Thanksgiving

Ryan and I had such a great Thanksgiving. We were able to spend a lot of time with our families, and we are very thankful for them! For the past few years we have been doing both families on Thanksgiving (meaning two dinners!) so we were able to pack a lot in on turkey day.

Ryan's aunt Kim, aunt Terri, and miss Ellie!

Jeff and his Pittsburgh shirt (too bad the Bengals beat them twice already this year :) )

Ryan's dad and his smoked brisket (which was fantastic)

Sawrie family picture

On to Thanksgiving number 2: My parents

After dinner aperitif?

Trying to get a cousin picture...

And the Herre family

And one of my favorite things from Cincinnati: UDF ice cream!

Mass Ave - some pictures

I really enjoy Mass Ave, so I thought I would share some pictures with you in case you are not from Indianapolis or familiar with "Mass Ave".

Luna and Buda Lounge
Our local Starbucks

The gentlemen to the left asked if they could be in one of my pictures, ha.

you can submit truths and lies

the head

on the cultural trail


Silver in the City and Global Gifts

Lastly, our church!

Christmas Tree!

This weekend we put up our Christmas tree! Ryan is such a good sport and lets me get a real tree...so we headed out to Home Depot (very festive right?), and picked ourselves out a beauty. We brought her home and loaded her up with some ornaments, lights, tinsel, and a pretty tree skirt! I love the smell of real pine tree throughout the house...

Almost 7 feet tall!

From our trip to the Christmas Story house...

Happy start to the Christmas season everyone!

Tea's Me

This cute cafe, down the street, has a huge selection of teas. You can order your own little pot and drink away the afternoon. I am off work this week, so I met Ryan here for lunch and we really enjoyed it. I would recommend this place to anyone. Very good, reasonable prices, and very unique.

Soup, Sandwich, and Salad

Our tea pot

Habitat for Humanity Re-Store

On Saturday, Ryan and I were curious about the Habitat Re-Store...so we stopped by! They have all kinds of things that have been donated from construction companies, so if you are re-doing a house, you should definitely stop by. They have windows, doors, cabinets, plumbing, painting supplies, and even some furniture. We were getting ready to leave and Ryan spotted an old record player. They let us plug it in...and it worked! Ryan is now the proud owner of his own record player!

Lebron James and the Pacers

Friday night, thanks to Jackie, we were at the Pacers game. I've always wanted to see Lebron James play, so I was very excited. Conseco was packed for the game, and even with the loss for the Pacers, we had a great time.

My great zoom skills

Christmas Craft Show

Ryan won tickets for the annual Christmas craft show at the fair grounds. I had no idea what to expect, but I talked Bekah into coming with me for support. Chaos is the best word I can find to describe the event. We walked in, and it was packed! There were some great deals, but it would normally cost $10 to get in. I'm glad I went to experience the crazy ladies running around in Christmas-shopping mode, but I think I could pass next year.

Rivalry Sunday

Bengals and Steelers!

Colts and Patriots!

And....both of our teams won!

Thought Provoking Weekend...

What a weekend.

Community and Creativity in Resisting Consumerism

Friday night we went to hear a talk from Shane Claiborne (author of Irresistible Revolution), on living counter-culturally in a very consumer driven society. Whenever we need or want something, we just go buy it. He talked a little bit about changes he has made in his life, some extreme and some that were pretty easy, and how that has helped him to love others. For example, Shane makes all of his own clothes (could be considered extreme), and gets most of his fruits and veggies from a community garden he helped to start (not as extreme). Because he has made his life simpler, he is able to give so much more away.

One of the things Ryan and I have been thinking about lately is what it looks like to live missionally no matter where we are in life. To us, that means being a missionary where you are, or as Aaron Story (our pastor) says "blooming where you are planted". Whether it's at work, in our neighborhood, at church or with friends/family, how can we be intentional about sharing the love of Christ through serving, sacrifice, experiencing others' joy/sorrow and just being bold in our faith. And what does that look like? Possibly living in community with others? Giving more? Serving the least of these? Loving others until it hurts? Like I said, Ryan and I have been talking seriously about these things a lot in the past few weeks, so hopefully there will be more on this to come!

