Midweek Madness

Whew!  Wednesdays are always so long...  Breakfast club at 7 AM, housework until lunch time, work at 1 or 2... during Lent, I don't leave the church until almost 9:00 on Wednesdays because there is a lenten meal before Wednesday night worship and right after Wednesday night worship is Jr. Lutherans.  It's all pretty fun though, and in all honesty I wouldn't want to trade my job for a 9-5.  Does that even exist? 9-5?  Chris goes into work at 8 and gets off at 5...  hmm... 

Anyway, tonight was interesting.  During Advent and Lent, Pastor writes skits to replace his sermons.  Tonight I was a part of the skit.  I got to be Bathsheba.  Haha.  People kept telling me "good job" afterwards and I kept saying "Good job at being Bathsheba... thanks?"  Haha, I'm so funny.... .... yeah.  Chris gets to have Wednesday evenings all to himself in our apartment which is nice for him.  I'm alone here for half of all my workdays, so it's not so exciting for me anymore.  Chris uses his time to catch up on some reading or Awaken stuff.  I'm sure it's nice to have a break from his crazy wife ;).

Scheduled for this weekend: Movie night with 7th graders on Friday, followed by random games with high schoolers til all hours of the night... literally... they stay up all night and play games at Pastor's (he has a son who has 2 Xboxes...).  Saturday morning, bright and early, leave for Awaken in Minnesota.  Saturday evening head back home.  Sunday morning work.  Sunday afternoon into evening and night= Awaken.  Deep breath...

Time seems to fly by now that I have a job.  It's incredible to me that we have been married over 6 months already, and yet it seems like we have been married for years... time is a very tricky thing.  

I get my car out of the shop tomorrow.  That'll be nice.  I miss Lil Blu.  Chris is still insistent that I continue to drive the Jetta, he says I can drive a stick just fine.  Which is mostly true, but it still stresses me out so much that it just isn't enjoyable.  True, I'd probably get better the more I drove it... I really have no counter argument, except that I get stressed.  Haha. 

Ok... these keep turning out to be long.  How about if I do a summary at the end of all my posts and then you could just skip the rest if you are in a hurry.  Haha... let's try it:

SUMMARY: Wednesdays are busy.  This weekend is busy.  Time is weird.  My car is fixed.  I can drive a stick mostly.

Happy hump day!

--The Starrs

Long Weekend

Whew!  What a long weekend that was...  On Wednesday or Thursday, Chris's uncle called and reminded us that Chris's grandma's 65th birthday would be that following Saturday.  "Oh!" we thought, "... too bad we didn't know sooner..."  But the longer we thought about it, the more we decided it would be plausible to make the trip to St. Cloud to celebrate Grandma Rosie's birthday; plus we would be able to visit my aunt and her family as well.  We decided we would leave Friday after Chris got off work, and we did!

At 4:00 we left Des Moines and at 8:30 we arrived in Maple Grove.  Sophia (my 5 year old cousin) was so excited to see us.  Her mom had decided to let it be a surprise, so when we rang the doorbell she literally started screaming.  Haha.  It was cute.  Especially because she was screaming "Stephanie! Stephanie! Stephanie!" and when I said "And look who I brought with me" as I motioned to Chris, she got all shy and just didn't say anything.  Haha... she's so silly. 

We had a good time with Sophia and her family.  We went for a nice long walk with them Saturday morning, after which we headed for St. Cloud.  We stopped at a grocery store in Maple Grove to get some flowers for Grandma.  I had a great/interesting time arranging them while we drove and ended up with pollen all over me... and some on the interior of the car as well.  Oops!  The flowers were lovely, though, and it was nice to have something in hand when we surprised Grandma with our visit.  We stayed for a few hours and visited with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins who were present.  We had to leave around 5:30, though, as I had to work Sunday morning.

Our trip home was nice.  As on the trip up, I read aloud from Lord of the Rings which kept us pretty entertained.  It's so different than the movie, which I love because it's like the plot isn't ruined for me :).  We got home at about 10:30, just in time to go to bed.

Sunday morning was the usual.  I went to early service and Sunday school and Chris joined me for second service.  Then we came home and cleaned our hearts out until we left for the Hasenwinkel's.  The Hasenwinkels go to our church and they offered us a very nice desk that they are replacing.  We were very excited to get it, but it was quite the ordeal moving it from their place to ours.  We're so glad it's here, though, and are really excited that we can finally finish settling down in our new apartment (we'd been waiting to unpack the office).  Now that we can do that, I will be able to get pictures of all our apartment and post them here.  I know you're all excited. ;)

After we got the desk set up we had to grab McDonald's for dinner because we had no time before youth group began.  So 7:00-9:00 was spent on youth group as usual, and that was a blast (as usual).  We got home and decided we wanted to move the new desk to another spot in the office, which took us about an hour because it is so big.  It was definitely time for bed after that, and as I laid there rethinking the day I realized how very long this weekend was.  Very productive though!  We enjoyed every bit of it.

