Waterfall Adventure!

This past weekend, Paul and I went hiking to see 2 waterfalls. This is nothing abnormal; in fact, we try to hike to at least one waterfall each weekend. However, this waterfall hike was more...adventurous...than previous hikes. In theory, it was a hike to 2 waterfalls that was pretty close to our trailer and was "only" supposed to be a 30 minute hike. It quickly became clear to us though that this was NOT going to be that simple.

We have a book on South Carolina waterfalls and we are determined to see as many of the waterfalls in that book as possible. The ones we HAVE seen so far from the book had clear directions that did not steer us wrong. So off we went to see these waterfalls. We drove past Walhalla, past Yellow Branch falls, past Issaqueena falls, onto the very familiar Whetstone Road. The directions said: "In 0.7 miles, turn left onto Cassidy Branch Road." Check. Then it said: "Follow the road for 0.9 miles, then turn left onto Rich Mountain Road, which is gravel." So off we drove, and when the speedometer said 2 miles and we had not yet seen the specific road, we turned around in confusion and tried again. In theory, there was a ..."road" at the 0.9 mile spot, but there were no road signs indicating it was what we wanted. We even thought it was just a long driveway. However, there was nothing else that looked "road-like" in the area, so off we went down the gravel "road". The directions then said: "Follow this road for 3.2 miles and turn right onto Cedar Creek Road." Driving on a narrow, bumpy gravel road for 3.2 miles seems like an eternity, especially when you aren't even sure you are in the right place. It was crazy intense. There were no electricity poles, no traffic, no driveways, nothing. There was just this narrow road going up in the mountains with no way to turn around. In 3-ish miles, we saw the first intersection and after some discussion (once again, there were NO road signs to let us know if it was the correct Cedar Creek Road we were looking for), decided that it was probably the correct road. So off we went down this new road, that was even narrower and more bumpy and we just hoped we continued to see no traffic, since I have no idea what would have happened if we met another vehicle head-on. Next on the directions: "Follow this road for 2.5 miles to FS 2658 on the right and park by an earth mound." What? I suppose we should have read the directions before we left our trailer, since I didn't really know what this meant. After what seemed like another eternity going down a bumpy gravel road (at this point, I was feeling a bit car sick), we arrived at the 2.5 mile mark. On the right was a new road, which we assumed was FS 2658. We also assumed we needed to go down that road. However, the directions had some additional information: "this stretch MAY be passable in a 4-wheel drive vehicle." Yikes. We decided to park (there was a vague parking spot at this intersection), and just walk the rest of the way. As we got out of the car, I noticed an old, wooden sign that was in a ditch near the intersection that said "FS 2658", which gave us some confidence that this was actually where we were supposed to be.

So off we started on the hike, and I'm glad we walked down the road instead of driving, since it was hilly and steep and narrow and bumpy and I just KNOW I would have gotten carsick. As we walked in this forest on top of a mountain, we knew we were probably the only people in the area for miles. Our adrenaline was going crazy from the intense car ride and then Paul decided to make it worse by saying: "You know, this seems like the ideal place to see bears." Thanks for helping me calm down, Paul. I worsened the situation by replying: "I bet there's lots of snakes up here, too." So we held hands, made lots of noise and paid close attention to our surroundings. Next on the directions: "Go down FS 2658 to a T intersection. At the intersection, turn right onto FS 2656 at two large granite boulders placed on the roadbed to keep vehicles out." So off we went to the nearest intersection. Of course, it wasn't that easy when we got there. It was more of a 't' intersection than a 'T'. And there were two paths that were blocked by large granite boulders instead of just one. After some more discussion, we chose one of the two paths, and off we went, hoping for the best. At this point, Paul said: "Cris, this is sure one crazy adventure!" I replied, "No, if we make it home safely and in one piece, it was an adventure. Right now it's just scary!" Paul agreed.

Now the directions said: "Pass the first trail to the left and turn left onto the second trail, which is more of a wash than a trail." Okay, now things got really crazy. The leaves were all over the place, making it difficult to see any trails at all. I also don't think many people get out to this waterfall, so the trails all looked small and unused. We passed a "trail" that looked more like a path for deer. "Do you think that was the first trail?" I asked Paul. Paul studied the "trail" for a few minutes and replied: "Hmmm....maybe?" Then we passed another "trail" that looked vaguely like a wash. "Do you think we need to turn here?" I asked Paul. Paul studied the "trail" for a few minutes and replied: "Hmmm...maybe?" So we were just wandering down some abandoned road, not sure where we were and if we were going the right way. Fun stuff! We kept walking to see where the road would go and it turned a corner and we then could hear the waterfall. We also found another trail. This one was steep and covered with leaves, but there were plenty of roots to hold onto, and we could SEE the waterfall at the bottom of that trail. We decided this was probably the correct trail and started heading down. Thank goodness for hiking boots with good traction. With all the leaves, the trail was slippery, and we headed down by hanging onto plenty of tree roots. After the intense hike down the steep path, we were at the base of Cedar Creek Falls, the first of the two waterfalls. Success!

Notice my face is red from all the exercise I had just gotten from hanging on tree roots to get down there. :)

As we chilled at the base of the falls in order to catch our breath and just enjoy the scenery, we contemplated whether or not to go to the next waterfall. We could SEE the next waterfall, since this picture is taken at the middle point of both. On one side was the Cedar Creek Falls, on the other side was the beginning of Blue Hole Falls. We could see the water going over the edge for Blue Hole Falls. The waterfall book described Blue Hole Falls as "this trail is not recommended for the novice hiker because dense growth of rhododendron can make this a challenging hike." Since it was so difficult to get to the Cedar Creek Falls due to the slippery leaves, we weren't sure if we could handle the hike to the Blue Hole Falls. In fact, we could see the "trail" to the next falls: it was basically clinging to the slippery rocks a foot away from the Blue Hole Falls all the way down to the waters below. Yikes.

After some more discussion, we decided we would try. Paul would be the lead (the trail was too narrow to be side-by-side) and I told him that I completely trusted his judgement for the trail. If he ever thought that the trail got too difficult, we would stop and turn around. To start, there were two options for getting to the "trail": we could cross a log that went of the river/falls and climb a steep hillside covered with roots, OR we could take off our shoes and socks and walk across the river/falls and get to a flat surface to begin. We opted to cross the river barefoot. Please realize that where we crossed the river was mere feet before the plunge of the next waterfall. Also, it is November and the water was FREEZING! Paul went first and told me to keep low to the water, since the bottom of the river was slippery. Fortunately, there were sticks and things to hold onto as I crossed the freezing waters.

