Draw-down of Troops

Just a quick update. We'll do a final, big, pictures and video type update before we go, but this is just to say that our time as New York Boyds is drawing to a close. Pray for Leann and our fetus as we make the transition. The boys are excited about the move. We load the ABF truck on July 13 and will leave town probably the next day. We will probably keep blogging, but we're not sure if we will be able to get internet in Bumpus Mills, TN.

Pray for Freddy T. and the Gallery Church as God continues to work in and through them.

Square Feet and Square Dancing

Why is she smiling?! Because she just took the blue ribbon in the "Jello Surprise" category at the recent Brooklyn Family Hoedown and Potluck. The winning entry? Lemon Chile Pepper and Cream Cheese Gelatin.

It wasn't half-bad. Grace, Becky, and I had a great time at the shindig, but I couldn't help thinking, "I came all the way to New York, and end up at a hoedown." The irony. But it doesn't stop there. I was informed that the southernness of my dish was in question. Apparently, some thought it was "Too New York" to be eligible for the prize. So, to recap: I'm at a hoedown in New York with a bunch of New Yorkers whom are pretending to be Southern. And my Southernness is being called into question by said New Yorkers.

We're beginning to think about packing up our things. I'll be going to get a few boxes tomorrow so we can start packing a little at a time and hopefully save the last few weeks of our time here to spend with friends instead of stressing over the move. Since we're almost ready to move out, here's the tour of our place I've been promising.

There is a good explanation for this,

...but I'll just let you guess.

I know it's been a while, but we've been busy. I'm in seminary again. Just for checking in, here's a treat. If you use Google Chrome, paste the following text in to the address bar and press enter, then press start and right click to destroy the web page with a katamari snowball. One of the perks of beintg a computer teacher is learning from my students. One of them showed me this trick.

javascript:var i,s,ss=['http://kathack.com/js/kh.js','http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js'];
for(i=0;i!=ss.length;i++){s=document.createElement('script');s.src=ss[i];document.body.appendChild(s);}void(0);

Finished!

As You May Have Heard...

We got some snow here. A lot of snow. In our attempt to be both frugal and stay with the church here in NY through Christmas (as it turns out, almost everyone in the church went "home" for Christmas) we booked a December 28 flight to Tennessee which was cancelled following this week's blizzard.

Ezra offered to clear the runway at LGA with his snow plow (a plastic tub) so that our plane could take off. I informed him that I had no snow clearing device (we just have the one plastic tub) and he told me that was okay, I could just use my hands. After some convincing, he finally accepted the fact that he and I would not be able to clear the runways ourselves. His back-up plan was to walk to Tennessee. We could just put him in the backpack carrier. He could wear his sunglasses so that the snow wouldn't blow into his eyes and he'd wear his snow pants and we could just start walking. He really, really wanted to see his grandparents.

Here are some of the sights from Long Island City:





I took a video from our window, but will have to try again later to upload it. In the meantime, enjoy this time lapse video of the snowfall by Mike Black:

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Today, Corey completed plans for the boys' bunk beds in Google Sketchup. The plan is for toddler sized mattresses and the top bed is only 44" from the ground. We plan to hang room darkening curtains from the top rail. Ezra had been sleeping in a Kidco Peapod Plus, which we loved until it broke. (We got a lot of wear out of it and will likely buy another someday.) Elias is in a Pack-N-Play, but we'd like to have real beds for them, so this is our plan:



There WILL be a rail on that bottom bed and we may put an extra rail up top. I'll post some pictures when we get it finished.

Ezra and I went out to the playground this morning and started work on an igloo. We plan to close in the roof tomorrow and post some pictures. Stay tuned. We got our place cleaned up and are working on a video tour for you.

We're pretty bummed about not being able to see friends and family for Christmas and New Year's celebrations, but it has been nice to have some downtime together.

L