Blogging or Studying??

Friday is the day of the week where I attempt to study all day. I don't have class or anything else "official" to do. I should be able to get a great deal of work done. However, I think my productivity drops dramatically on Fridays. Perhaps, its the lack of pressure of deadlines or the weekend creeping closer and closer. So, today blogging has taken my attention away from a mid-term on monday.

April has and will be a pretty busy month for us. Today, Good Friday, is especially good for Hannah. It is her last day working downtown. Monday she'll start her new job across the street at the University of Chicago's law library. She is pretty excited to lose the commute and stay here in Hyde Park.

On Wednesday, some friends and I headed over to US Cellular Field to take in a White Sox game. It was my first baseball game in the snow. As we left the stadium, it was 24 degrees. The Sox lost in the bottom of the 9th when Joe Crede's shot fell just short of being a home run.

At the end of this week my mom, mamaw, brother, and cousin, Anna, are coming up here. Hannah and I are excited and are hoping to get ahead of the game so we can have as much free time as possible for some pizza and all other kinds of Chicago things.

Studying or blogging?
Back to studying,
Zach

Happy St. Pat's!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Hope you remembered your green!

It's been a while since our last post, and lots has happened! We've been trying to recover from the brutal temperatures...we had a week of negative temps, but we've since had a few glimpses of spring peeking through, and we can't wait for it to stick around.

We are happy to announce that Zach was accepted to a CPE site in Berwyn, IL for this summer. He will be serving full-time in a chaplain position at a hospital as part of his degree. It will be a difficult, but hopefully very educational experience.

For Valentine's we celebrated by going to the Art Institute, because it had free admission that weekend. I fell in love with it, so we will definitely be going back, especially since I just got a library card with which you can get free or reduced admission to most Chicago museums...yay!

That same weekend, we were happy to meet up with Dave, an old friend from Clemson who was in Chicago with the Invisible Children tour. And my cousin Elizabeth also came down to visit us in Hyde Park; she is a student at Northwestern in Evanston, IL. We love getting to see friends and family!

Recently we helped plan a Chocolat party for the Seminary Sampler weekend, when prospective students come to visit. We ended up with 23 lbs of chocolate, and a chocolate fountain, which was the hit of the party. Zach thoughtfully posted a sign at the party stating that 23 lbs of chocolate includes 5 lbs of fat and 45,000 calories. We had a fun time, but couldn't look at chocolate for at least a week.

The Spring "Presidential Shoe" game has come and gone. It is the biannual basketball game between the students and the faculty/staff. The students played hard, but unfortunately their losing streak continues...the staff won again.

This past weekend was my birthday, and my wonderful friend Kerri surprised me by flying up to Chicago. We had a great time sight-seeing, shopping, visiting, and shopping some more! I only wish she could have stayed longer. She left Monday night, and our friends Patrick and Lauryn from UNC flew in on Tuesday for their Spring Break. Unfortunately, Zach and I had school and work, so we weren't able to join them in their adventures, but they quickly became pros at using the "el", and we definitely enjoyed having them here. Mr. Wilson loved being spoiled by all of them...I think he was sad to see them go. We are tired, but happy after a full week of having company, and we are looking forward to some of Zach's family visiting next month.

Zach just got a new cell phone plan and number. He is now using Verizon, so he's finally 'IN' with all of you that use that that network. His new phone number is 773-358-8750.

We thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers, and we always love to hear from you all!

The Snow & The Cold

Lately its been pretty cold and snowy. So, here are some pictures.

From Snowy Chicago

Rural Immersion Video

Here's the link to my Rural Immersion: Southeast Nebraska Video. Enjoy.

Rurally Immersed in Nebraska

During the month of January we only take one class here at seminary. This "J-Term" I took a course called Rural Immersion. For ten days 3 fellow students, a professor, and I traveled to southeast Nebraska to experience and learn about the realities of rural ministry.
We stayed for the majority of the time in Johnson, Nebraska population 250. Also, in the area around Johnson there are 7 Lutheran churches. To give you an idea of the scale, when I worshiped with my host family attendance was 21. It was a completely different church and lifestyle than what I have experienced.

