The Deer Chaser

Well, I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to post good, long posts, so this will have to do.

This is a video of Grant chasing some deer while we were walking around the grounds of Oglebay in West Virginia. We found out that the deer seemed so tame, because they are tame. Evidentally, when they are born, they're put in the petting zoo, so they can become familiar with people. So when they become adult, they're put out into the "wild," and can co-exist with the visitors that come to the resort.

It's been a while...

So, I'm back to the blog-o-sphere. Did you miss me? We had a great time with Grant's family. Let's see...

Friday
I went to work, they went to the Air Force museum, and several of the Wright Brother's sites.

Saturday
Went to brunch at Sunrise Cafe in Yellow Springs (great omelets!)

Saw some baby goats at Young's Dairy Farm (so cute!)

Went to a Wright Brother's commemorative center, where Grant, Ryan, and their dad got to do a Wright Brother's flight simulation


Sunday
Went to church
Went to BD's Mongolian Grill
Saw the movie Amazing Grace (if you haven't seen it, you should! I feel strongly about Christians supporting good movies at the theatre)

Monday
Went to the Cincinnati Aquarium

Went to yoga class (John went with me!! Now if I could just get Grant to go...)

Tuesday
Drove to Oxford, which is where Miami University of Ohio is, which is where Grant's dad went to college.
Took Ryan to the airport so he can go back to school

Wednesday
Headed for Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia, where we met up with Grant's aunt and uncle (the ones we stayed with over Thanksgiving in New Jersey)

Went to the pool at Oglebay from about 9-10 pm. It closed at 10, and at 10:03, we got chewed out by the "security guard" for not drying off quickly enough (I wish I had a picture of this!)

Thursday
Went golfing at Oglebay golf course. Well, Grant, John and David went golfing. The other 4 of us were spectators.


Friday
Headed back for Dayton
Picked up Watley at the kennel, where he was very excited to see us
Grant's mom and dad made their way back to P'cola
Me, Grant and John went to the gym, then had some delicious greek food!!

Saturday
Took it easy all morning, watching our favorite Arrested Development episodes ("Illusions, Michael!)
Took John to the airport, so he could make his way back to sunny California

Now it's back to work and school for myself and Grant. If only we could have another week to recuperate from last week!

Today's the Day!

Well, as I'm typing this, hopefully Grant's parents and little brother are on their way up here to lovely Dayton. Grant's older brother, John, will be flying in from LA this afternoon. We're very excited to see everyone, but none of us have seen John for a while, since he was deployed to Africa during Christmas.

So, my blogging entries will probably be few and far between this next week....did I mention I was on vacation? Woo hoo! Grant's taking his last finals today, so his vacation technically starts tomorrow.

Just another day

I just thought I'd post this video of Grant. This is the kind of stuff he does all the time. Isn't he cool?

And The Next American Idol Is...

While Grant was browsing the PCC board (the message board for all PCC reprobates), he discovered that one of the American Idol contestants went to PCC from 96-97. And, he's one of our favorites on American Idol - Chris Sligh. Grant and I usually only watch American Idol for the stupid auditions and then the last episode, but for some reason this season we've been watching it every week. Probably for the lack of anything better being on TV.

We first saw Chris Sligh on his audition. He made me laugh right from the beginning when the judges asked him, "Why do you want to be the next American Idol?" And his response was classic, "Because I want to make David Hasselhoff cry." From that point on, and after hearing him sing, he won me over.

Now hearing that he actually went to PCC, I really want him to win! One of my friends on Myspace, who went to PCC, posted a message a while back saying to vote for him, because he was a close friend of theirs. I just assumed they were from the same hometown, not that they actually went to college together! Evidentally, a few of my other friends from PCC also knew him.

I found the video from his audition, so please watch it. He makes the Hasselhoff comment, and they show the clip of him crying.



Chris Sligh American Idol Audition - Amazing videos are here

Oh, and someone from the PCC board found this posting on one of his blogs:

"I graduated from college **I think he meant to say high school** and my parents gave me 3 choices of where I could go to college: Pensacola Christian College, Bob Jones University and Northland Christian College - all 3 were very conservative Christian colleges. I chose PCC because it was at the beach (and it was freaking cheap) and I went to school as a pre-law major.

Now, I should explain that PCC has very strict rules. They go on a demerits system. 150 demerits kicks you out. If they find out you have illegal music (read anything with a "rock or sensual" beat) gives you 75 demerits the first time...kicked out the second time. However unlike my parents, they didn't search through my stuff without cause to look for illegal music, so my first week of school after my parents left me, I went to the local Christian bookstore and bought like 20 CDs of various contemporary Christian artists that I had always heard about but never listened to: Michael W. Smith, 4Him, Michael English, etc. And I fell in love with this music like crazy.

First semester of that year, a few weeks in, I was walking down the hallway humming a Michael English song (for those of you who don't know, Michael English was the Christian version of Michael Bolton). A kid walking the opposite way heard me humming and came up and tapped me on the shoulder and told me he was starting a vocal group and that he liked my voice. I later went and sang for him and he put me in his quartet. I had written a song my first week at school called "Ransom" and I thought we might be able to do it. The guys loved it and from there on out, I wrote all the songs for the group - I would write a skeleton of a song, and then would sit down with Ryan (the guy who heard me in the hall) who was an amazing pianist and we would flesh it out with chord structure and everything like that. It was my first taste of fame, as we would sing for various school functions and people started recognizing me around campus.

