Beginning to look like Christmas...

Since Thanksgiving has come and gone, and Christmas is fast approaching, we decided to break out the fake Christmas tree that we got last year for $5 on clearance and spruce up the place a bit. It actually turned out pretty nice! Murray's going to have fun playing with it, we're sure...









Speaking of Murray, we just got him back today from the vet. He was declawed and became an "it" :) He's been pretty mellow today, and his meows are pretty pathetic. He sure was happy to be home, though.

Dylan and Forrest finally got to try out their home-brewed beer last night! It was a success!! AND it will probably get even better because the beer is supposed to be at its best 21 days after the initial two-weak fermentation.





I've been spending extra time studying this weekend for finals that are coming up in a couple weeks. I have 5 of them spread among 3 days, but I don't think it'll be all that bad. Hopefully I'll be motivated this week to do some works/studying so that I won't feel overloaded during finals week.

Yesterday we finally got our Christmas shopping done... it was an expensive day! Christmas time brings about such a mix of feelings... happiness and joy for the family, warmth, good food, and the celebration of our Savior's birth mixed with perplexity and frustration at the consumerism of America. Been thinking about it too, I suppose? We've found a challenging video on adventconspiracy.org. Check it out if you haven't already.

We hope and pray that, amidst the busyness and shopping and stress of the days, you are still finding grace and peace to lead you through moment by moment. Don't forget what Christmas is really about.

Our first post!

Hi everyone, Dana here...
Dylan and I have been wanting to get this blog started for a long time, and we finally did it the other day! It'll be fun to share what's going on in our life with you in this way...
Besides our weekly schedule of book group on Mondays, relaxing on Tues/Thursdays, volunteering at the Lampost coffee shop on Wednesdays, and having weekends full of friends, here's the latest on us:
Dylan's newest adventure has been learning to brew his own beer. His dad did this when Dylan was growing up, so it's been a dream of his to try it himself one day. His friend (and our upstairs neighbor), Forrest, has been joining in on the fun. It's a long process-- I think it'll be about 3 weeks until he gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor-- but he seems to love the process just as much as the end result.

Dylan's continuing to enjoy his job... he's even been a bit bored some days! This week they gave him his own business cards!

I've been really thankful for a couple of slightly quieter weeks school-wise. I think it's probably because we're gearing up for final craziness, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts! The main piece of "homework" I had for this weekend was to figure out what classes to take in the Spring (I can't believe it's that time already!!). I'm trying my best to see if I can finagle my class schedule for the last couple semesters so that I can graduate next December and be able to save us the money of taking another semester of classes...it's can be a pretty in-depth and frustrating process though! We'll see if it works... if not, we'll get by just fine.


And Murray, well... he's a kitten that seems to be going through his terrible two's. :D We adore him and his cuddilyness, but he's found a few more ways to be naughty lately.... including shredding the toilet paper, destroying my ponytailer, eating used cotton squares from the garbage, biting a little to hard (he doesn't realize when he's playing that his little kitten teeth are SHARP!), and he also really likes using those claws of his... pretty soon it'll be time to get him de-clawed and fixed, and so I'm sure that will help. It's hard to stay too mad at him, though... his little face and purr are just too cute!


Well, my stomach has started growling and I see that that's about right because it's dinner time! I'm going to enjoy some leftover chili that we made yesterday...tasty!
Love to all!
Dana