it's all greek to me

For my new job, I've traveled 2 out of the last 3 weeks. While I have been traveling about the countryside, Dave has been studying Greek. He is taking a 5 1/2 week course that covers 2 semesters worth of Greek. It is a very intense class. I'm so proud of him for sticking with it and persevering through the past 3 1/2 weeks. I can't imagine what it takes to learn this language, but Dave does. And I know that he can see this through.

Greek Study Zone

Can you read this? I sure can't!

Will you please join me in praying for Dave as he finishes out these last two weeks of Greek? He will have a one week break before the fall semester beings. It will be challenging as well so your continued prayer support would be greatly appreciated.

One of the great things about traveling 2 of the last 3 weeks is that it has made it easier for Dave to focus completely on studying and not feel like he is ignoring me. It has also helped me get through this time where he needs to devote nearly all of his time to studying. The Lord always has a plan!

Here are a few pictures from Minneapolis last week.

The Mighty Mississippi

Pillsbury 

Gold Medal Flour

The last evening in Minneapolis we got to take a dinner cruise on the Mississippi.

I even got to wheel the yacht! Must have been my fabulous resume of boat driving skills.

Finished the evening with a beautiful sunset. I had a great time at the conference. Met some really great people. And got to enjoy a beautiful city.

the quest for the best

Since we decided to move to the Chicagoland area, Dave has been most excited about getting to eat deep dish pizza whenever he wants. Before moving up here, Dave's favorite was Giordano's. To him, there was no other. Now that we have lived here for a little over 6 months, we are finding more and more pizza places.

I think that everyone has their own opinion about which place has the best Chicago style deep dish pizza. We are determined to find our favorite!

I have to admit that we only ate Giordano's for the first 5 months we lived here, and in the past month or so we have tried a couple of others. Branching out has made us realize there are so many great pizza places in the area.

While going on a drive a few weeks ago we came across the original Lou Malnati's. We had to stop.

Lou started this pizzeria in 1971 after working in one of the original deep dish pizzerias since the 1940s and it's known as one of the best.  We'd have to agree! The crust of this pizza is amazing. A family recipe passed down from generation to generation is known as "butter crust" and its very tasty! I like their lighter sauce and Dave enjoys their special sausage blend.

The only downside about finding the best, is that everyone brings other pizza places to our attention. I guess we will just have to try them all! But for now, Lou's is at the top of our list.

What is your favorite Chicago style deep dish?

family time - part 3

The grand finale of our three part series! My sister, her husband, and their son, Ethan came up to visit. This was the third week in a row of family visitors.

What a great blessing to have almost all of our family come up in the month of June! It has been busy but very fun.  It's great to be able to show our family where we live and some of the cool things around here.

Elizabeth, Ethan, and Randy

My sister participated in a 4 day conference in a near by suburb so we didn't get to do too many Chicagoland activities. Although, we did partake of some Chicago style deep dish pizza which everyone enjoyed. We took some walks and enjoyed each others company.

It was so fun for Dave and I to get some quality time with little Ethan (Liz and Randy too!). He is sitting up on his own now and he is so close to crawling I feel like it could happen any day!

Seems like just yesterday he was born.  Now he is growing so fast. I love seeing Elizabeth and Randy as Ethan's parents. They are just great with him and you can tell he loves them back so much.

A great way to finish our month of visitors!