Anne, Laura, and I have returned back to Cincinnati after spending some time back home with family and friends. Katie doesn't return until after the new year so it'll be just the three of us until then.

It's good to be back in Walnut Hills and not living out of a travel bag. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the time. However, there's something to be said for knowing exactly where your toothbrush is and not needing to worry about liquids in containers being three ounces or smaller. For me, Cincinnati is where I feel settled right now. This is different than saying that it feels like home, because it's still not quite there yet. By the time I left my previous BVS assignment I could honestly say that I felt at home with the people and area there. Cincy is still a work-in-progress.

"Home" has become an interesting, evolving idea for me. I still refer to my hometown, Nokesville, VA, as being my home. In reality, I don't recognize a fair number of people around town anymore and I generally need a docent if I'm gonna venture more than a couple miles from the Bear household due to added, rerouted, or renamed roads. The new shopping centers and subdivisions don't help a whole bunch, either. The family and friends that I still know there allow it to still be a place to where I can return. More and more it's the people, not the place, that make Nokesville home.

There are plenty of ways to describe "home". Most of them would have Nokesville qualify for that title. What I'm missing right now is a place that I can consider my home based on these terms:

- I don't feel like an outsider at local events.
- If I plant something in the yard I'll be around long enough to see it through an entire growing season and, if it's a perennial, watch it return next year.
- The neighbors around me aren't complete strangers, even if we don't talk all that much.

This isn't all-inclusive, but it's a general idea of what I have in mind. I know it's a bit of a double standard with my current vagabond tendancies but that's what I'd kinda like to find.

Living here in Cincy has often been a struggle when considering these criteria in that we know that our time with BVS is one year and then we'll likely be moving on to... whatever. It's difficult to try to feel that this is the place I can call home when I know that by the time December rolls around next year I'll likely be living somewhere that is not here*. It seems intriguingly ironic that by choosing to come here to work at a shelter I have, once again, become homeless in a way. I know it sounds extreme and I'm fully aware that I'm nowhere near being homeless in the traditional sense of the word - it's simply a thought.


I hope y'all enjoy ringing in the new year wherever you may be.
Ben Bear


*Editor's note: There is no gameplan as to where this "somewhere" might be. Suggestions welcome.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!

Christmas preparations are in full swing here at the BVS house. Last weekend we ventured to Lebanon, Ohio with some friends and cut down a Christmas tree. Here are some photos of the very cold, but fun expedition to find the perfect tree for our house.

The cutting is about to begin!!

Anne, Katie, Laura, and Ben with our Christmas tree

Happy Chirstmas decorating,

Anne

...and here's the tree going up...

...success!

Peace and blessings,

Ben

Waiting for an Absolution

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea........

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,.......
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

--Excerpts from The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

"It is life in slow motion, it's the heart in reverse, it's a hope-and-a-half: too much and too little at once. It's a train that suddenly stops with no station around, and we can hear the cricket, and, leaning out the carriage door, we vainly contemplate a wind we feel that stirs the blooming meadows, the meadows made imaginary by this stop."

--The Wait by Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear friends,

It is with one good eye and a heavy heart that I sit to write this long-overdue blog entry. I have good reason for my tardiness. For the past two weeks I have had a severe eye infection that I still do not know how to pronounce properly. I feel as though I am living in a world apart from everyone else right now. A world of plastered smiles, half-remembered conversations, daily visits to a cornea specialist, four different drops to be administered every one hour/now every two hours as well as at night, an impenetrable haze, and a pain that feels like every nerve in my eye is on fire. I have been plagued by incessant doubts, worries, and the voice of my doctor who said there was a good chance that there might be some vision loss...it repeated so often in my mind at first that it was almost like a broken record.

At the eye institute that I have been going to, I see all of these people who are also waiting for relief and an end to their pain. Many have been suffering much longer than two weeks. My heart cries out for the glaucoma patients that I have to walk by everyday. I cannot fathom the immensity of such an illness as cancer. I am brought back with the realization that I am very much alive and well. It is these people who are truly waiting.

How easy it is to be enveloped by our own pain and sufferings. Some of us do not know how to come back from that world. I had time to sit in that place, waiting for an absolution that is slow to come. It has reinforced my patience and given new meaning yet again to what it means to be vulnerable. What also brings me back is hope. I cannot claim what has not happened yet, and each new day brings more improvement.