From Nebraska Rura...

We did experience tremendous hospitality from our host families and community. I stayed with the Ron, Deb, and Doug Grotrian of Johnson. They were incredible hosts. Ron farms corn, soy beans, and wheat. He also raises cattle. Deb works at a bank in nearby Auburn, Nebraska, while Doug is in 8th grade. While I was there I was able to watch Doug's basketball team play in route to a tournament championship. Ron and Doug took advantage of my visit to get Deb to make several pies, and I certainly did not complain.

We did so much while we were there its hard to include everything in one blog entry. We did lots of things to see how people and churches work and live in a small rural setting. We visited feed lots, dairy farms, and lots of other agricultural aspects of society. We also checked out other factors of rural life like anewly built prison, nuclear plant, and a new chicken plant. If you're interested in a more in depth account of what we did it would probably be helpful to check out my classmates' blog. We had to complete a project for the course and theirs was to blog while we were in Nebraska. My project is a video that I am working on posting here on the blog. Here some of my pictures from the trip.

Class doesn't start back until February 5th. So I'm gonna take this week to get caught up with a bunch of odds and ends before we get back to real classes.

God's Peace,
Zach

Christmas Time

Sorry for the delay, but we'll try and get you all caught up. Christmas was a blur, but we had a great time. We were able to see a whole lot of folks and we made it to quite a few churches. It was great to see so many folks we missed and hang out at home. However, Hannah quickly had to fly off to Montana with her parents on Christmas to see our new nephew, Simon. While Hannah flew, Mr Wilson and I drove back to Chicago shortly before New Year's Eve. After a quiet New Year's at the apt in Hyde Park, Hannah got back to work and I began preparing for my class in Nebraska.

Advent and then Busy, Busy

Hannah and I are preparing for a very busy Christmas. We will leave Chicago on Thursday and drive through the night to get to North Carolina on the 22nd. After hanging around NC and seeing folks Hannah will be flying with her family to Montana to see her sister and our new nephew in Missoula. Finally, we'll be back in Chicago on the 30th.

In the mean time Hannah and I went to see Wicked for Hannah's Christmas present. Wicked is a musical that tells the other side of the Wizard of Oz. It was a great time and we now have all the songs stuck in our heads. I've got some pictures here of the outside of the theater.

We also have been baking Christmas cookies, and on Sunday we built our gingerbread house. Tonight we went down to Greek Town with some friends and had some great Greek food. We are excited to be headed home for a little while and we look forward to seeing as many of you as we can.

Pictures from Zoo Lights

Not exactly Cut Bank.

That's a Semester

I finished up my work for the semester on Sunday. The semester seemed to fly by. I feel like I have learned so much since I have been here. Now that I have finished up for the semester Hannah and I are hoping to get out more and see some stuff. To start it off on Sunday evening we took a trip up to the north side. We went by Wrigley, found a good vegetarian restaurant, and then went to Zoo Lights. Zoo Lights is put on by the Lincoln Park Zoo. They put Christmas lights up all over the zoo and you can walk through for free. Here are some pictures from yesterday.
Peace,
Zach

Hannah @ the Zoo Lights ______________________

Snow

We got our first real snow today. I suppose it's a good way to welcome Decemer. Last night we went to see a recording of the NPR news quiz, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", for Zach's birthday. We sat on the third row and had a marvelous time. The panelists were Mo Rocca, Amy Dickinson, and Charlie Pierce, with a celebrity phone call from Amy Sedaris. They were all hilarious! It was sleeting as we made our way home, but we woke up this morning to 'thunder snow'; there was actually thunder and some lightning as it was snowing...bizarre. No snow day for me, however. I had to fight my way through the snow, wind, and sludge downtown to come to IIT. Thank goodness it's Friday! We'll try to get a few pictures to post before the snow goes away.

