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Sunday, September 7, 2008

Settling in...

My parents were our first guests over for dinner.

Well, Andrew and I have been married now for four weeks! Time has flown. We have been filling our time with getting our house organized, having company over, and I have now started teaching as of last Wednesday.

I have been studying some cookbooks and experimenting in the kitchen. Ironically, we do not have a toaster. So we have been using the broiler to make toast. One of the first times I was attempting this, my hand touched the burning element. I felt the heat and quickly moved my hand, but it did not really hurt. Stunned, I just stood there looking at my hand. Andrew grabbed me and put my hand under water. My skin was all crusty and I thought it was food or something stuck to my hand. No, it turns out the crusty part was my fried skin! After this incident, some kind friends bought us a toaster : )

Battle wound

I hope cooking is usually awkward in the beginning of a marriage, because it has been for me! Our house is especially small (the kitchen/dining room/living room/computer are all in one big room) so when I cook Andrew is usually close by. I was nervous to make mistakes. In preparing for one breakfast, I burned the toast to a nice charcoal black, forgot to butter the poached egg tray so they would not come out unless they were scraped, and the cream of wheat was lumpy because I poured it into the boiling water too quickly. I felt so incapable. The good news is, on Saturday I attempted this same breakfast and everything went perfectly! So I guess I learn from my mistakes.

We have had such good company over the last few weeks. Our good friend, and one of my bridesmaids, Becky "Perky" Jordon, came over for some chicken over rice. We also had the company of Patrick Sherrard. He has been a lifeguard all summer and he had some good stories of saving drowning kids. My grandparents came over for the first time since my parents moved to Bremerton. It was great to show the. Tom, Carrie, and Clare Herring have also come over a couple of times for dinner, games, and watching the Republican Convention.

Perky!!

Andrew, me (with Dymphna), Amy, Aaron, grandpa, grandma, dad, mom, and Patrick

Andrew and Tom have gone out to some busy streets a couple of times with graphic abortion signs. Andrew told me that a police officer pulled over to talk to him once. Apparently, he got a call from someone and told Andrew that he had every right to be out there, but had he considered the children who were seeing these pictures? Andrew told him that this was rush-hour so the target crowd was adults coming home from work, but children are bound to see the pictures too. He told me that if he sees a car full of children he does not make of point of flashing the picture in that direction. I know that children are very sensitive, but it just shows how obvious it is that abortion is the killing of a human person. I will always remember a story I heard of a little boy who saw a picture of an aborted baby on the computer and he asked his father "who broke the baby?" Children get it. Although seeing these pictures can be traumatizing, I believe this points to the intrinsic evil of abortion. The pictures are bad because abortion is bad. I fully support my husband and I love him for his courage in standing up for the precious unborn of our country.

One of the biggest highlights of the last few weeks was this weekend. Mom and dad St.Hilaire came down to visit us. We had such a wonderful time with them! It was really neat to show them our home. I even cooked a meal for them and did not make any mistakes! I am really getting more comfortable cooking. I just need to learn a wider variety of recipes. On Saturday, we had both of our parents over for dinner. We are so blessed that our parents really get along well with each other. I told Andrew that we don't really need to talk when we are all together because they all have so much in common.

Action shot!

The dads talking.

Dinner with all of our parents.

Fun down at the fountain park near the ferries.

Andrew and me

Mom and Dad St.Hilaire

Our little daughter is settling in too. Her new favorite spot is on the corner of the couch. She perches there for hours. She is such an entertaining pet. I think Andrew is enjoying living with her. I see him sitting at the computer or in a chair with her just sitting contently on his lap... A man and his chicken =)


So now that we are settled in, if you are in the Bremerton area, give us a call!

5 comments:

  1. Hey guys,
    cool blog! I don't know if you're interested but there's this priest who cooks and has a ministry called Grace Before Meals. I heard about him on Sacred Heart Radio, then again at WYD SYD. Here's his website http://www.gracebeforemeals.com

    There are some recipes in the archives! Happy Cooking!

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  2. I seem to be the first person commenting on your blog. Thanks for e-mailing me the link! The and problem reminds me of the game SimAnt. They could be entrenched somewhere inside the house, or they could simply be coming in from the outside. You could try finding the trail outside and stopping them at the source. I hope to see you both soon! Luckily we have no ant problems, but someone nearby is a really smoke stack, and we have to keep closing the windows/screen door to keep it out throughout the day.

    God Bless!

    Jon

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  3. Darn, my wife posted just before me. I guess I'm not the first...

    Jon

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  4. Val, that website looks great! Thanks for passing it on :) We will have to look at it more extensively in the future.

    Jon -- haha! SimAnts, I totally forgot about that game. Of course, I never actually played it, but had a few friends who did. Fortunately, the ants have disappeared for the past week or so, which has been a huge blessing!

    Sorry to hear about the smokey neighbors. Maybe you could get an industrial size fan to blow it all back into their window?

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  5. We're in Poulsbo, are you two still in Bremerton? Where? I did my student teaching at Naval Avenue there off of Olympic!

    ~ Alex

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