Summer: Week??? So it's pretty obvious that we've nearly given up the blogging of our first year's adventure in Michigan, but we wanted to end well and finish these last few months with some updates... #1- Winter has finally ended. We thought it ended a month ago, then were wrong, then were right, then wrong, then right... and so on. But the last few days have peaked around 90degrees and so we finally put away the snow sleds and shovels -- Murphy's Law says it'll snow now! #2- Did a few fun things in the last month or so since it's been warm...

#3- Bekah decided to try a school sport-- track. She did the shot-put, long jump, and ran the 70m (she tried a bunch of events but landed on these three mostly). She did pretty awesome!

Basically not only have we survived our first MI winter, but we absolutely loved it! Although we are glad to get to the other season- Mosquito-- I mean summer...

Michigan Living: Winter Weeks 31-33

Well yet again we've been kind of late in this whole blogging thing... now for the excuses:
1. We're really busy
2. Emily was gonna do it...
3. Chris was gonna do it...
4. Sundays go by so stinkin' fast that we don't remember until the middle of the
week
5. The week goes by so stinkin' fast that we don't remember until the next weekend.

Well, whatever, here we are now...

So over the last three weeks, here's a few highlights:





Frozen Lakes

Yep, they freeze over here! So much so that you can walk, drive, and build little shacks (I mean shanty) on to sit in while you fish through the ice. None of the fishing stuff really appeals to us, and no way we're driving on a lake... but walking on one was enough adventure for one day. Oddly enough the two usually brave ones were mostly terrified, and the two typically timid ones were totally into it. Go figure!











Embracing Technology

Last week we took another couple step towards embracing technology:






1. Saw our first movie in 3-D. Now we've seen the old 3D's where you wear the red and blue glasses, but not the new kind with the mostly real looking geek glasses. And frankly the old ones were stupid. Stuff was 3-D if you imagined it to be, otherwise it was all just off color. So we've been pretty much mocking all you folks paying the extras $3 to wear the geek glasses assuming the new 3D technology was pretty much like the old. Well, it was snowing and the movie we wanted to see was only playing in 3-D by the time we woke up, so we thought, "what the heck?" and went for it. Holy cow, freaking awesome! We don't usually get all jazzed up about stuff like this, but how crazy cool it was (although Emily did feel dizzy for about half the movie...)


2. Chris inherited an IPad; it was a 'pass down' from a Northpointe staff who got the newer version. He thought he would give it a shot just to see what all the hype was and is now almost inseperable from it. Which leads to number 3...

3. With the hand-me-down IPad came the Kindle for IPad e-reader. Chris has always sworn that he would never be able to convert to e-reading because of his love for the printed matter... yah, well that's totally changed. I think the big reason was because his slight germaphobia about holding a book that some other hygienically challenged person has read in both the bathroom and bedroom then returned to the library was solved by checking out digital editions.



Adventure Sports

There's a local spot called The Ledges... it's about the best climbing you can find in mid Michigan (nothing very tall but awfully easy to get to!) So we hit an "unusually warm day" (about 40 degrees) and decided to go rock climbing in the morning-- all four of us. Awesome! Then after lunch it snowed...














Chris Learns to Ski

...well sort of. This weekend was our student Winter Retreat and Chris ponied up to take a ski lesson with about 15 eight year old's in an effort to not kill himself or anyone else on the mountain. Not too bad. Can't say he's "into" the whole skiing thing, but at least it was fun.

Michigan Living: Winter weeks 29-30

Oops-- we got a little behind with the blogging! So sorry, we were just out having too much fun! Here's a couple highlights of our last two weeks:

ATF Lunch

There's are tons of youth type events that groups pay to go to every year, this one is called Acquire the Fire, and with it comes a free lunch for the Youth Pastor and a guest. So Chris brought his favorite guest- Emily- and had a great lunch. The only reason I even put it here is because we saw James B's lost twin brother... no seriously, looked just like you man!












Food Drop

Every February Northpointe Community Church takes part in a huge event where they "drop" a box of food to over 1800 families in the Lansing area. The portion we got to be part of this year was the call center. Basically it's the place the families who need a box of food call to register. Think of a phone bank at all those Jerry's Kids telethons you've ever seen- exactly the same. Between the two of us we got to talk to around 100 people who were in need of food. Pretty cool way to be the hands and feet of Jesus!