Thank you Dan for helping me get the prescriptions that I needed to get better again.
Thank you Ben and Kristen for helping me with my eye drops that first night when they had to be put in every hour.
Thank you Bob and the Summers for taking me to my appointments everyday.
Thank you Laura, Anne, and Ben for simply being there for me. I apologize if I have been less than kind to you. You have my gratitude.
Thank you to everyone who has prayed for me. It has meant so much to me.

A friend of mine has a family member who has terminal cancer. I am reminded of my father who has had AML Leukemia (currently in remission), and my mother's brother who died of lung cancer in less than five months. People come and go from our lives, and in these moments of revelation, we see how fleeting life truly is. Yet still we squander it. I have not been able to do much else recently but sit for hours and think. I come back again and again to the idea that so much of our lives are spent waiting. We wait for the end, the beginning, or the perfect opportunity to say and do all of the things we dream of saying and doing. We foolishly believe that behind every door is another chance to do right. When we finally believe that we have the time, we rush to the door only to find a hollow space of "what ifs" and "if onlys."

To write well, we should write about what we know. This is what I know. Life/time do not patiently wait for us. There is never any more beginning or ending than right now, nor a more perfect opportunity than the present to take that first step towards something or someone. Please do not wait to tell the people in your life that you love them. It is difficult to express emotions that seem to be wholly unsayable, but try. We cannot know what tomorrow holds.
................................................................................................
On a considerably lighter note, Laura, Anne, Ben, and I went with a couple from the church to get a Christmas tree on Saturday! My eye felt well enough that I could go with them. A blessing in itself. It was like the arctic outside though, and I almost got frostbitten toes. The tree farm provided us with plenty of hot chocolate, a wagon ride, and a picture with our new tree. Then we went back to the family's house to eat chili and german cookies. Other people from the church arrived, and we had a great time just being with each other.

Later that evening, we were provided with plenty of borrowed winter trappings to brave the winter weather, and we went into the town looking like eskimos to watch the horse-drawn sleigh/carriage/wagon parade. Thousands of people were converging on the town as well. There were about 145 different carriages, all decked out with lights, bells, bows, etc. It was a sight to see. We'll have pictures for you soon.

Sorry for the lengthy blog, but it has been so long since I wrote to you and I had much on my mind.
I do hope you are all doing well.

A friend always,

Katie

Unrelated ramblings

I had never lived in a city before coming to Cincinnati. The closest I came was my previous BVS site in the booming metropolis of Alamosa, CO. (pop: 8500). Thinking back, I can recall being excited because they had city blocks. Yup, that's right. City blocks. I associate much more with being a country bumpkin than a city kid, no contest. So why is it that I haven't gone stir-crazy living in a city of over a quarter million people? Seriously, I've only left the city three times since I got here - 1. The afternoon church service at the Brethren home in Greenville; 2. Driving out to a fellow church member's house for Man Night (it was cooler than you'd think); and 3. Going to the Outdoor Ministries Association conference at Woodland Altars (thanks, Swatara!). That's not a whole lot of time away from the asphalt and constant background noise of living in the city... yet somehow it's working for me. I sure didn't expect this aspect of living here to be such an easy transition. Did I miss part of it or has it just not hit home yet that I actually live here?

Katie and I recently (re?)discovered a love of hot chocolate. If you've never tried adding milk and a few drops of some flavoring extract - we've used vanilla so far - then you are totally missing out on some chilly weather wonderfulness. It's nice to have housemates who geek out over the same stuff I do sometimes.

Anne, Laura, and I went down the street to Mirror Lake on Saturday for the spectacle known as "Balluminaria". Around dusk there are a dozen hot air balloons that inflate without taking off and line up along one side of the "lake" (it's actually a cement pond thingy, but I suppose "Mirror Lake" sounds way nicer than "Mirror Cement Pond Thingy"). The reflection is quite spectacular and makes for some great photographing opportunities. While we were freezing our hindparts off listening to microphoned singers and waiting for the balloons to inflate I actually ran into somebody I knew. Ken, a University of Cincinnati student who volunteers at my job, was there with a friend. For a moment I had a faint feeling of small-town living again where you see people you know wherever you go. Then he walked off to a different vantage point and I didn't see him the rest of the evening, swallowed into the mass of the thousands of other spectators.

