Holiday Traveler

I hope everyone enjoyed a very merry Christmas, filled with lots of fun and joy.

The first leg of my holiday traveling was cut short. I had planned to go to the Illinois vs Mizzou game in St. Louis on the 23rd, picking up my friend, Karen in Effingham, and then meeting Nikki and her Dad, who were coming down via Decatur. Tuesday afternoon we had another ice storm, and I-57 was 100% ice covered so it just didn't make sense to risk the drive... especially with Karen in the "family way".

Wednesday I headed up to Eric's at about 12:30 (after getting the furnace fixed... nothing major but still not particularly convenient). The drive was uneventful until I got to Galesburg when it the road were very slick and it was very windy with blowing snow. Several cars were in the ditch and it was rather scary, but after a little over an hour of alternately praying and swearing like a sailor I made it Eric's safe and sound. We decided it still was a little risky to drive over to Iowa for Christmas Eve service so we spent a nice quiet evening at home with a Frank's pizza, watching Muppet Christmas Carol and Polar Express before Eric read the Christmas story from the Bible just before we wen to bed. We skipped the gift giving this year... instead focusing our budget on others and the new house.

Thursday we headed to Eric's Mom & Dad's house, and were joined by Travis, Steff, Katie and Alec. After lunch it was time for presents. We received some wonderful gifts, and I really felt so welcomed into the family. Katie and Alec were tons of fun to watch opening their presents. Friday, Eric had to work so I returned a few things to to the mall, and then bunkered down to start addressing wedding invites. I made lots of progress... so hopefully when I get back to it after the move in a few weeks it won't be too overwhelming.

Here are some pictures of Alec & Katie enjoying their gifts, and Uncle Eric struggling to open one of Alec's toys for him :)

Saturday Eric and I both braved fog and horizontal rain and drove down to my parents house for Tjardes Christmas. It was a nasty drive, but our sour moods quickly faded with some great food and fellowship. My Mom likes to get a little ornery with her gift giving and has taken to hiding our Christmas money in unique ways. The best this year was wrapping up pair of my brother platform dress shoes circa 1979 for him... we busted out his letter jacket just to complete the look. She also hid money in socks that Lane and Jeremy had left at her house and then sewed the socks shut. We enjoyed a great time, and it was nice to get caught up with everyone... especially the Fab Five.

For New Years I am headed back up to the QC, as we close on our house on Friday. New Years Eve we are going to Dave & Janice Roome's house for some festivities. Dave is my best friend, Jenn's older brother and a long-time friend of the family. He and his family live in Geneseo, about a 15 minute drive from our house... so it makes the move even better knowing that I will already have some ready-made friends in the area.

Here is a picture of Phil showing off his fancy shoes, and Jeremy doing his best impression of his Dad :)

Having Our Cake and Eating It Too

So I have been woefully remiss with the blogging, but I think that is just the way it is going to be for a few months. Eric managed to dodge the bad weather and make it here and back safely for the weekend. (Seriously folks, is it just me or is it kind of crazy to have this much nasty winter weather in December?) On Saturday morning we had our final pre-marital counseling session with my/our pastor, Andy. Just one more meeting to finalize the ceremony details is left. I really enjoyed the pre-marital counseling... I feel like we have strong and healthy relationship, but are both committed to nurturing it and growing it, especially with the help of God.

That afternoon we went to a cake tasting, and now we have a "cake lady" for the wedding. Yippee... the cake was delicious and Marissa was a lot of fun to work with. Thanks to Amy from my small group for recommending her. We don't have the final cake details worked out, but we have a general idea. After cake we stopped off for a couple of beers before heading out to Assembly Hall to catch the Illini game. It is slightly weird for me to be a spectator instead of working, but I got used to it, and enjoyed hanging out with Eric.

After the game we grabbed a bite to eat with Nikki and her parents, Debbie and Jerry aka Captain Map, and it was lots of fun to catch up with them. Eric headed back home early Sunday evening with clear roads until the last few miles.

Please pray for continued travel blessing as I will be hitting the road tomorrow to St. Louis for the Illini basketball game vs. Mizzou, the up to the QC on Wednesday for Christmas with the Noyd's and then back to CU/GC for Christmas with the Tjardes' on Friday/Saturday.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe and joyous Christmas, and enjoys special time with family and friends as we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

A Toast to Champaign

Hi everyone. I have been a total blog slacker, but I have been super busy what with getting ready to move, buying a house, try to get organized to list a house for sale, planning a wedding, Christmas shopping, oh and trying to see my fiance who live 3 hours away for another five weeks anyway.

So our department at work moved at the end of October/beginning of November from downtown Urbana to downtown Champaign. For the most part I love Champaign, with three possible exceptions 1) not seeing the sun as we are in the lower level, and 2) my office is right next to the employee break room (which is usually a plus) but not when the lunch crowd cranks up the volume to 50 on the TV (for reference I think 25 is plenty loud) and 3) Judy (my bank Mom for lack of a better term) is still in Urbana

But I like to dwell on the positive so here are the reasons I enjoy our new office:

10. At this location they have the liquid non-dairy creamer for our coffee... vanilla even... not plain powder for me!

9. My desk is just off the break room.... except for the loud TV upon occasion this totally rocks... quick and easy access to the creamer in #10

8. The biometric access (when it works, and it has been lately) is so very Jack Bauer meets Star Trek... I put my finger on the reader it scans my finger print and voila... door unlocks.

7. My cube is next to Josh's cube... thus more opportunities to use my "Friends" lingo and refer to him as "Josh-U-A" like Rachel Green did back in the day.

6. Harold the maintenance guy in the Champaign building is totally setting me up with lots of boxes for moving.

5. I have only forgotten and started to drive to Urbana for work once.

4. I am closer to the mall/shopping and basically everything else in town for more productive lunch hour errand running

3. I now takes me less than 10 minutes to get to work

2. Improvement walking distance lunch options... although I rarely take advantage of this.

1. With the shorter commute I can come home for lunch and manage to watch a 1 hour TV program I have DVR'd each and get back to work in exactly one hour.

P.S. In a random wedding update, there are now four pregnant couples on our guest list that are expecting the first baby in the month of April.