Introducing Baby Evans!

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)

All moved in

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-

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.....

I'm a Bad Blogger

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) :)

Baby Riley!

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.

Hello February!

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

Pictures of our wedding....

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.

Another Update (Tori)

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!