Where are you Summer?

Friday morning I woke up to, yet again, MORE snow. The first two winters we spent in Massachusetts were fairly mild, but this winter has been very snowy. In fact, we got 27 inches of snow JUST in December, which was the most snow in December in 41 years! It just keeps coming though, and at times, winter seems to have no end in sight.

This is a familiar sight over the past few months (our Outback, before we dig it out)

Compare this picture of our apartment building with the picture in the first post-- what a difference!

We spent this past weekend in New Hampshire with the college and young adult groups from our church, on a "Relationship" retreat. I (Sara) don't have any pictures, because I often bring our camera places and forget to take pictures. This weekend, I do have an excuse however, because I was sick and spent most of the free time either coughing or sleeping.

The retreat was a fun time to get to know people better, hear our pastor's talks about relationships, and play in the snow (well, Austin did). One of our favorite New England sports is "Broomball" which is basically ice hockey without skates, and brooms instead of hockey sticks. I wish I had pictures, but I slept through the whole thing...

First Post (and here's to many more!)

Welcome to the Calhoun's Blog family and friends!

Austin and I decided to give cave and join the club. Well, I (Sara) wanted to start a Blog because I enjoy reading those our friends have, and Austin hesitantly agreed, as he does to many of my ideas! While we don't have anything too new or too exciting happening in our lives, we thought this would be a nice way to keep those of you who live far away updated on our everyday lives in MA. Please feel free to post any comments, and we'll try to update regularly!

For those of you we haven't spoken to in a while, here's what's going on: In July, we moved from South Hamilton, MA to Arlington, MA which has been great. South Hamilton is where Gordon Conwell's main campus is, and while we miss our friends up there, it's been nice being a more urban setting. We also have a little more space, as our second apartment is a two-bedroom. We chose Arlington because it's the town Highrock (our church) is in, and we were lucky enough to find an apartment that is only a few minutes walk away!

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary-- our home for the first two and a half years of our marriage!

The front of our new apartment building in Arlington, MA. We LOVE visitors, so please come any time!We are both busy, but learning that's just how life goes :) Sara is working full-time at Family Continuity, a non-profit counseling agency. She loves her job, and is excited to be an offical clinician after finishing her Master's in Counseling in January 2008. She is especially enjoying having her nights and weekends homework free!

Austin is busy interning at Highrock, helping mostly with the college group and the M.A.D. (Make a Difference) Social Justice ministry. He also has had the opportunity to preach twice at Highrock, and is gaining a lot of experience through that! At the risk of embarrassing Austin, the sermon he preached in January was great, and if you're interested, you can find a link to listen to it at http://www.highrock.org/. He transferred from Gordon-Conwell's South Hamilton campus to the Boston campus which is a lot more convienient. Boston's campus also emphasizes Urban Ministry, which he is excited about. Austin is also working part-time at Banana Republic in Boston-- not his top choice as he is a jeans and t-shirt kind of guy, but it's been a huge blessing!

Exciting things are also happening in our families. In December, Austin's sister Emily got engaged to her boyfriend David, and they are planning their wedding for this coming winter. We are so excited for them, and honored that they asked us both to be part of their wedding!

Since

I don't have a picture of Emily and David, here's one of Emily and I, taken in DC last Christmas.

Exciting things are also happening on Sara's side of the family! My (Sara's) sister Emily qualified for the Olympic Trials in the Marathon, and will be competing in Boston in April. Sara's parents are also coming up for Sara's dad to run the Boston Marathon, so we'll keep you updated on that. Our brother-in-law Mark came home from Iraq in early December, so it was great that all of us could be together for Christmas this year!!

For Christmas, we went to Texas, to stay with Sara's sister Erin, brother-in-law Ben, and our nieces Abby and Claire. We all travelled to Texas because baby Claire was born on December 18th, so they couldn't travel. We were so excited to welcome another person into our family!!

Baby Claire loves Uncle Austin, and Abby wasn't as scared of him this time as she was when we saw her in June!

My mom, Abby and Austin at the fun Children's Musuem in Waco, TX.


We also realized Abby likes to ham it up for the camera. As soon as you say "Abby, I want to take a picture" she gets a HUGE smile on her face!

Thanks for reading, and we'll post more soon!