Keeping Up With the Evanses

We've Moved

2010-12-08T22:43:00.002-06:00

Both our physical address AND our blog address have changed!

The blog is now:

http://aarontori.wordpress.com

Hope to see you there :-)

Baby limes and giant snowmen

2010-03-09T18:54:00.002-06:00

Hi everyone!

Greetings from the great white north.... east. We got about 40 inches of snow at one time, about 60 inches over the past month, and I had a lot of fun. People around the Soltane community built snowmen, went sledding, and there was even a really cool snow fort (complete with a tunnel!). It was also cool finally understanding what a "snow drift" is, though it makes the roads quite tricky to navigate.

While it was cold outside, Tori was inside, roasting. You see, there is a bun in the oven, and she is the oven. The bun is actually a baby, which is the size of a lime right now, and has reflexes! That means if we poke Tori, the baby can feel it! Also, it will be able to hear us by the end of the week. Let the music begin!

Hope all is well out where this is being read!

Introducing Baby Evans!

2010-02-12T13:30:00.004-06:00

I'll add a worded post later, but my time is about to run out on the library computer.

Picture One

Picture Two

Picture with Labels (you'll just have to trust us on this)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

2009-12-24T13:26:00.004-06:00

Greetings from Limestone, NY. I swear Tori jinxed it: she promised me snow on Christmas. I said "How can you promise the weather?" Of course we are predicted to get freezing rain. Meanwhile, TEXAS gets snow. Dallas/Fort Worth gets snow for Christmas, and earlier this year HOUSTON got snow on the ground. What are the odds. Oklahoma is getting a blizzard. New York gets freezing rain. I think snow is avoiding me!

Things are good up here though. Tori enjoys seeing someone get so much excitement from a sled. We decided to rent a car to visit Tori's grandma James and Aunt Cathy for Christmas, and we'll be headed back to Soltane a few days after Christmas. New Year's plans are soon to be made. Yesterday we explored Tori's childhood home: Salamanca, NY. It was cool seeing all the places Tori pointed out with specific memories. "Here's where I built that giant snow fort!" "I used to call 1-800-ABCDEFG on a payphone that used to be there to hear the Hooked on Phonics message!" "There's the hospital where I visited the emergency room like once a month because I was so accident prone!"

After that we went through Allegheny State Park to enjoy the winter wonderland scenery, and I found an awesome sledding hill. "One time I got a concussion and the doctor at the emergency room told my mom she had to keep me up all night, so we drove around here for a while looking for deer. Occasionally she had to pinch me to keep me awake."

So far the trip has been great, and it's been nice to have a chance to relax. I highly recommend that if you have to rent a car, go to Grand Sport Auto in Chester Springs... For some reason our car wasn't working with the computer, so they gave us a free upgrade from a Ford Focus to a Ford Fusion (nice car, by the way). Not only that, they bumped up our discount by an extra 5%, and threw in free satellite radio! Nice! We especially enjoyed the coffeehouse station. Singer-songwriter stuff.

That's about all for now. The scenery is great here. I wish it looked this pretty everywhere...

Best wishes this holiday season!

-Aaron

Long Overdue Update

2009-12-15T12:32:00.001-06:00

Greetings from Pennsylvania!

These past few months here at Camphill Soltane have been great. After living in one house for the first 3 months, we have moved to another house giving us a new perspective on life in this community. Our first house was on the residential side, as opposed to our current home on the college side. Here we live with 2 students, 1 resident (all three of whom have a developmental disability) , 1 other couple, their son who is a sailor but had to come home due to pneumonia, and an older woman who has lived in Camphill communities for many years. The atmosphere here makes us feel much more like we are living in a home than a house.

Tori is working in Soltane’s textile enterprise called “in good company” (Their store website is http://ingc.etsy.com). There are four residents that work there full time (two of whom we lived with at our first house) and four student interns that work there half days Monday through Friday. They research a theme called an “inspiration” (currently they are working on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table). Then they design fabrics and different textile products to make with the fabrics. After that, they weave their own fabric, cut, and sew it into a unique product to sell at craft fairs, online, or for special orders. All of the weaving and creation of images is the work of the residents and students with disabilities. The coworkers support them and do much of the sewing. Tori enjoys the work and is proud of the products they make. The etsy shop is still just getting started, but we hope to have our bags and t-shirts listed soon!

Aaron is working in Soltane’s community services and with Soltane’s land work group. In community services, they do everything from collecting and sorting recycling from Soltane and the surrounding community to taking on odd jobs that people don’t have time for (cleaning up property lines, chopping firewood, shoveling snow & de-icing sidewalks, etc.). The land work group takes care of several things around campus from collecting and processing compost, raking leaves, trimming trees, and taking care of various fruit patches and orchards (raspberries, blackberries, apples, peaches, black walnuts, etc.). The land group even makes products with the community’s produce such as apple cider, apple butter, fruit leather, etc.

Working at Soltane has definitely been a growth experience for both of us. It is taxing at times both physically and emotionally, but also very rewarding. Soltane allows us to use our talents, learn new skills, and provides us with a sense of great satisfaction in that we are directly contributing to the growth of the students and residents we work with. We have also made new friends here that we are sure will be lifelong connections.

We hope all is well with you! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Aaron and Tori

P.S. I hope to upload MANY pictures and a few videos during our Christmas break which starts on the 20th.

Glenmoore is on the horizon

2009-08-26T12:52:00.002-05:00

It's our last full day with the Fish family before we head to camphill, and I am excited to have a dresser soon. Living out of suitcases for the past 2 months has gotten old. News from the past 2 days: we've found an insurance company that is half the cost of the one we were going to use for the first 3 months of our stay at Camphill Soltane (before they pick up our coverage). We've also found out what house we will be living in on the campus, and that the houseparent we will be working with has 2 children! Tori was very excited to hear this because she had said multiple times that she hopes our house has children. I'm glad; the house will feel more like a home with kids :-)

We have our orientation on Saturday, so more will come once we are settled!

PENNSYLVANIA!!!

2009-08-23T11:07:00.003-05:00

We're here! We're hanging out with the Fishes, which is great fun.

The flight was good. I made friends with a lady in the terminal over our shared interest in knitting (which I learned how to do this summer and am about to finish my first scarf). There were some really adorable little kids near us on the plane who were pretty good.

John picked us up from the airport and we came back to the house and saw Laurie, Nana, and Eric (all of whom I was meeting for the first time). We went to dinner at Chili's where I taught them how to play coasters which is a game where you flip a coaster off the edge of the table and catch it midair and add one more each time. My mom is the rockstar of that game and taught it to me, but I think I may have beaten her best score last night when I got 13. I also tried Yuengling beer which was like a lighter Shiner Bock, very good.

We played outside with their two dogs for a little bit. The yard is nice and big and gorgeous. Then we played Bananagrams and then they taught us how to play 10,000 which is a dice game and lots of fun.

