The Beginning of the Goodbyes

Goodbyes are like sour candy: sweet but leaves the mouth puckered. We've had a lot of puckered lips this week. One of the challenges of making a lot of wonderful friends at a transitional time in our lives like seminary is that we have to say a lot of goodbyes. In this picture we are having a special Christmas dinner with (from left) Brian and Jody Goldie, Gregg and Birdie Jennings and some new friends- Krista and Jason.

The evening was wonderful. We were laughing until my head ached late into the night. Birdie made some legitimate Rigatoni pie and Gregg pitched in with some homemade strawberry cheesecake. Yes, please! We played a game the Jennings made up, which we really enjoyed. Everyone is divided into two teams of four and then asked one question such as, "If you could make the next type of Barbie what would it be?" The teams break apart and everyone comes up with their own individual answer and has one person from their team write the answers on 4 individual index cards. Each member then holds a card with one of their team members answers. The other team is called back into the room and they have to rearrange the cards to place them on the people who actually came up with those answers. It gets funny when you are debating whether someone wrote 'Spelling bee Barbie,' 'Primordial Slime Barbie,' or 'Ghetto Booty Barbie.' It really tests to see how well you know someone! Ghetto Booty- that must be Brian!

We also said farewell to our friends Danny and Krista Steele and their little son Isaac. Krista came all the way down from Maine to see us one last time and Danny stayed up in Maine studying hard in medical school at the university. Thanks for coming!

Our neighbors the Bakers- God bless them- they took our two little boys for us last night and sent us out on our first date (with just the two of us!) since Jordan was born. We had a wonderful time. We went and saw the Nativity Story. It was wonderful. The angel Gabriel was a bit cheesy- like Casper the friendly ghost- and the picture was a little stiff and 'B' quality at times; but nevertheless it was reverent and moved us to tears on a number of occasions. It is just such a compelling story. A young family put to shame because they were chosen by God as the parents of the Messiah... captivating.

And of course, as you can see, our boys continue to grow into a pair of delightful characters. Josiah continues to grow in his affection for Jordan and the little one has really began to express himself through smiles and little cute noises. Once we have some time to figure it out, I will have some YouTube videos on here of the little guys. (My final project and our move are on Dec 19th- so it will definately be after that!) We would appreciate your prayers that our time here would finish well. We have a lot to pack, Cam has one last huge project and we need to get everything in order for graduation as well. Please pray God's blessing over us during this transition. Thank you so much! We love you all.

Cam and Jen