Yes, a good many Thursdays, including yesterday, have escaped us since we last wrote one of these updates. I thought I should get one out quickly while we are catching our breath before diving into the holiday travel mayhem. I’ll try to hit the highlights to catch everyone up.

1. This was a really hard semester at WTS. Definitely our hardest yet. I think we had time to cook about 10 meals at home all semester, and most of you know how much we like to cook. Hopefully the rest will be somewhat easier from here out. Regardless, God faithfully brought us through and took care of all our needs.
2. Laura turned 25 in October, and I turned 30 earlier this month!
3. One of the things that gave us more free time and even earned a little extra cash this semester was that we’ve been doing some work for a couple of “secret shopper” companies. We get paid a small fee to eat out at restaurants and review their service. Not a bad deal!
4. I really loved teaching my ESL class this semester, and I’m looking forward to seeing them again in January. The Mexican ladies I teach are great students and we always have a lot of fun.
5. Laura is still enjoying her childcare job as well as the photography work, which has remained fairly steady.
6. We’re still loving our apartment in Ambler, although we haven’t had time to finish decorating and painting since the semester began. I’m hoping to put up some lights today if possible.
7. After finishing finals, we took a nice little trip to our favorite rental cottage out in Lancaster for a couple of days. We had a great time relaxing, catching up on sleep, and eating good food.
8. Thanksgiving came right before finals this year, so we couldn’t travel and see family. But we did get together with a bunch of other students from WTS and had a great Thanksgiving meal on campus. After that we babysat some hilarious kids so their parents could go out with family to a football game.
9. On the last day of finals (last Friday) we went to two great Christmas parties, one for CCEF (since Laura worked there a little this semester) and the other for Laura’s Bible study group (we always have a white elephant party with this group, and I brought home a pumpkin, much to Laura’s chagrin).
10. This Christmas we’re going to visit Laura’s family, first in St Louis, then driving up with her Dad and step-mom to their new house in Rapid City, South Dakota! Pray that we have good weather on the way! I’m hoping for lots of snow once we get there, since as a child I suffered from snow deprivation growing up in the South. Laura’s dad’s side of the family will all be there, and I’m sure we’ll have a great time.
11. When we’re in St Louis, we’re going to get to visit with lots of family and friends!
12. We are very excited to tell you that we secured a summer internship at a church in Asheville for this summer! The church is Grace Community PCA in Fletcher. I’ll be working with the discipleship ministry and Laura will probably work with the women’s and children’s ministries. My parents have kindly offered to let us stay in their basement apartment for the summer, and we’re really looking forward to getting to see more of my family.
13. We’ll be taking a couple of January term classes next month. I’ll be taking a class on the Westminster Standards, taught by Dr Sinclair Ferguson, and Laura will be taking “Counseling and the Local Church” from Tim Lane. We’ll be auditing eachother’s classes as well.

Thanks for reading and feel free to send us updates of your own!