Jason and Dylan got home late (after 11) from working at camp. It was very exciting to finally meet Jason! Dylan's okay too, I guess :) We stayed up pretty late talking and hanging out in the kitchen.

Conclusion of day one!

Texas to Oklahoma to Texas to....Oklahoma to Colorado

2009-07-29T17:50:00.010-05:00

****ANOTHER EDIT****
I fixed the link to the picture albums, sorry.

***Edit***
I really tried to put lots of videos and pictures up, but it was just taking WAY too long, so there will only be one or two pictures on the post, but I'll link to the rest of them in my online albums.

I took LOTS of photos and recorded some video all along our journey thus far and so I will be posting quite a few of them on here (if you have very slow internet, I apologize).

I will begin with the first leg of our trip: Fort Worth to Denver!

We took two cars to Lawton (we left my old beater with my mom) and so our trip actually began in Fort Worth, but we were in separate cars and the camera was with Aaron. I got a sunburn on the way to Lawton because it was blazing hot and the Corsica doesn't have A/C so I drove with the windows down. We met up at my mom's in Lawton and dropped of the car. Then we headed for Denver. We drove west through Oklahoma and into Texas again, then further west and then turned north and proceeded to drive through Oklahoma again (the panhandle) until we finally crossed into Colorado.

It was a long drive, but it was a good one and spirits were high. We got to our friends' place around 3 or 4 in the morning. We visited for just a couple of minutes before passing out. It had been 2 years since we'd seen Thomas and Debbie and so we were really excited. The kids were so big and they had baby 3 on the way.

Our first day was kind of lazy/relaxing. We didn't do a whole lot except sleep. We visited some in the evening and had a nice dinner. There was lots of catching up.

Some of our awesome activities while we were there:
-going to the neighborhood pool
-taking a walk in a pretty walking park nearby
-babysitting :)
-playing Bananagrams (really fun, Aaron LOVES it)
-walking around downtown Denver
-dinners outside on the patio
-taking the kids to the park
-lots of hanging out and talking
-seeing the mountains (we didn't actually go, but they looked beautiful)

A couple of my favorite pictures:

The two rivers that converge in downtown Denver

Some pretty flowers from one of our walks

A picture I took while waiting for a train in Memphis, TX (on the road to CO)

More Pictures Here, Here, and Here

Monumental Update...coming soon :)

2009-07-27T02:56:00.005-05:00

We are currently back in Fort Worth, TX for one week. We have been to Lawton, Denver, Lincoln (Nebraska), back to Lawton, and then here. We still have two more stops to make on our trip.

Something to look forward to: pictures! LOTS of pictures from our travels so far and also...video clips (at least one from each time we crossed a state line).

This week will provide us with absolutely no have to's as well as an awesome internet connection so I will most definitely be updating this baby.

hint: look at the labels for this post and you will get a small idea of what we've seen/done so far

okay, so it wouldn't let me post all of them but here they are (babies, denver, family, food, friends, fun, plans, tejas, travels, vacation, wildlife, okies, corn, badminton, competitive sports, injuries, sleep, driving, night life, cooking, dessert)

Living the Nomad Life

2009-07-07T12:52:00.003-05:00

As of yesterday at 1:30 PM Aaron and I are officially homeless (and unemployed) until August 26th. It was completely intentional so don't freak out and send money unless you really want to send money in which case we wouldn't turn it down :)

Yesterday began our two-month-long adventure. We will be traveling around and visiting (read: mooching off) our friends and family. We left our "summer home" that we were sitting around 1:30. Aaron headed to DFW airport to pick up my mom's roommate's brother who is visiting from Italy. I drove the old beater up to Lawton to leave with my mom since her car was stolen sometime in the very early hours of Friday morning. I got to Lawton about 4:30 and Aaron arrived an hour later. We said our goodbyes and hit the road Denver, Colorado-bound.

We left Lawton at 5:30 expecting it to take 11 hours. We arrived at the home of our friends the Lindbergs at 3:15 AM (mountain time) so we got here 15 minutes earlier than expected. Go us! We visited for just a few minutes and then went to sleep around 3:30 AM (but for us was more like 4:30 since we came from Central time).

We don't really have any set plans for our stay so far, so if you have any suggestions for what to do in the Denver/Boulder area let us know!

All moved in

2009-06-01T17:03:00.003-05:00

I have a few moments before Tori gets home and we go to her sister's for dinner (with another of her sisters and her family), so I thought I'd update everyone.

We're all moved out of our old place in Fort Worth, and are now house sitting for one of my professors for a month while they are out around the country. We're taking care of their new kittens (Ozzie, Kati, Chewy, and Vanessa) and also taking care of just general things around their house (the yard, fish, plants, etc.). For the next month we will be doing that and working as much as we can to save up for the trip to PA.

Things look pretty good here. I've finished my summer course with an A, and am officially done with my undergraduate degree. We're all settled and taking the opportunity to relax and not have classwork over our heads. That's about all we have to report right now! It will be a sad month, with lots of saying bye to friends, but we look forward to PA.

-insert celebratory dance here-

2009-05-12T14:39:00.003-05:00

I did it, I am officially finished with my undergraduate degree. I'm seriously excited!

I just got out of my last final exam (which I totally rocked).

Aaron's graduation ceremony was this past Saturday and mine is this coming Saturday.

Lots to report here, but I'm going to go sell back my books and head home (maybe...depending on what I hear back from my boss about work tonight).

This post is to be continued.....

Yummy Dessert

2009-04-19T23:06:00.003-05:00

My mom makes this amazing banana split cake. It tastes like fluffy whipped heaven, and it's so rich that you can only eat a small piece. The down side is that even a tiny piece packs a seriously high calorie punch (and takes a little effort to make) . Tonight, I stumbled upon a wonderfully similar low calorie way to make it.

It began when I decided to use some more milk before it reaches it's sell by date in a couple of days. I used two cups to make a box of vanilla pudding. Then I decided to smash up the overripe banana sitting on the counter. Then I remembered that I had a tub of cool whip sitting in the freezer that's been there for a while. I popped it into the microwave and used the soften butter setting to thaw it enough to make it stir-able. Then I added the cool-whip to the banana pudding and viola! I let it set in the fridge since the cool-whip sort of dominated the pudding. After about an hour in the fridge we took some out and ate it. It's VERY good and immediately reminded me of mom's banana split cake.

So the plan is to use two boxes of pudding (to make it a little thicker) and put the mix into a graham cracker crust and top with a little graham cracker crumble. Just like mom's, only less guilty.

So, for those wanting to attempt:

2 boxes instant vanilla pudding
1 overripe banana
1 8 oz tub low fat cool whip (I use the generic albertson's brand)
1 graham cracker crust (or you can make your own with graham crackers and butter)
2 cups cold 2% milk

make pudding according to box, break banana into pieces and mix in using your whisk, add cool-whip, pour filling into crust, refrigerate for 1 hour, enjoy!

