New Week, New Motivation

I've been in a bit of a SAHM (stay at home mom) slump so last night I said to myself, "Self...it's a new week. Let's have a new start to this mommying thing." So today, instead of surfing the internet first thing, I got up, fed Samuel, did two loads of laundry, fed Samuel again, put Samuel down for a nap, helped Annika select an outfit, did a coloring/cutting project with her, worked with her on learning her address and phone number, made some tuna salad, fed Samuel. That was all before noon :-) Then the afternoon was a little less productive. Annika has a strong love affair with the movie Cars so she watched that...I'm sure I fed Samuel a few more times and he took another nap. But the two highlights of the afternoon (pic below) were receiving "fluffymail" (code for cloth diaper paraphernalia) and making "chocolate stuff" with Annika in the crockpot...yummy! The first two pics are of Annika helping and the last pic is Sammy in his new wool soaker from Harper of Mom's Boardwalk

Our two cuties

I (Jess) have a really hard time capturing photos where both kids are looking cute, have their eyes open, etc...That's why I'm excited about this one. Enjoy!

Waving? You Decide.

Jess caught Samuel on tape figuring out how to use his hands. He seems to be favoring his left hand, which makes Jess love him all the more. I certainly don't mind if he's left-handed. Most Major League clubs would love another lefty around this time of year.

18 weeks, 08/21/07

4 months old 8/17/07!

CaaaARGH!

We made our first trip down to Jacksonville today (to the Regency Square Mall for our Jax contingent). Since we live in a nice, but small locale, we now need to trek to Jax for a JCPenney portrait studio, a decent-sized mall, Costco, etc. I figure we'll get there about once per month, assuming our car will make the trip.

That's the problem, though. Our #@!& car has had an issue with its rear brakes since we bought it brand new, and no matter what we try to do to remedy the problem, we fail. A good friend of ours who is very knowledgeable with cars helped me change the cars pads and rotors in February this year, so I figured we'd be in the clear for a couple of years.

I was wrong.

Today, as we were pulling into the mall, we heard a nasty grinding noise coming from one of the wheels. We took the car to Sears, and after a full inspection, they declared that both real calipers need to be replaced because they were seized up. The 6-month old rear brake pads were already worn down to the metal. What is even worse, it seems that Mazda not only has supplied us with a defective brake system, they charge over $400.00 per caliper to replace them.

So, yes, I'm mad at our car. I'm trying to figure out if I can do these repairs myself for a whole lot less, or if we should just sell the car and cut our losses.

The silver lining in all of this is that, even before they knew of our duress, a couple from the church called and left a message on our machine, offering to let us borrow a car as much as we wanted over the coming weeks. Praise the Lord, it's already parked in front of our house. If only the repair could go as smoothly.

Ode to Annika

We didn't want to go too long without posting some pics of our magnum opus #1, Miss Annika. Here's a pictorial taste of what she has been up to the past few months...
Celebrating her 4th birthday!!



Enjoying our last time in NYC (for some time) at Alice's Tea Cup


Writing her name during her last day at the Dupree school


Riding the merry-go-round at the Brookfield Zoo


Embracing the girly side of herself (balanced of course with a primal scream)

The Hot, Hot Heat

I thought it would be good to offer a little update on life and work for us here on SSI. Before we came down, we were warned that July and August were quite hot, and while I expected the heat to be a little worse, the warnings were on target. When I leave the house in the morning, it is usually a cool 85 degrees outside, but within a couple of hours, the temperatures have peaked in the mid-90s. People keep reminding us that this is our island version of winter - the time when you rarely venture outside and most activities happen indoors. I'll gladly put up with the heat now for a very temperate winter.

The problem has been that the family has been cooped up in our house an awful lot. I get to "escape" to the church, but since we know so few people down here, Jess and the kids have been weathering the heat in our cozy home. There is relief in sight, however. Annika starts preschool right after Labor Day, and the weather will begin improving in a couple of weeks. Still, we could use your prayers and well-wishes to make it through the dog days of summer. I think we'd all really like to begin enjoying all the outdoor activities the island has to offer soon.

Things are beginning to pick up at the church. I moved into the new office building yesterday, and I'll really enjoy getting to start fresh in my new digs. I get a lot of beautiful sunlight through the windows, and I can see the playground from the office in case Annika ever comes by to hang out. I'm beginning to find my place in the church little by little. Being a generalist associate pastor is a lot of fun because I do all the things a solo pastor would do - preach, teach, lead studies, meetings, hospital visitation, etc. - but since my role is so broad, it's going to take some time to find exactly the best places to make myself available to the church. Still, I'm planning on beginning a new Sunday School class for the younger adults in our community, and we're at the earliest stages of seeing how we can contemporize our worshiping life. It's been fun so far, but I think the best part of it has been that I can work with a fun, capable team of people who share my love for the church. I would hate to do this work alone. I'm very happy to be serving in this church.

That's all for now. Enjoy the pictures when we put them up. I'll try to get up the gumption to make some phone calls one of these nights to friends and family, since we finally seem to be settling in.

Week 17, 8/14/07 and 1st swim!

Samuel...looking very cute in his swim diaper after his first swim in the Sea Island Beach Club pool. He loved it! Rough life, huh? :-)

Week 16, August 7, 2007

Rapid Age Progression :-)

As Promised, here are some updated pics of Sammy weeks 11-15!

Getting Here

So, I've been in Georgia for almost three weeks, and Jess and the kids have made it their home for the past two. I had forgotten how much more slowly we handle transitions, how much less we like them now.

That's not to say that moving to St. Simons hasn't been pretty good. It has. The church has been unbelievably supportive of us, and people thus far have been genuinely friendly. The island is quite beautiful, and assuming that I can convince Jess to forget that Brunswick is smaller than Erie, I think that we'll settle in well around here. It sure is a different world, though. Life after seminary is good, but it is an adjustment.

We've been pretty pleased with our house so far, although I don't think I fully realized what a financial drain home ownership is. We so want this place to feel like home that we're working our tails off to make it so. The next time I think about buying a house that has been regularly smoked in, knock some sense into me. After three weeks, we have finally purged much of the smoke smell out, but that involved scrubbing walls, fixtures, ceilings, and cabinets with trisodium phosphate, tearing out all of the wallpaper, painting almost the entire house, having our carpet replaced, burning a few candles, and losing some brain cells to paint fumes. Needless to say, I have become fast friends with the folks at Home Depot.

I will be preaching for the first time as "The Reverend" on Sunday, and I'm pretty excited about the opportunity. For now, I'm killing myself over details that I won't sweat in a couple of years, but I guess it still is fun to take my time over my writing while I still have the chance. Heck, for those keeping score at home, I actually translated the text from the Greek to get me into it. That was perhaps the easiest part of writing it.

There will be some family and house pictures soon - once the place finally looks like a Southern Living showroom. Until then, my words will have to suffice for an update.

The island is open for visitation. Plan your trip now!