Vacation and Thanksgiving

Sadly, Advent and Christmas are not vacation-friendly periods for clergy. I had a few days of vacation left for the year and decided to use to to head down to Georgia to see family and take Caroline to her first Georgia football game. Unfortunately, we both have a bad habit of forgetting that we own a camera, and took very few pictures.

I had debated taking Caroline to the Auburn game or to the Kentucky game, but opted for the latter, as the tickets were cheaper and I figured we'd beat Kentucky and lose to Auburn. That probably means I jinxed the Bulldogs. My bad.

We spent Thanksgiving in Charlotte with Caroline's family and stayed with her sister and brother-in-law and their twins in their new home. Again, no pictures of that since we didn't think to take any. However, we did take a few pictures Thanksgiving morning. We took the girls downtown to see the parade and see Santa.

Waiting for Santa

All in all it's been a fun few weeks. Tomorrow I'm heading back up to Charlotte with members of my church to work at the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center. Should be a fun day.

Ordination

Chris was ordained on the 20th of September! He is now officially a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA). This is certainly something to be proud of... and I am content to be a Minister's wife (for the short term- until I get a call and can be ordained myself. Well, I guess I'll always be a Minister's wife, I just would rather be his ordained Minister wife!) The service took place at his home church: The Madison Presbyterian Church in Madison, GA. They have been so good to him, supporting him as he went through school and went above and beyond with their hospitality this weekend. A call finally fulfilled is a beautiful thing.

Right after the service, I helped him adjust
his stole- which he put on for the first time.
It is one I brought back for this occasion from
the Holy Land. It was embroidered by
Palestinian Christian women with Jerusalem
crosses.

Here he is in the front of the sanctuary.
Precious.

Here he is with his proud parents. So many friends
came from near and far to be present and support
Chris as he took his vows and we'll never be able to
tell them how special it was to share this
event with them.

Three Months Later...

It's been a long three months. At this point our move to Greenville, SC shouldn't be a surprise. I'm settling into my position at Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church in Mauldin, and am set to be ordained on September 20th. My official title is Associate Pastor for Generational Ministry, but basically it is a general associate position with a few areas that I focus in. Two weeks ago I had my final examination before the Presbytery. I preached during the worship service, then came back out to be examined and to have the Presbytery vote on my terms of call (salary and such).

Caroline has finished her CPE internship, and has moved down here, though as I type this she is actually in Charlotte. We spend the past week at Litchfield Beach, where Caroline's parents own a condo (shameless plug - if you go to Litchfield Beach and want a condo, rent Bridgewater 524). Before that, we were in Charlotte for our friend Jennifer's wedding. I had to come back yesterday so I could be at church today, and Caroline stayed one more day there with her parents. Catherine and the twins came for a couple days as well, which was a lot of fun, since the last time I was at the beach with them was two years ago.

The plan for the next few weeks is to get ready for my ordination down in Madison, then my installation here, and also to start finding Caroline a job. There are a couple of school chaplaincy positions that we've heard about that we'll be looking into.

One of these days I'll get better about regular blog postings. In the meantime, here are some pictures:

Me on my first Sunday at GCPC, standing in my very sparse study

The view from the balcony at Litchfield

Yes, this is a lazy river, and it was fantastic

Caroline cooking crab crakes. They were delicious.

Graduation

Two Saturdays ago (May 23), Caroline and I completed our Seminary education and graduated from PTS (you've probably already noticed that we've changed our profile picture). It was quite a crazy weekend (especially for Caroline who came back from Israel on the 21st and left on the 26th for Charlotte to start CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education, which oversimplified could be called Chaplaincy internship). Sadly, the two of us did not take any pictures of our own, so we are relying on family to supply us with photos. We've received some already so here's what we've got:

The graduates and Moms

The Graduates and Dads

Caroline, Chip, and Catherine

All-in-all we had a fun weekend with friends and family. As I already mentioned, Caroline is down in Charlotte. I'm working a couple days a week and tying up loose ends here, which includes looking for a moving company to move us down South. I have been offered a position at as an Associate Pastor and will be starting sometime in the next month or so. I can't mention where yet, as there are still folks who must sign off on it. Basically, I have to meet with the Presbytery's (the governing body of a small area of churches) Committee on Ministry, who makes sure I'm a good fit for the congregation and the congregation is a good fit for me. Then the congregation votes on my "terms of call" which is my entire compensation package. Once that happens, I can start. Right now the plan is to have both the meeting and the voting done by the 22nd of June.

