Alls and Anyways

A long, long time ago....

2010-08-31T06:22:00.000-07:00

... I started a blog and miserably failed.

Sorry. Anyways... if you're still out there listening (reading) here is a mini update.

Nate has one year (2 semesters) left at Princeton Theological Seminary. He will graduate in May with a Masters in Divinity. This summer he was able to take intensive German at Princeton University. This was fun for me too as I've got about 5 years of forgotten German buried in my brain and he helped me dig it all out. He's also been able to spend some quality time with his guy friends this summer dishing out the latest options for where everyone will be moving after graduation... who even knows???

I must have become bored or something and randomly decided to start school again as well. So last Winter I wrote an admissions essay, took the GREs, and filled out an application. The next semester I started a Masters in Communication and Information Studies at the State University of New Jersey, Rutgers. I love it! It's been a bit of a challenge as last semester I decided to do full-time work and full-time school at the same time. Yikes! This semester (which starts tomorrow) I am going down to part time at work. That way I can graduate in May the same week Nate does.

We are still members of our church Hopewell Presbyterian - this is where Nate did his Field Education last year. It's always a cute drive through the country (yes, country in NJ) to get there. As this semester commences we are reminded that some huge life decisions will be upon us very soon. We will most likely be moving on from New Jersey, but we sure don't know where yet.

Guess we'll have to let you all know that whenever we find out...

Peace and Blessings!

Here we come Washington

2009-08-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

We leave on Monday for 10 days to journey to our homeland - Washington. The 17-20 in Seattle area and the 21-26 in Spokane.

This last weekend we saw Julie and Julia on a double date with our friends Aaron and Christen - since it was a cooking movie... hence ensued an evening of cooking together. Of course, we made Sushi!

2009-08-04T08:04:00.001-07:00

tBethesda Fountain where Nate proposed

We dragged mom and dad all around New York City yesterday. It was fun! Mom even got to stop by and see her old apartment building...

2009-07-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

My monster Dahlia. Isn't she gorgeous?

Field Ed is our life right now

2009-07-22T08:52:00.000-07:00

Nate preached in church this past Sunday. He did such a good job and everyone seemed to have positive things to say about it. He has 4 weeks of summer field ed left and although it has been enjoyable is has also been very busy. We are looking forward to our trip to the PNW next month. On a side note... I would like to mention that i preached the children's sermon this past Sunday. Go me! This is my small role in summer field ed! :)

Also, we purchased new living room furniture!!!! We haven't bought any major purchases together (other than our crappy laptop) hopefully the new living room set will be delivered next week!

Our Niece

2009-02-20T12:36:00.000-08:00

Our niece is scheduled to be born this Monday the 23rd. She has a heart condition and will need heart surgery soon after birth. Please keep her (her name is Evelyn) and the mom (Stephanie) and the dad (Chris) in your prayers! We are hoping that God will work in HUGE ways to heal Evelyn's little heart.

blogging....

2009-02-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

I guess i've let people down with our blog. I have come to terms with the fact that i hate blogging. It reminds me too much of a college assignment of something...ahhhh. So sorry for those of you who were following.

I will try to update once in a while if something fantastic happens. :)

We are currently still in NJ and are becoming much better accustomed to life here. The weather has been so nice lately! We had a record high last week - it was 68!!! in February! Beat that Spokane!

Nate is doing well in school - he is one to Semester 2! We both auditioned and made it into the school play (the let spouses try out too). The play is the Tempest (shakespeare) and we perform sometime in April.

God is good!

2008-11-17T13:13:00.000-08:00

I (julie) have been blessed!

A few months ago I had dental surgery to replace 2 missing teeth that I have never had. This is a 2 step process with the surgery being part 1 and then the abutments and crowns being part 2. None of my insurance providers have ever covered this procedure... until i started working at the hospital in Spokane. My insurance would cover 50%! So Nate and I decided to go ahead and do step 1. - even after the 50% coverage it was still pretty expensive, but worth it to do a surgery i've been waiting my whole life for.

