Thanksgiving & Kassidy Turns Four!

I thought I should post a few pictures for those that didn't make it to Chicago for Thanksgiving and Kassidy's birthday. We had a great time. Jill's sister Stacey, cooked the most awesome Thanksgiving meal ever and the kids got a chance to play hard so it was a good day. The next day we celebrated Kassidy's birthday and we saw "Happy Feet" at the theater and went to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and games. It was a great time and I think Kassidy enjoyed turning four.

Blizzard Adventures

It all started 2 years ago on a Sunday on our way home from Thanksgiving at Doyle's Grandparents in Eldon, IA. We were driving west on I-80 and ran into a huge blizzard. At North Platte, NE they closed the interstate and we were forced to find a hotel. All the hotels in North Platte were full, but they were opening shelters in school buildings. We didn't want to stay in a shelter so we decided to drive south on hwy 83 and try to make it to McCook, NE where we could take hwy 34 west to Greeley. We barely made it to McCook and decided we should get a hotel there. We had Leia with us and so we needed a hotel that allowed dogs. We found one with vacancies and got a room. We had to call Doyle's work to let them know he wouldn't be there in the morning. We ended up stuck for 2 days because all the highways were closed. We got food and games at Wal-Mart and camped out in the hotel.

Now, jog ahead a year to the same Sunday after Thanksgiving at Eden Seminary in Webster Groves, MO. We were driving home on I-70 and ran into another blizzard. They closed I-70 at Oakley, KS and again all the hotels were full. This year we really didn't want to stay in a shelter because of all the things we'd heard about after Hurricane Katrina. We were on the phone with Kris while he was on his laptop and said there were hotels open just north of us on hwy 83 in ... McCook, NE! Again we decided to try and make it, we did, just barely, and only with Doyle driving! We ended up getting a room at the exact same hotel as last year. We again had to call both of our jobs and tell them we wouldn't be there along with the vets office to let them know we wouldn't be able to pick up Leia. Doyle's boss gave him a hard time about this becoming a habit and if he wanted some more time off, he should have just asked! The roads were all closed for a couple days so we switched hotels after the first night to one with a pool and hot tub. Literally seconds after I took that first snow picture a huge transformer a few feet behind me shot off all these sparks and the whole neighborhood went black.

This year we are glad that we will not be traveling on the Sunday after Thanksgiving because we are staying in Iowa an extra week for Doyle to cover in Ames. Just pray the blizzard doesn't hit the weekend after!!

Adventures in College

Well i guess i don't have to many adventures, just wanted to blog how i was doing! I'm having a blast, other than all the reading, i'm loving college! I am currently playing intermural basketball, we are 2 and 5, running for track with the sprinters, enjoying my classes, and playing ultimate frisbee every sunday! I guess the biggest adventure lately was registering for next semester. They decided to try online registering, last nite at 12:01 the opened it up for all the freshman, well lets just say the server was bombarded, and i gave up at 12:45, my roomie got a call at 1:15 that it was working so we both got up and registered, i didnt' get into the math class i wanted, so i will be taking dramatic literature should be interesting. I can't wait till saturday nite, i'm going to the new 007 movie casino royale!! Can't wait to see everyone at thanksgiving and christmas! I miss you all, and love you too!!! Miah

Sell This House

*I added a link to a virtual tour of our house that our realtor put together. Just click on the "Sell This House" title. Ours is at the top of the page: 3200 Rock Point Ct.




We finally got finished up with all the "staging" stuff in our house. We moved a lot of furniture and painted the two guest rooms. They seem a little plain to me, but look VERY nice. The "scrapbook" room is a beige color and the "office" is a really light green/grey. We put a ton of stuff in the crawl space, a few small pieces of furniture, a lot of packed boxes and tubs and other random things. We went a little lower on the price again because we weren't getting anything at that price before we switched realtors. We are very encouraged with our new realtor and hopefully things will go well and quickly! Here are some new pictures of our house: a couple of our living room with the table in a new spot, one of our empty hallway, a couple of the scrapbook room and a couple of the office. Plus: one of the old scrapbook room and one of the old office!

Suprise

Hey Everyone. Thought I should let you all know what's going on in our lives right now. It'll be mid May. Luckily, I haven't been sick!!! See you all at Christmas.
Love,
Sarah (& Dustin)

New Adventure in Blogging...

