Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas Greetings And Lots Of Shopping


Katie and I would like to express our apologies since it has been about a month since our last post. I'm sure everyone was starved for entertainment without our regular updates. As you might have guessed December got a little too busy. We worked a few extra hours each week and I had a lot of projects and studying to do. You may also have guessed that we are happily on our winter break now. The last few weeks of school were intense but we got through them and were able to take a week long vacation for Christmas. The spring semester doesn't start until January 14th so we still have a little more time off of school.

School let out last Friday, the 19th .We squeezed some extra hours in at work at the end of the week because we were taking off for a week. We got off work at 2:00 on Saturday and left town immediately. We drove straight up to Baltimore with no stops which took just under six hours. We were tired when we arrived at mom's house, having worked a seven hour day and driven six hours but we were glad to see everyone. We made the most of the night, Katie wrapped presents with dad Freeman while mom and I sat at the kitchen table. Mom had to study her Sunday school lesson and I had to study for my sermon on Sunday night. By the time midnight crept around we were all ready for bed. Sunday morning service was great, we were welcomed by everyone at Grace Pointe. After church let out we drove to Aunt Candies for the Schmuff family get-together. We spent all afternoon there eating, talking and relaxing until it was time to leave for the evening service at Grace Pointe, during which I was able to preach.


I truly enjoyed preaching that night. Sometimes we get distracted down here and four years of school seems like a long time, but being able to open the Bible to friends and family reminds me of what I'm working for. We have the sermon recorded and I'll try to put it on here for everybody in our next post. We enjoyed Pizza Hut after the evening service with some friends and family. On Sunday night we had our Christmas with my mom.



Monday morning we went shopping! Beckley has deprived us of many good shopping opportunities, chiefly because there is no Target here (we love Target). We hit all the stores in the White Marsh area and dropped in our old Chick-Fil-A to say hi to our friends. After we'd walked through all the good stores we grabbed Chinese food (which Beckley is also lacking) and headed back to mom's. We spent the afternoon hanging around the house and preparing for mom's open house that night. Mom's living room was overwhelmed with visitors for most of the night, we had a lot of fun catching up with everyone and just having fun.


Tuesday was an opportunity for more shopping, this time in Harford County. We went to most of the stores up there and the mall then hung out at dad's house for a little bit. Tuesday night we went with dad to Toby's dinner theater in Columbia to see “Plaid Tidings” which turned out to be a very fun show. We spent Tuesday night at dads and had Christmas with them on Wednesday morning. After opening all our gifts we headed back to Middle River to see mom and the kids for a few hours before leaving. We headed out around 11:00 for Harrisonburg where Katie's parents live. After arriving we relaxed for a while until Christmas Eve service. On Christmas Eve night Katie and I exchanged our gifts in her parents basement by the fire. Then we spent some time with her family before passing out in bed (have you figured out that our week was kind of hectic?).

Thursday morning we spent about two hours opening presents, not because there was so many but because we were just having a lot of fun and taking our time. We spent the rest of Christmas day slumming around the house. By Christmas evening we were bored out of our minds from being in the house so we went out to look at Christmas lights.


On Friday and Saturday our week started to slow down. We spent a lot of time shopping and with Katie's family. We went to church on Sunday at Freedom Baptist in Harrisonburg and then drove home after eating lunch.

Here we are now, settled back into our cozy home chatting with you about all our adventures. On Saturday I got my report card and I'm happy to say that I was able to keep my 4.0 GPA for the semester. I may never have straight A's again but at least I did it once.

Time to go now, hope you've enjoyed reading from us again. Please keep us in your prayers during our winter break. We have several things to get fixed on our cars and a lot of preparation for next semester.