After surgery a person is supposed to wait around 6 months to get the crowns put on. It has been almost 6 months so i went to a new dentist (here in NJ) to get part 1 checked up on. He said everything looks fabulous. the bone healed really well and i will only need a minor amount of gum removal before the crowns are put on....needless to say i was eccstatic!!! Until... he handed me the proposed cost. Our new insurance won't cover a dime... ugggghhhh and the cost was upwards of $5,000 for just part 2.

I cried... i sat in the dentist chair and cried so hard i couldn't see well enough to stand up.

When i got home i told Nate the whole scoop. We decided to figure out what all our options would be. The thing to keep in mind is the my temporary fix has broken 3 times in the last few weeks and is now very painful to wear. So the permanent fix needs to be soon. We don't have $5,000 just lying around so... i started calling around. Everyone in NJ will charge us between $4,000 and $7,000 and none of the dental schools will help since they didn't start part 1.

I called my dentist back home (in Spokane) just to get his opinion. The receptionist, Heather, was so helpful. They are only going to charge us $2,600 and the surgeon won't charge me a dime to remove the gum. But then the cost of airfare... would it be worth it?

I talked to my boss today and got permission to miss a few days of work in December for this procedure. I started looking at flights and the cheapest i could find would be $360 round trip. However, i would need 2 round trips to complete step 2. that means we would be spending over $700 on just plane tickets...

As i started to book the flight i happened to remember that in college I had used a debit card and safeway card that gets Alaska Airline mile rewards. I figured that i may as well check and see if there were any miles...

Surprise!!! I have enough miles to cover one round trip and half of the next one! Can you believe it. I had to fly during a specific time period so i needed to double check with my surgeon and my dentist before booking it - they can both squeeze me in.

Spokane here I come... December 7th, 8th, and 9th. (and as a side blessing God threw in a little layover in Seattle... so i get to have lunch with my parents as well)

Praise the Lord!

It's Autumn on the East Coast

2008-10-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Pumpkins in Jersey! We went on a wonderful drive throught the New Jersey country side this afternoon. Actually we had two drives. The first was spent at war with google maps trying to get to church. No, we didn't make it. We finally found the church 45 minutes after it started. But Jersy actually impressed us today. There are some very beautiful places. We saw two tractors! After not church, we went to Terhune Farm to pick pumpkins. Julie took the best pictures today. I took the one with the house and the apples. She took the pumpkins and the candy apples. I think I ate the best candied apple in the world today! bomb. The farm was fun, but of course, super crowded. There are people, tons-O-people, everywhere you go in this state. Oh and we have two black haloween kitties! Thats fun.

The "Jersey Left"

2008-10-09T05:36:00.000-07:00

Driving in New Jersey is an art... a really bad and ugly art. People here are crazy. The primary example: a little thing known around here as "the Jersey Left". This is when you are stopped at a red light to go straight, the oncoming traffic has a "left turn yield" sign, and when the light turns green the people turning left take the liberty to turn before you can go straight - and they cut RIGHT in front of you!!!! For some reason they seem to think it normal and just give you a little wave as if to say "thanks for not minding".

Here's the news jersey drivers - I DO MIND! i have places to go too ok!

Everyone here tailgates - it's normal. our poor little subaru with its V4 engine takes a little bit to warm up... and it really makes people MAD! whatever.

Fortunately there is a free shuttle from our apartment to the school... so we plan to lesson our chances of getting killed in a jersey road rage episode.

2008-10-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well I am on my fifth day of work. I got a job with the Seminary that Nate is attending. So I am the new Church and Donor Relations Manager for the Seminary Relations Office. It has been great so far, but very different. I have discovered that working on the East Coast is as different as people say it is.

It has been really fun to work at the school where Nate is attending though. We can eat lunch together everyday if we want, we can ride the shuttle together to and from the Seminary, and now we are starting to know a lot of the same people. This by far has been the easiest adjustment.

So here we are - full blown into life on the East Coast - Cheers!

