Going back to school

My school starts tomorrow. It's my third semester at Central Baptist Seminary and I'm taking New Testament II and Christian Heritage (church history) II. I like the intellectual challenges, the alone time in my car driving there, and the growth in my spiritual and scholastic life. I feel called to be doing seminary right now towards a pretty undetermined goal. I have to say all of these things tonight because I've so enjoyed the lack of school stress over the holidays...knowing that there is no homework hanging over my head. I've enjoyed playing with Elijah, watching movies, getting into watching The Office, staying up late to hang out with Drew, reading a 870 page Harry Potter book, and not having to worry about "creating" bottles for Elijah...if you know what I mean. But I'm going back tomorrow. It will be great and I'm excited to learn and be in community. I'm also okay getting back to going because Elijah's babysitters (Grandma Gayle and Daddy) are anxious for me to restart so they can love on him! (The pic is my first day of school picture from last January)

New Year's Date

One thing Drew and I are good at is remembering. We love to take time out to think of, talk over, laugh about, and feel warm fuzzies towards, memories. We like to ask each other questions, play truth (as in truth or dare) and come up with lists of favorites: favorite things about each other, about us together, about things we've done.

In this spirit, we've started a tradition. For the past 3 years, all our married New Year's, we've gone out on a New Year's date. Usually with a gift certificate, we go to a nice restaurant on the Plaza and enjoy a yummy dinner and time with each other. During dinner, we make a month-by-month list of big events of the previous year. Despite questioning looks of the waiter, we actually write down bullet points for each month. We remember with fondness, reluctance, warmth, relief, joy, aches, awe, and love all that we experienced, aimed towards, became a part of, and accomplished as people and as a family.

It's a great thing. I'm so glad Drew thought of doing it and hope we'll have a big book of these lists to look back over for all the years we spend together. Probably we'll laugh that on each year's lists, there are spots from whatever food we were eating on the paper- I'm the scribe and also a messy eater.

This year we went to PF Changs, went on January 18th and had to get a babysitter. Lots has changed...seethe month of July!

Christmas and Winter Pictures

I have finally conquered the picture uploading wall. Here are some shots of the Osborne Christmas 2006 and Colorado time!
This is my current favorite picture of the little guy... he is full of wonder, awe, and expresses so much love. It is a gift.
Elijah loves his toes...we were telling the 4 year old my sister babysits about his "piggies" and she asked, completely puzzled, "What are piggies?". Is it just my family or aren't toes for some reason called piggies? Yes that is a genuine Bronco's, official NFL, onesie and sweatpant outfit. A gift from his aunts. And yes that it a giant monkey wearing a t-shirt...he lives at my grandparents house and he and Elijah became fast friends. Elijah loves life from the sitting up perspective.

Fun family snow pictures!

Snowed IN!

Elijah is relaxing after a bath at Grandma and Grandpa's house....here he takes a bath in a new, clean, plastic concrete mixing tub....Grandpa's invention so that we don't have to bring our tub here!
My parent's house all covered in a foot of snow!!! So fun and pretty. Non-stop shoveling for Grandpa!!!

Again! This is major Colorado snowstorm number 3 in 3 weeks and number two in 5 days of our visit! We drove to Colorado with our friend Lauren last week to miss the storm which hit 12 hours after we arrived. We've been having fun playing snow football (Drew tried to have sister Laura and I run a hook and latter but we failed!), sledding on the streets, and watching Elijah! There are many eventful Elijah happenings. Since we've been here he's learned how to:
-Sit up!!
-Roll over (tummy to back)
-Laugh!! (he laughed hard at Chandler the golden retriever a few nights ago!)

I also spent the longest time away from Elijah on Tuesday as Drew and I drove to Sante Fe, NM to buy a new, used car to replace the new, used lemon we purchased in April. We are the relieved new owners of an 01 Honda Accord...I'm excited about the V6, sunroof, leather (ie: easy baby clean up) seats, and the safety and reliability.

Wednesday we skiied and now we're both sore! Drew is taking a seminary intensive class the rest of our time here in Colorado Springs with lots of reading and driving back and forth. My plans include more snow days and hanging with my family.

Happy New Year to everyone!!!