In the meantime, I'm gonna try to get some golf in up here...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Today marks one year of marriage for Caroline and me. So how did we spend this special day? I actually spent the morning with her parents attending the church where we had the ceremony, Covenant Presbyterian. I have been on some job interviews down there (more on that in the next week or two), and stayed with the East's during that time. Caroline, on the other hand, spend our anniversary in Jerusalem on a class trip that had been postponed. I'm sad that we're not together today, but I know she's thinking of me as I think of her, and I know she's having a great time over there while I sit here in our apartment. But you know, peace and quiet is a pretty nice anniversary gift ; )

[UPDATE: Caroline called me this morning - 5 AM here, Noon her time, to talk, which was a fantastic anniversary present, minus the being woken up at 5 AM part. We got to talk for about 20 minutes. She's in Nazareth today. How cool is that!]

The Reception in the East's Garden

Birthday Number 2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE!

Caroline turned 26 yesterday.  Caroline's brother, Chip, and her sister-in-law, Allissa, and her brother-in-law, Christopher were all in town on Saturday to celebrate.  Christopher was actually here for the entire weekend, which was a lot of fun [Catherine - Way to "hold down the fort" in Charlotte.  We missed you].  Caroline, Christopher, and I went with some friends to see the new X-Men movie Saturday morning before Chip and Allissa came down.  We played bocce ball, grilled burgers for dinner and then had cake (chocolate cheesecake that Caroline made -- she doubted my baking skills, and rightly so) and opened presents.  Here are some pictures from the weekend:

The really, really tasty Birthday cake

Me showing Christopher my turnout gear (and the trucks)

Caroline opening presents with Chip and Allissa looking on.

I had been hiding this present (it's a birdhouse) since September.  It'll go in our yard (where that yard will be is yet to be determined -- gotta find a job first!)

Can't believe it is finally SPRING!!

Once again, I accidently did my pictures backwards.  This is why Chris is supposed to be in charge of the blog...  Oh well.  We've had a busy end of winter/ beginning of spring and haven't posted in so long that things out of order won't be too big of a deal.

So one of our biggest things was that Chris preached at the Seminary chapel service (an honor reserved for seniors).  I took this as he was practicing before hand.  Isn't he cute and also professional looking!?  He did a great job and the transcript of the service has been sent out to churches looking to hire him to show them how good he is.  Here's hoping for a call pretty soon.  All this waiting is driving my insane.  Patience may be a virtue, but I don't have any.

This is what we've enjoyed being up to for the last few weeks.  Studying and watching basketball.  Way to multi-task.  By the way, Chris' ESPN March Madness bracket has been amazingly accurate.  He had the championship game teams right, and is in the 99.4 percentile.  I just have to say Go Tarheels!  After all, "I'm a Tarheel born and a Tarheel bred, and when I die, I'm a Tarheel dead.  So Rah Rah Carolina-lina..."

The most fun we had this spring was Chris' sister Alex coming for a visit.  She came up and we did as much of Princeton and NYC as we could in a weekend.  It was great.  My brother and sister-in-law are the best local tour guides.  In one day we went to Dylan's Candy Bar (see below), FAO, 5th Ave, ate real NY pizza, and strolled through SoHo.  We also made cake and celebrated Chris turning 26.  We were so sad that she had to leave after only 2 days that we weren't even the least bit upset that her flight was delayed more then 24 hours because of snow in both ATL and Philly. 

And now, spring has finally sprung.  We are glad to be shaking off a long, stressful winter and excited about the prospects to come.  In the next few months we'll finish at Princeton Theological Seminary (you can then call us Masters of Divinity all you want), get new jobs, move out of NJ to somewhere (fingers crossed that it'll be in the South!) and start an entirely new adventure.  So much to anticipate!

So Happy Holy Week to all and Happy Spring!