I'm a Bad Blogger

2009-04-16T00:33:00.005-05:00

Sorry for not posting anything new in about....3 weeks. It's been crazy around here. I will eventually finish posting about our vacation I swear.

I really want to update everyone (or the 5 people that read this regularly) on how we're doing.

School:

We had a slight scare that Aaron wasn't going to be able to walk at his graduation. He found out about 4 weeks into the semester that he is missing a Psychology credit he needs for his degree. To make a VERY long story short: he took the CLEP exam, missed it by one point (according to TCU's standards, he was well above the college board standards), made an appeal, it was denied, he is now enrolled for a may-mester (3 week mini semester in May) course in general psych. He was told he could not walk at graduation, but appealed and is walking on May 10th with everyone else (if we can pay the summer tuition by the 1st of May).

Other than that school is going well for Aaron. He is very much enjoying his time as a crisis counselor at the high school and is by all accounts doing great there. He finished his honors project for the honors program and presented it on Monday and will present his departmental honors project today/thursday at their research symposium. He just needs to tweak his final paper and submit it by May 5th.

As for me, things are going well. I and a friend were selected by our department as Outstanding Undergraduate Students of the Year, which is pretty cool. We were presented with a certificate and what looks like two ashtrays (but is actually a trinket box/candy dish) at the UNT honors convocation. As a result of my award, I have decided to go ahead and walk at the UNT graduation on May 16th. I've got two big projects to finish before the end of the semester (one is due the 30th and the other during finals week). I feel good about them both and am so looking forward to graduation day(s).

Summer:

After graduation, it's going to be pretty hectic while we pack up/sell our things in preparation to move out of our apartment. We're going to move our stuff to Aaron's grandmother's house. She agreed to let us store our stuff if we clean out the garage and make room (such an awesome deal!). We also need to go to the doctor and dentist to get checkups and have them fill out medical/dental histories for us to present to Camphill so we can get on their insurance. For the month of June we will be working and house sitting in the Fort Worth area.

We're going to a family reunion on July 4th and then on the 6th we're headed to Colorado to visit some friends we haven't seen in a of couple years. After that we'll visit my mom in Oklahoma, a short stop back in Fort Worth, Del Rio to see my dad and Phyllis, Houston to see Aaron's parents, then a stop back in Louisiana for our one year anniversary (we're staying at the Oak Alley Plantation B&B), then Alabama to visit my sisters and their families. After that a very long drive up to SW New York to visit my grandmother, then finally to Pennsylvania where we'll stay with Aaron's best friend's family for a couple of days before starting at Camphill Soltane.

It's going to be a very busy and wonderful summer, I can tell. Lots of time with family and friends. I'm very excited to see my grandmother. I haven't seen her since I graduated from high school and this will be the first time she and Aaron will meet. I'm also excited to visit Salamanca again (where I lived from age 3-13); from what I saw on google maps street view it hasn't changed much.

We've got a lot going on right now, but I'll do my best to keep this thing up to date. I'll get to the vacation stuff eventually (hopefully before I forget what all we did) :)

V-A-C-AT-I-O-N Part UNO

2009-03-23T15:24:00.008-05:00

So I was wondering what to title this and that old song by Connie Francis is now stuck in my head (which I'm sure most of the people who read this will have no idea what I'm talking about-google it and educate yourself).

Last week was our Spring Break. Thankfully this year TCU and UNT decided to align their breaks. Last year I skipped a week of school to go to Seattle with our church group. I did end up having two weeks off, but it was difficult to manage.

This year we decided to take a road trip with some of our friends. Our friends Caity, Ed, and Scott drove down to southern Louisiana with us to visit another mutual friend, Austin. Austin was actually our RA (resident assistant) when we all lived in a dorm together. He graduated two years ago and is currently doing Teach for America (an Americorps program) in the New Orleans area. He lives in Laplace, LA which is about 45 minutes from New Orleans. He is also about an hour away from Baton Rouge. We left on the 13th around 7ish and got to his place around 430 AM on the 14th. I drove the entire way (go me)!

We spent Saturday and Sunday lounging around, doing a whole lot of nothing (which was EXCELLENT btw) and catching up with Austin. He's pretty bad about keeping in touch. We went out for lunch at a nearby restaurant, walked around his neighborhood, and found the absolute BEST snow cones on the planet. It's called Big Chief's and if you're ever in Laplace, LA you should definitely go.

Austin still had class that week so we had to find our own entertainment during the week. On Monday we drove to the Oak Alley Plantation for a tour. It's really gorgeous and the tour was interesting. Our tour guide looked exactly like a woman that used to work in the office of our dorm. The five of us split a mint julep at 11 AM and decided to blame it on the atmosphere (it was kind of tasty).

Then we drove to New Orleans for the day. We went down to the french quarter and had lunch at the alpine. The food was okay, nothing spectacular. It had drizzled all morning so we got a little bit wet walking around, but it wasn't too bad. We did A LOT of walking. We walked all around the french quarter, visited shops, got beignets and hot chocolate at cafe du monde, and strolled along the river front. We went to Harrah's and were completely at a loss as to what we were supposed to do. We decided to hit the penny slots and see who could make the most money with 5 dollars. I won 10 dollars and then gave it all back to break even. Caity won 5, Ed broke even, and Aaron and Scott both lost their 5 bucks (group loss of 5).

We then walked all around the mall to dry off (it had started to rain a little harder on our way to Harrah's). Our feet were hurting by the time we were done with the shops (and mine were wet because my chucks got soaked) so we sat down and took a little break. After some rest we decided to head back over to the french quarter for some dinner and a little pub crawling. After much walking and deliberation over prices we settled on Yo Ma Ma's. Their food was SO good. I got a chicken cordon bleu sandwich and everyone else got burgers. We all got baked potatoes dripping with butter, delicious. They also had very good frozen lemonade margaritas.

After dinner, we hit up an awesome karaoke club Cat's Meow (which I just realized has a 24 hour archive of web cam feed, thankfully we were there over a week ago). I dragged Caity and Ed to sing livin on a prayer and we were just not inebriated nor wild enough to be entertaining I guess. We were lame. Even though we weren't great, it was wildly entertaining to watch everyone else. Some were pretty good, others completely awful, but they were all more entertaining than us for sure. Caity swears that someone threw ice at us.... We had a couple of drinks (except Aaron who was DD) and then moved on to the Funky Pirate and listened to a live blues band. They were good, especially their guitarist. He was insane. One more drink and then we decided to head home. We kept threatening Aaron that we were all going to get totally wasted and make him drive us home, but really no one was even buzzed. We got home around 12:30 or 1 and hit the sack.