After we dried off our feet and put our shoes back on, we half-slid down rocks and half-clung to tree roots as we went down the steep "path". It was so intense! It was also, I must admit, tons of fun! :) We were about half-way down the "path" when Paul stopped and surveyed the next part. It was no wider than a balance beam and just as long as one. On the right side of this balance-beam-trail was a steep ascent of slippery rock with no roots to hold, on the left side of this was a steep descent of slippery rock that ended abruptly in a cliff over more rock. The narrow "trail" was covered with leaves as well. Paul decided that it was not safe to continue down the trail. It was disappointing, but we were glad that we made it half-way at least. The half way point ended up right next to the falls and looked like this:

This picture doesn't show the steepness of the rocks between me and the waterfall as well as it should. :)

It was a lovely place to rest and look at the Blue Hole below us:

It's too bad that we couldn't see the falls from the bottom of the mini-lake, but that's okay. Our view was pretty spectacular too. :) After enjoying the views of beautiful blue water and hearing the roar of the powerful waterfall, I noticed that I was starting to get really, really tired. When I mentioned it to Paul, he noticed that he was also getting tired. Our adrenaline was wearing out. It was time to make it back before we ran too low on energy.

This was when we realized that getting down was the easy part. On the way down, while it was terrifying to slide down rocks, we had gravity on our side. Now we were looking at slippery rocks that we had to somehow climb UP. Oops. It was exhausting work, which combined belly-crawling up the rock faces with pulling up our bodies with any nearby tree roots. At one point, I had to push Paul up a rock and when he got to the top, he reached down and practically dragged me up after him.

Then we had to recross the river, and my poor feet hurt from the cold water. "Ow Ow Ow!" I cried while casually hopping from one foot to another on a rock mere feet from the waterfall edge in order to get some feeling in my feet again. Paul showed off by casually walking in the water barefoot and taking his time. Psh. :) We were really struggling to continue the hike at this point. We still had to drag ourselves up the steep path to the abandoned road. That was really hard to do since our energy levels were by then super low. When we made it to the road, I was nodding off and practically sleeping on the path. It took forever to make it back to the vehicle, since we were both about ready to fall asleep. Then we got in the vehicle and started on the gravel roads back to civilization. The bumpiness of the roads woke us up, and then we realized how hungry we were. Thank goodness for leftover burritos at home that just had to be warmed up!

"When I get home, I'm eating THREE burritos!" I told Paul. Paul replied: "I'm going to eat four!" Psh, he always has to show off. :)

Since we made it home safely, I can now say that it was an amazing adventure! We had a lot of fun and have now learned to read directions to waterfalls before leaving to see them. Also, the burritos were amazing. :)

Enjoying Our Time in the Highs and Lows of SC

For the last two weekends, Paul and I have been enjoying the "highs and lows" of South Carolina. What does that mean? Simply that one weekend was spent in the higher mountains in the area and one weekend was spent in the flat marshlands bordering the ocean. :) As always, South Carolina never fails to make us happy and both experiences were amazing.

The first weekend:
*We knew that we wanted to go up to some of the higher mountains in our area when the leaves started changing colors. What better way to truly appreciate the coming of the Fall Season than by looking out at tree-covered mountains bathed in reds, golds, and greens? We tried to go up to Caesar's Head State Park to do this fall-viewing adventure for two weekends in a row and both weekends that plan failed. Both times something came up that made us do other adventures instead. I think that was God's way of saying: 'Don't worry, I'll let you go there when it's perfect!' The weekend we finally got to go to Caesar's Head, the weather was amazing (sunny and warm!) and the leaf colors were the best they could be. It was too beautiful to truly capture in pictures, but here is one of my favorites:

It was the best way to appreciate Fall. I have never had such an amazing Fall experience before. After the views, we went on a hike that we had done in Spring when we were still contemplating moving to Upstate SC. As before, it was a splendid hike full of secret waterfalls and other delights. This time, we went a little bit farther on the trail and scrabbled off-path to see this stunning waterfall:

I think this twisted tree in the picture makes the waterfall even more magical and pretty looking. :) We also intentionally went to Caesar's Head State Park to see our Fall Colors because they have something that goes on every Fall Season called the 'Hawk Watch'. Apparently, during October and November, hawks and some eagles from the north migrate down south and always stop at Caesar's Head for a rest. Some days you can see thousands of hawks in the sky at the same time! So we went and eagerly hoped to see this awesome sight. At first, we saw no hawks. We were bummed and went off on our hike with a bit of disappointment. However, we decided to go back to the overlook for another try after our hike. Again, we were not seeing any hawks. Then I noticed a guy staring off in one direction with some binoculars. We looked in the same direction and BOOM! there were at least 30 hawks in the sky. It was a really cool sight and we left our mountains feeling very satisfied and happy.

The second weekend:
*We went to Hunting Island State Park on Hunting Island near Beaufort and on the ocean. It was a really cool campground and if we had reserved a site earlier, we could have had a tent right next to the ocean! However, there was a hurricane brewing about 300 miles offshore, so it was really windy and the waves were HUGE, so I am kinda glad that our sight wasn't that close to the ocean this time. :) We plan to always camp near the ocean in the fall because it's one of the best times to catch huge shrimp, crabs, and fish. However, with the hurricane making a ruckus, we ended up only catching crabs and we bought fish and shrimp (for a cheap price!) before we left. Oh well! There are always other years. Anyway, Paul had read about how you can cook crabs right on the fire coals, so we gave it a try and it was so much fun (and delicious) that we had crabs on the fire every night! Here's a delicious picture:

This was a great way to eat crab while camping. We also decided to go to an 'all-you-can-eat' crab legs restaurant while we were in town because it was a good price for such an amazing feast. It was awesome. However, by the time we left, we were ready to be done with crab-eating for a while. :) It was a beautiful time on the ocean. The moon was full and bright, the palm trees made the trip seem tropical, and Paul found me some sand dollars on the beach!

We had a relaxing time full of fishing and eating and walking the beaches, and we look forward to going back again some time in the Spring.

South Carolina is still making us pretty happy when it comes to scenery and activities. The only thing that could make our lives happier would be having visitors! We would seriously LOVE to have people visit us! Come thrive in this heavenly paradise with us!

We still look forward to seeing family and friends at Christmas time. Until then, stay classy...

