Finally some news for the blog!

Thankfully the posting frequency on our blog is not an indication of the activity level in our lives right now. Since the last post it has become permissible for us to announce that Gloria and Chad are having a baby around the 1st of December! And we more recently learned they are having a girl! We are very excited about the coming arrival of our niece, Abby.

We are additionally excited because approximately 7 weeks after Gloria and Chad's baby girl arrives, Dave and I will be having a baby as well. January 21st is the estimated date of arrival and we couldn't be more excited. For those who don't have a 40 week math mind that means that I am 13 weeks into it. Things have been going great and we are in the midst of having fun telling people our news. We kept it a secret for a while, although we are learning that multiple people were "suspicious." We would appreciate your prayers for us, our baby and our growing family.

Maybe now we will have more stuff to post more often. I can make no promises but I will try to do better about updating our blog...although I don't know if anyone reads it. :)

Con-graduation!

A couple weekends ago we had the pleasure of attending Gloria's graduation from UAB. After much hard work and determination she now has her masters in public administration. We enjoyed being with all of the Gladneys and most of the Hunsbergers. Way to go Glo!

No matter the occasion when Dave and Chad are together there is always time for a posed picture.

People Say Funny Things

Being a hospice social worker my primary job is to provide emotional support to our patients and their families. There tends to come a point in my time working with families that we reach a point of comfort, where patients and families feel free to talk about and/or tell me all kinds of things. It is amazing the dirty laundry that has been aired to me. But today one of my patients and then another patient's wife made me laugh. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

When I arrived at John's house today, I knocked loudly, knowing that he is severely hard of hearing. Whne I didn't get an answer I opened the door and yelled inside, "John, I'm here to visit with you." He apparently didn't hear me. I walked into his two room house and looked over at his bed where he can usually be found, but he wasn't there. Just then, in the corner to my right, John turned around and yelled, "Wait, I just pooped and I don't have pants on!" I had to laugh as I backed into the kitchen to wait for him to get dressed.

This morning I visited with the wife of a patient who passed away about 5 months ago. She and I were talking about her recent onset of multiple health problems when she took off her shoe and asked, "Amelia, when I take my shoe off, does it look like my foot is flipping a bird." I couldn't help but laugh out loud because her foot sort of did looking like it was flipping me off. She went on to explain that she had recently had surgery on her second toe in order to correct damage done to it by arthritis. Her second toe lies flat but her big toe curls under it and causes it to sit up and appear to be making an obscene gesture. She got tickled at me laughing and before I knew it we were both crying we were laugh so hard.

So, needless to say, it has been a funny day.
~amelia

A little of this and that

Please forgive the slow posting lately. Honestly, not much is news is being produced on the Nolen front these days. So here are just a few little thoughts I have:

~LOST continues to be the don't miss tv show for us. And last night's episode left us wishing today was next Thursday so we could see what happens. If you don't already watch LOST, I really think you would enjoy it. I am not usually interested in shows that require you to keep up with characters and different story lines, but this show is great. So trust me and start from the beginning. The first 3 seasons are available at your local video store. Watch them and then you can catch up with this season's episodes online or wait until summer when the dvds are released. It is worth it, I promise.

~The inside of our house is being painted. Actually, the painter "Cubby" started fixing some dry wall issues today and will start painting on Monday. We have been anticipating this for several weeks and due to circumstances beyond our control (the weather) the painting is just now under way. The strangest part for me is that all of our furniture is currently in the middle of each room. Not only does this look strange but it makes doing anything in any room a little more difficult. So I am practically lying on the bed while typing because the desk is pushed up against the bed. Anyway, we are excited to have this done. Our house will look so good and we can finally hang stuff on the walls. Thanks mom and dad for helping us with this project!
~This being the last day of February means that March Madness is coming soon. I am preparing for a 3-peat (or is that a 4-peat? I guess you loss track after so many victories) in the Dave vs. Amelia bracket contest. We always have fun with it, but best of all, basketball will be on tv all the time for a couple of weeks.

Well, I guess that is all, for now, from me. Maybe Dave will post a few of this thoughts his weekend.
hugs~amelia

Day of Rest and Gladness

O day of rest and gladness, O day of joy and light,
O balm of care and sadness, most beautiful, most bright:
On Thee, the high and lowly, through ages joined in tune,
Sing holy, holy, holy, to the great God Triune.

On Thee, at the creation, the light first had its birth;
On Thee, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth;
On Thee, our Lord, victorious, the Spirit sent from heaven,
And thus on Thee, most glorious, a triple light was given.

Today on weary nations the heavenly manna falls;
To holy convocations the silver trumpet calls,
Where Gospel light is glowing with pure and radiant beams,
And living water flowing, with soul refreshing streams.

New graces ever gaining from this our day of rest,
We reach the rest remaining to spirits of the blessed.
To Holy Ghost be praises, to Father, and to Son;
The church her voice upraises to Thee, blessed Three in One.