I'll write our Tuesday adventure another time since this is getting really long.

The Scoop on Camphill...Finale

2009-03-07T02:30:00.007-06:00

It's been a while since the last post. Sorry, but we've been pretty busy around here. We just got back from Spring Break (post on that to come later) and before that we had midterms.

Here it is, the third and final installment of our blogs on Camphill

I'll just go ahead and do the last one because Aaron has been a bit busy/stressed out lately (more on that later t00).

So, onto the final few questions:

"What about grad school?!"
Well, we're obviously not going right now. I hope to eventually get my Master's degree in Speech Language Pathology. I will have to take a few prerequisite undergraduate courses (4 or 5) prior to enrolling in a graduate program so it might take a little while. As for Aaron, he hasn't really decided what he's going to do next. He has really enjoyed working at the high school so far this semester and maybe will someday work as a crisis counselor. That's completely up to him. Our plans for the near future (other than Camphill) are a little bit up in the air at the moment. We've decided to keep our stay at Camphill open-ended. If we love it and they love us, we might stay for a second year (you can qualify for the Americorps grant twice so if we do decide to stay a second year we'll get the same grant again).

"Why aren't you getting a 'real job'?"
Prior to getting married I decided that I wanted to give back in some way. I applied for and was accepted to go on a summer-long mission trip to India last summer. However, I ended up staying due to my financial situation. I had a really nice-paying job that was helping me to also pay for school, and they definitely wouldn't hold my position for me over the summer. So I stayed and we moved the wedding up. We had discussed it and Aaron also wanted to serve others in some capacity, although he definitely had a desire to serve more locally. He's the home-body type and holds to the idea that we should serve here in our own country.

So when we weren't really sure what we were going to do after graduation and felt sick at the idea of starting more school up right away, we began searching for service opportunities. We found Americorps, but didn't see anything in their listings that caught our eye. Then I found www.idealist.org which is basically an awesome search engine for service opportunities and news. We found the Camphill Soltane listing and it sounded perfect for us. We immediately loved the philosophy they have and decided to apply. It may not pay like a "real job" but it most definitely will be an amazing experience that cannot be duplicated in any other sort of setting. It's a way for us to serve others and grow (and it doesn't look bad on a resume by any means). There's plenty of time for "real" jobs in the future anyway.

"Will you be able to come back for _______?"
Honestly, unless it will somehow miraculously take place in Pennsylvania or during one of our holiday breaks, probably not. It's not that we don't care or that we want to miss out on things like graduations, weddings, birthdays, holidays, etc but we have made a committment to work 6 days a week, every week. We do recieve time off for holidays but even then it's not cheap to travel from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma and Texas. We'll definitely do what we can to visit, but it will most likely be on a long break and only a short visit with each part of the family. You're more than welcome to come visit us though! According to what I've read Camphill loves visitors, but be warned: if you plan on staying more than a day or two they'll put you to work :)

"What are you going to do after Camphill?"
Good question! That means we're not really sure yet. We're going to use our time at Camphill to figure that out for ourselves. Don't worry though, we'll let you know once we know.

I hope that this has answered most if not all of your questions. If you have any others or just want to know more about it, give us a call or shoot us an email.

The Scoop on Camphill...Part Two

2009-02-27T14:53:00.006-06:00

Onto part two of our series on questions we receive about Camphill

"That's awfully far away, are you sure you want to go?"

In short, yes. We understand that it is in Pennsylvania and that yes, Pennsylvania is rather far away from Texas/Oklahoma. However, we wanted to get away from this area for a while. We're not saying it to be mean. We're not going away from anyONE, just craving a change of scenery. We actually decided that Camphill Soltane sounded amazing and wonderful and we wanted more information about it even before we knew that it was in Pennsylvania.

"Won't you be cold?"

Well, probably. Especially in the winter. However, I do have some experience with the winter up there (I lived pretty close to the Penn border in New York from ages 3 to 13). We'll have good warm winter coats, boots, gloves, earmuffs/hats, and scarves. It's all about layers. Promise we'll use our brains on this one ;)

"Are you crazy?"

I believe that this question was less a question about the sanity of our decision and more about the idea of willingly going to a climate that has snow. The answer, by the way, is no.

"How much does it pay?"

This is a VERY popular question from family. We aren't doing this for the money. With that said, we won't be left penniless afterward either. We have free housing and food the entire time we're there, plus after 3 months we'll have fully paid-for health insurance. We get a monthly stipend of $170 each. We won't have any bills to pay so we can save pretty much all of that each month.

We are actually going to be enrolled at Camphill as Americorps workers (Americorps is the same concept as Peacecorps, only you stay and work in the U.S. instead of going to another country). At the end of our time at Camphill we will have qualified for a full Americorps grant of $4,725.00 each for our year of full-time service. That grant can be used either to pay off student loans or toward tuition at an approved institution (there are lots of colleges and universities that accept Americorps grants). We have 7 years from the end of our service to use those funds.

Aaron doesn't have much in the way of federal student loans, but he can pay off what he does have and then use the rest toward his master's degree if he wants. I on the other hand have almost all federal student loans so I'll use mine toward those. Also, since we will be working in an Americorps program, our student loans will go into deferment just as if we were still in school which means we won't have to make payments on them and any time left in our grace period will still be there when we finish at Camphill. Most loans have a 6 month grace period after graduation and so since we're starting at the end of August we'll still have 3 months left once we leave Camphill before we'll need to make any payments.

I am very meticulous about money (I actually keep a hand-written ledger and budget). I'm also a good bargain hunter (not to brag or anything), and Aaron is a tightwad. Between the two of us we'll have plenty of money saved up before we ever leave for Pennsylvania.

We're so very excited about Camphill. We received our paperwork in the mail last week and I filled mine out the next day, but Aaron has been seriously swamped with school and work stuff, but already has a reminder set on his phone to fill his out on Sunday so we can mail them on Monday.

The next set of questions that I (or maybe Aaron) will answer are: "What about grad school?!", "Why aren't you getting a 'real job'?", "Will you be able to come back for _______?", and finally "What are you going to do after Camphill?"

The Scoop on Camphill...Part One

2009-02-25T16:15:00.000-06:00

Here are the two most common questions we're asked about Camphill Soltane.

What is Camphill Soltane?

From their letterhead: "A life-sharing educational community for and with individuals with developmental disabilities"

Basically, it is a community for adults with developmental disabilities unlike any that we had ever heard of. There are two programs housed on the campus, the first is the Learning for Life program which is modeled after a liberal arts college experience. Students live on campus in large home settings and take classes (academic, fine arts, pre-vocational, life skills, and vocational) for 5 years. The other program is available to graduates of the Learning for Life program and it is the Community Resident program. This program is available for those that wish to continue on at/return to Camphill. It provides vocational training and a job either on or off campus. Residents also receive continuing education in life skills and are involved in planning events for the entire Camphill community (and they live in large home settings same as the students). Areas that they can work on campus include a bakery, weavery, a small store, and landscaping and gardening (they have an orchard, a garden, and lots of berry bushes).