~Cris and Paul

October is Warm, and so is My Heart

Cris is still slacking on her bloggering duties so I guess it's my job again this week.  The weather here has been AMAZING! and I don't use exclamation marks lightly!!  I have gone windsurfing twice this week and I didn't even need a wet suit.  On Monday the wind was super strong (I think surfers would say it was 'off the hizzy' or something like that) so I was moving faster than I've ever gone.  That also means that I fell a lot and have tons of bruises and sore muscles still.  There aren't words to describe how dope (another surfer word as far as I know) it is to ride on top of the water at 20mph while looking at the mountains over a beautiful blue lake.  I would imagine I felt just like the guy in this picture, but more sore:

Cris was totally amazing and helped to carry all my surfing stuff down to the lake both times.

We also went on a hike at Keowee Toxaway State Park which is one of a few free state parks in the SC.  We were planning to go to Caesar's Head, but the weather started going south (which happened to be towards us) so we changed plans.  It was a relatively easy hike compared to some we've been on, but there was still plenty of cool stuff to see.  There were some giant boulders, one of which made a natural bridge over a stream with a waterfall.

There were also a lot of other places where we went off the trail (don't tell anyone) to see other waterfalls.  Cris always looks super sexy in her giant guys hiking boots, so I have a hard time staying on the trail. 

 We have gone on a lot of hikes in the past few months, but there are still a ton that we haven't done yet.  What a great place to live.  Everyone should move down here and buy us land.  

Work is still pretty great.  I'm getting a little sick of all the paperwork (is it still called paperwork if it's on computer?) that I have to do on a daily basis.  I always like to concentrate on what is best for students' learning so the other stuff gets neglected a little bit.  I still can't believe how respectful my students are compared to the past five years.  I haven't heard a single student swear and they all say 'yes sir' and 'have a good day'.  I also haven't heard of or seen any drugs, weapons, or sexual activity.  

Cris is still kickin' butt by volunteering at the coop (not the chicken kind, the two syllable kind) and growing veggies in our 'yard'.  We've been having salads made with fresh grown romaine lettuce and will soon have broccoli and spinach.  She's an amazing cook and pretty decent company, so living in a trailer is still tolerable.  We are going to try our hand at hydroponics soon, so we'll see how that goes.  

We are both looking forward to going home over Christmas and can't wait to see family and friends.  If anyone (except inlaws) is around between Christmas and January 3ish, let us know!

Diving, Thriving, and Living

It has been a busy few weeks for me (Paul).  I was miserable for over a week with the flu and had poison ivy on top of that.  I'm not sure how I got poison ivy in my ear, but I don't recommend it to all of our loyal readers (all three of you).  I'm also not sure how I got the flu, unless it was a computer virus.  I don't even see my students anymore and yet they still transmit all their diseases.  Despite being miserable, I still enjoyed catching up on my video games that have been feeling neglected lately.  So many things that need attention and so little time; my guitar is calling to me right now since she hasn't felt my loving embrace for several days.

I've come to realize that SCUBA diving is awesome.  This past weekend I finished my certification course so I can now go diving all over the place without any annoying instructors telling me to 'put on my goggles BEFORE going under water' or 'take out your regulator (mouthpiece) after surfacing'.  They can be so naggy.  For those of you who don't really know how SCUBA works, you have a vest that you can inflate with air from your tank, a regulator that gives you air from the tank to breath, a backup regulator in case your primary doesn't work, 16 pounds of weights, and a mask with a snorkle and fins.  We also got to wear super-sexy wetsuits.
     This weekend, we went to Lake Jocassee which looks like this:

 It's several hundred feet deep and crystal clear (visibility is usually over 30 feet).  The first day we planned to just go over everything we learned in the pools at around 15 feet of depth.  I got all of my gear set up and sat down to wait for the rest of the class to get ready.  My buddy (you always dive with a buddy in case you run out of air) turned my air on for me and we were surprised to hear a hissing noise coming from where my tank was attached to the regulator.  I naturally assumed it was some sort of snake, but my instructor was nice enough to ease my fears by saying "that's just an O-ring that is going bad".  I stared at him waiting for him to tell me what to do to remedy our little life-threatening problem but he just moved on to another student.  Later he flippantly told me that there is nothing to worry about as long as I monitor how much air I have left.  By this point I was feeling a little nervous, but he seemed to know what he was talking about so I followed him out to deeper water.  As a class, we let the air out of our BC (vest) and sunk slowly to the bottom.  Unfortunately, the result of 9 people coming down on the bottom and kicking our flippers stirred up the water and visibility went down to about 4 feet.  I was feeling okay, I popped my ears and slowed my breathing and was totally ready for all our little exercises.  Then my partner calmly swam over and pointed towards my tank and somehow mimed that there were bubbles coming out.  Sure enough, there was a steady stream of bubbles leaking out of my tank and I could barely see well enough to check how much air I had left.  I was a bit nervous.  Luckily, the instructor only kept us down for about ten minutes and the water cleared a little.  When we got to the surface, I had gone through over 1000 psi of tank pressure and everyone else had gone through less than half that.  The instructor once again told me that I'd be okay, so the rest of the dive consisted of frequently checking my air supply and hoping the O-ring didn't give out in one giant suffocating explosion.  We went through all of our exercises where we let water into our goggles and then used air from our nose to clear it out.  We also pretended to be low on air (I was really good at that by this point) and my buddy had to give me his regulator and help me to the surface.  It was a ton of fun, but I could have done without the nervousness.

On Sunday, we went back to Jocassee for a fun dive and to finalize our certification.  Our first dive was down to about 30 feet, which was by far the deepest I've gone.  On the way down I struggled with equalizing pressure in my ears and blowing out through my nose so that the mask doesn't suck my eyeballs out.  We all made it down safely and followed our instructor to where a sunken boat should have been.  Visibility was much better but when we got to the spot, there was no boat to be found.  We hung out for a while while the instructor looked for the boat and it ended up being about 100 yards further out.  Somebody must have moved it.  It was kinda disappointing to not be able to see that wreck, but the next dive made up for it.  We surfaced and hung out for 10 minutes to let our bodies recover then went back down.  There was a rope to follow to see all the stuff that people had put down there.  We dove down to about 45 feet and then followed the rope to see a cemetery that someone had put there (there aren't really people buried there), a sunken sailboat that we could swim around and look inside, and some skeletons in lawn chairs just chillin'.  It was really cool to float by and see all the fish and how different everything looks underwater.

After the dive I was exhausted and hungry enough to eat Cris' cooking.  We're going back to dive again sometime in the next couple weeks.  The cemetery at the end of the movie 'Deliverance' is underwater somewhere as well as several bigger wrecks, so it should be a ton of fun.

