Raleigh and Lindsey's Wedding

Next stop: Raleigh, NC, home of the Wolfpack. Although on this particular weekend there were a lot of Clemson Tigers there since Lindsey (the tigers) and Jeff (the wolfpack) got hitched (sounds familiar!). It was so great to see wonderful friends that we hadn't seen in forever.

Daniel and Mikel, who were kind enough to let us stay at their house, even though Schub had been sick and Daniel is deathly afraid of germs. Those are some good friends.

The happy newlyweds on a beautiful summer evening!


Tara, Kathleen, Courtney, and me. I love these girls!

Todd, Schub, and Daniel. buddies from way back.

I love this pictures. Schub and Hobie having some sort of deep theological conversation in the midst of the bubbles, while Hannah is doing exactly what I would be doing - tuning them out and smiling for the camera :-) It was so good to see Hobie and Hannah!

Cindy B! My main squeeze. i LOVE this girl. We have got to start seeing each other more than once a year.

Finally we got to see good ole' Mark, one of Schub's best friends from high school. They graduated from high school together, and this is Mark proudly showing off his diploma from Chapel Hill... that he just received this past december:-) Congratulations Mark!

Vacation begins!!

We took an AWESOME two week vacation this summer. We took a small tour of the Southeast to try to see as many friends as possible. We did pretty well! Our first two stops were Lexington, KY where we got to see our dear friends the Strange's, who were on staff with Crusade at Clemson.

John and Schub looking at a scrapbook Geralyn made that included some great pictures of Schub!

The girls look exactly the same... just taller. I didn't get any pics of Joshua.

Geralyn and me!

Then we got to go to Huntington, which is one of our favorite places on earth. Schub has said several times that he would love to live there if he could. It is a cute little town, but mostly it just has some of our very favorite people there. It was so so so good to see Hunter and Jeannie!

Me and Jeans.

Unfortunately Schub got sick the night we were in Huntington. He spent most of his time on the couch next to the bathroom or in the bed. He was still feeling under the weather when it was time to go in the morning, but was feeling well enough to smile with Hunter and Stuckey. Hunter was afraid (for once) to get too close :-)

No more goodbyes PLEASE!!

Before we left for vacation, we had to say goodbye to some of our very very favorite neighbors. Of course, we still have other great friends in Atherton, but we were particular close to the Jensens, as they lived right across the hall and moved in the same summer we did. We had dinner with them the evening before they headed out to Iowa. We cannot wait to visit you guys!! Of course, I forgot my camera, so you can check out those pictures on Missy's blog.

THEN we had to say goodbye to the Spinks, who were the VERY first people we met when we moved to Atherton. They were from Clemson and lived right above us. I worked with Christy (and rode to and from work with her) for over a year before they welcomed little Caitlyn into the family. We said a proper goodbye with lots of ice cream and all the toppings.

They are ice cream FIENDS

LOTS of toppings.

We will miss you guys!!!

Our apartment building is not going to be the same without the neighbors we've had for the past two years. We can't wait to see the Spinks and the Jensens again!!

I Hate Saying Goodbye

Our good friends the Rippetoes are the first of several friends that we will have to say goodbye to this summer. Actually, they aren't moving for another couple weeks, but since we will be leaving for vacation before they go, we had to have our last hoorah this past week :-( We are going to miss you guys!

Mark & Sarah Rippetoe

Elisa who hosted our dinner and made a delicious (gluten-free!) meal. crazy girl.

How do we always end up watching YouTube when we eat together?

Katrina & Dave's Baby Shower #2

This is actually the second baby shower I've been to for Katrina and Dave. The first one was a couple's shower at a pool, which was very fun, but I didn't get any pictures. This one was a work party. We do throw good parties at the Alumni House at 4 in the afternoon.


Cute Julia who made the punch and framed these very cute pictures...

Katie and Dave painted a scene from the book Where the Wild Things Are on one wall of the baby's (Nils is his name) room. So Julia bought the book and framed the cool pages of it.

Baby Nils will have a bit of a monster themed room :-)

Me, preggo Katrina, and our old friend Ariadne who came back to the Alumni House for the shower.

A Girls' Night. With some boys at the end.

On Saturday night I had the privelege of hanging out with these lovely ladies again. We went to THE CHOCOLATE BAR! It was very fun times (except when my necklace broke, but Christy McGyver came to the rescue and rigged it for me to still wear. thanks christy. then jason officially fixed it when i got home. thanks jason.)

4 girls, but only 3 drinks because of preggo anna :-)

We had quite the fun time taking pictures in front of the fountain at Lafayette Square. In an effort not to embarrass myself or anyone else, I'm not posting most of them.

We came home to find all of our boys playing guitar hero in our apartment. So of course, we joined them. rock on.

Happy Independence Day

We celebrated the 4th of July (and much of the weekend, really) with some of our neighbors from good old Atherton. All of these people have graduated and won't be here anymore by the end of the summer! So Jason and I being sure to take every opportunity to hang out with them... from parades downtown to watching them do their laundry in the basement. No, literally. After the parade Jason and I just sat down in the basement with them (not really helping, mind you) while they packed boxes and we played with their kids. Then we ordered pizza for dinner, played games, and listened to the fireworks from our living room. We will really miss these people!