Hi all,
I enjoyed this blogging stuff so much that I decided to start my own. Liberation through Liturgy will be a blog about how creating really good liturgy can be liberating for pastor AND congregation. While actually creating the liturgy is already one of main spiritual disciplines, I hope that writing about it will also become a sort of discipline for me.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Peace and blessings,
Kristofer

Wisconsin Halloween

I thought I should post a picture of the kids from Halloween. Casey was Disney's Stitch and Kristian was an alien. The kid in the middle is Kristian's friend Sam Cohen and he was Dash from the Incredibles. They had a good time getting candy around here. It was kind of cold but not bad. They have set trick or treating hours for the town and I kind of like that idea. The great thing about this town is that the kids are really awesome here.

Fond Farewell

I'd like to wish Dan McCarney a fond farewell. He has been an amazing coach and will be missed. "To the man behind the Cyclone. The face of ISU athletics for the past 12 years. The Dean of the Big 12. Two time Big 12 Coach of the Year. The man who erased the "laughing stock" view ISU had always been known for and brought respect to the program. The first Iowa State football coach to lead his team to a bowl championship. He lead the team to 5 bowl games in 6 seasons. The first to bring a conference championship OF ANY KIND to the university. The first to win 5 consecutive games over that other Iowa team." from In Honor of Dan McCarney: The Greatest Football Coach in the History of ISU facebook group. We'll miss you Dan!

October Weekend

Here are some super cute pictures of the kids and others from the weekend of Melinda's wedding. Korey, Nicole and Kristian, Renee and Kelly, Casey, Kassidy, Tre, Me and Kurt, Jill and Nicole, Leia and Jeremiah, Mike and Melinda

Halloween

OK, so, it's after church and after out potluck and I'm at home and Doyle's out on a call, so I have time for a real post. We had a great halloween party at the Long's on Tuesday. It was a halloween party/suprise birthday party for Christine/suprise baby shower for Christine and Rob. (Side note: they're having a girl, Kathryn Winter Myers, they'll call her Kate!) We were all supposed to come as famous/celebrity couples/families. So, Doyle and I went as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

A pretty good like-ness don't you think?! It was such a fun time. Pregnant Christine and Rob came as Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, Kelly and Jeff with their boys Augie and Becket were characters from The Royal Tenenbaums, Eric and Amy were Number 2 and Alotta from Austin Powers, Lee was June Carter-Cash, Tim and Betony were Nacho Libre and Sister Encarnacion. We played funny baby games like: stick the baby to Christine, decorate a cookie to look like Baby Myers, guess the baby food, and guess the melted candy bar inside the diaper. Very funny!

As much as we are SOOOOO ready to move, we really are going to miss our friends we've made out here. I never thought we'd become this close to anyone when we moved out here, but I'm so glad we have. It probably would have been completely unbareable without them.

Second Post

Hey, this is Kristofer. I'm Jessie's oldest (but not biggest) brother.
My current adventure (aside from raising two boys) is pastoring a UCC congregation in Wisconsin.

The pic is mom (Kate), Jessie, Nicole (my wife), Kristian and Casey (our boys) adventuring in the Colorado Rockies back in '04.

I want to fill in the background of the family motto. Before Jessie was born we moved from Des Moines, Iowa to Boston, Massachusettes with a U-Haul truck and grandpa Rouse's pickup. Well U-Haul's motto at the time was "Adventures in Moving"... When our disaster of a move was done Mom (Kate) said something like, "What a lie, Adventures in Moving my butt!" [that is probably nowhere near what she actually said, but since it was like 26 years ago I hope all will forgive me a slight memory lapse]

Anyway, "Adventures in Moving" and adventures in general became somthing of a family joke. Always a fan of James Bond's family motto: The World is Not Enough, I began to say that we needed a family motto and a coat of arms while we were at it. Eventually I began to threaten to create a motto and coat of arms. I don't remember if we ever actually discussed what the motto should be, it just sort of happened. I presented the coat of arms (complete with motto - in Italian, because I couldn't find an online Latin translator) to mom and dad for their twentieth anniversary.

As Jesus once said, "Come on kids, let's go have an adventure!"

Peace and blessings,
Kristofer

First Post

So, here it is, the first post. I don't have much to say and even less time to say it in becuase I have to head to church. But, here it is, I'm also adding the first picture, a family one!