It's been a while since my last post. 39 days in fact. In that time I have really started to get excited for the rest of my life. God has been blessing so much in my life. He has been helping teach me to pray more powerfully and more consistently. He has taught me to rely on Him and be patient for His working. He has invigorated me when I was exhausted. Life has been a flurry of activity these past 39 days, but things are starting to slow down now, which I greatly appreciate.
After the wedding, Sarah and I drove down to Washington DC to stay with my parents' friend, Ron. We spend a week there, really doing more relaxing than anything else because we had both had stressful weeks the week before, what with the wedding (and me working) and all. We got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Capital building from our generous host, and wandered around the Smithsonians a little bit, which was fun.
The Sunday after we were married, we spent the entire day travelling from DC to St. Martin in the Caribbean. We flew to Miami, then had a 6-hour layover, then on to the little island. During the layover, we decided that we wanted to use an Olive Garden gift card we had, and we caught a taxi to the closest one, which was less than 2 miles away. We figured it would probably be about $10, maybe $15 MAX for the fare, so we got nervous as the ticker clicked past $20, and we only had limited cash. Ultimately we paid about $22, and we didn't tip because we didn't have anything more. I felt kinda bad about that. The next taxi we were able to pay with a card, so we had them take us to the closest hotel that had a shuttle to the airport, and that kept it cheaper for us getting back.
St. Martin was incredible! The beaches were pristine and well-kept, the water was slightly warm for my taste, but probably perfect for most people. Weather was partly cloudy and about 88 every day. Truly fantastic. One day we hiked about 3 miles to the airport to check out the world-famous Maho Beach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCIJ0F62og4), hung out there for a couple hours, then hiked back. It was pretty exciting. We also rented a car for a couple of days and took a day to drive around the island, jump over to the French side of the island (our hotel was on the Dutch half). We found a gallery of a French painter-Alexandre Minguet- who had set up shop on the island and painted a lot of the beaches. Shortly afterward we found a beach to have lunch at, and as we were eating, we realized that the beach was the exact same beach as was on the postcard we bought at the Minguet gallery. That was cool. We also went to the "world-famous" Waikiki Beach, and played in the waves for several hours, then we drove back to the hotel.
We took another full Sunday to get back to DC, where our car was, then drove to New York to pick up some more stuff to move Sarah in, and drove to Ohio the next day, and I started working. That next weekend, we went to Christine (Reynolds) and Ryan Coy's wedding in Grand Rapids, where Sarah was a bridesmaid, then drove back Sunday and I started working again Monday. That following Friday, we were supposed to fly to Denver for a wedding reception for friends and family there. We were boarded on AirTran's 717 (I booked the flight specifically so we could fly it, nerdily), and had a little bit of a delay so I popped up and talked to the captain for about 20 minutes. They then had to cancel the flight because of some maintenance problems, so we got lined up to fly in Sabbath morning. After church in Denver, we had a quick lunch then went to the zoo to see the new elephant exhibit they have there, then went and took a photo-shoot, and then went back to my parents' place and crashed. The next morning we had a birthday brunch for my sister and brother-in-law, then rushed around getting ready for the reception, had the reception, then very quickly packed and rushed to the airport for our flight back to Dayton.
I thought that would be the end of the excitement. Little did I know that a short half-day trip to Chicago would turn into a 2-day ordeal...But more about that in my next post. For now, I'm just excited to sit and relax and enjoy life.
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