We've had a warmer than usual November from what I understand. I didn't need my jacket to walk to church on Sunday. If it weren't for Daylight Savings Time then I would be out running way more than what I am now. Regardless of how prepared I was for it, I decided to go on a long run on Sunday afternoon since I hadn't been on one in a while. One of my favorite things to do when running is to head in a direction I'm sorta familiar with but don't know exactly. I headed down Victory Parkway and turned onto Madison. When I got to the intersection where I usually turn around or take a right to make a loop I kept going straight instead. At some point Madison curved and I didn't; I ended up in Norwood. I don't think I'd ever been to Norwood before. The general rule of thumb that I follow when I have no idea where I am is that you turn the same direction at major-ish intersections until you recognize an area or a road name. Left. Left. Another left. Ta-da! Welcome to Montgomery Road. I honestly couldn't remember exactly what it connected into, but I knew that if I took a left onto it then I should make it back to some other road that I recognize a little better. Sure enough, Montgomery ran into Gilbert which passes a few blocks from our house and took me back without any problems. I've done this a few times in the last six weeks and it's an adventure every time. This one was a 9+ mile adventure. That totally justifies the piece of Laura's chocolate mousse pie that I had later that evening, right? Yeah, I thought so, too.

This past week was my turn to lead our house devotions. Inspired by the latest issue of Messenger I came up with the following five questions:

1. What makes the CoB (Church of the Brethren) important to you?

2. Why do you stay in the CoB?

3. What frustrates you about the CoB?

4. How do you think your life would be different if you weren't a member of the CoB?

5. What ministry would you like to see the CoB enthusiastically pursue?
We spent some time writing down our thoughts before we began conversing. I wish I could have had some sort of voice recorder in there to catch everything we talked about. There was a lot on our minds to discuss and it was good to hear ideas, reasonings, and concerns about topics that often end up running through my head. I wonder what would happen if more CoB young adults - or any age - sat down informally and let loose with their unrestricted thoughts on some of those topics. Oh, the possibilities...

Thanksgiving is upon us and we're all heading separate directions for the holiday. Laura is somehow transporting herself up to northern Indiana to chow down with one Miss Sarah Hall while Katie and Anne will be flying home to spend time with their families. I'm getting picked up by my good friend, Heidi Bailey, whom I haven't seen in over four years. She lives up in the Dayton area and we'll be partaking in the appreciative consumption of vittles with her family. Yee-haw for good friends. Wherever you are, I hope you have a warm Thanksgiving in good company.

I Am Not Their Mother, But....

Now that we have been in Cincinnati over a month, Laura and I have started to really get to know the children with whom we work. The funny thing I wasn’t quite expecting, but love none the less, is how much I really care about these kids. My connection to them is kind of hard to explain, so I thought I would continue the trend from last week and give a list of examples of just how I feel like a mother, or at least a big sister, to these kids.

- I am genuinely happy for Cameron when he exclaims happily that he gets to light the candles on the altar at the beginning of the church service on Sunday. I watch intently and with a big smile on my face as he carefully lights each one.

- My heart just melts when I hear the kids shouting “Miss Anne, Miss Anne!”

- I worry about Andrew when he misses a Sunday and the Halloween celebration. Though my worry is relieved when he walks through the door for breakfast the next Sunday morning.

- I don’t know quite how to react when Jermaine tells me he was suspended from school for a few days for getting into a fight. I settle on a little admonishment about how that isn’t very good, and that he can’t get suspended again because he has already met his self imposed quota of one suspension a year. Big sisterly enough, but not quite motherly, I’ll leave that to his real mom.

- I happily praise the toddler girls as they come down the big slides at the park with smiles on their faces and land chest deep in leaf piles.

- On a Wednesday afternoon at my dining room table, I try really hard to think back to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade and how I learned division and multiplication because there is homework to be completed before we can eat the cookies Laura has baking in the kitchen.

- I fall into bed on a Sunday evening, tired and hoping that I’ve had a positive impact on the kids today. However, I realize that as much as I love these kids, I have just satisfied any momentary desire I might have for children of my own, and I am quite happy for the silence in the house as I drift off to sleep.