Despite being sick, life here is still totally awesome.  Cris and I went swimming with Achilles again yesterday and the water was still close to 80 degrees.  That's right, warm swimming in October!  Achilles can now keep up with me while swimming for a tennis ball, so I need to either get in better shape or break one of her legs.
Work is also pretty good.  I just got assigned another class with 50 more students.  Now I'm up to 220 students with three classes to prep for.  It's still the least stressful teaching job that I can imagine so I won't complain.
We are planning a long weekend by the coast to catch some shrimp, crabs, and maybe oysters.  My goal is to catch a fish, some shrimp and crabs and then immediately cook them over a campfire.  It should be a lot of fun, and a friend might come along too.  Super exciting.

Busy and Active!

Okay, I just realized that it has been a month since we last posted anything! Time flew by! Seriously, I had no idea it was this much later in the year. :) We have been keeping our weekends nice and busy doing fun activities and I guess we kept putting off writing on a blog. However, at this very moment, Paul is sick and laying on the couch and I am extremely fatigued (I think my body is fighting his sickness), so even though it is a Saturday afternoon, I finally have a moment to sit and write about our activities in the past month.

Since it has been forever, I can't quite remember the order of events, but here are the things we have done for the past four weekends:

1) We went hiking to some minor waterfall (seriously, it was so minor that it wasn't worth taking pictures of it!) and since it was lame, we kept hiking in the mountains until we got tired. We then turned around and walked back down the same path to get back to our vehicle. As we walked, Paul was ahead of me on the path and walked next to a tree. When he passed the tree, his bag brushed the "tree", which turned out to be the biggest snake I have ever seen in the wild! This 4-5 foot snake had been sleeping/resting vertically on the tree within inches of Paul! The snake, now startled, flung itself from the tree...at me! Now, I don't know if the snake was purposely moving towards me or if it was just trying to get away from Paul, but I didn't know if it was poisonous and it just kept coming toward me! I was running backward as fast as I could. Then the snake suddenly ambled lazily into the woods next to the path. It didn't really run away, it just went in the woods and Paul and I stood pretty close to it while looking up the snake in our animal book. It turns out it was an Eastern Racer, which likes to chill out in trees and while aggressive, is not poisonous. WHEW! That was a crazy adventure. After our encounter with the snake, the rest of the hike was full of paranoia looking for more snakes in trees. Seriously, I never knew that snakes could rest on a tree in such a vertical position. I learned something new! Also, it's crazy that the snake decided to rest there between the time we first went by the tree and then when we turned around and came back. Adventure! Wee!

Eastern Racer (snake)

2) We went to Chattooga Belle Farm to pick apples, raspberries, and figs. I found a pamphlet for this farm at our post office and thought it would be fun to pick apples, since we do this every year. I did NOT know that it would be the most beautiful farm I have ever been to! As we picked apples, we stared at the glorious mountains. It was so amazing that we kept stopping after every tree to hold hands and just gape at the glorious natural setting. I can understand why they have weddings there! God's beauty was everywhere!


3) We went on a "Surfin' Safari" and also to a Clemson University football game. Remember when Paul brought me to an awesome food and wine show in Madison? The Surfin' Safari was similar to that. It was a benefit thingy for the Greenville Zoo, and it took place in the Zoo at night. There were almost 60 tables set up throughout the zoo with either wine or food on them for you to sample. It was crazy though, because they gave you a HUGE sample of wine, and you could go back to the tables as much as you wanted. I was ready to be done drinking after 10 tables! Seriously, who can handle more than 6 glasses of wine in one night? NOT this girl! The food was good as well. I wish the animals were more interesting, but really, when it becomes nightfall, you can't see them anymore, so that was kinda disappointing. The food was good, but not comparable to the chef-like quality to the food at the Madison food and wine show. It was still lots of fun! How can endless amounts of food and wine be anything BUT fun?!? Then the next day we went to a Clemson football game. I had never been to a Division One football game, so I was pretty nervous (about the height of the stadium and crowds) and excited. It was awesome! We had a blast. Paul was kind to me and spent a little bit extra money on seats that weren't ridiculously high up. We bought Clemson shirts (I think that officially makes us fit in down here!) and got to witness the longest successful kick in this division (61 yards!). It was a great weekend!

4) We went to Yellow Branch Falls and brought our dog! We were originally going to go to Cedar Creek Falls, but on the way there we missed a road and got stuck going down a narrow gravel road in the wrong direction. In case you didn't know, our dog gets carsick (which is why it took this long to bring her with us). We thought she was better, and maybe she would have made it if we hadn't missed the correct road. Anyway, she barfed in the car and we had to stop and clean it up and walk her around. After cleaning up and realizing the the actual road we had to go on was 6 miles of MORE gravel road (which clearly resulted in a sick dog), I got disheartened and suggested we just go home. We were stopping every few hundred feet to let the dog out because she was about to get sick again. It just wasn't any fun. So we headed back home. We were finally on normal roads again when the dog looked like she was going to be sick again. I hurriedly told Paul to get off the road as soon as he could. He quickly turned into what was called "Yellow Branch Picnic Area". Of course, the dog decided to throw up in the car the moment Paul pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car. *So close!* :( So there we were, cleaning up the car again, and even more discouraged since we still had quite the distance to cover before getting home. That's when we noticed a sign that was mere feet from where we parked: "Yellow Branch Waterfall: 1.4 miles". A miracle! We knew the dog needed some time before trying to go in the car again AND we had wanted to see a waterfall! The only issue was that it was a longer distance than our original waterfall destination, and we had not packed a lunch (the original trip was going to be done by lunch time and we had not planned to stop constantly for the dog). Also, we only had three water bottles. However, we did it anyway with plenty of stops for rest! The dog did a GREAT job. We took her off her leash and she calmly walked the paths in the lead, but did not get so far ahead that we couldn't see her. The waterfall was beautiful and of course, wherever Paul tried to walk, the dog followed! That made for some entertainment (and worry from me). :)

Yellow Branch Falls

Paul captured a salamander!

Achilles - the Majestic Ruler!

So yeah, those are the activities that we have been doing for our weekends. We have been super busy and super happy! :) The downer is that Paul was sick this past week and now has poison ivy (possibly from our Yellow Branch hike) and I might be getting sick as well. Boo! So we have a lazy weekend, but hey, after our last four weekends, I think we can afford a bit of lazy time. :)

~Cris

Our New Puppy: Achilles

For those that didn't know, our beautiful dog Athena passed away earlier this summer. She was very sickly with an asthma-type illness, so we knew she would not live much longer, but our hearts still mourned her passing.