It's not at all what you would imagine a residential community for individuals with developmental disabilities would be like. It's not a "institution" or "facility." It's truly a home and community for these people where they learn valuable life skills in an environment that meets them where they are. Everyone contributes to the community as they are able. There is nothing institutional about it. Each home really is a house and not a building. Each person is a respected individual and is encouraged to grow in their abilities. I cannot believe that I had never heard of a Camphill community before. It's absolutely amazing and I can't wait to become a part of it.

What Will You Do There?

Aaron and I will be working together and also seperately. We will live in one of the houses with about 3 other coworkers and 10 students or residents. Everyone in the house is responsible for helping to keep it clean and prepare meals (cooking, setting the table, cleaning up, doing dishes, etc.). Our job will not be to do everything, but to help others do. It might be instructing, demonstrating, assisting where needed, but the end goal is to provide the students and residents at Camphill with learning experiences that will enable them to become as independent as possible. We are there to instruct and help only as needed (as well as chipping in our fair share).

Aaron has applied for a position doing land and estate care. Camphill has 50 acres of land on which are a large garden, an apple orchard, lots of berry bushes, pear trees, and of course lots and lots of grass. He'll not only tend to the land, but he will be working along side residents whose job is land and estate care. Every now and then he'll also have some students that rotate through the different jobs on campus during the pre-vocational portion of their studies. He'll have lots to do all year round. He'll chop firewood and shovel walks during the winter and till, plant, weed, mow, compost, fertilize, and harvest the rest of the year. I know he'll enjoy it and hopefully he'll learn a lot that he can teach me so we can have our own garden someday.

I couldn't choose one program over another so I will be assigned to either the Learning for Life or Community Resident program. I will help out either during activities and classes for the academic program or I will assist in a work area on campus for the community resident program. I'll basically be there to help as needed. It may be that I learn to use the loom and teach/help others to use it as well or I may assist during a class if anyone needs help. I will also take turns cooking lunch during the morning for my house. Everyone that stays on campus eats all three meals family-style in their house. If a resident has a job off campus, they eat lunch at work on their break.

Coworkers are on a lunch rotation and so during the morning while everyone is either at work or in class, a couple will stay behind and prepare lunch. Breakfast and dinner prep is most likely also on a rotation, but will probably depend on which house you live in. In the evenings, there is free time until 9 for the students and residents. Sometimes there are planned community events and sometimes everyone just hangs out at home. We will kind of help to organize some fun stuff during this time for those that want it. T.V. isn't a pasttime at Camphill. Instead they play games, tell stories, read, or just talk and hang out with the people in their houses. Starting at 9 it is free time for the coworkers.

That is (in a nutshell) what we'll do each day.

Tune in next time when I answer questions like "That's awfully far away, are you sure you want to go?", "Won't you be cold?", "Are you crazy?", and the ever popular "How much does it pay?"

Baby Riley!

2009-02-25T13:21:00.003-06:00

Today my adopted parents from church were blessed by the safe and happy arrival of baby number three. Baby Riley. It's such a pretty name for a very pretty baby. Hopefully we'll be able to go see her and mom this evening. I might get a picture of her up here if her parents say it's okay.

The Scoop on Camphill Soltane...coming soon

2009-02-23T14:50:00.007-06:00

Over the next few days/weeks (however often I can find some spare time to write) I am going to post the most common questions (with answers) that we get about Camphill Soltane, our positions there next year, plans in between then and now, and plans for afterward. Hopefully it will help us all in that you will get the information you crave and we won't have to relay all of this information over and over again.

Right now I need to leave for work so the first post will have to wait until later. Here's a picture of a couple of the buildings at Camphill (courtesy of their website)

Hello February!

2009-02-02T14:23:00.005-06:00

Wow, I cannot believe that it's already February. January seemed to move both very fast and very slow (if that makes any sense).

First things first: WOOO STEELERS! -victory dance- Such an amazing game. I believe that I was the ONLY person rooting for the steelers at the watching party we went to at our church. If there were others they were certainly quiet about it. I had my terrible towel with me and waved it proudly.

Now onto other, even MORE exciting news:

WE GOT THE POSITIONS AT CAMPHILL SOLTANE!!! (http://www.camphillsoltane.org)

We have been in the process of applying for over a month now, we each had our own individual interviews, and then a joint interview. We got an email back today stating that we had been accepted! I am so very excited and so is Aaron. I believe that we will really enjoy and benefit from the program as well as grow in our time there.

It's getting late and we really need to go to bed as our day starts early tomorrow. I'll write more later

We're parents! Kind of.

2009-01-27T21:15:00.004-06:00

Please extend a warm welcome to our newest resident, Participant 1, the Chinese Dwarf Hamster. He goes by Parcy. Tori needed to train an animal for a class (an assignment which I think is ridiculous, because it makes the students purchase an animal if they don't know anyone with one), so we were forced to enslave a small rodent. I felt like a jerk taking it away from his brothers at Petco, but c'est la vie. Well, at least for small rodents who live at Petco. So Parcy is now numbered in our ranks. Currently he is tunneling under the bedding from one side of the cage to the other. I think he wants to escape :-)

Thats all for now. Here's hoping the ice storm either gets really bad, because I'd rather not have to venture all the way to Haltom City in the Corsica.

***EDIT****

Here are some pictures of Parcy, enjoy! -Tori

P.S. Haltom High School is closed tomorrow, so Aaron doesn't have to go. Yay!

Exploring the tunnels for the first time:

Looking cute but his water bottle:

Parcy's seriously awesome cage (thanks to Melinda for letting us borrow it):

From the new couch!

2009-01-19T22:26:00.004-06:00

Hey everyone, Happy MLKJDAY!

I'm writing this from our new couch-bed! Our Aerobed was showing signs of busting it's internal seams again (for the third and would-be final time before we took out our frustrations on it by cutting it into tiny tiny pieces and drawing little angry faces on each piece with a sharpie), so we decided to deflate it, put it to the side, and take advantage of a sale at Ikea (It's where Santa shops!)

My (Aaron) first week was pretty good. I started my semester as a crisis counselor and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. I've always preferred on-the-job training anyway. More on that as it develops.

Tori begins her first week of classes tomorrow. She'll be working with two kids this semester, and seems to be excited about that, less so about having to be in Denton every day.

That's all that is going on here at the Evans household. Hope all is well with everyone!

Final Semester, here we come!

2009-01-14T13:18:00.006-06:00

It has officially begun, our very last semester here. Aaron had his field seminar and his one class on Monday. Yesterday was his first day at Haltom High School. We went shopping for some work clothes for him this past weekend (more on that later). We both got up at an ungodly hour (6:30). I tried to be funny and take a picture of him on his "first day of high school", but the camera batteries were dead.