Note: The names of the children have been changed because I wouldn’t be motherly unless I thought about protecting their identity :)

Blessings,

Anne

Happenings

This past weekend was a warm and beautiful one. We spent some time eating brunch on the back porch and posing for a group photo, hope you enjoy the photos!

Only awake after 1o:30!

Brunch Biscuits

Don't we look like professional models?

The Ohio River and Kentucky in the background.

Goodness.

Hello All.

Cincinnati has graciously welcomed in some warm weather and sunshine this week, and it has done everyone here loads of good. I hope your step is as springy as mine.

I must make clear from the very beginning, blogging isn't one of my favorite pastimes. Not that I want to keep you in the dark, but it takes an awful long time for me to feel ready to post my thoughts for all the world to see.
However, my housemates have been very adamant about their desire for this to be a communal effort, and I must concede. Consequently, when it's my turn to share in digitized format you'll see more pictures than words and read more recipes than anecdotes. There might be a link once in a while to shake things up. Are you up for it?
Me neither...

Anne and I find ourselves making a lot of lists these days.
Grocery lists, Sunday lists, errand lists, email lists...
Most recently was a two pager on what was to be done before our "Halloween Block Party". The party was something of a trial-by-fire/indoctrination that gave the answer, "Don't worry. You were given the right placement." to my question, "What's going on?!?"
The list included things like Eat lunch, Cut out big poster board pumpkin, and Buy plane ticket.
Full week.

Luckily, I like lists.
And I'm going to make one for you!
It's called:

This is Good.

No. 1- There's a backyard.
What?
There's a backyard. And you know what else?
What?!
We might be able to plant a garden in the spring.
(speechlessness.)


No. 2- The Conservatory is free.
As it should be.

No. 3- This is the view from the roof,
conveniently flat and easy to
laze upon on your day off.

No. 4- My housemates cook things like mango salsa.
On a stipend!

No. 5- My housemates let me cook things like
buttermilk pie.
Even on a stipend.

No. 6- Fall.
Everyone can agree on this?

No. 7- My job includes planning
educational activities.
Like this.

No. 8- These kids.

When I think about good things here,
these faces flash through my mind. You could
take everything else on this list-- even the pie--
and because of these kids,
Cincinnati would still be a Good place for me to be.

Blessings,

Laura

The world is so much with us

Hello Everyone,

Okay so I've never blogged before...this is an entirely new experience for me. As you may know by now Anne and Laura are working with the Church of the Brethren here in Cincinnati. They are kept very busy with different projects/planning, etc...They have alot of great ideas about what they hope to accomplish by year's end. I'll let them tell you more about it. Ben is our lone male in the house, but as he has been in BVS before and lived with four other girls (yikes!), he has been able to adjust pretty well as far as I can tell. In last week's blog, Ben shared a little about his experiences at his new job (Interfaith Hospitality Network). It's interesting, don't you think??

Laura, Anne, and Ben truly care about the people they are working for...it shows everytime I talk to them about what they are doing. I'm blessed to be able to share this new experience with them.

As for me, I am working at the Talbert House as the new coordinator of the mentor program for women. It is an inter-agency collaborative comprised of about eight other agencies/programs in Cincinnati i.e. Pathways Halfway House, Rewards Jail Intervention, Alcoholism Council, First Step Home (residential, outpatient, transitional housing for women with substance abuse and their children), Sheriff's Department, etc... They realized that as many of these women were in these programs either concurrently/consecutively, they needed to come together and form a program that would allow for someone (mentor) to help guide these women through the complicated criminal justice system. Incarceration is a revolving door for many people, but it is hoped that this new mentor program will help in reducing Hamilton County's high recidivism rates. It is now my job to get this program up and running.

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind for me. So many new places and new faces. I've been going around to the other agencies we are working with in order to get a feel for what they are doing. So far, I have been over to Pathways, RJI, and the Hamilton County Jail/Pretrial Services. I don't think I will ever forget those experiences. I sat in on some group sessions at RJI (Residential facility for incarcerated women), and the women there welcomed me as though I had known them forever instead of just one hour. I looked around at all of them and it became very personal--as Ben said. I could have been them. A few missed steps and you are in a place in your life that you never thought you would be....