When she died, I sobbed to Paul that I didn't even want to think about getting a new dog for a long LONG time. Silly me. After just a few weeks without a dog, I missed it. Since I am never having children, dogs fill a void for that annoying maternal instinct that all women (including me) seem to have. I was going crazy in our little trailer without a dog to spoil and snuggle. So I started looking for a new one.

We had already decided that our next dog would either be a Labradoodle (Labrador Retriever and Poodle mix) or a Shepadoodle (German Shepherd and Poodle mix). Why? Because both of these breeds do not shed (Athena would shed handfuls of hair every single day! We couldn't have that much hair in a trailer...). Also, both breeds are good for people with allergies. I don't think we have allergies against dogs, but we have friends that do, so it would be nice if they didn't have to sniffle and sneeze every time they visited.

Both of these breeds are super intelligent, kind, easily trained, and all those other traits to make a perfect dog. Shepadoodles only differed in that they are extremely loyal -to the point where they want to follow you from room to room. The problem was that both of these breeds are pretty expensive. They are popular right now (due to their amazing qualities), and Paul and I just could not reason with spending over 1000 bucks on a puppy. I kept looking and just prayed that if God wanted us to fill our household void with a puppy, the perfect puppy (and reasonably priced) would appear online.

Lo and behold, our puppy was available! God rocks. :) I found an adorable puppy online and she was reasonably priced! Here's why: at a breeder's home where the lady bred Labradoodles and Shepadoodles, her male Shepadoodle escaped his kennel and had a lovely time with a female Labradoodle. The result? A batch of "Double-Doodle" puppies. :) Since neither group of Doodle-searching families wanted this kind of mutt (I call her a 'fancy high bred mutt'), she was cheaper than most Doodle dogs. Huzzah for us!

We named her Achilles (shh...she doesn't need to know that it is a boy's name!), since we go for a Greek/Roman theme with our dog names. She is definitely a mix of both types of doodles. She has webbed feet and LOVES swimming like Labs/Labradoodles, but she has the coloring and extreme loyalty of a Shepadoodle. Seriously, if she is napping and you get up to go to the bathroom, she wakes up and falls back asleep next to the bathroom door. Totally cute (but I'm sure it will be occasionally annoying). So far, her hair is only a tiny bit wavy, but with 50% poodle in her, we wouldn't be surprised if she gets more curly hair as she grows older.

So far, things are mostly good with a new puppy. Although note to self: with future puppies, make sure you and Paul have NOTHING going on when you get one since they need lots of attention! She has figured out the whole potty training thing pretty well, though we still watch her closely. She knows lots of tricks already, she loves swimming and playing catch, and she loves snuggling by our feet. When you raise your voice to her, she always immediately stops what she is doing and sits down. It's pretty cool.

The only problem right now is that I am super paranoid about the puppy's health. Since our last dog was sickly, every time our puppy has anything slightly sickly happen (breathing hard from the heat, coughing up dog food from eating too fast, etc.), I freak out and Paul has to calm me down. Hopefully I get better and relax in the future. I am just not used to a healthy dog that loves running and swimming!

Life is good right now for our little family in our little trailer. Hope you all have great days too! :)

~Cris

Back to the Grind

Cris finally decided to let me (Paul) post on "her" blog.  Whatever happened to what's her's is mine?
Well, I've been working now for a couple weeks after the shortest summer ever.  Sadly, we had to miss Young State Park due to work trainings and dinners.  Work feeds me way too well.  I swear, every time I have to go to a meeting I end up eating Mexican twice.  Not sure who orders the food, but I assume it must be the dude wearing the sombrero.
My official title is 'online math teacher'.  It's a pretty prestigious position.  Basically, I sit at home and help students when they need help and occasionally teach a class. So far it's pretty sweet.  I roll out of bed around 8 and log on and take lunch whenever I feel like it.  I do work in the same building with this one annoying girl who keeps singing and making me lunch.  My school (that's right, it's mine already) is called Connections Academy, so if you want to know more about it just google it.
I'm not sure yet if this is going to be a long-term job or just another stepping stone towards becoming a ninja.  I finished my masters in math this summer so I could teach in college.  Or else I'll just forget everything I know about math and start a fishing guide business.  Or, if Cris gets her way, an emu farm.
The downside to working here is that I'm stuck most days in my tiny little office.  However, my office is about a 2 minute walk to one of the best lakes I've ever been to.  Still trying to figure out how to set up an office on my boat.
Life has been pretty chill.  I still feel like we're on permanent vacation.  There are still tons of chores (like windsurfing or fly-fishing) to do and not enough time.  Wish I had a picture of a giant fish to put on this post, but sadly the biggest fish I've caught this summer is a bluegill.  Soon.
Cris got me SCUBA lessons for my birthday.  They start tomorrow.  Once I find out what SCUBA stands for I'll probably be pretty excited.  I assume it has something to do with crime-fighting great dane.
I do miss friends and family up north, but we have better family down here.  Looking forward to coming home over Christmas.   Over and out.

Settled in Upstate South Carolina

Wow, this past month has gone by in a blur of excitement and adventure! I don't know where to begin. I suppose I will just give a "brief" overview of what happened since we moved down here and give you some pictures of our place as well...

Week One:
*We moved down here and stayed in an extended-stay hotel. Paul had his interview in Columbia for an online teaching job (the DREAM JOB!). After that, the plan was to find an RV and RV campground to live in for at least a year. However, after visiting RV campground after RV campground, we quickly became depressed and stressed. You see, I assumed RV campgrounds were like normal campgrounds but with permanent RV's in them. However, every place we visited was so cramped that I knew I could never live in them. Some were so cramped that you could open a window of one RV and very very easily touch the neighboring one. There was no yards, barely even places to park vehicles, and it just was not what we wanted. We didn't know what to do anymore. I got to the point where all I wanted to do was break down and cry and run back to our old lives.