About half-way through the 2nd semester of my freshman year, I began thinking that I really wanted to be a music major. More and more I was spending all my time working on music and loving it. I hadn't written any prose in months...just song after song, trying to work on the craft of songwriting. I looked at the school of music at PCC and realized that it was okay, but I really wanted something great. So, I transferred to a school called Bob Jones University - one of the 3 schools my parents would help pay for. It was probably a mistake, in retrospect, but I didn't want to have to pay for school on my own and the music department is well-respected...but it is solely classical."

I have never voted on AI before, but I think I will this year.

Pei Wei

Most of my friends in Albuquerque probably already know what Pei Wei (pronounced Pay Way) is, but if you don't, it's a more casual version of PF Chang's. It's great. Grant and I were first introduced to it by Pinky and SixBit - we were driving down I-40 after church one Sunday, and they caught up to us and asked if wanted to go to Pei Wei for lunch. We had no idea what it was, but we went anyway. I liked it right away, but Grant wasn't crazy about it.

I had been a few times after that, but Grant only went again when a couple from church took treated us to dinner there right before we moved. He had the Kung Pao. It was over for him. He talked about that Kung Pao for weeks, and even months after that.

Well, I went on Pei Wei's website to see if there were any in our area. There weren't any in Dayton, but I saw that there was one opening up near Columbus in March. Well, at the beginning of March, I went back to the website to see if they had a specific opening date. They didn't, and since I didn't want to keep checking back everytime I thought about it, I decided to email them to find out.

Little did I know that that one email would get Grant and I a special invitation to a pre-opening lunch for free!! So that's what we did yesterday. Grant took a break from studying for his finals, we drove an hour to Pei Wei, ate our fantastic meals, then drove back. But it was totally worth it - we each got an entree for free, and when they brought out our food, they included a 3rd entree, just for the heck of it. Grant finally got his Kung Pao fix, so hopefully I don't have to keep hearing about Kung Pao before the next time we go, which will be in about a month - yay!

Forget LA...

When we first moved here, and I got my job in Yellow Springs, Grant and I looked up Yellow Springs on Wikipedia, where we were finding out random facts about the small little town. The most notable celebrity from Yellow Springs is Dave Chapelle (a comedian, for those of you who aren't familiar with him). Grant and I thought this was pretty cool, since we do like his show. Again, for those who might not know him for his comedy, you might know him from the movie, You've Got Mail, playing Tom Hanks' best friend.

Anyways, to make a long story short, a friend from work and I went to Young's Dairy Farm for lunch (it's only about 3 miles from our work), and on our way there, driving through the main street of Yellow Springs, I see none other than Dave Chapelle! I was so excited, the first thing I did is roll down the window and yell out, "Hey Dave!" What a dork! My friend decided to park, and we would walk over and talk to him. By the time we got to him, he was already in his car, about to leave. Through the window of his car, he was kind of "shoo-ing" us off, and I was about to be really disappointed. Then, he rolled down the window, and said, "I'm sorry girls, I'm on the phone, and I'm in a hurry. I can't really talk right now." We then told him that we understood, but we were big fans of his, and we loved his show. He liked that, so he shook our hands, told us to have a good day, then drove off. He would have been justified to shoo us away, because he really was on the phone, and he really did look like he was in a hurry. He got a lot of cool points for talking to us, even if it was for only 10 seconds or so.

This is hands-down the coolest thing that's happened to me in a while! The only problem was, I didn't have my camera. I ALWAYS have my camera with me, in my purse. But when we left to go to lunch, my friend was the one driving, so I just grabbed my wallet, instead of taking my whole purse. I'm still kicking myself for that!!

More Etsy

So, I added another section on my sidebar..."Cool Etsy Shops." I talked about etsy.com a while back, and how it's this cool website, full of all sorts of handmade goodies.

Tink's friend just started her own etsy shop, so I wanted to put a plug in for it...Morninglory Kitsch. For those of you with babies, or babies on the way, she makes super-cute knit hats especially for tiny heads.

Moving On...

Well, we joined our new church today. We are officially members of Covenant OPC! It's sad that we're not members of Providence anymore, but this is part of the military life.

No matter how many churches we join, Providence will always be special to us. It was our first church to join as a married couple; it was my first "real" experience at a Presbyterian church, and where I became more grounded in reformed theology, thanks to Randy; we were part of a fantastic College & Career group (otherwise known as ALF), where we made life-long friends.

I'm so excited to be going back to Albuquerque for Mrs. J's baby shower. I'll be there for a few days, so I should have the opportunity to see alot of people. Unfortunately, Grant won't be coming with me, but we're hoping to make it through Albuquerque on our move to LA, which is just over a year away!

**The picture I posted is from our "goodbye Sunday" at Providence - a very sad day!**

New Blogger

Well, Mrs. J beat me to it, but I wanted to say welcome a new blogger - Susie!

Susie and her family moved to Albuquerque from here in Dayton a few months before we moved and began coming to our church. So we pretty much swaped places. They recommended the church that we now attend (and are about to join), at which people still get shocked when they hear that we know Bob and Susie and the kids. They have 4 beautiful kids, and Susie's posts for the next 5 weeks should be interesting, since Bob is gone for an Air Force officer training class in Alabama, and Susie is left with the kids to herself.