The girls... Anna, Christy, me and Missy (and little Anabel!)

Phillip and Evan enjoying the sites!

This was technically called the "Veiled Prophet Parade." It came from some wierd tradition of prominent businessmen in St. Louis wearing veils over their faces as pageant girls paraded down the street for them. It began in the late 1800's sometime, so this was the 130something-th year of the parade! A lot of the floats were quite elaborate and some men even still wear veils - keeping with the theme of the parade I guess. Anyway... wierd, but fun!

Will, Christy and Caitlyn! We will miss them so. Unless, that is, they don't get a job and end up sleeping in our extra room for the next year! One can only hope :-)

Me and Jason in our red, white and blue.

Jason hanging with Evan and Anabel while we were eating pizza later in the evening!

Aldab...Aldab..Aldabra....I Want to Reach out and Grab Ya!

When my cousin Tyler was here, we also took a trip to Grant's Farm. It was the farm that Ulysses S. Grant, (Union General and U.S. President) used to own. Now it's an Anheuser-Busch Park. They have all kinds of cool animals there you can pet. This one here is an Aldabra Turtle, one of the largest turtles in the world. When we got there this guy was just layin there barely out of his shell with his head in the mud all mopey . But the lady there said they liked their necks scratched. So i stuck my hand in his big house and started rubbing his neck. And he started to lift up his head, and he came out of his shell further and further. he ended up sticking his head and neck all the way out so i could scratch him all over. It was like he was some giant turtle dog or something. Very cool. The Lord has really made some awesom creatures. I think he even smiled. I kept waiting for him to start singing Zippity Doo Da. It was incredible. Lindsey now refers to me as the Turtle Whisperer!

Here i'm trying to get a picture with Lindsey and her new friend Mr. Camel. It was all set up to be real cute. He even tried to give her some sweet Camel Kisses. I don't think she liked them though. As you can see the picture was ruined. And the camel is in therapy, Lindsey hurt his feelings.

Reflections on Heights

The last post (you might want to read the city museum post before this one) got me thinking about another time i got a little freaked out about heights. it was when i went to the grand canyon with my buddies todd and jeremy. Jeremy was part mountain goat. he was hopping around from rock to rock with no cares in the world. He then asked me and todd to climb out on the ledge so he could take our picture. obviously me and todd weren't mountain goats. We had talked about taking a helicopter ride in the canyon. Something about this climb here told me i wouldn't enjoy it. You can hear me come to that realization in the video.

City Museum!

Last week my cousin (2nd cousin actually) Tyler came up to visit me and Lindsey for a week. We had an awesome time. I think we did almost every free thing you could do in Saint Louis, and some pay things as well. This place is one of the pay things, and it is well worth the ten bucks to get in. Its called City Museum. This dude bought an old shoe factory in downtown saint louis and turned it into a giant playground. There are caves and mazes and 3 story slides. You can climb in any hole you can find/fit into. We got to ride down an old shoe shoot for about 3 stories as well. Its amazing. I don't know how this guy made every thing. Here are some pictures of some of the stuff there.



Here i'm coming out of one of the tunnels you can bearly fit in






Lindsey climbing up some cargo net that goes into the ceiling.







This is me and tyler climbing in something about twelve feet off the ground.

This is a giant slinky type thing made of rebar that went up about two stories.

This might be the craziest thing they have there. This guy took old airplanes and cranes and fire engines and hooked them all together with rebar tunnels and stairs. Then he suspened all of it 6 stories off the ground. If you look at the tail of the airplane you will see one of the metal things arching away from the tail. You climb in it, nothing below, above or around you, for about 20 yards or so to this huge platform and then take a giant 2 story slide back to the bottom. Tyler and lindsey crawled in it all. NOT ME!!! I can clean gutters on a three story house, but i ain't about to climb up in some slinky some dude and his buddies made 6 stories off the ground. i hate heights, especially when there's no ground beneath me. I slid down the slide, but made it there another way. I wasn't about to climb in that thing. I felt like such a pansy. There were little nine year old girls climbing all over this thing like they were part monkey or something, and weren't scared a bit. Oh well sometimes you just have learn humilty. That was my day. When you have to choose between being humbled by being shown up by a 9 year old girl or having a heart attack 60 feet off the ground in some wacko jungle gym. I'll take the humilty. The last thing i wanted was to get stuck up in that thing when somebody freaked out and wouldn't move forward. Especially if the freaker-outer was me. I kept my tail a little closer to the ground.

Lindsey saw this guy and got inspired. Next thing i knew she was running around the whole place pushing people around like she was some kind of sumo wrestler or something. Grown men were crying, kids were running around everywhere screaming like the world was going to end. We eventually got here contained in one area of the museum. I calmed her down by singing sweet lulla- byes to her. Then they kicked us out. So our night ended. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.