MSU Spartans

Some friends of ours scored us 4 tickets to the MSU hockey game... that happened to be the day it snowed around 6 inches. Driving was pretty awesome, the games was pretty awesome, and Tammy and Vic are pretty awesome!














Winter?

So the weather is more ADHD than Chris is, which is saying a lot. The temps have ranged from 8 degrees to 56 degrees (day or night doesn't matter), and from 6 inches of snow to totally dry. Super weird. But, in all of it we have decided that the weather won't stop whatever plans we've made which means we're getting a lot of snow driving experience (as well as a lot of non-snow driving experience). So far we've managed to stay out of the ditch on the side of the road, and only one of us has slid through a stop sign... we'll let you guess who.














MI Historical Museum

One of the heaviest snow days we decided to drive into Lansing to visit the Historical Museum-- basically the desire to save $20 because it's free on Sunday won out over the 6 inches of snow on the ground and consistently heavy snow falling from the sky. We got to see some pretty cool early model cars, some 50's music memorabilia, an 1800's school house, and a bunch of other cool stuff- and to top it all off we were nearly the only people there!



























All in all we still absolutely love Michigan!

Michigan Living: Winter Week 28

So Winter is back...


Last week in our Blog we shared about the "unseasonably warm" temperatures...well those are officially over!!!






This week started off mild but then by Thursday, Friday & Saturday it got really cold and dumped about 2 1/2 - 3 inches of snow. Most of the snow fell Thursday over night so Friday morning was an adventure! We woke to the ground covered in snow with a few flurries still falling, so we began the process of taking the girls to school...this included digging the car out & scrapping ice off windows! Once in the car at about 7:15 a.m., we saw that the roads had not yet been cleared. For all you Michiganders, we were the slow pokes out there driving about 20 miles per hour & trying not to slip -n- slide into others (sorry if we held you up...although some in MI drive way to fast for the conditions so I think we should be thanked for saving your life!!!) Actually, the car did great and the girls made it to school safety. We even continued the fun and drove out to St. Johns to do breakfast with some friends.










After all the fun of driving in the snow I thought we should get outside and enjoy the white stuff, so today (Sunday) we donned the snow gear...loaded the sleds into the car and headed for the high school which has some great hills to sled down. We had a blast & nobody got hurt...which equals a good day!!!












Finally, for those who saw in lasts weeks blog our pictures of painting pottery for Danielle's birthday... well here are the finished products (Em drove to Lansing on Thursday before all the snow to pick them up...

Michigan Living: Winter Week 27

Welcome to the Third trimester...

... wait, hang on- nobody's pregnant (well, somebody's pregnant somewhere, but it's not one of us!), we've just entered our 27th week of Michigan Living and we're still alive! Not only are we still living but we're still LOVING it as well!


~Weather Update~

If you're following the national weather trends you probably keep hearing about how it's unseasonably warm on much of this end of the country. We'd like to say "you're welcome" for bringing a little CA sunshine with us, and invite you to freely participate in God's sparing us from a bone freezing first winter. Please don't feel any obligation, but financial gifts are always welcome!



~The Big Event~

So the big deal this week: we are the parents of a teen and a tween. Danielle turned 11 on Sunday and that means that she has entered the world of tweendom. Danielle chose to go to a local paint-your-own pottery place (you might remember it from Rebekah's 13th b-day party!), which meant 3 hours of pottery painting for the Carter ladies and 3 hours of Texas Hold-Em on the Blackberry for Chris.








Then all hell broke loose! You see, since the dawn of time we've had this agreement that we don't tell restaurant employees that it's our birthday-- that way nobody is embarrassed by loud, obnoxious birthday songs sung to you by total strangers. Well, Danielle's a different beast (at this point the DNA tests are inconclusive...) and all she wanted was for the Red Robin employees to sing to her... of course the free hot fudge Sunday might have been more what she was after, but she was totally willing to take the birthday song abuse in order to get to the dessert. Go figure!