-Hannah

What we've been doing in Chicago: Hannah Edition

Ok, the long-awaited "Hannah Edition" is finally here!

I'm going to tell y'all about what I have been up to, but first I have to let everyone know how excited I am that I'm an aunt! Zach and I have a new nephew, Simon James Beery. He was born on November 22, 2006. Follow the Easy Street Beerys link on the side to see pictures! Zach, Mr. Wilson, and I also just returned from a wonderfully exhausting trip to North Carolina and Clemson for Thanksgiving and the Clemson-USC football game. The game didn't go so well, but we loved seeing everyone!

So what do I do in Chicago?
Officially, I am the Bindery Library Specialist for the Illinois Institute of Technology Downtown Campus Chicago-Kent College of Law Library...what a mouthful.

Basically I am in charge of all the binding for our library. My department does all of the behind-the-scenes work that goes on in an academic library. The entire Downtown Campus is a ten-story building in the West Loop. It consists of a law school and business graduate school. Since it's very specialized, we have a small staff in our library, which is nice. I really like everyone that I work with.

The only problem I have with my job is the commute. Downtown is only about 7 miles from Hyde Park, but it takes me an hour to get there. I have to take a bus and a train and walk several blocks to get to and from work everyday. It hasn't been too terrible yet, but I know the snow and cold are fast approaching. Oh, and some people say Chicago's called "the windy city" for the politicians, but I've experienced firsthand the wind whipping through the streets downtown...the buildings somehow create a wind tunnel-type effect...and it's cold!

I'm also happy to announce that I am in the process of applying to grad schools. I'm planning on starting a program in the fall to earn my masters of library and information science. I will go to school part-time and continue to work full-time. The law library is nice, but I would love to work in youth services at a public library someday, or perhaps as a reference librarian, and I'm really excited to get started!

For those of you who know him, Mr. Wilson has adjusted very well to the city...he spends most of his time lounging around the apartment and letting us know when the garbage trucks are in the alley. The neighbors all love him, and even express concern if he doesn't bark when they come in the front door of our building. One of our very favorite things to do is take long walks around Hyde Park or to the lake...it makes our whole little family very happy!

We are staying very busy, but with Christmas break coming up, look for more updates soon!

What We've Been Doing in Chicago: Seminary Edition

I thought I'd get you all caught up with everything we've been doing since we have been here in Chicago. This time I'll focus on school stuff.

For those of you who don't know, my school is called The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. I am in the master of divinity program (MDiv). The program requires three years of classes and one year of internship. We are located in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. You should definitely check out that link to the wikipedia site. It lists famous residents of Hyde Park and some history of the neighborhood.

We are in the same neighborhood as: the University of Chicago, Chicago Theological Seminary (United Church of Christ), Catholic Theological Union, McCormick Theological Seminary (Presbyterian), and the Museum of Science and Industry.

This semester I am taking:

• Pentateuch & Wisdom Literature
• Greek
• Church History I
• Worship

One question that everyone seems to enjoy asking me is "Which class is my favorite?"
Well, so far my favorite class is Pentateuch. So far we have covered the entire Pentateuch from Genesis to Deuteronomy. My professor for this class is Ralph Klein. He has really interesting stories to tell.

Books I have enjoyed reading:
Texts of Terror by Phyllis Tribble
The Art of Public Prayer By Lawrence Hoffman
Also I have a copy of the new ELW pew & leaders desk edition, which is kind of exciting.

Coming Soon:
What We've Been Doing in Chicago: Hannah Edition
What We've Been Doing in Chicago: Social Life Edition

God's Peace,
Zach

Outside of the Apartment

Here are some pictures of the outside of the apartment building.

Pictures of the Apartment

1st Post

1st Post...Testing