Aaron decided to take the Corsica, so he left at 7 just in case it broke down. I had the day off so if need be I could go get him and take him there, or he could take the Versa if the Corsica refused to start in the cold. Surprisingly, it not only started but got him to and from Haltom City without incident. We're looking into other options for him, since we just don't trust the Corsica to be reliable all semester. He's called about getting on a van-pool/car-pool through the T (the public transportation system here), but we haven't heard back yet. If that doesn't work out, then I think we're going to buy another cheap car (the Corsica only cost $1250 when I got it 5 years ago).

I have not officially started my semester yet (classes start Tuesday), but have gotten my class and work schedules all figured out and started planning some things for church. Aaron and I will each be leading a college small group Bible study. Today I met with my co-leader and we discussed what we wanted to study, how we wanted to format the study, and when/where we want to meet each week.

This semester I will continue to provide therapy to the same little boy and will add another client that lives relatively close-by to him. She's younger than him and needs lots of help with her speech, which is great since that's an area that I'd like to focus on more. I will only have 16 hours this semester, so that's a relief. On Monday and Wednesday I will work with the little girl in the morning, then go to my one class for the day, and then head over to his place and work with him. Tuesday and Thursday I have the rest of my classes and will work with them afterwards. Finally, on Friday I will have team meeting for him in the early evening. I'm off on Saturday and Sunday, which will be nice.

So, back to last weekend. It was good, but VERY busy. My mom flew in on Thursday night and I drove to pick her up at DFW. We came home, had dinner, exchanged Christmas presents, and just sat around talking until late (except for Aaron who went to bed early because he was tired from a long day of work).

Friday we slept in, then started some homemade sauce for manicotti. It was absolutely gorgeous and so went to the park and threw around a frisbee and just enjoyed the weather. Then we went to Central Market and got a few things and some gelato....mmm. We went back home, let the sauce finish, and then we cooked the noodles, I made the filling and stuffed them, and then we covered them in sauce and baked them in the oven. It was a VERY good dinner. We made a double batch so there were lots of leftovers to freeze/give away. I still have some sauce in the fridge that I need to freeze, but there's just no room in the freezer. After dinner, we taught my mom how to play guitar hero. It was pretty fun to watch, and I think she started to enjoy it once she got the hang of it. :)

Saturday we lounged around most of the morning and then left for Dallas around 3. We picked our friend, Megan, up from the Dallas airport at 4. We then went to dinner at Trinity Hall Irish Pub. It was a little expensive, but the food was good, and the dessert was awesome. After that we had some time to kill before the movie we wanted to see started so we went and bought our tickets, then looked around Urban Outfitters for a while. We got a 3x5 rug for our living room for $9! Then we went and saw Milk, a movie about the first openly gay elected public official in the U.S. and his assassination (not a spoiler, it's in the trailers and you're told right at the beginning of the movie). It was about the first gay rights movement and the battle against Prop 6 (a proposition that all gay school teachers and those that support them, should be fired). It was painfully familiar with the recent events surrounding Prop 8. It was a very good movie. Sean Penn was fantastic. After the movie we drove back, dropped Megan off at her dorm, and then came home and crashed.

Sunday, Aaron and I woke up and got ready for church. We went and saw lots of people we hadn't seen in a while (all the TCU people were getting back for classes), and met a couple new people too. Then we came home and Aaron made burgers for lunch. Mom finished packing up all of her stuff and then we drove to DFW and dropped her off at her terminal. Then Aaron and I went shopping nearby the airport. We went to Old Navy and got him 4 pairs of pants and 4 new polo shirts for work. We went to Target and got a couple of things for the house, then went to Best Buy and Aaron got a 3 month live subscription for the xbox 360 (so he can play games online with other people) and I got a DVD. Then we still had some time before we needed to pick up our friend, Caity from DFW so we went to Outback and split a meal and small cheese fries. We had gift cards for Target, Best Buy, and Outback that we had received for Christmas. Finally, we picked up Caity at 8:30 and drove back to Fort Worth. We decided to stay a little while over at the house and visit with everyone. Then came home and went to bed.

Like I said, it was a very busy weekend (with lots of trips to the airport).

In latest news as to future plans, Aaron and I have applied to Camphill Soltane (check out www.camphillsoltane.org for more information) for next year and they are supposed to contact us sometime this week to set up interview times for us. We are crossing our fingers that we get it, and so is Jason Fish since if we do get it, we'll be within an hour of him.

I've got to get going to work now. I'll let Aaron write up about how his first day(s) at his field placement were.

It's beginning to look a lot like.... new year's?

2008-12-29T23:07:00.004-06:00

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas. We did, though it didn't turn out the way we had planned. We didn't end up spending that time at the resort we mentioned in the previous post. Apparently somebody thought it would be cool to not inform us that we needed to have a combined income of at least $50,000 a year in order to take advantage of this specific promotion. I didn't even know it was a promotion, I thought it was just a stay that we had been given. Well, the resort failed to mention that aspect in the many months I had been talking with them about it, and so the morning before we were going to leave they called and let us know. At least we didn't drive out there for nothing.

The rest of the holiday trip went well though. We headed up to my grandmother's house a bit earlier than expected and picked up my aunt Tracy along the way. We had a wonderful family dinner. Tori is happy with her Christmas gift: a fashionable watch; I am happy with my gift: Guitar Hero III. She has been wearing it pretty much all the time, and I have been playing it pretty much... ok not all the time, but at least once a day.

So it's back to work for us both. Now we are just preparing for next semester and enjoying the break from class work.

Happy New Year!

It's Beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

2008-12-17T00:01:00.002-06:00

Hello internet! Just wanted to post an update on how we're doing.

I have finished my classes for the semester (thank goodness) and all of my finals are behind me now. Just one more semester to go! Taking 21 hours this semester was brutal and taking 4 finals in one day was pretty rough as well. Next semester I'll only be taking 16 which will be a lovely change of pace. The only downside is that I will have to drive to Denton EVERYDAY because I have a MWF course. I do have a job for next semester though. I will be continuing to work with the kiddo that I've been doing therapy with this semester and possibly adding another client if I have time (we'll see).

Aaron is done with his classes and is in the midst of finals. He had one test Monday evening, a paper due Monday afternoon, another test Tuesday, and one more on Thursday. I know he will also be glad when this semester is over with. Next semester he will have his field placement at a high school in Haltom City (about 30 minutes from our house) and two classes on Mondays. He will most likely only be able to work on Saturdays because his field placement will take up most of his time.