*However, God rocks! He really does. Here's what happened: we couldn't take it anymore and had no clue what to do. We decided to look on craigslist 'one more time' and found a new posting of a RV for sale in a RV campground that we hadn't seen before (and you can't find it on google maps!). We went to see it and fell IN LOVE with the campground. There is grass! There are yards! There is decent space between trailers! It was surrounded by mountains and Lake Keowee! However, the RV camper itself was not really what we wanted: it did not have a slide-out, so it felt extremely cozy. They took out the mattress, so we would have to buy one right away in order to live in it. The porch was nice, but not enclosed, so we wouldn't have extra room. Some things were falling apart and needed to be fixed. It was still a bit pricey. We left the place feeling confused: should we live in the RV and deal with its' shortcomings because of the location? We went to Subway for lunch in the area to talk it over. We prayed about it together while eating our not-very-delicious-subs, and decided to go back and talk to the campground owners to learn more about the location. If the campground owners were nice and helpful, maybe we would deal with an uncomfortable RV trailer. So we went back and went right to the office. Anyone who knows me and Paul already knows that this was completely out of our comfort zone. We aren't good talking to strangers. We went to the office and buzzed for entrance. No answer. Paul buzzed again. No answer. We looked at each other and really wanted to get out of there, we were so uncomfortably awkward. "Should I try again?" Paul asked me nervously. "Yes, one more time." I said with just as much nervousness. He buzzed again. This time, the owner-lady answered! Huzzah! We went in and told her about the place we were interested in and how we wanted to know more about the campground. She immediately informed us about a NEW place for sale in the campground: it was bigger, it had a slide-out, it had an enclosed porch, and it was CHEAPER than the place we were looking at before! My jaw actually dropped like on cartoons. Seriously, it was like God was guiding us to this exact point and everything was just coming together. We looked the place over and fell in love! We started the contract and buying proceedings and started the drive back to our hotel with happy hearts. Just when we thought that things couldn't get better: the phone rang and Paul pulled over off the road to answer. It was soon evident from the look on Paul's face and the questions he was answering that HE GOT THE ONLINE TEACHING JOB! It was seriously the best day ever. We found a place to live and Paul got a job in one day. Like I said before: God rocks!

Our trailer/home (notice the grassy lawn!)

Week Two:
*Paul's parents visited
*We experienced some heartache when a loved one passed away
*We went swimming in Lake Hartwell, Lake Jocassee, and Lake Keowee
*We saw many waterfalls
*We tried to settle in and move a house's amount of belongings into a trailer

Week Three:

Another view of our new home! 

*Paul studied his brains out for his Master's test. If he passed, he got a Master's degree in mathematics. If he did not, he would have to try again (not good)
*Paul took his test
*Paul PASSED his test!
*I organized things and cleaned things and applied to jobs

Week Four:
*Misc. stuff to make our trailer a home
*Officially moved everything out of storage and squeezed it all into every available nook and cranny at our trailer

Where we plan to eat our dinners

*Lots of hikes! Lots of waterfalls! Lots of fishing! Lots of swimming!

Week Five:
*Rick and Kyle came to visit: lots of hikes, waterfalls, fishing, and swimming!

Our enclosed porch (a bit messy still)

The inside: our living room and kitchen

Paul made this counter so I have more kitchen space.

We fit our TV in here! 

An extra bedroom serves as Paul's office

Our cozy bedroom

So here we are now, finally settled down a bit and we have time (and internet access finally!) to post pictures of our place. I promise to take more pictures of the yards and landscape and area and post them at some point. Also, God willing, there will be a fun post soon about some exciting news!

Moving and Milwaukee: A perspective

We move to South Carolina in a few hours. I am so excited that even though it's 4am, I can't sleep. Sleep problems aren't usually something I have to deal with, so this is a somewhat new experience. However, like everything else in the last 2 days, I am too cheerful right now to be concerned with how a lack of sleep might affect me later. WE ARE MOVING AWAY FROM MILWAUKEE IN LESS THAN A DAY! It's finally happening. Is everything from our Milwaukee chapter neatly closed off? Not a chance. We still haven't sold our house and there are quite a few belongings that we can't fit in a trailer and bring with us. They will either be free on the curb or remain in the house for future Cris/Paul to deal with for when the house finally isn't our problem anymore. Maybe a nice couple will buy our home this weekend and be like: "Ooh, look, the house came with a mattress, couch and chair, rugs, a desk, and a dining room table set! Score!" That would be sweet. Then we wouldn't have to spend even more money on this place by hiring a company to haul it all out.

Moving to another state is certainly way more expensive than I even imagined. We knew it would be rough, but we have been saving for this for quite some time. However, when you think you have a few weeks to sell things and then it turns out you only have a few days (Paul has a second interview in SC this Thursday and it's cheaper to move now than drive down for the interview and then come back up and pack, etc.), then you try to sell perfectly reasonable things for WAY cheaper than necessary. For example, my sweet beloved car is a Hyundai with 94,000 miles on it. Perfect shape and drives great, just needs the air condition to be recharged, has some cosmetic issues, and the back doors stick so they are difficult to use. We are currently asking for 1,000 bucks for it. It makes me cringe. We put our awesome brown faux-leather couch and chair, only 3 years old and in perfect condition, up for sale for 500 bucks. No takers yet, which surprises me. We also have brought tons and tons of our stuff to a local thrift store (lucky store). Roller blades, nice clothes, nintendo games and a nintendo DS, frames, pictures, kitchen gadgets, and much more have been brought to the thrift store. It's sad to see them go, but there's no room. We had to buy a closed utility trailer for our belongings, so hopefully we can sell it for a similar price when we get down there. Yup, moving to another state is expensive. And scary. Where are we going to live? That's what everyone asks and we have no idea. Are we supposed to buy a place to live without even visiting it? We have to wait until we get down there. So it's a bit of a gamble: we are going to stay in a hotel for a week and by the end of that week, we hope to have a place to live. No pressure or anything. :)

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my final thoughts on Milwaukee so I better get focused (hard to do at now 5am, but I'll give it a try). We have been in Milwaukee for 5 years. It was the second stage of our married life. The first stage was our naive honeymoon phase, where we were still getting our undergrad degrees, living on campus, and eating free food given to us from our awesome parents. :) That lasted about a year. Then we moved to Milwaukee so that I could go to graduate school and thus began Stage Two of our lives, which I suppose should be called our 'Learning Stage'.

 Here's a few things that we have learned from being here in Milwaukee:

(1): We are not city people
**Our time in Milwaukee has been a bit miserable for us because we learned that we hate city life. We learned through these five years that our favorite hobbies include: fishing, hiking, sailing, going to wineries, gardening, making crafts and furniture, etc. None of these are good hobbies for people who live in the city. They all take place hours away from cities, so it has been rough. We do NOT like: going to bars, going to baseball games, going to museums, and other city-type activities. When holiday breaks come, we leave the city as fast as we can. On normal weekends we are bored out of our minds. Thus we learned that we cannot ever again live inside a city. We need a few country acres near a lake to be happy.