I think Parke did a great job reflecting on our consumer driven culture in his blog ( http://www.parkeladd.com ...you should read his blog anyway, it was voted #19 in the top 50 blogs of Indianapolis!)

Never the Sinner: The Loeb and Leopold Story

On Saturday we went to see a friend, Krista, perform in a play at The Theatre Within (located at The Church Within). The play was about two young men that commit murder basically as an experiment to see if they are above the law. They are caught and the play follows the trial and outcome. One of the main themes of the play was capital punishment, and when or if it is ever appropriate to use. Talk about intense! The actors (and actress) did a fantastic job of really making you feel like you were there watching the trial, and seeing into the minds of the killers. The two murderers never show remorse over their actions and make a mockery of the trial, which leads to the question...should they be given a second chance? Or should they be put to death?

Afterwards, the cast comes out and the audience is encouraged to stay for a discussion. It was really interesting to hear everyone's perspective on capital punishment and if it should ever be used. We really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into when we went, but we definitely left with a lot on our minds.

the group discussion.

Indy Monumental Marathon!

I can not believe it, but Ryan and I finished our races last weekend!! We both ran in the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon (and Half marathon for me), and survived! We have been training for several months, pretty much since July, and we did it. It is really amazing to see how you can train yourself to do something you never thought you could by slowly building up to it.

Here are some pictures to show you how it went:

Before the race, my parents getting ready to drop us off

Ryan after he passed my parents, he is behind the tree I think

Near mile 6, I still look semi-happy!

After I passed my parents, on 16th St, and Penn I think? Funny, I am like 2 blocks from our house here, and it was a little tempting to just run home :)

Not sure what this picture is of, but it is about mile 11, so close!

After I finished! 13.1! It was so fun having a lot of family there to cheer us on

Here comes Ryan (after he ran twice the distance I did!) - His mom, me, cousins, brother, dad, aunt, uncle, and my parents, are at the bottom right cheering him to the finish!

26.2 miles!

Seriously, my husband is a stud!

Dad pretending he ran... They were great encouragers, Mom and Dad were all over the course to cheer us on

I'm so glad they came up :)

Parke and Quinn, some friends from church, also ran the marathon. I am so proud of the three of them! They all trained so hard, and did great!

Ryan's mom, brother, and aunt also ran the 1/2 marathon, so I feel that I have been a little sucked in to the family running tradition. Overall, training and running the race were a great experience (I can say that now that's it's over), and we could not have had a more beautiful day. I don't know if I will ever run that far again, but I am glad I at least tried it! And if you're thinking about it...if I can do it, you can definitely do it. I don't even really like running, so give it a shot!

Win some Uggs!

So, I think I've officially decided that I want a pair of Uggs. I have been going back and forth for a long time, and I think I am ready! Just in time for Christmas :)

Rathskeller

I really can't believe I haven't written about the Rathskeller on here yet. It is such a neat place, and we usually like to go in the summer to hear the live music on the weekend in the beirgarten. The Rathskeller is a very German restaurant, and they have the biergarten out back. Great place to hang out in the summer right downtown!

biergarten

update on my pumpkin...

So, apparently squirrels like pumpkin? Here's how the pumpkin started, as a reminder:

Then, after I put it outside in the morning, this is what I found in the afternoon:

And the next morning...

How funny is that??

A little Champaign in our weekend

We got to see Mike and Jenny this past weekend and their new house!

Brickhouse Burger

So a few weeks ago, Ryan and I had the opportunity to do a Tastecasting event at a new restaurant, Brickhouse Burger. I have to tell you I was VERY impressed. I figured it would be just another burger type place (they have fantastic burgers btw), but it was so much more. Everything we tried was so good, and very reasonably priced (similar to an Applebees or something like that). But the food is MUCH better. We tried the nachos as an appetizer and could not finish it between the four of us because it was so huge. Also had the sweet potato fries which I have been craving ever since.

I must say one of my favorite parts were the cream cheese and jalepeno stuffed burgers. You all know that I am not even a spicy food fan, but these were outstanding. I don't want to lead you to think this is an every day burger joint, because it's not. They had all kinds of stuff, including award winning ribs!

The restaurant has several huge tv's and most of the tables face them. I think it would be fun to hang out on a Sunday and get to watch all of the football games. I might have to try that out soon.

http://brickhouseburger.com/