Is it March already?

Most of the people who we love and care about will not hear anything new during this "catch-up", but here is what Ashley and I have been doing since we came back from New Zealand at the beginning of September last year.

We re-roofed my dad's house with shingles that I gave him...that were given to me. Also put some new gutters on it.
Attended my brother and sister-in-law's wedding
Went to stay in Texas with my grandmother, who we call Mimi, who has Alzheimer's
Came back to Atlanta and then to Charlotte in the week before Christmas when Ashley's aunt Joy died
Left Texas after our birthdays and headed back to NC, stopping in Charlotte and then heading up to West Jefferson
Moved into a cabin owned by some friends

West Jefferson is about twenty-five minutes from Boone, where Ashley has applied as a transfer student to complete her undergraduate studies-focusing on Nutrition.

I am negotiating a deal with a chiropractor to practice massage out of her office, as well as working in the evenings at a local college burrito bar. Ashley is going to work as a server at the other restaurant that the owner of the burrito bar is about to open, a combination theater/live music venue with a kitchen and bar called the Reel House. I am also looking for employment with one of the rafting/adventure companies in the area, which would be just for the warm season.

Our dates for pilgrimage fall during Ridvan, near the end of the month of April, and we have done a lot of back and forth on whether or not we should go. At the moment, we feel like we will be leaving mid-April for the Middle East.

Our cabin has multiple beds, and we would love some visitors. So send us an email. Our phone numbers have changed, because our previous service doesn't work up here.

One last thing...thank you SO MUCH to all of our family and friends who have supported us with places to stay, food to eat, and just generally opening up their homes and lives to us as we have "wandered" from place to place since November of 2008 when we got married. We are very excited to finally have a place we can call our own, with the knowledge that we (at least plan to!) will be staying put for a minimum of two years.

Back to the East Coast

Ashley and I are headed to Georgia tomorrow morning to be with our family there in the wake of Aunt Joy's death yesterday morning.

Then we are going to come back up to Charlotte for a few days, which should be on Wednesday...maybe.

Link to another blog

This is from David Khorram's blog....his explanation of the Baha'i Faithand I just wanted to share it.

woo hoo

watching Ryan sit next to Adalia, I was struck by the momentum
of life, the eternal forward motion of the reality we all take
part in...the physical aging and maturing
the mental and emotional growth
and the opening of our hearts and lives to include others
in a deeper way than we previously know.
as a four year old boy waking up to my grandmother telling me
that I had a new baby brother I was unsure of the future--
what it meant for me. Maybe I was worried I wasn't up to the
job of being a big brother-and I wasn't, for quite some time-
but I did my best, and my parents did their best-
and ryan did his best...and what that leads to-I think-
is the best lives we could have-with what we are given.
and what we make.
and today I can say that I would cross the world to be there for
him and my new sister...
of course I would have to make sure my wife was okay with it first!

Flying

So we get to do Ash's favorite thing again---flying in airplanes!

We leave here the evening of August 30th, and get to San Francisco a little after noon on....
August 30th!!!
Then we get the rest of that day to see San Fran, since our connecting flight doesn't leave until just after midnight. A one and a half layover in Cinci and we will be getting to Charlotte-Douglas around 10:48 am on the 31st.

Can't wait to see everyone and hear about what we have been missing in your lives!

perfect timing!

perfect timing!
Originally uploaded by BigBroRio

Come see some pics of us in New Zealand!

Sickly

There is definitely something going around here…people have been falling sick all around us. Ashley and I both fought through the flu in the middle of June, and it came back last week and got Ashley again. The youth conference we attended was like a flu-breeding ground, and almost every other person who attended wound up shivering and coughing for at least a couple days.

The conference started on Saturday and went through Tuesday morning, but Ashley was under the weather by Monday afternoon, and didn’t come out for the last morning. The camp started that same evening at a different venue, and I went out there on my own. It was the first time we have been apart for the night. Not sure which of us had it worse-me at the freezing-cold camp with a bunch of youth making noise, or her at home coughing up a lung and shivering…actually I guess there isn’t much comparison at all. She came out to camp for a little while the next day but headed back to the house that evening. Finally on Thursday she came out to stay.

The national youth conference was 180+ youth from New Zealand and Australia staying at a local boarding school. It was an intense experience for us, since it was up to us to prepare and facilitate three workshops for all the participants, a task which neither of us had ever tackled before. We spent a lot of time putting together the workshops, and along with a group of about five or six others, we did our best to empower these youth with a vision for service and teaching. It did not go exactly as we had planned, but it did go…

The Radiant Youth Program was very similar to the camp we attended in April-same venue, a lot of the same youth attended-but this time, Ashley and I were the “adults in-charge”. There were thirty-one of us at the camp total, including the cook, her helpers and the four study circle tutors. We were graced with the presence of a wonderful artist named Grant Hinden-Miller. He ran workshops on dramatic presentations and story-telling. And of course he played lots of songs for us-he has many albums out and I LINK TO GOOD SONGS!

Ash is still carrying around a painful, dry cough, while I am still doing my best to stay healthy. I ain’t 100%, but since I spent the past twelve days with sick youths, I feel pretty good, relatively speaking. Now we are staying at the National Baha’i Center for a couple nights, because there are some other guests staying with our host, Caroline. The center is very nice, and one of the Baha’is from South Auckland is letting us use one of his vehicles at the moment. We went to Muriwai Beach together-last time I went alone, but we decided to leave before the sun set, a decision I regretted later as the sky turned orange and purple on the way home. The nice part is that I get to see sunsets at all, right?