(2): Midwestern social and cultural ways do not fit with us
**Paul and I are terribly shy and awkward around strangers. It takes us a long, long time to feel comfortable around people. The few people we got along with here in Milwaukee were from other states. We would become friends and then they soon left us for their awesome states again and we would be friendless once again. We need to live in a place where people are nice and outgoing to strangers and newcomers. This is one of the reasons we are going to move to the South. Every time we visit the South, people are so friendly that we forget our awkward ways. When we came to Milwaukee, we knew no one and had no friends. As we leave, we only have Rick, a friend from Michigan and a few other nice people that we know but weren't really friends with from Milwaukee. That's right, we arrived with no friends and left with no friends. Sigh...it's been a tough five years, but we did learn that we need to try a less snobbish/cold culture than the Midwest.

(3): There are a lot of bad people out there
**In rural Michigan, Paul and I were pretty laid back and trusting when it came to other people. We both came from households that were pretty laid back about locking house doors at night. Then we moved to Milwaukee and learning quite a lot about bad people. We were here for only a few months when our car's window was busted and our car was robbed. That was the first break in our naive understanding of the world. We learned that we could no longer ever leave anything valuable in our car. We learned that you can't have a nice radio system in the car or a nice GPS, basically don't leave anything nice in a car in Milwaukee. Our next two vehicles in Milwaukee were involved in parking lot hit-and-runs. Our second car we owned here had the front right almost completely ripped away from the vehicle in a hit-and-run. Instead of getting it professionally fixed (why spend a lot of money on a car if it might get in another of these type of incidents?), we bought good glue and glued it back together. Thanks for the lesson, Milwaukee, that there are bad people in the world. Our newest vehicle was also involved in a hit-and-run, but that was only minor: a few scratches on the back bumper and a busted back light. How tragic, though, that we have had such bad vehicle experience here. I also learned about how college campuses can be dangerous because of bad people. At UWM, there were robberies done to students walking near school almost every day. I was lucky enough to avoid that, but they emailed everyone whenever it happened and the amount of emails I was getting everyday made me freak out. At Marquette, I had to take the public bus to school everyday, where I was scared for my life every single time. Druggies, homeless people, alcoholics (sometimes all three in one), gang members, violent people who argued with bus drivers and had police come on board, etc. It was terrifying. I couldn't even walk from the bus stop to my house without creepy men (multiple times!) stopping their cars next to me and asking me if I wanted a ride or saying other creepy things. I no longer can be in my front yard without Paul home and the dog at my side. When Rick moved into his house, it wasn't even one month before his home was robbed. He lived right down the street from us, so we also learned that we weren't safe even in our own house. Yep, Milwaukee taught us that there are lots and lots of bad people in this world. We have heard multiple gun shots just down the street from us, we have had police with guns drawn in our yard as they inched carefully to raid our neighbor's drug stash, we have had people knock on our door to tell us that bad people are driving down alleys throwing rat poison in yards just to purposely kill dogs, and we even had an armed robber use our yard as a getaway point, so that detectives stopped by to take pictures of our place and yard. We no longer feel safe anywhere if the doors aren't locked or a dog isn't around to give protection. I can't go for walks alone anymore, even with mace in my hand. I hope someday we meet enough nice people that we can stop being so paranoid about the bad people. I hope what we learned about people in the world can be made more positive in our next stage of life.

(4): God is in control of our lives, not us
**When we moved to Milwaukee, I was one of the most career-driven people out there. As long as I can remember, I was dreaming and perfectly planning out my career and life. First, I would get my Master's degree, then my PhD, then I would get a professor gig and life would be grand. We originally moved to Milwaukee so that I could get my Master's degree. It was a success, and I must admit, I felt on top of the world, maybe even a bit smug. Then I applied for PhD schools and I got accepted into two of them. I was even more sure that my life was going exactly how I planned. I decided on Marquette University and started inching even closer to fulfilling my dreams. However, Marquette was a nightmare. It was very easily the worst year of my life. It is the worst school EVER. Anyway, after months of crying, stress, and depression, I dropped out of their PhD program. Fortunately, I got adjunct professor jobs immediately afterwards. I made my dreams come true: I was a professor! Except that then reality crashed down on me. Adjunct jobs don't pay much. It was enough money to cover the food that I personally ate, and not much else. I could not make a living like this. Professor jobs make me incredibly happy, but they do not make my wallet very happy. I started substitute teaching on the side to make ends meet. It worked out, but now we are about to move and I have no idea what I will do for work when we move. We are moving somewhere with less big Universities. So far, I have had no bites for adjunct professor jobs in SC. People keep asking me what I am going to do for a job when we move and I have no idea. For the first time in my life, I have no career goals driving me. And I am okay with it. I had a career-dream, and I made it come true. Now it's time to look at how I can make my life more God-focused. I would like to see my spiritual side become refueled and re-energized. Being in Milwaukee has made my spiritual life become dimmed, and I don't like it. A big lesson that I personally learned from this stage in our lives is that God is in control, not me. God should be my focus, not a career. Perhaps God will bless us with a better next stage if we make Him our focus instead of careers. I have learned from my time here that there are way more important things in life than a career. I want my next stage of life to be focused on God, on making lasting friendships, on finding good people in the world, and on having fun with hobbies with my wonderful husband.

I look forward to the next stage of life and I look forward to sharing those adventures with you!

Nothing to Say

My apologies for not writing much lately. There are many reasons for my absence:

1) I was miserably sick for the entire month of January. No kidding. I am currently wondering if I developed mono or something similar to that because during the last two weeks of that month, I was so exhausted (as in about to pass out) that I was going to bed between 8 and 9pm every night and then sleeping for 12 straight hours every night. It was a terrible start to a new year, and I am hoping it's all out of my system and the rest of the year will go by smoothly and EXACTLY how I would like...it's only fair, right? :)

2) There really isn't much to write about. Life here in Milwaukee is winding down for Paul and I, so there are no new adventures. We used to do home improvement projects, but everything major has been done and we don't see the point of spending any more time or money on the house now that we have it for sale. We used to at least TRY to meet new people to be potential friends, but since we are leaving in just a few months, we don't see why we should put ourselves through that emotional roller-coaster if we don't have to. We used to do things to get through the "Winter Blahs", but we are trying to save money for moving and are not leaving the house much. All of these things mean that life is pretty boring. The most exciting thing I can write about is that I bought supplies for making homemade candles. I wanted a project to make the time go faster. So that's something, I suppose.

