Joe's haircut

So, Joe's hair was getting way too long. It needed cut very badly. If you don't believe me, here are some pictures!

Joe with a full head of hair!
and ....
Joe with a fro!
Haha... this was after I washed his hair in the sink with the squirter! I felt like a beauty professional!
So, you are probably wondering, why in the world did we let his hair get this long???! Well, I (Andrea) had to substitute teach right before we left to travel for Christmas festivities. So, I never got around to cutting his hair and quite frankly it didn't even cross my mind or his to do so. But, thank goodness... here is what he looks like now... after I cut his hair.

Whoa... much better!

I enjoy cutting his hair. I am getting better at fading it throughout so he doesn't get a "Marine cut" or "high and tight"(Joe's terminology). Notice - his facial hair is even trimmed!

Indy Christmas Conference

From December 28th to January 1st, we had a blast at the regional conference for Campus Crusade for Christ in Indianapolis. There were 2000 students at the conference. We had a great time hearing from the speakers and being challenged to be Christ's ambassadors. We also went out in Indy to share food and Christ's love with the needy.

Dave (a student from Illinois State University), Ivan (a man we shared Christ's love with), and Andrea out in the community of Indy

Joe out in Indy with Amanda and Ruth-Anne (students from Illinois State University) looking for someone to talk to about God's love

We had a great time hanging out with our future students. We were up so late every night spending time with them. We are still trying to catch-up on sleep, especially after going to bed at 4am some nights! We had to get up early everyday, too. Staff with CCC have jobs at the conference to serve the students and for the whole shabang to go smoothly. We were a part of the ballroom crew. This meant we needed to be at the meeting an hour and a half early and get up at around 6am everyday. We did really enjoy our job, despite being tired every morning! It was fun greeting the students as they came into the meetings! We had to make sure only the people allowed into the meetings came in and had the responsbility of opening and closing the doors! We also put information on about 2000 seats every morning! Needless to say, we had an amazing time at Christmas Conference! We love our students and can't wait to get to Illinois!

Some highlights from our time in Indy were: being challenged in our relationships with God, amazing praise and worship, praying and praising in the New Year, sharing God's love in the community, spending quality time with students, hanging out with old friends, and thinking all this greatness is just a part of working with Campus Crusade for Christ! An added bonus to the time, was getting to stay in a super nice hotel for a really cheap price. We stayed in the Westin - yes, they advertise heavenly beds, and they were heavenly!

Look at the heavenly bed and our super nice room!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Hope your holiday has been as great as ours. We have been having such a great time with family and reflecting on Jesus' birth! We have been to Lewisburg, Ohio to spend time with Joe's parents and to Illinois to spend time with Andrea's family. We will be traveling later today to another part of Illinois for Christmas fun with Joe's extended family. Here are some pictures of all the fun!!!



In Lewisburg, we went to a fun light display throughout a park with Joe's parents. It was quite fun and they even had free hot chocolate!

Joe with his mom (Debi) at the light display.


Having fun on the bridge with the fog and Christmas lights.


Our adorable nieces pumped for Christmas!

Our nieces were an absolute hoot on Christmas. They are just the perfect ages for tearing open the presents! They kept saying "Oh my gosh, look what I got"! Hope you all have been having a great Christmas!

1.5 year anniversary

Yesterday, was our 1.5 year anniversary. It seems crazy that we have been married that long! I guess time flies when you're having fun!

Thanksgiving fun and more!

Joe and his momma (Debi) and Andrea with her momma-in-law

So, we had a great Thanksgiving! We traveled to Joe's hometown to spend time with his family. It was wonderful, since we have not spent time with them in awhile. We went to Joe's aunt's house for Thanksgiving dinner, which was delicious. We had a great time hanging out with his cousins, parents, and aunt and uncle! This year consisted of eating too much, playing games (ping pong, darts, pool), and giving tutorials on our Garmin GPS (Joe's parents and aunt and uncle really wanted to get a GPS on Black Friday and we had won one awhile back).

We also really enjoyed spending extended time with Joe's parents and helping them put up their Christmas decorations. Joe's parents had never had a artificial tree before so wanted our help putting it up. Andrea has become a pro at this endeavour (and filling in the holes) because her family has always had an artificial Christmas tree. Here is the final product!

Joe's parent's Christmas tree that we decorated!

Another pivotal time of our stay in Lewisburg, Ohio was playing Joe's mom's favorite game - Aggravation. We played probably ten times before Joe won. Here is a picture of when he won! He was so excited and kept jumping up and down. His mom was laughing so hard she was crying!

Joe is pumped about winning! Not only did he win, but he schooled us!

Fall Retreat

We were so excited to go to Springfield, Illinois for Illinois Catalytic's Campus Crusade for Christ's Fall Getaway. Not only did we get to hang out with the staff (whom we already love and are excited to work with), but the amazing students of central Illinois! The theme of the weekend was "authentic" - challenging students to be authentic in their relationship with God and others. It was so refreshing spending time with the students and hearing their hearts for the Lord and their campuses! We appreciated the opportunity to rub shoulders with students through bunk bed living and community showers! The only thing that was a drawback to the weekend was Andrea got sick right when we got there, but luckily with God's strength she was able to plug and chug through the weekend and had a great time! We thought we would share some snapshots from our wonderful weekend! Joe helping students as they arrive at the retreat. He was in charge of passing out schedules and name tags!

Andrea hanging out with girls from Illinois State University at the lodge. Students would gather every night to hang out, play games, and talk. Andrea learned about the ISU women's tradition of playing a Barbie game at every getaway and retreat!

Students sharing with other students about summer mission's trips. Campus Crusade for Christ offers "summer projects" to various locations throughout the US and overseas. Many students had amazing summers on summer projects and were sharing their experiences and challenging their peers to trust God to "GO".

Another highlight from the weekend was attending "campus time". Seven campuses were represented at the retreat. Campus time was a great way for students to connect with others from their campus. We enjoyed visiting each college's campus time!

Oh.. now how we long to work these wonderful students and report to campus!

Running...in pain

I (Joe) started running last week to get back into shape. I ran a couple miles each day for several days and then I ran 5 miles with Andrea's sister Jill on Friday. After that day, the arch on my left foot was in a lot of pain. We are blaming my new running shoes.

I bought the shoes this summer for a great deal. After a couple good deals, the Asics shoes were only $15. I hadn't planned on running a lot in them, but I just needed some new shoes. After last week, we inspected the shoes and realized there wasn't much arch support in them. So we decided to buy some insoles for them. Normally you take the original insole out and replace it with the new insoles. Unfortunately the originals were glued really well into the shoes. I tried keeping the original insoles in the shoes with the new insoles in place, but the shoes became uncomfortable. So...tonight I decided to rip out the original insoles.

It was a brutal scene, but after much pulling, ripping, and cutting...most of the original insoles were removed. The shoes fit much better now, but that was an awful task. There still remains parts of the original insole, but I didn't want to spend my entire night removing all of the remnants.

Here are some pictures showing what remains of the original insoles:


Needless to say, despite the new insoles my arch is still very painful. I think I injured it pretty good, but I hate to stop running. I have been running again this week as well. I ran 1 mile on Tuesday, 5 miles on Wednesday, and 5 miles today despite the pain.

Andrea has also been out and about in the neighborhood. I have refused to let her run with me due to the problems she has with her knees. But she has been walking/running(even though she shouldn't be running) in the mornings around the neighborhood as well.