We will be spending our first Christmas together at a resort in Tyler, TX. Thanks to Aunt Pam and Uncle Wayne, we have 2 days and 2 nights at an all-inclusive resort. We'll check in after 5 on Christmas Eve and check out the afternoon of the 26th. After that we will drive up to Mt. Vernon to Grandma Ann's farm. Aaron's parents and sister will be driving in on the 26th as well. We'll have a big family dinner on Saturday night with relatives from around that area and then drive home on Sunday.

As for the rest of our winter break, we will be working our tails off since our income will drop next semester. We will also be making plans for after graduation and definitely relaxing and enjoying the break from classes and studying.

In other recent news we had our annual Christmas party with our TCU "family" this past Friday. It was bittersweet since it will be the last Christmas party we have together. It started with about 10 people our Freshman year and this year there were 17 people at the party. We will most definitely miss all of them. Most of us will graduate in May and move away to grad school or jobs. It was a very fun time. We had our secret santa gift exchange, visited, played the endless setlist on rockband (which Aaron was seriously excited about), and capped off the evening by celebrating our friend, Phillip's 21st birthday at midnight.

I'm going to stop for now since it's late. Goodnight.

PICTURES!!!

2008-12-04T01:51:00.002-06:00

Are finally posted to the right. Just click on the slide show and it will open on a larger page. Feel free to copy/save any that you want.

Post-Thanksgiving Post

2008-12-01T12:01:00.005-06:00

Hello all. We had a good visit with my Dad, Phyllis, Grandma Heath, and Jay Lee. We got there at about 10:30 on Wednesday morning. Just to clarify the reason that I couldn't drive was because I was wearing my glasses because my contact had torn, not because I have horrible vision at night or anything. The glasses prescription is a year behind my contacts. The hotel room was very nice and comfortable with the best bed I've ever slept on. We got up at 7:30, got ready, and had some warm breakfast before heading out. I drove us while Aaron rested some more.

On Wednesday we went to lunch with my dad and Jay. Then we took Jay to Wal-Mart to pick out a gift with the birthday money we gave him. It was very fun. We hung out at home, making lists of things we'd need for Thanksgiving dinner and then ate dinner at TB's (a really good barbecue place).

I got up at just after 7 on Thursday and Phyllis and I started the turkey (in the new fancy electric roaster they got us). We cooked until about noon and then took everything across the street to Grandma's and had a very tasty Thanksgiving lunch. It was pretty good for my first time making the Thanksgiving feast. Everything came out really well. Aaron did the dishes and we put away leftovers. Then we spent the rest of the day watching football, doing homework, and pretty much lounging about.

On Friday we drove to San Antonio to meet up with my sister Cindi and her new husband David. They got married on Wednesday. We picked them up downtown and then met my nephew, Jarrod at the Alamo Cafe. It was a very tasty and filling lunch, and a nice visit. Jarrod's dad came and picked him up and we dropped Cindi and David back off downtown and drove home. We got back to Del Rio a little after 8. We stopped at the Skillet for dinner, and that's when my throat started to hurt.

I went to bed before 10 on Friday and woke up with a fever on Saturday. I spent all day Saturday on the couch feeling crummy. My throat hurt and my joints all hurt too. My fever would go away for a little while when I took medicine, but kept coming back. Saturday was pretty yucky and we just watched football all day.

Sunday morning we got up and I still felt bad. I took a shower, which totally wiped me out. We got everything together (and by we I mean Aaron) and left about 11. We got home just after 6.

This morning Aaron took me up to the UNT health center and I've got strep throat. They gave me a HUGE painful shot of penicillin in my lower back. They said that I will be contagious for 24 hours still after the shot, but should feel MUCH better tomorrow. Aaron is at the store getting a few things (like a new toothbrush for me and some lysol spray). I am at home in bed and waiting for this medicine to start kicking in. I haven't been able to eat because my throat hurts too much so I'm hoping that I can get some food in me tonight so I'm not too weak to go to class tomorrow. Finals are next week and I just can't afford to miss.

So other than the strep, we had a really good visit. Hopefully I'll be back to myself again by tomorrow morning. Let's just hope that I didn't get anyone else sick, especially Aaron since he's been sleeping next to me and closed up in the car with me.

P.S. I promise I'll get the wedding pictures loaded soon, as you can probably guess I wasn't as productive over the break as I thought I was going to be.

Pictures of our wedding....

2008-11-25T23:48:00.002-06:00

Are FINISHED! Yay! We have burned DVDs with the pictures on them (thank you Mr. Fochtman) and will be sending them your way if you would like one. We have full printing rights to them so you can make prints if you like. Also, I will be posting them online sometime during the Thanksgiving break (or I will give it the old college try at least). Let me know if you would like a DVD.

Oooo, free internet at the Best Western

2008-11-25T23:29:00.003-06:00

Couldn't stay awake driving anymore, and you need to be awake when there is a deer jumping out in front of your car every 2 minutes. We made it to Junction, Texas, but since I couldn't drive any more and Tori's eyes aren't in a good enough condition to be spotting deer proficiently, we stopped for the night. We have no cell phone signal either. Interesting note, this is the first time I've used a landline in... I don't know how long.

Apparently animals think the big bright light is something to jump in front of. I love the absolutely stunned look deer have when you stop and honk at them. "What is this creature, why is it staring at me so brightly, and what is it trying to say? Can't it see I'm trying to mosey across the street at a leisurely pace?" Of all the times to cross the road, you pick when I'm driving by. Is it really necessary? The grass is just as green on that side of the road, I promise.

On our way!

2008-11-25T16:47:00.003-06:00

Tori is on her way home from class, and I just got out. It's packing time!

We'll be leaving within the hour for Del Rio, Texas, for Thanksgiving with the Rosalez side of the family. It looks to be a good visit, and I'm looking forward to some time to relax. I have a few assignments that are due when we return, and they are big ones, but I have a week to do them so it shouldn't be that bad. Tori has a bunch due though, so she won't get the same opportunity to relax. She is sadly having to look forward to winter break for that. On the plus side, we'll have 5 full days (I believe) to enjoy, so the drive will be worth it.

I'm going to get back to packing, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week!

2008-11-19T15:37:00.005-06:00

Things here in Fort Worth are busy, but good. I've got finals in two and a half weeks and Aaron's are the week after that. It's really crazy how fast this semester has gone by. I am truly glad for it though because I am SO ready for it to be over. 21 credit hours, a job, and a rather unpleasant commute everyday has me about to the end of my rope. Luckily though, next semester's 16 hours will be a breeze by comparison. :) I know Aaron is also looking forward to next semester. He'll be "working" full time (his fieldwork at the high school) with only 4-6 hours of class.

