Long Overdue Update

Sorry for not posting sooner about our fun weekend getaway in Columbia. We've been busy and sick since we got back and so time just got away from us. We certainly did have a good time while we were away though! This blog entry will get way too long (trust me - this is my 3rd revision!) if I go into all the details of the trip so I will just summarize as best as I can!

Ok, my first two attempts at describing our weekend ended up being pages long so I'm going for the bullet format this time to make it as short as I can (which is difficult for a detail-oriented person like me)!

- We left at 8am Friday with our minivan loaded down with toys, Pack & Play, snacks, luggage, 2 laptops (Dan's work and personal ones) and more

- Arrived in Columbia around 11 (took an hour longer than planned because Ethan and Dan needed stretch breaks)

- Had lunch in the school cafeteria with Jenny and got to meet a lot of her friends and see the campus

- Checked into the hotel (great deal we got on priceline.com - 2 nights for price of one at Courtyard Marriott

- Dan spent a few hours working on his resume (in case you forgot - he's got terrible benefits at his current employer and doesn't enjoy the job anyway so he's been looking for something better for over a year now) because he received a call from a recruiter, saying they liked his resume and there's a company that wanted to interview him on Monday, 10/27!

- We had dinner Friday night with another heart family - Scott, Rebecca & Wyatt Butcher (Angel Annabelle's family! - see link to the right if you're not familiar with them). It was so great to meet them and spend some one-on-one time with them. God has really used them these last 7 months since losing their daughter to be a blessing to other heart families through their ministry of creating and giving Annabelle Baskets to other heart families in SC and beyond. Thank you Scott, Rebecca and Wyatt for taking the time to hang out with us while we were down your way!

- Went out with Jenny Friday night for dessert at this really cool little cafe downtown - Nonnah's. Poor little Ethan didn't get a nap all day but he also doesn't like to miss a minute of the action so he was a little trooper and stayed up until we got back to the hotel around 11. To our surprise, the sweets didn't affect his sleeping and he slept great that night!

- Saturday morning we made it to the zoo and had a lot of fun. I think Ethan's favorite part was getting to pet the goats and let them lick his hands! He also did surprisingly well with the Lorakeet feeding (these are very loud little birds about the size of cockatiels). But after 3 hours at the zoo, he was DONE! We bought him a rubber snake in the gift shop (his top pick - we found him chewing on it!) as his souvenir and it's now his all-time favorite toy at this time (move over Elmo!).

- After the zoo, Jenny called us to come pick her up from Wal-Mart. Her car key broke in half and she need a ride to the dealership for a replacement. Then we had a really late lunch (about 3pm) at McD's before she had to go back to school to help her hall decorate their dorm for Formal Dorm (more about that later).

- So then we headed over to see some dear friends of ours that were in our wedding 6 years ago. We got to spend about 4 hours talking and catching up with them and letting their kids play with Ethan. Thanks McConnells for letting us hang out with you - it was good to have some "down time" between all the rest of our running around that day!

- Saturday night we went back to Jenny's school (Columbia International University - CIU) to see the big presentation of Formal Dorms (an annual tradition where the female dorms team up with the male dorms to decorate all the female halls in the year's theme - this year was Children's Storybooks). It was hard to believe that all the work that was put in to transforming the halls (and some dorm rooms) was all accomplished in one day!

- Sunday morning we went to church with Jenny at her church - a very small, Brethren church of about 30 people (much different from what we're used to - a non-denominational church of about 3,000!)

- After church, Jenny followed us down the road a few miles to go find our old house - that's right! Jenny was actually born in Columbia and we lived there until she was 3. We were amazed and excited to see that our old house is for sale! We snagged one of the realtor fliers as a "souvenir" and even got to go look up a virtual tour of the inside on the realtor's website!

- Then we met one last friend for lunch before heading home. My (Julie) college roommate and her husband and 3 month old daughter live in Greenville, SC - about 1 1/2 hours away and they agreed to come meet us for lunch to catch up a bit! It was good to see them and meet their little daughter and let them meet Ethan too.

- Very uneventful drive home - Ethan and Dan slept about half the way - exhausted from the business of the weekend!

Well it still is a long blog entry but trust me, it's a lot more condensed than how it started out! Dan made it to the interview and thought it went really well. In fact, the recruiter called him the very next day and told him the hiring guy gave him the thumbs up and really liked him but had to interview a couple other folks. Yesterday, 8 days after the interview, Dan finally heard back from the company and it turns out he did not get the job. Sooo... the search continues for a new job.

As for the mention in the beginning about being sick - we're slowly recovering. I think Ethan's just got a cold - he's had a runny nose for a week now. Dan had some kind of fever/stomach bug thing over the weekend, and I've got an occassional cough but we're surviving. We took tons of pictures at the zoo and will try to post a few soon - this entry is long enough!