Our Daughter...

Not content with her nice bed, Annika decided to haul a second bed on top of her other bed. At least I can say that Annika brings a refreshing sense of spontaneity to our lives. Sometimes I just wonder where her ideas come from.

Sorry for the posting hiatus. Advent has been very wonderful around here, and it has been busy. We began a contemporary evening service at the church on top of the other special services, musicals, parties, and other what not. It's been exhausting and rewarding.

We'll post more about our holidays - probably after Christmas. Oh yeah, Sammy is slowly and painfully getting his first two teeth. Poor guy. He's been miserable through it all.

May the peace of Christ be with you this Christmas!

Pretty in Pink

I've been trying for quite awhile to get Annika to try her hand at a sport - any sport. She just hasn't been interested in sports, which just doesn't compute to me. I think I may finally have the solution. Annika now has a pink soccer ball, and she pulled it out tonight to kick with me. I was so happy to kick the ball back and forth. We even picked it up to play catch. She surprised me that she actually caught quite a few of my tosses.

Annika wanted me to take a picture of the occasion for her grandparents, so I'm doing what I've been told.

Thanksgiving - St. Simons Style

Having moved so far from our families, this Thanksgiving was a new experience for us. To begin with, we went to the beach on the day before Thanksgiving. I can't say that I've ever done that before - at least not in swimtrunks. Annika was able to bring a friend with her, and Sammy enjoyed his first prolonged exposure to the sun and sand. Jess and I just enjoyed being out of the house without much to do. I guess it's a different season in our lives.




We were invited to share in the Thanksgiving feast of some friends from church. We were very thankful to spend time with such wonderful people. Being with them took the edge off of not being with our own families this year.

Making friends

Jess posting here. So I had asked some of you to pray especially for Annika during the past months with all of the transitions she's had to make (becoming a sibling, moving, new school, new church). I've been especially hoping/praying that she would make some girlfriends because I hadn't been so good at helping her cultivate those while we were in seminary. Well, this is a thank you post for your prayers. I can say with confidence that Annika is making friends and she has one boy buddy and one girl buddy with a few more in the works. Here's a pic of Annika with her girl buddy over at our house recently for a play date :-) Thanks everyone for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to adjust to southern living.

7 months on 11/17/07!!

He has grown so much since his 6 month photo!

30 weeks old, 11/13/07

Having fun helping mom and dad change the bedding :-)

Kirkin' O' The Tartans

Our church held its annual Kirkin' O' The Tartans (Blessing of the families) service this morning. I had the privilege of preaching at this service, and I somehow managed to preach about Monty Python and the Holy Grail, John Knox, and the Sadducees all in one sermon. If I learned nothing else, I now know that many in my church love Monty Python. They seem to be really happy with my preaching, so I hope that I can keep growing as a preacher in such a congenial place.

We wanted to post some pictures of the family at the service for your enjoyment. For those who have taken the PC(USA) ordination exams, you can enjoy critiquing the placement of the church decorations in the sanctuary. As for me, while I may not be thrilled with the implications of having such a "Scottish" service, it was interesting to meet so many new people who came to church just for that service. In the end, I guess that I'm more open to getting new people into church than I am about pulling off a perfectly Reformed service. So sue me.

One more note of interest, my second cousin from Erie happened to be on this island, so there were at least three people with the middle name "Kirkland" at our church today. That was fun for me.




Shhhhhh....don't show this one to Dr. Kay, Dr. Brown, or The Rev. Bill Heming ;-)