

Moving Forward

Everything seems to be going well with our application to Wycliffe. We had a phone interview with them earlier this week, that went well. We are also going to their Jaars facility, in Waxhaw, NC, next week for further evaluation and assessment. We are looking forward to being in NC again. I will be taking tests and working with some of their staff there. It is amazing how fast the process is moving. It can only be attributed to the hand of God. I am excited about meeting more Wycliffe folks and seeing the Jaars facility. Please pray that we make the trip safely and without incident and that everything goes smoothly while we are there. We will keep you posted.

Its Not 2001 Space Odyssey But it is an Adventure

Well, surprise everybody. It sure was to us. Number five is on the way. We went to the midwife today. We are not sure about how far along Tiff is but she could be as much as 10 weeks. The due date right now is April 16. That is subject to change. We are going for an ultrasound next week to get a better date. We have known for a couple of weeks sorry to keep it a secret from you but we have been trying to get our minds around it. We are starting to get excited now. The rest of our big news is that we are applying with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We have had two meeting with them so far. We are starting the application process. There is a training session in January that we are trying to make it into so we are really having to push hard in the application process. On top of this new news and my regular school and comprehensive exams that will be coming up. There is never a dull moment around here. Give us a call.

Silas' 1st birthday

Silas' first birthday was this Past Saturday. Grandma and grandpa came up to celebrate it with us. We had tacos for lunch and yellow cake with chocolate icing for desert. Silas was as interested in beating the cake as he was eating it but he finally got the hang of it and picked the cake up and bit it. He didn't have much trouble figuring out how to open presents. The problem we are having is that ever since then he has been tearing up every piece of paper he comes in contact with. His two favorite presents are a microphone that makes your voice echo that Mae gave him and a walker from everybody. He had shown no real interest in walking until he got the walker.

He is going all over the house now. We continued his birthday on Sunday with a visit to Chicago. We rode the train down and took the free trolley to Millennium Park. We took in all the modern art there. From there we walked to Navy Pier along the lakefront. It was a nice walk and something that we had not done before. It was a long day and everyone was exhausted by the time we got home. Matthew is going back to the doctor Thursday. They will be taking off his cast and removing the pins from his arm. He will get a short cast that will be waterproof. He is really excited about that. Isaac has started a new job as a cricket rancher. He and I built a cricket cage and caught some crickets in the yard. He disappears periodically and we find him in the garage staring at the crickets. Mae has started school again and I am amazed at how well she can read and spell. Hopefully she will follow in Tiff's footsteps in that respect.

Round 3: The final bout, I hope

Well, the doctor called us back and said that Matthew was going to need surgery on his arm. It had gone back to where it was. He had surgery last Tuesday. They went in and rebroke his arm, straightened it, and put some pins in it. He was quite confused when he woke up. He gave the nurse a hard time until the rest of the anesthesia wore off. The picture to the right is of him in his hospital gown shortly after we got home. I will be taking him back for a follow up this Thursday. Please pray that it has stayed in place. He will have the pins in it for about 3 weeks. Then they will take off his cast and remove the pins and give him a shorter cast. He will probably be in it for another 3 weeks. He has also come down with a pretty serious case of cabin fever. As you can see he's been inside with Silas until we get the all clear from the doctor.

Despite all of this we still found time to go camping in Wisconsin with some friends from church the weekend before his surgery. The Pictures above are from this trip. The first picture is Silas in his stroller at the camp sight, the second is Matthew, Isaac, and me in the lake swimming (it was cold), and the third is Mae in the lake. We had a great time and received a great many mosquito bite. The kids love the camp fire. It made me think back to our time on the Appalachian Trail.

School Started today and I had my first class. I was ready to start back. But, I am also ready to be finished and begin working. I have sent out a few applications. Please pray that God will direct us to the job where we can most effectively serve him.

Round 2: boys will be boys

Well, it only took about 24 hours. Matthew got his cast of on Friday afternoon and by 6:00 pm Saturday we were on the way to the ER with another broken arm. I guess I should say the same arm broken again. Mae and Matthew were playing in the family room stacking up beanbag chairs and he climbed to the top and fell off. He broke the same arm in the same place. The bone was off set this time. The ER doctors didn't set it while we were there so the orthopedic had to set it Monday when we went in. It was pretty rough. It looked like he rebroke it but it seem to be realigned. He has to go back Monday for another x-ray to make sure that it is still lined up. He is in a cast above his elbow for the first 2-3 weeks this time and will have to remain in a cast for six weeks. He chose a red cast this time. He saw someone in the office with a yellow one and he said when they put the short cast on he wants it to be yellow. Everything else is good we are getting settled in to the new house. There is still a lot to put away.

one crazy vacation

Well, its been a crazy vacation. first we went to the FIeld Mseusm here in Chicago. There was lost of cool stuff there, dinosoures and mummies. Then Tiff and the kids went down a week early to visit and i flew down to meet them in South Carolina and go to the beach. The beach was great. We played in the sand and made some cool sand castles.We even got some fishing in while we were down there. On the way back from the beach I hit a deer with our van. It caused a good bit of damage and we had to get it repaired in Spartanburg. I had to fly back to goto work the next day so tiff stayed to take care of the car. While they were there Matthew fell out of a tree and broke his arm. So i flew back down to help them get back. The doctor down there wanted him to get his cast up here so I made the apointments around the time frame the body shop said the car would be ready (Monday). Well, it turns out that they found more dammage and it is not going to be ready untill Thursday so Matthew and I flew back to make his doctors apointment. I think Tiff is going to need a vacation from her vaction. Matthew and I are batchen it (dude fun). On the bright side the weather has been great everywhere I've been. Maybe Matthew and I will have some time to go fishing this week. I'm sorry i'm going to miss the 4th in the south (mmmmmmmm BBQ). I guess i'll have to make my own. Oh, we are also going to move this month too. Our landlord would not give us a six month lease. Our new place is a house. It needs some work but its in a nice neighborhood and not too far from school (pictured below).

school's out!!!!

Well, this semester is over. All of Tiff's family came up this past weekend and the dudes went fishing on Lake Michigan. It was great even though we didn't catch that many fish. The weather was not all that good, surprise! surprise! We were fishing for salmon. We caught 11 and lost 4. I know somebody is going to say that there aren't that many fish in the picture but we caught and missed some after the picture was taken, I"ve got some fisherman's stories. It was Matthew and Isaac's first trip on a fishing boat and its in their blood now. We are already making plans to have a boat someday, don't tell Tiff. OH yea, the girls went shopping or something boring like that. It is only a short break though, I have a summer class starting on June 12th. Back to the grindstone. SEND ME SOME WARM WEATHER, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photobucket Album

kicking and screaming

well here it is the day has arrived, we've been dragged through the next door of the information age kicking and screaming, we have a blog. Yes, i realize that most of you have been here for a long time but don't wake us. We are like the Baptists in heaven, we think we are the only ones here. We are going to make every effort to keep this thing up to date. I will also use this as my forum for ranting about the weather in Chicago. By the way, it was 80 one day last week 48 and raining yesterday, how disgusting. Any way, if any of you would like me to attempt to link to your blog, I'm hoping i can figure out how to do that, let me know what it is and i will try. I'm going to put some pictures on here, again I hope. Till next time, Party on Wane, Party on Garth... Wayne's world, Wayne's word. Its party time its excellent.