A Year In Haiku
Two years in a row... doesn't that make it a tradition? Continuing the spirit of last year, here is our Year End Letter in cryptic, Japanese poetry (with a little explanation for each below):

One bathroom, now two
Entertaining multitudes
Luke est Magister

---

One bathroom, now two
Finally settling into our house more, we got busy painting and painting and painting... but for the bigger jobs we needed someone with a little more knowhow! So we hired a contractor to add a second bathroom in a preexisting closet. Losing storage space, we had him add another closet as well as some shelves for a pantry. And if that wasn't enough, we had him install a new front door... whew! We are enjoying home ownership a great deal, and it's great to have things more and more how we want them to look. (more photos on the way)

Painting the bedroom

Painting the kitchen red

---

Entertaining multitudes
One goal of fixing up the house was to spruce it up for the many guests that we hosted. In July, 70 people joined us to celebrate Luke's 28th birthday with Kansas City style barbecued brisket. Thankfully the weather cooperated so everyone could play in the backyard; otherwise, where would we have put that many people! For Thanksgiving, we hosted 15 for dinner, and then a few more joined in for games and dessert. In addition to these larger gatherings, we welcomed many other guests, including a monthly Young Adult Bible Study, our "adopted" students from church, and Luke's Mom and sister, Rebecca. (One side note, Luke's Dad was unfortunately not able to make the trip to South Carolina this year due to an unexpected appearance of blood clots in his lungs. He has recovered well, and the doctors will monitor his progress over the next year to decide what the next step will be. Thank you for your continued prayers.)

Blowing out the candles

---

Luke est Magister (translation from Latin: Luke is a teacher)
In addition to his continued studies at Erskine Seminary, Luke took on a number of jobs this year, including teaching. He learned Latin over the summer in order to teach a class of 11 students for the local home school co-op. He also began teaching piano lessons to 7 year old twin brothers, Will and Sam. At church, he continued teaching the Young Adult Bible study, and added substitute teaching for Sunday School and preaching twice for the evening worship service. All of this in addition to his work in music at the church and at home, including transcribing music for the latest releases from Indelible Grace Music and Sandra McCracken. These added experiences help to confirm Luke's desire to work in music and teaching for the church, and help him narrow his focus as he begins to look for a job to take after graduation.

---

Other highlights of the year:

• Sarah continued in the same position that she's had the last two years as an executive sales assistant at The Cliffs Communities. This job puts her in contact with many interesting people and . A highlight of the year for the company was to have Tiger Woods announce that he will be designing his first golf course in the US at one of The Cliffs Communities.
  
• We didn't travel quite as much as last year, but we did make it to Kansas City for a DeBarger family reunion over Memorial Day weekend.
• Not as many weddings this year, but the babies have begun! We became godparents to Annabelle Johnson, Nick and Jen's new arrival in Kansas City.
• A highlight of the year was to have our friends' Amy and Michael Parks moved in next door in January, and then welcomed their new baby Will over the summer.
  

Wishing you Tidings of Joy this Christmas and in the New Year!

A Year In Haiku
Instead of sending out a Year End letter, we decided to create a haiku that summarized our year in a glance. "What's a haiku" you ask? It is a Japanese poem that doesn't rhyme and has a syllable scheme of 5-7-5. Here's our haiku (with explanation of each below):

Rent is now mortgage
Busy with work, church, and school
Car mileage is high

---

Rent is now mortgage
Our biggest "news" for the year - We bought a house! After a process which began and ended with calls to our landlord, and exploring a handful of options in between, we were able to purchase the rental house we have been living in since moving to South Carolina. It is a fun, old mill house, one block off of the Pendleton Town Square. We've been learning more about the art of room painting, landscaping, and "getting rid" of mice. It would be fabulous to have you come test out our guest room!

---

Busy with work, church, and school.
Each week dictates which of these aspects takes up the most of our time and how much we get to see each other. Work, church, and school all overlap for Luke at times. He is now the "worship intern" at Clemson Presbyterian Church. This year he completed the church's first worship CD - for which he played, sang, recorded, and engineered. He's enjoying being part of discussion about worship, planning and leading music for the evening services, playing music in morning services or doing sound when he's not playing...the list goes on... Every once in a while we get to sit with each other for an entire service. Sarah is enjoying getting to know many people and has been blessed with the opportunity to co-lead a women's Bible study.

As for school, Luke has reached the half-way point in working toward his Masters of Divinity degree at Erskine Seminary. He is doing very well in classes (receiving an award in the spring for Hebrew) and is thoroughly enjoying all that he is learning. In the summer, he traveled to New York City to take a course on the Christian Use of Art. In the fall, he began learning Greek and preached his first sermon in class.

Just before the 2006 New Year came, Sarah took a new position within the Cliffs Communities, a group of seven "master-planned golf and wellness communities" in the mountains of the western Carolinas. She is working as a sales assistant to one of the sales executives–Ross Kester. Sarah now has her Real Estate License and is learning the art of selling. The job is fun and stretching and provides many opportunities to meet many interesting people (at least on the phone) and do interesting things (helicopter tours and a James Taylor concert were a couple of highlights.

---

Car mileage is high.

After driving from Seattle to South Carolina in 2005, we never thought we'd have another year like that one for putting miles on the car. Well, we were wrong! Work for Sarah and school for Luke put a steady amount of mileage on the cars. On top of that, we had a number of road trips for weddings, vacation, and family reunions, taking us to Florida, Mississippi, upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee (and all the states in between).

---

That's our year in a nutshell! We hope that you and your family are doing well this Christmas season and we look forward to hearing from you soon! Leaving a comment is a great way to do it :)

what kind of a weirdo has a blog?