We'll be heading down to Del Rio for Thanksgiving. Luckily our schedules work out so that we can leave on Tuesday when I get done with classes. With such a long drive, it's good that we'll get a nice long visit in between. We've mostly planned out our gift purchases for Christmas and even already gone ahead and bought a couple of them. Hard to believe that December is so close. One of the local radio stations here is already playing Christmas music! It really is rather ridiculous. I mean, at least hold off until Thanksgiving is over. Aaron and I were joking the other day that pretty soon people will be saying, "It's already March! Why don't you have your tree up yet?!" I hope that this somehow cycles out and we can have Thanksgiving be it's own holiday instead of just the segway into Christmas. As a kid Christmas used to just sort of sneak up on you. Now it's a long, drawn out game of anticipation. Too stressful that way.

Anyway, enough of my tangent about the whole holiday thing. I'm just glad that December is almost here because that means finals (bleh), but also means we get a few weeks off to recover.

That's all for now, hope everyone is well.

oh and p.s. we got our new bed in the mail and haven't had to sleep on the floor in two whole days!

October

2008-11-16T23:07:00.005-06:00

Hi everyone! October has come and gone, and so we thought we would give an update about how things are going. We switched our blog to aarontori.blogspot.com so people can comment. Also we like the layout better.

We've gotten into the swing of things with school and work. Tori is now working with a kid in Keller who has autism, and not only gets class credit and experience in a field she enjoys, but also gets paid! She is also still babysitting for some friends of ours. I'm still working at Texas Steam, and the job is going well.

We've got everything in our home the way we like it, with the exception of our bed (more on that later), as I think the last that we reported was the desk being finished (in more ways than one!). Currently we are occupied with school, work, and planning for the future.

Our bed: Last week we noticed that our bed (an inflatable Aerobed) was bulging at the bottom. Last time it did this, an internal seam burst, and this time it did the same thing. As a matter of fact, it was the same seam. We slept on it for one more night after reporting it to Aerobed and requesting our second replacement in a year, and that night an external seam burst. Tori woke me up at 2 am asking if I heard a sound of air rushing out of the bed, and I sat up. Apparantly I had my pillow resting on top of the external seam that burst, because when I sat up air started wooshing out. Our friends have lent us a mattress until our new bed gets here. Thanks friends :-)

That's about all for October at least. We'll be heading to Del Rio to visit Tori's brother, stepmom, dad, and grandmother for Thanksgiving. We hope everything is going well with you all!

Another Update (Tori)

2008-09-11T23:02:00.001-05:00

Hello all! An update on things here in Fort Worth:

It rained pretty much the entire first three days of this week. It was rather dreary and annoying. It didn't help that I have been fighting a cold since Saturday night. I thought it was just allergies (a lot of wind around here has made them pretty bad for everyone) but then it moved to my chest. I'm doing much better, but Sunday and Monday were tough. I've still got some chest congestion and a pretty nasty-sounding cough, but feel MUCH better.

Aaron finished our desk on Monday morning! The sanding and first coat of finish was done Sunday and then he put the second coat on Monday morning and it was in the living room waiting for me when I got home from babysitting! It looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I'll take some pictures this weekend and put them up. It hasn't gotten completely organized yet because we've both been busy and I've been asleep a lot.

Aaron got a computer game called Spore that he's been wanting for a while now. He got it yesterday and spent a few hours last night playing. It seems like a pretty cool game, the basic premise is that you create your own species and evolve and work your way up from a single-celled organism. I'm not sure where it ends (if you work until you reach "higher intelligence" or not), but I guess we'll see.

Aaron went to a crisis counseling orientation session yesterday at the high school he'll be working at next semester. He got to meet the staff and others that he'll be working with and received his name tag and parking permit. So now he's official. I think he'll be going back a few more times this semester to meet with his field adviser and work on gathering data for his honor's project and another research project he's doing for a class this semester. His research sounds pretty interesting and involves the worth the wait abstinence program.

Last Friday, I went to the team meeting for the boy that I'm going to be working with. We call him Chiquito for confidentiality purposes and so that's what I'll call him here as well. I got to meet Chiquito, his other therapists, his mom, and little brother. I observed while one of the other therapists ran through a session with him while the team leader (my supervisor) took data and made notes on what changes needed to be made to his program and set goals to work on for the next week. It was really interesting and a good learning experience for me. Then on Saturday I went back and had what we call a rapport session with Chiquito. I just went to play and get acquainted with him and allow him to become more familiar with me. I brought a toy with me just in case and we ended up needing it. He usually has Saturday and Sunday off from therapy and so my presence on a Saturday wasn't very welcome. We let him know I wasn't there to work, just to play and I presented my toy (a loud squeaking stuffed penguin). He then warmed up to me and we spent the next two hours playing outside in the yard. Poor kid doesn't know yet that starting next week I'm actually going to start working him on Saturdays too. I didn't go on Monday due to the fact that I wasn't feeling well enough to keep up with two full hours of playing. Yesterday, I went and met with my supervisor and she trained me on all of his programs. It was a fairly good session (especially considering that I'm new and unfamiliar to him). I observed all of the programs and was able to work on a few of them with him myself. All in all it was a great experience and I'm very excited about being able to work with him.

Tuesday was the 9th, our first month anniversary. Time has certainly been flying by! I need to ask Jason how the pictures are coming. I promise we'll get them out to everyone as soon as they're ready.

Well, that's enough for now. Next time I'll have to make sure Aaron writes the update so that you all can hear from him too!

Newlywed Life (by Tori)

2008-09-04T23:00:00.001-05:00

Hello all! It's been almost four weeks now since we got married. We have both started back to school and are settling into our routines.

Aaron has a full class load as well as being president of NASW-TCU (National Association of Social Workers-TCU chapter) and a job. He's working at a company called Texas Steam. They have contracts with trucking companies and go there to pressure wash their trucks each week. It's hard work, but pays well and the boss is a really great guy (thanks again Kathy for telling Aaron about it).

I also have a full load of classes, am babysitting for a couple families, and just recently got a position working as a behavior therapist with a young boy that has Autism here in the Fort Worth area. I'm very excited about getting some experience as well as having the opportunity to work with a very well-known professional in the field.

We travelled up to Oklahoma over Labor Day weekend for a short visit with my mom. It was a nice visit and we managed to drive up and back in between storms, so the drive was nice and easy.

We have been working on our place, mostly trying to get everything organized and consolidate our things. We've gotten it almost finished. We lost our closet to a new washer/dryer and shelving and so had been hanging clothes on a portable rack. We purchased a wardrobe when we were in Oklahoma so now we not only have a place to hide our clothes away, but some more storage space too! We found a nice desk for free and are working on refinishing it. It's close to being finished and once that is done the house will be done. I'll be sure to post some pictures of it when everything is finished.

We received our pictures from the photographer on a disk last week. We have given them to our friend Jason to edit, so once he is finished we will be posting them on here and making DVDs for those that want to print their own pictures. We do have full printing rights to them so it won't be a problem for you to print them anywhere you like.

That's all for now, we'll keep you updated on things!