January 21, 2008

Howdy All,

I don't know about you folks, but I cannot believe January is half over already!!! It just doesn't seem possible.

We wanted to thank everyone for having us (everywhere) at Christmas time and tell you that we really enjoyed seeing all of you and spending time with you. Thanks for making time for our crazy holiday schedule!

I am just sitting here at work (it's a really slow day, for those of you who are familiar with my work schedule) and a cold one at that. They say it's supposed to be mid-30's today, which seems like a heat wave compared to what we've been experiencing the past few weeks! The average temperatures for St. Louis in January are somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees. But lately it's been into the single digits to MAYBE the teens. So needless to say, people are staying inside a lot more! Yesterday temps struggled to hit the teens.

So here I am, with 2 little heaters going under my desk, coat and scarf still on.... inside. The thermostat says it's 68, but the draft from the window and door behind me is making is feel more like 48. Brr! Okay, enough about the cold!

So... I'm sure ya'll've heard that our beloved Packers lost the NFC Championchip game last night, which was their chance to make it to the Super Bowl. I was really looking forward to them kicking some Patriot you-know-what. Maybe next year. But you know, there have been so many rumors about Favre retiring. What do you think will happen? Think he'll hang around for one more year to try to end on a high note?

We've had a pretty normal schedule since returning to work after the holidays. Still doing a bunch of things with church - Noah is still working on the tech team (sound/light booth), and I'm still singing on the worship team and running the meal ministry. We both help out with a Christ-centered recovery group called Celebrate Recovery on Thursday nights, and now are also helping to launch a men's ministry conference that is scheduled for the end of March. It's pretty exciting. Somehow Noah was volunteered to make phone calls to other churches that receive packets of information, and I was volunteered to be the marketing "guru"... yikes! There are a lot of others involved - people who are running a website for it, a graphic designer, food coordinator... it's a lot of work but it's a lot of fun too.

Speaking of Noah -- he's presently on Long Island working on a wind tunnel test! I'm not sure when he'll return. He says "it depends on productivity". So it might be the end of January or beginning of February before he returns home to the Midwest, or it might just be a week. We'll see. He likes the periodic traveling and says it gives him a nice little change of pace and he gets to work on a different aspect of a project. I guess it also gives me a little motivation to get stuff done around the house... after all, I'm the only one there while he's away, so I have to pick up after myself! haha

Noah has also gone flying a few times since we returned, which I know he enjoys. He's on his 4th instructor now, which I think is sort of motivating him to get his license :) I'd name his instructors just to be silly but I can't remember their names! haha

So that's about it from the "south" (as the Wisconsin crew calls it). Go on, keep making fun of me for being converted to a fake southerner. I can take it!

We wish God's blessings for all of you... hope to see you soon.