All Moved In

This is a picture of our new home! It has 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms, cathedral ceilings on the main floor that make everything feel very spacious, a large downstairs room that is perfect for having friends over, and a basement that is just the right size for a ping pong table! We feel very blessed that we found such a perfect place to live.

Thanks to the help of our mom's, Josh, Joel, and Justin, Seth and I were able to completely move in to our new home in about a day and a half. We got a good start last Friday afternoon and evening and actually spent our first night in the new house that night. I was gone most of the day on Saturday for a tennis tournament, which by the way we won!, and when I came back Seth had almost everything else moved in.

I spent most of the day Sunday unpacking and organizing and it is starting to feel a little like home. Both of us kind of feel like we are in a hotel or on vacation, stumbling around hallways looking for light switches and carefully counting steps in the dark. We are adjusting to having our stuff more spread out and enjoying the extra space. It still hasn't completely hit us that this wonderful new house is ours! We actually own it! We've decided we are almost adults now!

This week at Bethany is Interterm. Since it is my first year Allan decided it would be best for me to be around the office instead of going with a group. A part of me wanted to do something, but it is also nice to have my afternoons and evenings free with no tennis practice or matches. My team at Bethany is off to a phenomenal start this season. We are currently 9-0 as we gear up for the last 3 weeks of season. Next week will be pretty intense with 4 matches, but after that we will basically be gearing up for sectionals which we have a great chance of winning this year! It is very exciting!

Next week is my last week of being full time at Bethany. The busy time of year is over for recruiting and it will be wonderful to be home more. I will switch from 40 hours/week to 30 hours/week until the end of the school year and then it will be even less once summer break is here.

Having no tennis this week has given me the opportunity to spend some time with Traci, who is home for the week! We spent a few hours last night at Target, one of our favorite stores. She was registering for her wedding and I was buying a few things for the house. We are getting together tonight with Andrea Chupp too! I also think I will be able to see Melissa this weekend. She might be swinging through Goshen on Friday evening. I haven't seen her since Christmas so it will be fun to catch up.

Time to move!

Just letting everyone know that today we are closing on our new house, and plan on doing a bit of moving tonight and tomorrow morning! We will keep everyone updated!

Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic (1912)

On this day (April 15) in 1912, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg. When the lifeboats were launched, it was "women and children first." Remember?

Quote from Wikipedia: At first, passengers were reluctant to leave the ostensibly safe Titanic, which showed no outward signs of being in imminent danger, and board small lifeboats. As a result, most of the boats were launched partially empty. One boat, boat number one, meant to hold 40 people, left Titanic with only 12 people on board. With "Women and children first" the imperative (see origin of phrase) for loading lifeboats, Second Officer Lightoller, who was loading boats on the port side, allowed men on only if oarsmen were needed and for no other reason, even if there was room. First Officer Murdoch, who was loading boats on the starboard side, let men on board if women were absent. As the ship's tilt became more apparent, people started to become nervous, and some lifeboats began leaving fully loaded. Shortly after 2:00 AM the waterline had reached the forward boat deck, and all the lifeboats, save for Collapsibles A and B, had been lowered. Collapsible D was the last lifeboat to be lowered from the davits with 44 of its 47 seats filled. The total number of vacancies was close to 475.

Origin of the phrase "women and children first":
Quote from Wikipedia: At 2 a.m. the following morning, the Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock near Danger Point (now near Gansbaai, Western Cape). The impact was so violent that the forward compartment of the lower troopdeck flooded instantly and over 100 soldiers were drowned in their hammocks. The surviving officers and men assembled on deck — Lt Col Seaton of the 74th Foot took charge of all military personnel and stressed the necessity of maintaining order and discipline to his officers. Distress rockets were fired, but there was no assistance available. Sixty men were detailed to man the pumps, while the rest were drawn up ito await orders. Thanks to poor maintenance and paint on the winches few of the ships' boats could be launched; eventually two cutters and a gig were launched, and all the women and children were placed in these boats which were rowed away from the wreck for safety. Only then did Captain Salmond order that those men who could swim should save themselves by swimming to the boats; Lt Col Seaton, however, recognising that rushing the lifeboats would risk swamping them and endangering the women and children, ordered the men to stand fast. The soldiers did not move, even as the ship broke up barely twenty minutes after striking the rock. Some of the soldiers managed to swim the 1.5 - 2 miles to shore over the next twelve hours, often hanging on to pieces of the wreck to stay afloat, but most either drowned or were taken by the frenzied sharks that quickly arrived on the scene.

It's so nice that men back then got to enjoy the Male Privileges™ benfits package that "The Patriarchy" gave them.

spring break

Nothing beats a week off from work! This past week was spring break at Bethany. This meant no work or tennis for a week! Seth and I spent 4 days in Tennessee with Rebekah and 2 days in Chicago. It was wonderful! Plenty of sleep, good food (Chicago style pizza!) shopping, warm weather, SVU and Monk reruns, relaxing, etc. We enjoyed spending time in the mountains, seeing Rebekah's new condo and meeting her friends.
It has been back to the real world though, well at least for Seth. He had to go back to work right away. My real world starts again on Monday! A week away from Goshen, the apartment, and responsibilities was exactly what Seth and I needed though. I feel rested and reenergized. Seth is still adjusting to a new job, but some time away was good for him too.
We are mentally preparing for our move into the new house. We will need to start physically preparing soon too! I kind of don't know where to start though. Luckily we don't have too much stuff. We are looking forward to getting settled in and having people over to visit our new place. Look out! We may start recruiting some help!