The Butler Did It!

Davin and I are in the school play this semester. It's a murder mystery comedy where you can see a whole new side of the Studers. Tickets go on sale this week in the JCA lobby. Let us know if you want us to reserve tickets for you on a particular day. Hope to see you there. It's going to be fun! When: Thursday-Saturday, April 26-28 at 7pm and Sunday, April 29 at 3pm Where: On Multnomah's campus in the A-frame How much: $5

Black Belt Test #1

Our friend Dave is currently a half-black belt. The other day he started his first of four black belt tests. Each of his tests are about an hour long ... just him. Here are some videos of his first test. These are his hand strike time trials. He had to do twenty hand strikes in under five minutes seconds.

Mowing Grass... Cool!

I got to mow grass the other day! Uh... so what? Actually, it was kinda exciting for me because it was my very first time ever! Yeah, I'm 27 and I had never mowed grass before Friday. I have three brothers - what can I say? I can get giddy about simple things and I love little adventures like mowing grass for the first time. When Davin got home from work, he asked if I giggled while I mowed. No... but almost. On Saturday I spent another 6 hours, pruning, weeding, and picking up flowers that dropped from our enormous bushes. We have flower beds around the entire perimeter of the house and garage, and they are badly overgrown. I currently have 10 garbage bags full of yard debris plus a pile of branches. Thankfully I can call the grounds crew to come haul it off. We have such a big yard, but I really love yard work. It's so refreshing for me. We'll have to have a summer backyard BBQ some day.

Out with the Red

So I decided to treat myself to a new do for my birthday. We colored my hair red in November which was fun, but now I was getting that lovely grow out look. Time to go back to something more natural. So I dished out the cash and 5 hours of my time last Saturday to get a color change and a weave. Putting the foils in my thick hair took forever! I looked like a strange Egyptian princess with a headdress on or something. In the end it was worth it. I love my new look! If you need a good salon check out Defining Image on NE Fremont. Ask for Tia. Everyone was super friendly and they really know their stuff. Their prices are reasonable if you don't need something major like a color change. I will definitely be going back... after I save up my money again.

A Day at the Zoo

The other day Gina invited me to go to the zoo with her and Addison. It had been years since I'd been there and it was a fun day out with the girls. My favorite picture is the one of the monkey who came over to look at Addison through the glass. I love watching otters play in the water, and we also got to see a bald eagle. We walked around for 3 hours and I was getting pretty tired, but I think Gina could have gone on for another 3! (She's an encouragement for me to exercise more so I can keep up with her.) Addison may not be old enough to fully appreciate seeing all the animals, but I know she'll have many trips to the zoo in the years to come.

The Land of Carcassonne

The Lees introduced Melissa and I to a game called Carcassonne a few months ago. It's a pretty fun game and you can buy expansion packs for it. The expansions aren't all that expensive and they add some fun new aspects to the game. Well, the other day we got together with the Lees and decided to combine all our expansions for the game. It was a long game. It took us three and a half hours to get through it. Also with that many expansions, strategy pretty much goes out the window. It was fun though. We played with the original game, the towers expansion, the rivers expansion, the inns and cathedrals expansion, the traders and builders expansion, and the princess and the dragon expansion. As you can see the board ended up taking up most of our table. We had so many game pieces that at first we had to put them all into a pillow case and draw pieces from it until we dwindled it down. Then we moved them to the smaller pouch that came with one of the expansions. There are still a couple expansions to buy, so we might be doing this again sometime. By the way Gina creamed us all.

A Good Future Daddy

Here's some pics with Davin and our friends' babies. Ah, aren't they cute?! When the Lees came over for games one night Addison was quite taken with Davin, so he got her out of her car seat, and she was just happy as pie to sit on his lap. I like how their outfits match. Last night we went over for dinner at the Swope's, and though Titus was full of energy all night, he calmed right down when Davin started reading a story to him. Luckily, I got this shot before the batteries in the camera completely died! A picture of Titus as promised. Davin's going to make the best dad ever! Many of you probably have a certain question in mind, and no, it's not our turn quite yet. Until it is, we'll enjoy playing with our friends' kids.

Taking my turn intern

About a month ago I decided that I wanted to get involved in the youth group at Central Bible. It's been a couple of years since I've done youth ministry so I figured it was time to get back into it. So, I approached Shon, the youth paster at Central Bible, about helping out with the junior high. He said that he would like that and that he wanted to set up a lunch meeting with me. We went to Burgerville for lunch and while we were eating he asked me what I thought about being the new junior high youth intern. The current youth intern was getting married (today in fact) and was moving to take a job as a youth pastor at a church. So, the junior high intern position was open. I thought and prayed and talked about it with Melissa and decided that I wanted to give it a shot. Shon also felt like it was a good thing. So, I am now the new junior high intern. This is going to be a stretching experience but I am looking forward to it. I imagine that I will be blogging more about this in the future.

Gwendolyn Ellen

Gwendolyn Ellen Swope was born on January 3rd. She's a very beautiful baby and looks a lot like her mama. Her middle name is Ellen after Ian's mom (the nurse at Multnomah and a team member of my department) who passed away in September. Ian and Clara have their hands full with this little bundle of joy and her big brother Titus. We should post some pictures of him, too. He's a cutie! Anyway, congratulations to the Swopes!

A Sweet Couple

This Valentine's Day I wanted to do something different. I happened to see a post on Dave Cross' blog about customized M&Ms. M&Ms happen to be Melissa's favorite candy. So, that was a convenient and easy decision ... although they happen to be the most EXPENSIVE M&Ms on the planet. But hey, they have a great message. I chose green and pink because green is my favorite color and pink is Melissa's favorite color. The message is kinda based loosely off our wedding vows ... which I guess you could find some weird connotation in us eating our love for each other. : ) Anyway, I also got her some roses the night before when she was at a friends house. I prepared them at home and cleaned up my mess. I then hiked them over to school along with the flower clippings and left them at work. I threw the flower debris away at school to hide the evidence. I also picked up a pop at the school cafe while I was there so that if Melissa came home while I was gone I could say that I was picking up a pop. Valentine's Day we went to a restaurant called Seasons and Regions. It was a decent restaurant. Unfortunately, I started getting sick that night and by morning the next day I was down for the count. All together though it was a fun night and Melissa was surprised.