Last Amplified, Last Final!

Wow, things are really winding up. Last night, was my last night playing bass at First Baptist Colleyville. I'd been leading worship with Jeff Black on Wednesday nights for the last year or so, which has been cool. Then this morning, I gave my last World History final exam. (I got rid of all the essay questions, so within 45 minutes, I had them all graded and entered... brilliant!). So I'm waiting for the grades to upload, and I thought I'd write a quick post. Shatrine's brother Rob, and his friend, Maria are on their way in to visit as we speak! Can't wait to hang out with them, even though our house is in shambles after our garage sale this past weekend. 6 days left until we hit the road! Sheesh! Bitter-sweet.

More "Last Suppers"

Tuesday night, we had the joy of having dinner at the McDaniel household. What great friends. They did our marriage counseling, and have been close friends for a long time. It's been great to be a small part in the lives of their four kids as well. After the last time we got to babysit, their oldest boy, Luke (who is 7?? I think), went to Hobby Lobby and with his own money, bought a pack of fabric Dodger stickers, and drew me a picture using all the cool stickers. How thoughtful.
So tonight, we got to play Lego Star Wars. What a game (I had first experienced it at the Barnes' since Evan is an addict), and tonight, Luke and I played (sadly, you couldn't BE Luke in this version... but I was YODA!!!).

The Woodlands

Well, I played my last day at IBC. Sad, indeed. What a great community... not just at the church, but even within the band there. We have this cool community called, "Band Together" where we meet twice a month, and just enjoy fellowship and discussion. So, after playing the two morning services, and enjoying a Jon Taylor surprise (homemade breakfast burritos complete with chorizo... tasty...), we headed to Houston, or "The Woodlands" to be more specific.
We had to get our "Greens" fix one more time before leaving Texas. We met up with Tierce and Dana, and got to hang with 2-year-old Anna Jane. Through the whole house sale and such, we had to cut our cable service, so we haven't been able to see the Lost season finale. Coincidentally, Tierce had the 2-hour epic saved, so we watched the saga on his new plasma... tasty... (wow, second use of the word, "tasty"). sidenote: I figured out the flashback within the first 4 minutes of the episode, so the entire episode, I was obsessing over whether the clipping was about "John Locke" or "James...[Sawyer]" (oh the beauty of the freeze-frame-plasma-close-up-detail).
We had a relaxing morning, fantastic breakfast, and Tierce and I laid low with some afternoon barbecue. Shatrine, Dana & Anna Jane went to the mall to meet Joetta and little Shatrine (Shatrine's blond hair, blue-eyed namesake) for lunch. Sadly, little Shatrine had a bad fever, so they weren't able to meet up with them. We still had a wonderful little Memorial Day weekend.

Goodbyes...

So we're on our way to one of many 'last suppers'... That sounds terrible. Let me rephrase that: we're going to hang out with some friends one more time before the move. It's been great just hanging out and spending quality time with the friends we've made here in Texas.
So it's raining crazy right now, and I'm writing this blog from my phone while Shatrine drives. Shatrine says that we'l have to get used to this rain. Of course we'll sadly be leaving Texas just at the time to miss all of the great summer weather. (For those of you reading this from outside of Texas, that last line was doused with sarcasm).
Well, we're almost at the Barnes' house, so we'll sign off for now...

Texas-Sized Going Away Party...

The Betti (Shawn & Sara), The Macdonalds (Loren & Joy), The Lyons (Josh & Amy), and The Slaughters (Ryan & Natalie) threw us an awesome going away party this weekend. They sent out an invitation to all of our Texas friends and decorated up the Alcove at church. They even had a Texas flag cake, a couple of bails of hay, and these sweet Bluebonnet/Bandana centerpieces. Sweet. Shawn put together a slideshow of pictures of us in Texas over the years (Shatrine has been here 11 years now!!! My 5 years pales in comparison).

So all of our friends showed up from all of our little circles. It was fun to see our dog friends, my school friends, old-school Shepherd & Wisdomworks friends, IBC friends all in one place. It's amazing the relationships and bonds you form.

Shatrine made these cute little candy bar wrappers and put them around Hershey bars. So if you came to the party, you got this candy bar on your table with a little cartoon likeness of us, and it was a fun way to break the news to some that we are expecting. Good times.

Well, if I can convince Shatrine (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge), maybe she'll post some pictures from the night.

We're Pregnant!

Woohoo!!!

We can't express how excited we are. This is the first sonogram... at 7weeks. Check out that little jelly bean. Good stuff. ETA is December 23, so we're trying to decide between naming him Rudy or Blitzen... or Prancer or Vixen (if the proper pronoun is 'her'). I'm sure Shatrine will chime in with her opinion on the topic.