The Beneshes: January 2007

Sunday, January 28, 2007

1 degree

I guess I'm just one-upping myself here.
This is a picture of the thermometer when I left for work on Friday. Cold!

Nathan's Birthday

Nathan had a great 25th birthday! We had some friends over for cake and games all afternoon, and we had fun playing like 5 hours of Carcasonne. :)

Sara and Bryan brought their Nathan, too.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

I stole the "Five Random Things" idea from our friend Bruce, who apparently stole it from some guy named Danny. It is entirely possible that this post won't stand out since our entire blog is random, but it still sounded like fun.

1. I just checked Meredith's blog (my brother's fiancee), and apparently she is working at a farm where she has to collect eggs every morning. I have no idea why she is doing that, and it amuses me because she doesn't strike me as a farm type of person.

2. Does anyone know which "fiance/e" implies the boy and which implies the girl? I can never remember.

3. I'm watching American Idol as I write, and the girl singing is awful. She is completely tone deaf. She reminds me of this man in Harvard Square who plays this small Chinese violin-type instrument and is just all over the place, melody-wise. You'll hear people on the street making comments about how bad it is. One day, Nathan and I randomly read an article about him in a local newspaper--turns out he is an aficionado of Chinese opera and considers his time playing in the Square the honing of his craft. You can't help but like the guy, but I'm not so sure about his musical prowess.

4. Tomorrow I don't have to be at work until noon. Gotta love that.

5. I am currently reading Corrie Ten Boom's "The Hiding Place" for the second time in the last year. It is truly amazing. A while back, I also read the sequel, "Tramp for the Lord." If you want to be inspired, read those books. The people described in the book very much embody surrender to the Lord and obedience, the way God uses adversity to bring about amazing things, and God's sovereignty over history. All of that is embedded in a fascinating story of the extremes of cruelty and war. It also brings up interesting questions like whether or not it is morally acceptable to sin (lie, for example) in order to achieve a larger good, like saving many people's lives. I don't think it satisfactorily answers that question.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Nathan :)

A bunch of pictures of Nathan in honor of his 25th birthday this Saturday

Hitchcock-esque

I almost forgot to include this picture! Over New Year's, on our way back to Houston from Waco, we stopped in College Station to eat at Freebird's. There were, indeed, lots of free birds. Check this out! We pulled into the parking lot and our jaws dropped at the number of birds. The branches were so packed with them that they had to find other perches on the cars and even on the pavement. It was like something out of the movie "The Birds."

Glory and Gracie

April sent me these pictures of the girls. Glory learned to ride her bike all by herself! Grace looks like she's not doing too badly, either.

This is a great picture of April & Jonathan.

Cooooold!

I took this picture of our indoor/outdoor thermometer this morning before we left for church--11 degrees!!! (And yes, it was 55 in our kitchen.) Luckily, it wasn't very windy or humid, which made the walk to the bus stop much more bearable. Can't wait to get that Mercedes, though!

Saturday, January 20, 2007

YUM

Last night, Nathan, Jeremy, and I went out to eat at Outback to celebrate my new job. I was there mostly for the Bloomin' Onion and the brown bread, and Jeremy had a pretty nice steak. But Nathan, he cleaned up. He had a 22 oz. steak and a 22 oz. beer. :)

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Ken's New Job

So my brother, Ken, was just offered an awesome job at a great church in Dripping Springs, TX. He's getting married in March and graduating from seminary in May, so this is great timing and a wonderful opportunity for him. He really likes the church, the pastoral staff, their theological beliefs, etc., and they seem to like him despite his quirkiness. :) Ken & Meredith saw the parsonage last weekend, and all I can say after hearing it described is, "I'm jealous!" We also had one of those "Wow, it's a small world!" moments after figuring out that Nathan's Aunt Jennifer, Uncle Steve, and cousins Will & Austin go to this church and that Will was involved in Ken's interview process. After the interview, when Ken figured out who Will was, he said, "Yeah, he was very polite and the valedictorian--sounds like a Benesh!"

