Personal Ramblings...

So, today we saw Lauren off to Seward again. We won't see her till sometime in March. Sadness. But it was truly a great, great break (for us anyway, and I think for her too). She's hooked up with a splendid young man, Dean, planning on being a Lutheran pastor. He is from, of all places, Collinsville! Yet they meet in Seward. Go figure. Lauren appears to be utterly taken with him.

David also seemed to have a joyous break, and he'd barely gotten back to school last week than he was off to Bloomington for a Theatre workshop. He had a blast. And he's switching jobs. One manager at Shop-N-Save hassled him senselessly once too often, so he'll be joining Anna and Bo at Pizza Hut. I hope he likes it. He confessed to enjoying the cart job, but not that one manager. He gets off tonight and is headed out to the movies with Misha.

Bekah has remained inseparable from Shawn over this break (as in the months before!). In fact, the only two home right now are Bekah and Shawn, and I think she is subjecting him to "Little House on the Prairie" (Cindi got the first season for Christmas). I can't believe how fast that young lady has grown up.

Cindi and I took down the tree this afternoon and sorted through the ornaments. We have many antique ornaments (from my great aunt, Aunt Gee, and from Cindi's grand-parents) and we put those away, and over the years we've been given so very many the tree is rather overwhelmed with them. We ended up setting some of these aside for the kids if they want them. I enjoy the simple look of the house again after the Christmas stuff is put away almost as much as I enjoy setting the Christmas stuff up. I dread going into the Church though, because it always looks so devastatingly bare when the Christmas decorations disappear.

Both Cindi and I had dumped the Atkins way of eating for most of the month of December - and we paid for it in weight gain. New Year's Day we returned to induction, and now after a week, Cindi has lost 14 pounds and I've lost 10. I'm looking forward to induction being over next week, though, because I really miss eating nuts - macadamias and almonds have to be my favorites.

Christ is in our midst! He is and ever shall be!