In other news, I have been told that you may not be able to post comments for some reason.  One person tried and let us know she couldn't.  If you are having the same problem, please email me: stephanie.starr10@gmail.com  Thanks!

Well, that was quite the lengthy post.  I wish I had pictures to share, but I forgot my camera at home all weekend :(  I'll try to do better next time!  Hope you are all having a lovely day!

--The Starrs

 

Summer/Fall trips

Despite a slow offseason thus far, Stephanie and I are still planning on using the Purple as an excuse to frequent the Twin Cities this fall. Additionally, we are hoping to see some offseason workouts and get some autographs! 

Along with that, we are going to see the Twins play the Cubs at Wrigley in June! Stephanie will finally get to see Wrigley field and will quit making me feel guilty for all the times I have gone without her ;) I am going without her to the watch the Cubs host the Indians later in the summer. I am excited because an old college chum who rarely leaves Kentucky has been enticed by the prospect of seeing his favorite club, and will be in attendance. 

**Tangent**

This brings me to an interesting thought. What is the role of sports in a person's faith life? Football, baseball, hockey, they are all just a form of entertainment. So, thoughts? 

My thoughts:

1-(Don't worry, I only have two) Its a huge waste of time. Acts 2:42 says the apostles devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and prayer. Chili and cursing at the TV hardly qualifies.

2-Perhaps the following of sports is a good excuse to get together with friends. Is God down with that? 1 Coninthians 10 talks about ostracizing of other believers because of their piousnessissity. I may be stretching here, but he seems to say that the relationship is more important than the food or activity. "So, whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Maybe an adjustment of how I follow sports in in order. 

Thoughts?

Our Lives Thus Far

Well, we've been married a little over 6 months now and we finally decided it was time to start a blog so we can share our limitless knowledge on being married... OK, maybe just so we can share our experiences with you and keep you updated on our lives.

Let's play catchup --- We were wed on September 5 of last year.  We had a short little honeymoon in Park City, Utah, which was great fun because there were no tourists and we got to stay in a condo for free (thanks Carol)!  We did a little window shopping on Main Street, and then decided to climb a mountain.  It was no Everest, but Mount Olympus was quite the challenge; at least for me (Stephanie).  Chris was kind enough to slow his pace for his out of shape wife. 

At the time of our wedding, I was between jobs.  I stayed "between jobs" for four months, until I finally decided to act on a tip from a friend... a tip I had gotten in September... I had ignored the tip at the time because I wasn't entirely sure I still wanted to work in a church, but God kept shutting doors everywhere else so I figured he probably knew what he was doing.  If only I would have trusted him in September...  Anyway, I now work part time as a Youth Director at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waukee, IA ( www.ilcwaukee.org ).

I really enjoy what I do, which is basically just hanging out with kids and talking to them about God.  :)  

Since last May, Chris has been working in the Accounting department at Hubbell Realty Company in West Des Moines ( http://hubbellrealty.com/ ).  He's found it a little ho-hum at times, but he is starting to gain more responsibility and we're excited for that!  

We began our married days in an efficiency apartment in Ames, but since we both now work in the West Des Moines area, we have moved into a two bedroom apartment in Waukee.  It's much bigger than our first apartment, and the rent isn't as high!  It is quite a bit older than our previous home, though, so we take the good with the bad.  We are enjoying Waukee, as it has a small town feel but is right outside the "big city" (or the biggest city in Iowa anyway).  We'll maybe get some pictures up here soon...

Both of us have continued our connection with Awaken Ministries, but in a different capacity this year.  We are both on support staff, so many of our free weekends and hours are taken up with that.  We really enjoy it, most of the time. 

Other than all that, we fill our time with trips to Omaha or dinner dates with friends.  We get to see our family more now because my aunt lives only about 15 minutes away!  It's fun to spend time with the kids and I'm glad for the opportunity to get to know them all better.  

Well, that's all I can think of for now.  If I've left anything out I'm sure Chris will let me know and we can make some edits.  We hope you are all doing very well and enjoying this nice spring weather!

--The Starrs

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!  And thanks for taking an interest in our lives.  We hope this blog will be informative and interesting, and we hope also that you get a little laugh in here and there.  Please feel free to leave comments and let us know what you like, don't like, and what you'd like to hear more about.