Is that... a blog post?!?

It has been far too long since we've posted an update for everyone... so, here goes. We have lots to share.

First, there's Caleb. That boy has been doing some serious learning. He can confidently count from 1 to 12 (skipping 5), he's starting to learn which letters are which, and he is piecing together complete sentences. Each day we're amazed (and scared) at how much he's picking up. Also, after battling eye goobies basically since birth, we finally had him checked out by an eye doctor and then subsequently he had surgery on his tear duct. They basically cleaned out his tear duct to open it up so that the fluids could drain properly. The surgery was in mid-October, and afterwards the problem came back, so this past week he went in for a second surgery. This time, they put a tube through his tear ducts which, in theory, was supposed to stay in for three months to help open it up more. Of course, the tube started coming out, so they took it back out the next day. Hopefully the problem doesn't come back... we'll see.

Oh, and for Halloween he was a zebra:

We had a couple sets of weekend visitors in September. Nicole's family came down one weekend, and Libby her former roommate came with her husband Jason another weekend. Then the last weekend of October we were up in Michigan visiting with family. Part of the reason we haven't been traveling as much is that we are volunteering our time with a new church. The church we've been attending for several years planted a new church in our immediate community. It's currently meeting in a movie theater which is about 5 minutes from our house, which is nice compared to the mother church which is about 25. Nicole is helping with greeting / ushering / hospitality, and I'm running the soundboard and also the webmaster (check it out here). It's been fun to get involved more, but we're also being careful not to over-commit.

Although my grad program is getting close to the end (my last final is December 13, but who's counting), the workload is far from tapering off. That's a big reason why I haven't been posting - I've been doing homework and studying instead! Needless to say I'm ready to be done. But if that wasn't enough, we have some other big news which many of you probably already know: I have accepted a rotational position at my company's site near South Bend, IN, and we'll be relocating out there in January. In early September my company advertised that they were looking for an engineer to rotate to the site for 2-3 years, and since it was a good development opportunity, and also so much closer to Grand Rapids, we decided to go for it. Turns out they really wanted me for the job, so after a visit to the site the decision was made official in mid-October. It's a small test facility with lots to keep me busy and lots to learn. Our house has been on the market for a month, and just this weekend we received and took an offer, so we can really see God's hand at work with the timing.

Phew, that's probably one of the most significant blog updates I've ever made. I'm also uploading lots of great new pictures to the webshots page, so check them out.