Babies and other stuff

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Originally uploaded by dreamingbig.

This photo is so great to see. Shane -- across the magical dark ocean in a land of giants, hobbits, faeries, foods made of animal parts that should never [ever] be consumed, Guiness, and other mysteries of the dark forest, has this beautiful family -- the newest addition being less than a day old. We are so happy for them, and wish we could be with them to celebrate the new arrival.

Meanwhile, we continue to shore up our fortitude for the arrival of our newest little one. We are really excited, but certainly a little nervous.

Work is finally picking back up, and I'm back into working long hours to keep up.

Nancy and I have started working with the college group at Peak. So far we have met 3 Saturday nights and have a cool group of folks attending. It has been great to start talking about Biblical Community with them. I get reminded of how good God is seeing them coming into our home and starting to form a part of His Body.

Our church has been without a senior pastor for several years, and in 2 weeks our new pastor starts. We have started getting to know him and his family, and they are great folks.

I have recently become an integral part of the Heritage Christian School Technology Committee. Heritage Christian is where Emma just started attending kindergarten. It has been strange being an involved parent at my daughter's school. It feels like I should be older. I'm in the midst of helping them convert their old site to a new format and hopefully make some significant improvements in the process.

I am still the Assistant Director at CoCoa. The life-drawing group I oversee is doing well, and I am pleased with how my own artwork is progressing. I'd like to get into another painting class, I'm thinking about transitioning into still life. I'll continue to work on life drawing, since I have invested so much into that so far, made so much progress, and the style of painting I ultimately want to master involves a good deal of figure work.

Next weekend we are heading to St. Louis for our friend Beth's wedding. Karl and Kathy will be there and we can't wait to catch up with them. For those at all unfamiliar with the "intern years", when we had Emma we didn't know what we were going to do, since Nancy was making the $$ at the time and I was an intern hired for a deep discount as a youth minister. Karl and Kathy were leaders on my team at church, and when I mentioned as a prayer request that we didn't know how we were going to make it once the baby came, Karl came up afterward and said that he had a dream that we came to live with them with our new baby, and that he had talked to Kathy about it and she had said yes. We spent some of the best months of our lives thus far living with Karl and Kathy, and they remain "more than friends." We feel like part of their family, and hope they feel like part of ours.

There's a lot going on. Things are good. I need to get more sleep I think, and Corben is sick right now, but things are good.

I feel compelled to say to those I love: I love you.