Abby

My daughter, Abigail, was born last week!  It's been amazing to see the changes in our lives, and the almost daily changes for her, even in the first week.

The support we have received from family and friends has been truly appreciated, especially from our small group, who have provided dinners since we've come home.  It's such a simple thing, providing dinner, but it goes a long way.

Busy summer

So, as usual, I stopped posting to the blog as soon as things got interesting :)

I've really been enjoying photography, and have continued posting at my photo blog.  I've also recently been pretty active at http://photo.stackexchange.com, which is a Q&A site dedicated to photography.

My other hobby lately has been baking... I know, a guy who bakes.  Go ahead, laugh if you want, but good bread goes really well with grilled food.  Also, it's incredibly easy to do, and tastes great.

In other news, I'm going to be a dad in January, which is both exciting and a little scary.  I mean, I'm sure Amy and I will both be good parents, but it just doesn't seem right.  Either way, this is keeping us fairly busy trying to figure it all out and get things ready.

Add to that my work and involvement at church and Plainfield Lodge #653, which all makes the calendar a little more difficult to keep in order.  All in all, I wouldn't change a thing, but looking back through all that I'm not feeling as bad about ignoring the blog...

Christmas

Yesterday we had christmas at my parents house.  Although we had all already given most of our christmas gifts, it was really nice for Amy and I to have some time with everyone up here and exchange gifts again.  I think everyone was very happy with the gifts (I know I was). Afterwards we spent the afternoon/evening playing games.

I think one of my favorite parts was playing a card game my brother got us for christmas called Fluxx.  Basically, the whole idea of the game is that you have to lay the right cards to accomplish a simple goal... the fun comes with the rules... that are always changing (along with the goal that changes too!)  I'd never heard of it until yesterday, but it is an awesome game!

The other gift that I'm really excited about is a new camera lens (the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II).  It is a really simple lens which is good because it forces me to work a little more to get the shot i want. It's also creates much sharper images than the other lens I have, which I'm really excited about!

All in all, I had a great time and am looking forward to traveling up to Michigan later today for Amy's family's Christmas celebration.

End of the decade...

I ran across a great story today about dumb moments in technology from 2000-2009.  It's a great read and brings back some great memories of ideas I've had the pleasure to laugh at over the last 10 years.  I hope others enjoy it as much as I have!

Amazing evening, and a new camera

Not really that much to say, except that I'm really enjoying my new camera, and the sunset tonight was really spectacular.

Vacations

It's been a great summer, we've been able to take a week long vacation to colorado with my family, and we've already gotten to take two camping trips (hopefully 2 more this year).

It's always awesome to get out and enjoy nature, and I love that there are great parks near us! It's a lot of work to get everything packed/setup/tore down/cleaned/put away... but when it's all over it's always worth the work. Somehow it's still one of the most relaxing ways to spend a weekend...

Only way it could be better is if it didn't rain everytime (with our luck I doubt it).

House

It took a while, but all of the chimney/fireplace work is about done now! We still have a little bit of painting to do and we'll probably have some small drywall stuff taken care of, but all of the major work is done! It's been quite the process... and not one i'd like to deal with again, but in the end it all worked out great.

House news

It's been a busy couple months, and I ignored the blog for a bit. The biggest news is probably that our chimney fell off in a storm... not exactly my idea of fun, but I think it's going to work out fairly well in the end. For more details, check out Amy's blog.

In other news... we're not really loving our refrigerator... so we've started looking around for a new one, preferably a samsung or GE, but really, the main goal is a fairly well priced stainless steel french door fridge... Luckily we're in no rush, so we can take a little time and look around for a scratch and dent... preferably heavily discounted because of scratches on the left side... hahaha