sarah with the vander kooi kids
the summer wedding season is officially over for matt and i. our good friends, nate and sarah (schaap) dockter tied the knot last weekend, and it was so much fun to be able to hang out with old friends and celebrate a great relationship! above are a few pictures of the event - congratulations nate and sarah! (sorry...i never got a good pic of nate)
shortly after moving here, my friend pam cook told me that i need not worry, dutch bingo makes chicago much smaller. it only took about a week for me to realize that she was right...
our neighbor lady, florence, is one of my volleyball player's dad's aunts...and that dad is also a fellow teacher and coach at timothy. matt and i have been going to faith crc in elmhurst the past couple of weeks and their pastor, lee koning, was a classmate of my uncle ken. dave larson, the advancement director at timothy christian, randomly met my parents when they were making a trip around the u.p. and made a timothy christian connection...but mr. larson also knows my uncle ken and aunt sandy quite well. on friday we hung out with ken and pam and some of their friends...one of which i met on a recruiting trip to ontario last fall when i worked for dordt. when we were at church this morning, we stood up to sing the final song and i look over and see heidi (de rooi) koster - a pella christian classmate of my brother nate's that i hadn't seen in probably 7-8 years. while we were talking with her and her husband after the service, their small group leader came up to say hi and he was jake koerselman's boss while jake was on chicago semester. jake is matt's former roommate and teammate at nw. i really don't know if any other culture is quite like the dutch in their bingo game, but pam was right. it really does make chicago feel just a little bit smaller.
oh, and my volleyball team...we're looking pretty good after week 1 of practice. at least i don't have to guess at what their name is anymore. i try to talk to matt about my lineup dilemmas but it ends up turning into a conversation quite similar to when he asks my opinion about the twins lineup....a blank stare or completely uneducated, guessed solution. our first game is a week from tuesday, so we have some time to figure things out. i know - it's only jv. but right now that's the only thing on my schedule for the day, so i have plenty of time to think about great practices and game strategy. :)
i like volleyball a lot. that's really no surprise to anyone that knows me. and quite frankly, it's my only contribution to our financial gain thus far. this week i started off my timothy christian volleyball experience with a 5th - 7th grade camp, and after 4 1/2 hours of camp, i've decided that i need to give a BIG thank you to all of the elementary coaches out there...which for me would include my own parents. don't get me wrong - the girls are fun and i enjoy being at the camp. but there's just so much more to coaching that age than the sport itself, and anyone who is in that role has a real talent.
ellie is probably the most entertaining. on day one, when her serve went over the net, she would pump her fists and quietly say "yesss" to her self. on day two she was asking if we could sprint instead of jog for our warmups. on day three, she kept saying over and over how much fun diving and rolling was while every other girl nervously looked at the mats. there truly is never a dull moment with her.
other than that, a large part of our evenings is spent watching the olympics. but the time difference is killing me. i haven't stayed up this late since college, but i just can't stop watching....along with the other 82 million americans that watched phelps last night.
tomorrow will be one week that we have lived in willowbrook, and i think we've done a pretty good job of getting settled in to our new home. i took some pictures after we got all of our boxes moved out to the garage today. hopefully this link will work for you to see them - if it doesn't just let me know and i'll try again. i hope everyone has a great weekend!
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2012060&l=1f7d4&id=148300755
as our 3 car and 1 truck pulling a trailer caravan pulled into willowbrook, i immediately noticed a target, bed bath & beyond, jamba juice, chipotle, starbucks, panera, dunkin donuts, and sports authority all within two blocks of our new home. just a little bit different than what we are used to. and i must say that we have fully utilized our proximity to these locations to the fullest in just two days.
another hightlight - IKEA. i've always dreamed of going into one but never had the chance to....and it definitely lived up to my expectations. we were in search of a sofa couch to give our potential visitors a place to sit and even sleep. so just let us know if you are in chicago and you are more than welcome. and matt says it's a good thing we have the beretta to take on the challenge of taking our new futon home....he was proud. :)
last night we had a heart to heart with our neighbor. florence is a 87 year old woman who lives in the main floor of our complex. if you watched the weather, we had a few tornadoes come through the area. so instead of hanging out in the hallway, we knocked on florences door and chatted with her. waiting out the storm turned into sharing her life story. she's a sweet, dutch woman and invited us to her church next sunday. as florence says....we dutch need to stick together :).
after the boxes get all unpacked, we will try to put some pictures of our place on here. it's time to leave starbucks.
sarah with the vander kooi kids
