Christmas and J-term

It's been a while since we have posted something, so we apologize for keeping you all waiting. We know you've been dieing of suspense because your lives are incomplete without knowledge of ours (I kid).

I had a great end of my first semester. I got everything turned in by the paper deadline at the end of the term and was able to catch up on enough reading and review my class material enough to make it through finals. The task was not accomplished without the aid of much chemical assistance (legal of course, I am a seminarian! God has blessed us with coffee for a reason!).

After that I enjoyed a bit of time off before we went to North Dakota to visit Erin's family. We had a wonderful time visiting and catching up with relatives and enjoying a slower pace of life. It was especially nice to share the holiday with Erin’s Grandma Weatherford, whose health has been gradually declining. We were able to play lots of Settlers of Catan, eat lots of good food, and watch a few good movies. Erin and Cathy enjoyed hours of reminiscing over old family photos and talking over morning cups of coffee together. As Gary ended up having to work much of the week we were there, we took in every opportunity that we could to spend more time with him, whether that meant getting up early to see him off to work, or dropping by the funeral home, or even going with him and Erin’s uncle to set up for a service. We always enjoy our time with Gary and Cathy, and this trip was no exception!

I was able to get a little bit of extra credit work for Greek III done, as well as some reading before the intense Hebrew II winter term began. For the past few weeks I have been doing lots of work on my Hebrew. In two weeks we covered all of the irregular verb patterns in Hebrew, which occur quite frequently in the text (much more often than regular verbs). Although it has been tough, it has not been too hard. Since I have had Hebrew before, the vocabulary load (25 words to learn each day) has been quite manageable, though in my previous studies I was not required to learn the grammar in nearly as great a depth as I have now learned it. I have really enjoyed devoting all my time to one subject--it is much easier for me to stay on top of my work when I have only one subject upon which to concentrate. Also, since I am taking an extra class each semester in order to graduate early, the workload has actually been relatively easy compared to that of the regular semester. Hopefully when the spring semester does start (one day after the Hebrew final) I will be ready to get back to work and keep up with everything after such an enjoyable break.

Thanks to all those who have stayed in touch and supported us--it means a lot! If you have the time, please leave a comment, shoot one of us an email, or even call us (if you don't have our number, ask)!