~What's Up With the Youth Group?~




I don't typically put a ton of stuff about Student Life at Northpointe on here because we're really tracking our Michigan adventure, but since a number of you have been asking here's a taste of what Chris has been up to:





New name/Wednesday::group/Sunday Morning Middle School::group/
Sunday Night High School::group/Fall Bash/lessons series/two bands/1
intern/drama/phone calls/developing relationship/parents/wrist bands/
new set up/building project/broken stuff/free air hockey table/small
groups/High School LIFE::groups/intern leaves/Youth Team/new Creative
Arts Team/recruit volunteers/teaching training/tech nightmares/computer
crash/systems galore/Cafe/networking/Elder meetings/parent meetings/
light construction/serious destruction/encouraging people/
loving people/being with people/getting to know people/Jesus


~Oldie But Goodie~

I know this is a little old, but I just found this video of something we went to in early December. It's filmed over the Capitol building in Lansing and was actually pretty awesome (PS: That's not us talking in the video, but the folks standing next to us... sooooo, yaaaahhh...)

Michigan Living: Winter Weeks 25-26

WOW! Christmas flew by-- New Years flew by-- and it's only about 20 degrees outside!

Christmas Stuff:

Rebekah had her Holiday Choir concert- filled with all your holiday favorites like "Your a Mean One Mr. Grinch", "Sleigh Bells", "Holiday Romance" (What?), and an acapella rendition of "Carol of the Bells".



We also went to the Jackson County Fairgrounds to drive through a couple miles of lighted fairgrounds. Check out the video...







We spent Christmas Eve at Potter Park Zoo, which is free and desolate during the winter. The weather was sunny and 40 degrees, and the girls made good friends with the monkeys. Check out the video...



New Years Eve was spent in a massive Just Dance 3 party at our house, which was made up of three female and one male Carter. EPIC! (And no video!)

And the weather continually creeps colder and colder... last night the temps were about 15 degrees with a wind chill of 0-- that's pretty cold, eh? Not a lot of snow --yet (at least that's what the locals keep saying)-- but any flurry we get Chris or Em jump in the car to practice their snow driving. So far the biggest lesson we learned is that Michiganders slow down for nothing. It could be the middle of blizzard with roads iced over and folks would still be going 5 miles over the speed limit. I've never been the 'slow old man holding up traffic' before, but I'm wearing it pretty well right now!

MIchigan Living: Winter Weeks 23-24

So here's the latest happenings in the Carter wanderings






-----Bronners Christmas Emporium-----
Apparently the largest Christmas store on the planet is in a Bavarian styled town called Frankenmuth (sounds like something you get from poor oral hygiene, right?). The name of the store is Bronners and is open 364 days of the year-- oddly enough it's closed on Christmas... So there we headed to get the annual family ornament; something that reflects our adventure for the year. So we found a darling glass bulb with the shape of Michigan painted on it, that the overly friendly Bronner's staff even personalized for us. We took great care getting it home safely, and as one of the ladies (who will remain nameless) was attempting to take the small tag off of it, she dropped it on the table and it shattered into a thousand pieces... oh, well--











---NCC Staff Christmas Party--
We got to be part of our first Northpointe Community Church staff Christmas party... food, friends, fun, and White elephant Gift Exchange. Cool stuff-- all in a beautiful MI style home with icy roads and snow on the porch! We love this place!





-----Snow and Ice-----



Question: Can ice form on rubber?
Answer: Apparently yes... at least on those little nubs on the side of tires-- the proof is in the picture!






-----Anniversary-----



We have been married for 16 years-- which is a long time to do just about anything... so in celebration we went to a local steak house and celebrated by eating way too much red meat followed by tinnnnnyyyyy desserts...








-----IPhone 3Gs-----



...Verizon customers eat your hearts out-- we got Emily a new cell phone (yep, it's the older Iphone 3Gs- but way better than what she was using) and it only cost $1.05.
...California customers eat your heart out-- in MI you don't pay the sales tax on new phones based on the regular price, only on the actual price (in other words, in CA we would have paid an extra $30ish in tax because the MSRP of the phone is $375. In MI the price of the phone was $.99 so we only paid a total of $1.05). Let's hear it for MI!!!!!



-----Snow Report-----
So not really too much snow since the initial 1 foot dump and power outage. We had a weekend of flurries and a total accumulation of around an inch-- which mainly meant that it snowed pretty consistently during the day but didn't stick much to the ground (by the way: why does snow melt so quickly from asphalt? Seemed to be gone awfully fast but stayed on every other surface for much longer... any ideas?) So we spent the day Christmas shopping at Target...




All in all Winter hasn't killed us yet. I realize the typical response to this is "Wait 'til February..." Well, we're waiting, but I have this feeling we'll be just as fine then as we are now! And right now we're praying for a White Christmas!