2008-09-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

Yep! We did it... we became pet owners today. Kitten owners. With full intentions of getting a kitten today. I dragged Nate to the pet store where a local feline rescue shelter was going to have kittens available for adoption today. We filled out the application, they checked our references (thanks Bailley and Jenelle :) ) and we passed the parent test. I already knew that i wanted one of the black fluffy kittens. However, we were not expecting to walk away with both brothers. After some discussion about it, we gave in. We couldn't bear to separate brothers so... we got kitten twins.

Both kittens have very distinct personalities so far. We have Torrence, who is a little more docile and shy. He is very content doing whatever and doesn't fight to get to the food dish.

And then we have Sherman. Sherman is hyper active and loves to play. He is first to the food dish and it takes more than just a little noise to make him jump. He also doesn't know when to slow down. He goes and goes and goes and then suddenly he crashes and is fast asleep.

Torrence is named after Iain Torrence, the Princeton Seminary President. And Sherman is named after Sherman Alexi, one of Nate's favorite authors from Spokane.

I LOVE them and couldn't be happier with how today's events unfolded. :)

A new addition...

2008-09-26T17:34:00.001-07:00

So... for my birthday Nate promised me a kitten. I realize it is only September, but, i figured i should start looking. I went to a shelter this weekend and found the most perfect kitten... his name was Phantom. ADORABLE!!! So i went to talk to the shelter people about him and he had just been adopted!!!!

But the latest news.... these two black kittens are still available for adoption and i'm going to find them tomorrow and adopt one. Wish me luck!!! I can't wait!!!

Our Furnished Apartment.... finally

2008-09-18T12:51:00.000-07:00

Moving in...

2008-09-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

Moving in was actually not too bad. We were amazed at how many people that we didn't even know saw us moving stuff in and came to help. These first 2 pictures are of helping Chris and Jenelle (some Whitworth friends) move in. They are on the 2nd floor, so moving in was pretty intense as the staircases are very narrow. Please note (although you can't see it very well in the picture) the boys stacked TWO rickety picnic tables on top of each other to get enough height to get the furniture over the deck ledge. YIKES!

This is our apartment, not yet furnished. We got in on Monday night but had to wait until Tuesday night for our truck to arrive with all of our stuff. This is the signature PINK bathroom. blech! Every apartment has this same bathroom - no one really knows what they were thinking when they made it pink... but oh well...

Our empty living room/office area. I'll take some pictures of it furnished and post them soon.

2008-09-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

OMAHA TO PRINCETON!
We finally made it! Here are a few photos from the last leg of our trip.
We took an entire day to sight see in Chicago - it was super fun and we absolutely wore out our feet from all the walking. We started out entering Chicago via the Olgivie Train Station and headed down to Millenium Park. From there we headed to the marina and walked to the Planetarium where we spent a few hours.

Our next stop was Gino's Pizza on the East Side (by suggestion of the Robinsons). It was so great! The entire inside is covered with patron grafiti. It was fun to read and we both found our names somewhere mixed up in the grafiti :)

This was the last stop on our journey. We spent the night with Scott's parents in Akron, Ohio. (Scott is Julie's cousin Katie's husband). They were so fun to stay with and sent us on our way well packed with goodies and snack (and a freshly washed car)

Pit stop in Omaha

2008-08-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

Our car... the trusty Subaru, all packed and ready to go!

Nate said we each could have a part of the backseat to bring whatever we wanted (or whatever we could fit) so... i brought 2 of my plants, mind you, I had to leave 6 of them behind. I settled on bringing my basil and my chili peppers. Now every city we drive through Nate has to comment that, "wow, Omaha (or respective city) sure smells like Basil!"

Our first stop on the 3,000 mile road trip was to Boise to visit Steph, Nate's older sister, and her husband Chris, and daughter, Clara. Clara is a doll. We call her "Baby Curl" instead of Baby Girl because she has the cutest blonde curls. Steph took us to BODO (Boise Downtown) and Clara loved the fountain!

This is dad, Chris, assisting Clara while she tries a lime for the first time (Steph was in the bathroom and had no idea we were introducing Clara to limes). Clara really seemed to like them!

Somewhere in the middle of Wyoming...

Somewhere in the middle of Utah...

