Marriage

Christina and I celebrated our second anniversary on August 18, 2009. Our romance had humble beginnings in the summer of 2006 when I charmed her during the course of her summer visit to Louisville, KY. We bonded over serving children in our neighborhood, reciting lines from Michael Card songs and The Princess Bride, and picnics with tree climbing. We still roll pretty much the same, but with Christina now 8 months pregnant, there's less tree climbing.

So, for our second anniversary, Christina surprised me with a special "daycation" to Cincinnati, OH. We left mid-morning (we're not punctual leavers) and spent the afternoon exploring and picnicking at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. It was great and afforded us some awesome pictures, including many of me mounting, subduing, and imitating animal statues scattered around the premises. Christina was a real champ, enduring 5 hours of pregnant park walking with breaks on the train and tram.

From the zoo, we traveled out of town to the nearby 1861 Inn, a bed and breakfast in Batavia, OH. The house and setting were gorgeous, and the hosts were exemplary. We got the home tour and history, poolside drink and snack service, our bed turned down and our pillows "truffled" while we went out for dinner, juice and coffee delivered to the room in the morning, and a breakfast including a warm peach / blueberry dish, blueberry scone and English muffin (for me), and baked eggs with spinach and ham before we hit the road. Wow! You seriously can't get a better deal than that. We highly recommend the stay and are already plotting to take friends back with us. (We also loved the comfy bed, claw foot tub, and movie selection... we watched Hitch. )

On the way home, we couldn't help stopping by the West Chester IKEA store just north of Cincinnati. We picked up an Expedit storage unit for Eowyn's room and managed to fit the box in our trunk. The drive home was happily uneventful, and now I'm plugged back into the internet and almost hard at work. We were very excited to find our "blog tour" copy of North! Or Be Eaten waiting for us when we got here. Christina's already half way through it and I can't wait to dive in, too. For those interested, this is the second book in the Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson for which we are building a fan site called The Wingfeather Wiki. It rocks!

Many thanks to my bride for a wonderful trip! I love you.

Well, last weekend was one of the most enjoyable I've had in a while. It started with a fun Valentine's Day where the morning was spent cutting up trees and branches (casualties of the ice storm) and having new windows installed, while the afternoon was spent with my wife. We had some super yummy hamburgers with cheese and guacamole, went out for ice cream to Coldstone Creamery (I looove mint ice cream + Oreos), and came home to watch Stardust, an awesome fairy tale movie for grown-ups.

As if that wasn't a great day in itself, we also spent the whole day receiving phone calls from our family... because we finally broke the news to them that we're expecting! That's right! Christina's pregnant with the first baby on either side of the family, meaning he (or she) is sure to get lots of love and hopefully lots of free babysitting. We're super excited and can't wait to meet the little guy. I joke that we're hoping for a boy, because we can't agree on girls names. I'm sure I'll be happy either way, and we intend to find out as soon as we can. I can't wait to be a dad!

On Sunday we had a small birthday party here at home to celebrate my 26th year. A lot has happened, and a lot is poised to happen in the near future, making this a very exciting time in my life. Even in just these past few weeks I've gone back to school, found out I'm a dad, and made some decisions about what sort of career goals I want to set for me and my family with plans to start achieving those in the near future. It's all very exciting, and as always Christina and I are blown away by how good the Lord is in leading us down these paths.

Monday evening we got some friends together to celebrate my birthday with what has become my birthday tradition... steak, cake, and Dance Dance Revolution. That's right. We get stuffed at the Texas Roadhouse, come home and cut some rug in my living room, eat dessert, and dance until our calf muscles dissolve into goo. It really is a fun time, and we were privileged to share it with Lyle (the only three-year participant), the Taylors (a family from church), the Miesses (good friends from church who got pregnant the same week as us!), and the Brainards (Ben being our worship leader at church and Amanda being his very pregnant, non-DDRing wife). I got to ride the sawhorse in the restaurant, and as usual, Lyle destroyed us all in DDR. Christina posted a movie of said sawhorse ride and pictures of the night in general through my happy birthday blog post.

I love it when I get in bed after a late night of hacking and Christina curls up next to me in her sleep.

It's amazing how far we can travel over land in a weekend and not feel awful when it's done. I guess after my recent trip to Hungary, it's also amazing to think how far I can go and still be in the same country.

Christina and I took a nice little vacation up to Altoona, PA, a town lost somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. It was a pleasant drive to a pleasant location for a very pleasant purpose. We were there to see my older brother get married to his e-Harmony fiancee (how cool is that? way to go web 2.0!). We didn't know we were also going there to see the hills covered in bright splashes of orange, red, and yellow as the trees displayed their finest Fall colors.

Christina's much better about posting pictures, so I'll defer to her post about our trip. From me, you'll only get these musings on the States we drove through...

Ohio was a giant field of corn crawling with combines circling around a large sentinel tree.
West Virginia was a town stretched out in a valley on a river forded by a green painted bridge.
Pennsylvania was a roadside stand selling apple cider and maple syrup on a hill splashed with color.

And now... we're back home.

As the title suggests, Christina and I are now entering our second year of marriage. However, we won't do it without first celebrating our first anniversary, August 18, 2008! I'm looking forward to the day (which officially starts in one minute) and to dinner and conversation with my wife tomorrow evening. I believe it's going to be homemade (gluten free) pizza with some wine from the Biltmore Estate (where we went on our honeymoon) and some cheesecake for dessert. Ahh, yes... the cheesecake. Apparently, someone at some time thought it was a good idea to save wedding cake to eat on your first anniversary. I like my cake to be fresh or at least recent. A year old??? I'm just not sure how that'll go, but I'm willing to try. You learn to just do things like this after being married for a year. ;) We'll have a quiet celebration here at home followed by a celebration in Budapest, Hungary next week before heading down to Drupalcon Szeged 2008. We're very thankful to God for such a wonderful opportunity on our first anniversary. We've had nothing but blessing since our marriage... and that itself was a HUGE blessing. So, it's now officially my anniversary, and I get to go set out the new coffee maker I bought Christina. Hopefully that will put her in an even better mood in the morning so that anticipation can build for making that pizza a little extra special. Dare I ask for grilled chicken??? Mmm... 8) My wife is patient, kind, and encouraging, and she loves me more than I deserve. She's also adorable: I love you, Christina. :)

James 2:15-16, "If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it?" James is making the point that faith without works is dead by showing how good intentions aren't enough to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Our desires must be backed up by actions if we ever want to convince anyone that we really do desire these things. Similarly, the mere recitation of a creed or doctrinal belief won't be enough to prove that you really believe it... at least not to God. Saving faith invariably produces change and motivates obedience in a Christian.

And so I speak to husbands, because I am one. "If your wife is tired or stressed from the pressures of work, keeping the home, or life in general, and one of you says to them, 'Just relax, babe. Remember, what matters is your attitude and not a day's agenda,' but you don't do your part to pitch in and take care of some of the things weighing on her mind, what good is it?"