– Christ­o­pher Words­worth, 1862.

We are settling in nicely and getting a lot of stuff done and arranged to be done on our house, and both of our jobs are going good, but we are always grateful for a day of rest and an especially beautiful one at that.
~a and d

As you can see from this picture, I recently killed my first deer. I have been interested in hunting since I was a small boy, and I have recently taken several necessary steps to become involved in deer hunting. However, as this incident proves, I am still almost a complete novice.
I shot this deer near Forest, MS, with the help of Amelia's Uncle Mike, who is a guru of outdoorsmanship. He basically talked me through the whole thing, using urgent and descriptive commands. For example, when we heard a group of deer (including the one I eventually shot) approaching the green field that we were observing, he whispered, "Go ahead and get your gun." As I began slowly and noisily fumbling around to pick up my rifle that was stowed safely out of the way, he reached over and tapped me on the leg and in a more excited tone instructed me to "Gitcha gun in ya hand." Yes, it took a statement that explicit for me to finally realize what I needed to do.
Once the deer were positioned in a good spot in the field, he talked me through the actual firing of the gun. In spite of his sound instruction, I managed to hit a tree roughly 100 yards behind the deer in question on my first shot. I followed up my miss with decisive action: I sat there and watched the deer and its friends run around in a circle in the field. As the deer ran up to the edge of the woods and paused, Uncle Mike filled me in on another secret of hunting: you can shoot more than once. "Bolt another one in there, man!" he rasped, jogging me from my momentary lull. The deer, being particularly cunning, had run toward the shooting house where we were located and stood still, presenting her side to me and waiting for me to take another shot. Based on my previous shot, this was probably the safest thing she could have done.
Alas, her limited experience proved wrong. However, in one last act of spite toward me and my hunting prowess, she hopped over a small ditch filled with about 6 inches of mud and into a bramble patch. This proved to be possibly the most hilarious part of my hunt, since once we found her, we had to carry her back over the ditch and into the field. As we crossed back over the ditch carrying the deer, I managed to get my left foot stuck in the mud and lose my balance. As I tumbled into the mud (nearly face first), I yelled out the only logical statement that came to my mind: "My hat!" Why that was my first concern, I do not know. As I lay there in the cold, wet mud, Uncle Mike looked down at me and summed up the situation very well. "Ohh, Dave," he said with an air of pity in his voice. If you look closely at the picture, you can see that my left leg is completely black. That is the mud that covered my camo pants completely and soaked through all the fabric on my left side.
To sum up, I had an awesome time. I couldn't have done it without Uncle Mike's expertise, or the deer's willing cooperation. Now, I can't wait for next season.
dave

Live from Starkville, it's Saturday evening

Well, we made it, and with all of our belongings. Many thanks to friends in Tuscaloosa for packing our truck in record time last Sunday and to people who don't even know us (along with Kenny and Grant) in Starkville for unloading our truck in world record time. Without their help and Amelia's parents, we may still be on the road somewhere between Tuscaloosa and Starkville.

This week has been filled with settling-in type activity, like unpacking boxes and figuring out which light switch controls which light. Today we hosted our first party. It is my mom's birthday so family from Jackson and Birmingham met here for the celebration.

An intersting side note...we took a walk around the neighborhood this afternoon and realized that possibly 8 out of 10 homes have some sort of bulldog statue displayed in their yard. We do not yet have the official numbers, but it is estimated that we spied between 20 and 30 of the works of art in a 20 minute walk. So naturally in an effort to fit in, we will start looking for the perfect bulldog to guard our front door next week.

~a and d

Merry Christmas

We hope you have a wonderful Christmas.

As you can see, we didn't go all out for Christmas this year as far as decorations go. It just didn't make sense to unpack all the decorations while at the same time we are trying to pack everything else. So we have our "Charlie Brown" tree and it is perfect!

Home Sweet New Home

Our time in Tuscaloosa is ticking down...which is sad. But we are looking forward to moving to Starkville. We have bought a house there and close on it December 31st...Happy New Year!

Here is a picture of us standing outside a house. I guess it closely resembles our house in Starkville, if you take away the columns and the white color and reduce it in size by 90%. Other than that, this could be a picture of us on Spruce Lane.

If you're not busy and in the Starkville area during the day on the 31st, we may have a job for you. Let us know.

dave and amelia

Premiere Bloggers

Welcome to our Blog!

Since we are in the midst of a transition, we wanted to start a blog to keep everyone updated on what we are up to. We'll try to keep it updated with news and facts (maybe some fiction) about the things happening with us.

Good News!
Dave graduates from UA on the 15th !!!!

Better News!
Dave got a job! He has been hired as a reference librarian at Mississippi State. (ring cowbell here)

We'll keep you updated on our transition to the Magnolia State.

~amelia and dave