9 Month Catch Up

Been awhile since we updated this. The last post was for August 2007 and now it's June 2008.

What's been happening lately? Well May through June has been graduation season, but this year has been the first that we have both been out of school.

Big thing, since our last post, we moved to Cleveland in November! That means we canceled the gym membership we had after only about three months. That's the thing we missed most about moving away from Cuyahoga Falls. Hollie is much closer to work now though. In fact, we recently bought bikes and are considering getting bus passes, so we think we're going to try to sell Hollie's car. We don't need the extra gas and maintenance fees and we can have a better impact on the environment. The house we are renting is in a nice Cleveland neighborhood just a few blocks from Lakewood. It is a two level home and we live in the upstairs. As of this blog post, no one is living beneath us. We are very close to Edgewater Park on Lake Erie!

Since we haven't been busy with school and had moved to a new city, we decided it was time to join a church for the community. We found West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church and we love it. It's not a traditional church that tells you what dogma to believe, but UUs have had a history of letting people explore different beliefs. UUs come together as a community for social action, to explore spiritual issues, and to lead purposeful lives. We've met a lot of great people there and learned a lot. We think that West Shore is such a great thing that we joined a new Tech Team, which is making progress improving the audio and visual elements of the services and making media available online for everyone to see and hear!

Babies have been popping out all around us! Our friends Anne and Jay added baby Will to their family. We visited Kristina and Henry for the second time in South Carolina after she had baby Ruthlynn. Born just a few days before her was Jason and Jessie's second baby Mackenzie. Our friends Ben and Sonja just gave birth to baby Sienna. Mike and Leslie added a second boy, Oliver, to their family. And we recently found out that Jeff and Robin will be having twin girls soon. In May, Leanna and John were married. Again, we were both in the wedding party. So Hollie and all her siblings are now hitched. And knowing how Leanna is with kids, it surely won't be long before there are more babies around.

What we did in June

Hollie's friend Kristin with husband Jeremiah and kids Gavin and Elia moved back to Ohio from Kansas. After they moved in, Byron had his first experience babysitting all by himself. Elia slept the whole time, so all he had to do was play Wii with Gavin. Byron totally forgot about the laundry because the Wii was so fun.

Hollie attended her friend Anne's baby shower. They don't want to know if it's a boy or a girl (they call it baby burrito), all the baby stuff has a frog theme. Hollie can't wait to have another baby to spoil, hopefully it's a little girl.

Weddings- Our friends Paige and Eric got married. Hollie was a Bridesmaid. They had a fun outdoor reception with great food and lots of music.






Hollie's sister Kristina also got married at the end of the month. Hollie was the Matron of Honor and Byron was the Best Man. She married Henry, a guy she met in Honduras. He has a son, Little Henry, who is six years old and full of energy. This is a picture of Hollie with Henrito at ChuckECheese.

We've tried to learn a little Spanish and Henry and Henrito are still learning English. They make a great addition to our family.

Kristina and Henry got married in a court back in February to get the paperwork moving. They had a wedding and reception in Honduras for Henry's family and friends in April. And so the wedding and reception here in Ohio in June was their third.

When they came up to Ohio before the wedding and stayed at our apartment for a couple days we went fishing. Byron had only been fishing one other time in his life, but he got the hang of casting out the line and relaxing in the breeze with the new fishing pole Hollie bought him. Henry caught a small fish that he wanted to cook for dinner, but we had to explain that our lake has a catch and release policy.

The month of June was so crazy busy, but all-in-all, we had a blast with family and friends. Celebrating these big moments in each other's lives bring us all closer. We are so grateful for all the people in our lives!