At Lake Loveland in Colorado visiting my Aunt and Uncle.

Yep... we pit-stopped at Cabella's for lunch. Boy did we sure look out of place! This is also the point of the trip where we got back out the car and found that the Sourdough starter (for sourdough pancakes) that Steph gave me had exploded in our cooler, coating everything with a thick, doughy substance... which is sad, i guess we'll have to wait until later to make Sourdough Pancakes in our New Jersey dwelling.

I would also like to take this opportunity to share that I must have drawn the short end of the stick with the driving routine. Somehow... i got stuck sitting in the passenger's seat for the morning part of the journey everyday and driving in the afternoon/evening part. It would seem that bad except the sun BEATS down on me all morning and then by the time i move to the driver's seat, the sun also has moved, and it BEATS down on me again. It sure makes for a sweltering journey.

Currently, we are in a hotel in downtown Omaha. We are tired and ready for a good night of sleep. Tomorrow we will drive 7 hours to Chicago! Aufiedersehen!

Our Agenda for the Cross Country Move

2008-08-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday the 24th... leave Spokane. Stay 2 nights with Chris and Steph and baby Clara in Boise.
Monday the 25th... hang out in Boise
Tuesday the 26th... drive to Salt Lake City and spend the night(not sure where we are staying yet)
Wednesday the 27th... drive to Loveland Colorado and visit family
Thursday the 28th...drive to Omaha Nebraska and spend the night (not sure where we are staying yet)
Friday the 29th... Chicago for 2 nights!!! Stay with friends of the Robinsons
Saturday the 30th... play all day in Chicago
Sunday the 31st...Akron, Ohio stay with Scott Lyon's mom
Monday the 1st.... ARRIVE IN PRINCETON NEW JERSEY to our new home!!!

307 Emmons Drive 1A Princeton, New Jersey

Wedding in Sandpoint

2008-07-31T16:03:00.001-07:00

I think i've finally recovered. Last weekend was Ilana's wedding and it was a blast!

Nate was sweet enough to drive all the way to Sandpoint after work on Saturday to meet up with me.

The wedding was beautiful and took place in an old refurbished school house.

In other news this week: the count down is on! Our car pulls our for New Jersey in exactly 24 days!!!

Snohomish Goodbye Party

2008-07-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

Stinks to start a Monday off so tired, but it was worth it. We got home around midnight last night from our trip to Snohomish. Ken and Ginny Karber (my parents) threw a goodbye party for us on Sunday.

Saturday was also an adventurous day... Anne, Ginny, baby Gabriel, and I went shopping, out to lunch, and then to Flower World. Gabriel got to meet some geese, peacocks, chickens, sheep, and goats.

The boys, Nate, Chris, and Ken spent the day putting new brakes on Nate and Chris' cars. Essentially Ken instructed while the boys did the grunt work. I've never seen Nate looking like such a grease monkey. Check out the pictures. Also, note that Nate was allergy boy, hence the paper towel nose plugs to ease the constant dripping. Haha we all got a good laugh at his expense for that one.

Another highlight... we got to celebrate Anne and Nate's 27th Birthdays! Anne's is July 23rd and Nate's is August 14th. But we figured this was the last opportunity to celebrate together. So dad grilled a salmon, mom made some potatos, we opened some good bottles of wine, made a fire, had cake, and celebrated birthdays!!

the first stab

2008-07-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

We decided to join the blogging world. Mainly for our families to keep tabs on us, but in the end it might also be nice to have parts of our life documented.

So the title... when Nate and I first met we each had a grammatically funky/incorrect word that we loved to use. Mine was "anyways" and Nate's was "alls" it was a fun way to tease each other so the words just kind of hung around. And now when we start to get tired we digress and inevitably the "alls" and the "anyways" find their way back into our dialogue. Over pizza last night Nate slipped and said "alls we gotta do is..." I couldn't help but call him out on it and we realized that "alls" and "anyways" are probably with us for life. I'm pretty sure that the reason he slipped was because we were eating our pizza at a dive bar called the Park Inn, those of you who are Spokanites probably know it better as the P.I.

It was pretty divey