I also had a very eye-opening experience when I was given a top to bottom tour of the Hamilton County Jail. Apparently, due to its size and the amount of prisoners, it is ranked in the top 25 of this country's biggest jails. The officers that showed me around didn't leave anything out. I sat in on two meetings with a narcotics officer and two jail informants. I was taken up to the maximum security part of the jail. There I saw sex offenders, murderers, men on suicide watch, and even a serial killer awaiting trial for the horrible murders he commmited against young women. I went with the officer right up to his cell...he looked right at me, or should I say through me. I didn't exist at all to him. Believe me, something like that stays with you.

On a more positive note, we are all well-fed here at the manor. Laura is a master chef extraordinaire. We look to her for advise and guidance in the kitchen. Ben is probably one of the most easy-going/laid-back people you will ever meet...and he loves to do the dishes. That's a big plus!!! Anne is extremely organized, and can always get things done when they need to be.

And get this!! We don't have to leave our home to find entertainment. Our neighbors across the street are quite the exhibitionists! They have a huge window into their dining room and they seem reluctant to want to have their blinds down. Hmmm....interesting. It's like a dinner theatre (They are the actors and we are the enraptured audience). We'll be eating dinner at our table and through our glass door we can see right into their dining room. Please don't think we are nosy neighbors...it honestly can't be helped!! I think they like the attention. They have to know we are watching right? We aren't discrete about it...at all.

Thanks for reading. We'll be keeping you informed about our other happenings....stay tuned.

Your friend,

Katie

House on COB Newsline

Our house here in Walnut Hills was featured on the Church of the Brethren Newsline for Oct. 21st. We are item #3, check it out!

Getting our feet wet

Hola. I thought I'd start out by introducing myself since not all of y'all know me. I'm Ben Bear, the rogue male here in the Cincinnati volunteer house. Before moving out here to Cincy I was living in Bethel, Pennsylvania, not too far from Anne and Katie. My original stomping grounds are back in Nokesville, Virginia. This is my second tour of duty with BVS having originally joined in the fall of 2007 (Unit #277 - holla!). I spent the year in Alamosa, Colorado working at a shelter and food bank. Basically my entire life up to that point had been a predominantly white, middle-class experience; my time in Alamosa was oftentimes a challenge and taught me a great deal about myself and my perceptions of the world around me.

Less than a year after leaving Colorado I find myself back in BVS, this time as part of a much-anticipated intentional community house. Personally I believe that you get more out of BVS if you take on a project that you know will challenge you rather than one that you feel completely comfortable with. Because of this ideal I am now training to be a case manager for homeless families with kids. My placement is with an organization called Interfaith Hospitality Network (http://www.ihncincinnati.org/). As with any program that works with people in transition the place is a zoo at times, which was a bit overwhelming at first. After a week and a half working there I am beginning to feel like I have a clue as to what's going on around me. I'm still training on how to do the intake process for new guests; the goal is to be flying solo on intakes in another week or two. We also have a family mentoring program that we're hoping to revamp and revitalize which I'll be helping to coordinate. There are other odds and ends tidbits I'll be working on as well, but those are two of the main objectives to tackle for now.

Working with homeless families can be a real struggle mentally, emotionally, and sometimes even physically. There is never any one reason why the moms and/or dads end up in our program; it's a combination of seemingly every aspect of their life pushing them down. They fight drug addictions, deal with sick kids with no insurance, and fight for a chance to be considered credible enough to rent a one bedroom apartment that most of us would pass over without a second glance. Child support doesn't always come through, Medicaid never quite covers it all, and the bills somehow keep piling up. Faced with the daunting task of overcoming all that seems to be going against them, it's hard to imagine being positive looking to the future.

This work becomes personal for me. True, there is a line that needs to be drawn so as not to get too involved. However, to make these people and situations completely a business-like affair isn't possible. For example, I realized today that one of our guests is one day younger than I am. It makes her plight seem so much more real to look at where she is and think, "That could have been me." She has five children between the ages of three and eight. Nobody wants to rent to a single mom with five kids who can't find a job in a depressed economy, but what is she supposed to do? Yesterday I went with another guest to help her move her belongings; she had been asked to leave due to non-compliance with the program. We pulled up in front of the building and she whisked away her three kids - all under the age of three - into a building that no person of any age should be asked to live in. As I helped her carry in her earthly possessions, walking through hallways littered with garbage and up stairwells reeking of urine, I wanted to imagine that this wasn't happening. You can't see things like that and remain indifferent - it's personal.