Other than that, all I can say is that Paul and I spend most of our time getting ready for the Big Move and dreaming Big Dreams for our future. We started looking at property, which is a terrible idea, because we keep finding land that we like, and what are the chances it will still be available when we can buy it? Oh well, it's fun to look at possible locations for our house. :) I've been applying to every job I think I could maybe get in Upstate SC and I just keep praying and praying and praying that God will let it all work out. People keep making it clear to us that they think we are crazy for moving down without jobs set up and that we are moving down there simply because we like the area. I think more people should do what we are doing. We found a place in this world that makes us both happy: fishing, hiking, mountains, nature, the ocean isn't far away, good climate, etc. Why shouldn't we move there? Life is more than just jobs. Jobs will come. We have been smart with money and should last a while without jobs in the worst-case scenarios. So we shall see how this all works out.

We are going down to SC for Paul's spring break in April. We are planning on bringing down our first load of stuff and renting a storage place. It's so exciting! We have all sorts of plans for that week including both fun and work (meeting realtors, discussing housing plans with committees, etc.) Hopefully we get a lot accomplished! And we could use the prayers that I am able to get a full time job down there. It would make things better if that happens.

Anyway, that's life over here right now. We are actually getting out of the house this weekend, so hopefully, I have something interesting to write about!

Christmas Break

Well, this post is long overdue. I apologize for that, but the reasons are perfectly...reasonable. You see, Paul and I went home for Christmas and while there, we obtained a parting gift from someone in the form of sickness. This seems to happen every time we go home: there is a new strand of sickness going around and we aren't immune to it yet, so we get it and bring it home with us. Huzzah. This sickness was probably the worst sickness that Paul and I have ever dealt with. Ever. This is no exaggeration. We got home on Jan. 1 and Paul was already sick. This was a weird cold/flu combo thing and he was pretty miserable. However, Paul didn't communicate just how sick he was, so like a good wife, I acted like a diligent nurse and promptly got sick myself. From Jan. 1 -  Jan. 7, Paul and I did nothing but lay on the couch and be completely miserable. Paul missed school for that whole week(!) and I luckily didn't start yet so I didn't feel as guilty, but man, were we feeling crappy! This sickness included: fevers everyday, nausea (for me), head congestion, runny/stuffy nose, cough, sore throat, aches EVERYWHERE, dizziness, and ear aches! To give you another idea of just how bad it was, in the last 2 years, we have gone through 2 boxes of tissues. This includes times during those 2 years when we were sick. This past week alone, we have gone through FOUR boxes of tissues and I am still sick right now and using up another one! It was insane. Paul has now mainly recovered and is back in action. The only lingering things for him is a bit of a runny nose and a sore throat. I, however, just cannot seem to beat this thing. I am on week 2 and I am still pretty miserable. Blegh. I am doing better enough now that I can finally post things, so here I am. I really hope that the next time we go home, we do not get THIS sick again. This has been a horrible start to our new year!

Anyway, Christmas break itself was wonderful. We spent the first five days of break seeing family on both sides. We got to spend as much time as possible with our three nephews and one niece. This made me pretty happy. :) Included in the activities was: making cookies with Quentin, playing hide and seek with Wes, snuggling with my newest nephew (who we got to see for the first time!), and having my niece Izzy fall asleep in my arms as well as sing with me. Life is grand for a while now that I got to fill up on lovin' my kiddos. :) We also saw some siblings, though Michael, Kt, Jim, and Becky were all out of state. I did some baking with my mom and we got plenty of hot-tubbing time in with Paul's parents. Good times! I also got to see my dearest friend Julie. Also, we got together with Rae, Dan, Rusty, and Staci, which hasn't happened in forever, so that was lots of fun as well. Overall, it was a wonderful holiday break with lots and lots of family time and some friend time as well (though one party with Kevin, Kyle, and Rick failed, which was a bummer). We ate lots of goodies and not enough water (always a problem for us when we visit home!). Oh, we got to see my grandparents (the Sjoerdsma side) for dinner one night as well, which was wonderful, since we haven't seen them in so long!

The only bummer (besides returning with the worst sickness ever) is that we don't know when we will be returning to see everyone again. In the past, we could always say "in the summer" and we could look forward to that. However, this summer, we are moving to South Carolina, and we currently do not think we will be visiting home due to the business connected with moving to a new state. We shall see how it goes. Even though SC is farther away from home, there is no big city in the way, which makes travelling seem nicer (I told Paul that when we move, I am never, ever driving through Chicago again!). Still, leaving home without the knowledge of knowing our next return made it extra hard to leave...

Here are some pictures of my darlings:

Not the best picture, but this is my eldest nephew Quentin. 3 years old, he likes to talk to me and Paul about his favorite toys and he likes to play toys with us. He is quite the extrovert and goes up to everyone and introduces himself! He is also a little smarty-pants. Example: we were making cookies and he picked his nose. I told him that he couldn't make more cookies until he washed his hands. "Why?" he asked me. I explained that his nose was full of germs that made his hands dirty and that would make the cookies dirty. "I will use this hand only then. I didn't put THAT one in my nose!" he explained. I had a hard time not laughing at that one. :)

This is my darling niece, Izzy. I think she is 9 months old. Though Izzy's mom doesn't like to hear it, Izzy looks A LOT like I did when I was her age. It creeps me out a bit. She is a really good baby. She doesn't cry unless she hurts herself, and even then, only rarely. She is inquisitive and tries to get into everything to figure it out (she gets that from my brother/her dad!). She loves smiling at people and she does this adorable thing where if you hum a song in her ear, she will hum it right back and does it almost perfectly! I was impressed. :)

Here is me and Paul and these two adorable kiddos. I love them to bits!

Here is me and Paul and our newest nephew Will. We were SO excited to finally meet him! He is 1 month old in this picture, so he is steadier than a newborn, which means I could hold him somewhat confidently. Newborns terrify me with their delicateness. Anyway, Will is a good baby and doesn't fuss much unless he is hungry. I held him a lot on Christmas, and he slept the entire time! He is snuggly and sweet, and I cannot wait to see what kind of personality he develops as he ages.

Wes is 1.5 years old and seemed to be going through a camera-shy stage while we were home, so I had to get a picture of him from Christy's camera. The amazing thing about Wes is that he communicates creepily well for such a young age! He can make 4-5 word long sentences and tells you exactly what he needs/is thinking/likes/etc. It made me shocked every single time he told me something. He loves books and letters, and goes around pointing at letters and saying not only the letter correctly, but the sound the letter makes! Ex: 'B! Buh!'  He is very intelligent and FULL of energy. It's exhausting but fun. We played a fun game where he would "hide" a toy and have me go find it. Good times. :)


I love these kids so much, and I look forward to the next time I get to see them and discover how they are growing and changing. Being an Aunt ROCKS! :)