Memorial Day Weekend

...at my family's condo at the Lake of the Ozarks! Spent the weekend swimming, boating, tubing, fishing, and riding the jet ski.

Just a little Midwest fun!

Location change!

WE MADE IT! Arrived in Louisville, Kentucky last Thursday morning...had a quick tour of the apartment, signed the papers, then unloaded the truck. Braden's parents, his brother Grant, my mom and brother Zach came with us from St. Louis to help us unload. Also, some friends that already live here in Louisville and attend Southern (the Feelers and Leonards) came over and helped us unload. With all the help it didn't take long to get everything into the apartment. Our new place is alot bigger and now we have a whole extra bedroom and bathroom...so any visitors are welcome! ; )
My car and the moving truck:Brother Zach and I:We're on the top:

Our new address: 848 River Dell Ct. Louisville, KY 40206:Since we moved here we've had to adjust to switching 3 time zones! So we've been sleeping in and slowly getting everything organized in our apartment.
Leah and Josh Feeler have been a big help to us since we arrived, Saturday Leah drove me all around showing me all the good places to shop...I have about 4 pages of notes! I was a little nervous before we moved here that there wouldn't be many choices for food and shopping, but after my tour of the area I know we'll be fine. Sunday morning the Feelers invited us to their church, Clifton Baptist. We both liked it and will probably visit again.
Well, that's all for now....we're sitting at the Panera using the free wireless and it's time to pack up.

Home Sweet Home

An update for all my faithful blog readers....I made it home to my parent's house safely, thanks to Frontier Airlines, on Monday afternoon. Braden is still driving as I write, he's almost to Springfield, MO...after that it's about 4 hours to here in St. Peters. A friend that already lives in Louisville checked out the apartment we have reserved at River Hill...he said it look fine and has brand new carpet, so that was good to hear. We'll move in tomorrow afternoon.

In the meantime, I've been having fun with family and have been visiting my old friends. Here are some pictures:
me with some of my girlfriendsbrother Skyler and our dog Buddysister Miranda and Ifriend Kristen and Ifriend Emily and I

daddy, me, and mommy
sister Kendra and I

Empty Apartment

Braden's parents and brother Grant flew in last night and arrived safe and sound. The first thing we did was (of course) go to In-N-Out Burger! Yum!

Got Thomas checked out of his dorm at Master's and picked up the moving truck this morning....and after a few minor setbacks we made some mighty fine progress for the day.

After a hard days work we went to BJ's for the last time of our stay in California. Our friend Josh met us there to say goodbye. Here's a few pictures:

Packing

...has begun:

Santa Monica

Last night we hung out with Brennan again while he was here. Went to In-N-Out Burger another "California thing" to do and then drove down to my favorite, Santa Monica. We hit the beach and peir first:

Then did some shopping at Third Street/Promenade. As always, had a great time!

Only 11 days til the move. We're still deciding on an apartment, we haven't begun to pack, but both of us only have one more day at our jobs so we'll be able to get it done next week before we pick up the moving truck. Prayers would be much appreciated as we will be in need of extra energy and extra patience...this moving stuff can get a little hectic (especially when not all the details are finalized).

House of Blues

Our good friend Brennan Loveless is in town this week for a conference in Pasadena along with the associate pastor of his church. We took them to the House of Blues for dinner. It's becoming a ritual for us to take visitors to California there to eat! haha! Later we took them showed them around the Hollywood area and saw the Walk of Fame and Graumen's Chinese Theater where the famous star hand and footprints are. Fun night!
Brennan is engaged to one of my best friends, Natalie Doerr. Brennan and Nat were both in our wedding and now it's our turn to be in theirs on June 23rd. Weddings are always so much fun and we're really looking forward to this one! We're sooo excited for them.

Santa Barbara

Last Saturday morning we took a drive about 1 and 1/2 hours north of where we live to hang out at Santa Barbara for the day. We spent the day shopping, people watching, and walking along the coast. We're making the most of our last few weeks here in California. Here's a few photos from Santa Barbara: There was a guy on some kind of board (similar to a wake board, I assume)who was being pulled by the parachute thing. He glided real fast along the water. Not sure what this is called but it was pretty neat to watch:

Johnny Mac Ballin'

So this is Andrew posting this time...I don't do this much but here it goes.

So I found out that John MacArthur was recently in Louisville, KY at Southern Seminary. Here is a preview of what he was doing while he was there.

Johnny Mac Ballin'

I'm sure that wasn't all he went to Southern for. From what I understand the guys over at Together for the Gospel (T4G) put together a new promotional video for the 2008 conference. It is gonna be great. That is definitely one of the benefits of moving to KY. While you're on the site you should check out their blog. The four guys that contribute have quite a bit of fun. Anyway, I guess that is all I have to say for now. Thanks for reading.

Moving, planes, and prom

Braden's parents and brother Grant will be out here in Cali on May 10th. They get in late that night and then we'll spend the next few days packing and saying our last goodbyes to sunny Southern California. Then I along with Braden's mom will be flying home to St. Louis on May 14th! Braden, his dad and brother Grant will be driving the moving truck (pulling my Mustang) and Braden's Focus. I'm so excited to be able to go home for a few days before we start all over again in a new place.

In other news:
My brother Zach had prom last night, he's a junior at Christian High School, where I graduated from. He looked so handsome....and he asked a girl to go with him, her name is Tanisha, very cute girl and mom says she's very sweet. My mom sent me pictures:

Also, I got a haircut! Here's my first attempt at trying to style it:

In search of the Hollywood sign

No access to the Hollywood sign? Yeah right!

I think we've graduated from being tourists to real Californians...too bad we'll only be here for another 5 weeks.

Dodgers vs. Padres

Arturo, a guy at my work has season tickets to the Dodgers games and he let me buy two off him for Friday night's game vs. the San Diego Padres. There is a big rivalry between these two teams and it is very evident from sitting in the stands when everyone yells "Padres suck! Padres suck!" whenever they make a bad play, strike out, or whatever. So needless to say the few Padre fans that did come to the game were harrassed the whole time because the Padres ended up losing to the Dodgers 9-1.

We went to the game early to see batting practice...

We got free Dodger hats when we walked into the stadium and we bought Dodger dogs, nachos, and soda at the concession. Yum!

Easter Weekend

Saturday morning we went to Zuma Beach once again, it may be our last trip to Malibu, so we took full advantage of the opportunity and went early (and took lots of pictures, of course!): There we enjoyed a great breakfast of fruit, bagels, cheese, etc. As you can tell by the pictures, it was kind of chilly out...so to warm up we ran around and played some tracball and frisbee. After a while we went exploring down the coast.

We stopped when we saw this: it reads "NUDE BEACH"! haha!

Easter Sunday morning Braden and I woke up at 5:30 to go to the special early 7:00 service at church. After that we headed over to Josh's house to go with him and his grandma to their family get-together. It wasn't the same without seeing our own families, but Josh's family welcomed us and we were very thankful for that. We had a really good time watching all the little ones play, eating great food, and watching some basketball. By the time we got home we were pooped from being up so early, we were ready for bed by about 8!