Back to the non-work side of things... We ventured out on Saturday to Findlay Market, Ohio's oldest public market. It was about a two mile walk with some hefty hills to traverse along the way (and a couple of wrong turns). Holy cow, was it exciting to be there! There were fresh meats of every kind around, vegetable and fruit stands, gyros, gelato, spices, plants... sensory overload to the max. It kind of reminded me of the last Disaster Relief Auction I went to, but with fewer Brethren folks. We tried to check out all the vendors before doing any shopping but decided that we needed to eat lunch - it was almost 1:00 - or we'd try to buy up the entire market. We all had gyros plus Laura and I split some feta and spinach flaky bread things (sorry, Laura; I don't remember what they're called). We split up after lunch and tried to get the items on our shopping list. Fail. We got everything on the list and then some. Seriously, would you pass up delicious avocados for a dollar each? I didn't think so. On our way back home we each were laden down with a bag of delicious goods to go with our chrysanthemum which Anne and I took turns carrying. I can only imagine how conspicuous and entertaining we must have looked trudging back up and down the hills.

Here's one last story for your entertainment. Our first Sunday here I went out for a run to see what some of the places around our neighborhood looked like. At one point on my way back I took a wrong turn and got a little mixed up with road names and directions. The next thing I knew I was running on the Columbia Parkway (which I thought, at the time, was Taft - it is most definitely NOT Taft). For the visual effect, imagine a three-foot-wide sidewalk with a retaining wall on one side and four or six lanes of traffic on the other. Whee. I got off at the next possible road and made left turns at all of the intersections that looked kind of big until I found a road that I'd run on earlier. This time I did not take the wrong turn and ended up back home... an hour and 55 minutes later. I'm guessing I ran 14 or 15 miles; the original gameplan was four. I ate ice cream and cookies that night.

I'll forego all the other stories spinning through my head right now and call it a blog. Talk to y'all again in a few weeks.

Banking in the City

I like to think of myself as someone who has stepped into a lot of banks. I've had accounts at several different banks from the time I was young, but my banks were the type that had donuts and coffee on saturday mornings, or Hershey Kisses at the counter for the taking.

Banking in my neighborhood in Cincinnati, a completely different story. When I got to the front door of the bank I noticed a green light on the outside of the door, didn't think anything of it, but upon further observation saw instructions below the light and a metal detector inside the door. Come to realize that Laura and I could not enter together. She entered first, closing the door behind her before passing through the metal detector to the next door. The second door would open when the light flashed green and she could enter the bank. I had to wait outside till she was inside and the door closed behind her and then I could start the process all over again. I felt like I deserved a Hershey Kiss for figuring out that system!

Welcome to Cincinnati!

Anne

Welcome to Walnut Hills Happenings! Laura, Katie, Ben and I wanted to document our year in Cincinnati for family, friends, and others who are interested in the new program of Brethren Volunteer Service intentional communities.



It's our first week living together and we are all getting settled into our jobs and the city. Last weekend was nice, so we got to explore some of the beautiful Eden Park we live right next to and find our way to the local Kroger groccery store. Walking home loaded down with grocceries - in canvas bags of course - is going to get us some great exercise. Now however, it's very cold and rainy here in Cincy - why can't it just be sunny and 70 degrees all the time?



As far as work goes, Laura and I are working with the Cincinnati Church of the Brethren, so we are just getting acquainted with the church. What better way to do that than to have the children's story and children's church for two age groups to plan from start to finish for this Sunday! Though I wish it were warmer, I think we have moved in at a great time of year because we also get to coordinate a trip to a corn maze - many of the kids live in the city and don't get to see fields very often if at all - and we are having a Halloween Block Party in the park next to the church.



Check back regularly for more posts, the plan is that one of the four of us will have posting duties on the blog for a week each month, so you will get a variety of perspectives on our experience.



Anne