Ken's very theological blog: http://kencrit.blogspot.com/

Sarah & Ryan

No summary of the last year (as the beginning of this blog is turning out to be) would be complete without my friend, Sarah. Sarah and I have known each other practically since kindergarten, sang together and became friends in high school, and became very close in college. Most of you know what an amazing singer she is, too. Here we are a couple of summers ago.

Sarah and her husband, Ryan

Sarah & Ryan on their wedding day, last Christmas Eve

The boys had to have a picture with the buffalo.
(By the way, this Goode Co. BBQ has the best chocolate cinnamon shakes!)

New Job

Today was my first day at my new job. It went great! I really like the people I work with, and I think I will really like what I do. Basically, my job is helping people decide whether they want to join one of Lesley's national M.Ed. programs (http://web.lesley.edu/admissions/offcampus.asp). I love how everyone at Lesley has the attitude of servanthood towards the students and always doing things in their best interests. They work hard but love what they do, and that's a great environment to work in.

Monday, January 15, 2007

The Drolets

I thought I'd also include some pictures of our most excellent friends, the Drolets. April and I grew up across the street from one another and now do Arbonne together, and I must say she is one of the most amazing people I know. Jonathan is her husband, and he and Nathan have a good time talking about manly things like sports and gory movies and beating their wives at card games. Glory and Grace are the two little ones, and they are always so much bigger each time I see them!

April and me at Arbonne's National Training Conference
last April in St. Louis

April, Glory, and Grace in the summer of 2005. I can't believe that I don't have more recent pictures! Anyhow, Glory is now very much a talker and loves school, and Gracie now has the prettiest long blonde hair and loves to climb and eat.

I like this picture of Glory.

I'm totally going to be able to bribe this kid with this picture someday.
I'm not quite sure what she's doing....

Brrr....

They changed the forecast to a windy 10 degrees on Wednesday! Wow, that's frigid.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Winter? What's that?

So the weatherman says we're supposed to get snow this week--FINALLY! I don't think we've had any at all this winter, except for a very light dusting back in November. As a Texan, snow and winter is still a novelty to me, so I'm pretty excited that it's coming. However, they're also saying that the high on Wednesday is going to be 17, which is pretty cold, especially when you factor in wind chill. Oh well, that just means I'll get to break out my knitted scarves & hats (one of the perks of moving to New England was that my knitting is actually useful).

Let's just hope it doesn't turn out as heavy as the blizzard that we had two Januarys ago. Here are a few pictures from the aftermath of that storm (Jan 2005):

Apple Picking

If you've never gone to pick your own fruit, you're missing out! I've now been blueberry picking and apple picking, and I've got to say that the fruit is amazingly better when you've picked it fresh. (I'd definitely recommend picking apples over picking blueberries, though--way less labor-intensive!)

This September I went with my friend, Tracy, to Honeypot Farms, near Boston. We picked mostly Cortland apples, which are my favorites now because they're sweet and they don't turn brown.

It was a lovely late September day, sunny and warm. You take a bucket with you on the hayride out to the rows of trees, where you then pick as many apples as you can carry (and eat as many as you can while you're out in the orchard:). Because of the fallen apples and discarded cores on the ground, the entire place smells like fermenting apples, which is not a bad thing. To pick the apples, you just roll the fruit upwards toward the branch, and if it's ripe, it comes right off. It was an overall charming experience, and it'll have to become one of our New England traditions. Plus, there's nothing better than fresh apple cider!

New England Foliage

This year I took a *few* photos of the changing leaves this October. One on a short road trip right outside of Boston, one of the tree next to our house, and one from our front porch. These really do not do justice to what the leaves can really look like. This year we'll have to take a road trip up to VT or NH and take some really amazing pics.

Death by Scrabble

(We're working backwards in time through our pictures, by the way.)

One night my cousin, Jeremy, came over to play games (he likes board games as much as us, and usually wins, dangit!). Well, we decided to play a quick game of speed Scrabble, where you make your own words and connect them in front of you without the help of a board. After we finished with one round, we looked up and noticed that all of Jeremy's words--which he speedily put together and wasn't putting too much thought into--had a pretty dark tone. It cracked us up.