tummy dancers

tummy dancers, originally uploaded by thebany.

we were cultured in a festive manner on saturday down in coolidge park. kiko & i were both inspired by the performance of the zanzibar studio dancers. those ladies can move!

as there were also many booths set up with lots of interesting imported goods, i intended to get some early christmas shopping done. but the only thing in hand when i walked out was a bag of haribo gummi snails. yes, sadly i consider a unique cultural experience to be a haribo gummi that i've never seen before.

a very merry birthday

Erica & I, originally uploaded by thebany.

my friend, erica jacobs, turned 30 this week. we had a really fun little get-together for her yesterday. it was a really special time to be able to spend with her and her husband, brian durham. both ben and i have shared many experiences with them. she is a special person, and someone i am increasingly grateful to be able to know and love.

happy birthday, erica!

infradig: last show

infradig's playing their farewell show tonight at rhythm & brews, downtown chatty. it says on the website that it's supposed to be starting @8. of course, the starting time will probably end up being much later than that.

if you're not up to anything, you should be there. and if you are up to anything, you should still be there.

bh is out

2 Bens and a B, originally uploaded by thebany.

kiko made japanese curry (yum yum) and we said fairwell to ben horner last night. bye bye bh! don't forget to write...

soldier boy

what do you call it when someone gets to spend 15 whole months in a land of sunshine and soft white sand? some call it vacation. the military calls it deployment. and my brother is up and leaving for whichever you want to call it very soon.

ever since we were kids, there was no possible way to get michael to make a normal smiling face for pictures. we took a whole bunch of pics when we were visiting with them this last weekend. i actually did get him to smile like a normal person in a couple of pictures, but this one is so his true personality. i had to post it.

i love you, brother!

petoskey stones

we went hiking out to lake michigan through the sleeping bear dunes on sunday. the dunes are absolutely enormous. it was about an hour hike, much to our surprise. the length of the hike is not due so much to the distance from where we parked to the lake as much as the enormity of the hills we had to climb, all soft sand mind you, in order to get there. it was worth it.

ben is looking for petoskey stones in this picture. they are some sort of fossilized stones, ancient coral or some such thing, that can be found in just about all of the lakes up here. they are also the official "state rock."

i ripped this picture from wikipedia. due to their popularity, petoskey stones are much harder to find now.

first day of vacation

vacation!

ben and i are headed up to michigan tomorrow for 2 weeks (!) at his family's cabin on glen lake. i am so very excited about it. we, well, ben hit the ground running the minute we got back to chattanooga mid-may. this is a much deserved rest for him.

the first week will just be us, a kind of second honeymoon (yippee!), and the second week his parents and grandmother will be joining us. this is quite a special place to the weaver family. his grandparents bought the property and cabin when dad (weaver) was a kid. ben spent the better part of many summers up there with his family. i am so looking forward to finally seeing the place that he told me about when we very first started dating.

i might post while we're up there, but we'll see. if not, it's probably because i'm relaxing by the lake :)

top 5

i've been to a few extraordinary weddings. this one definitely sits right up there with the lot of them. erik and lauren are officially the zillens now.

it was an awesome ceremony, but even more so, an awesome weekend all around. we spent a lot of time up at hidden hollow this weekend with the family and friends of both lauren and erik, got to know some new people, make some new friends, and celebrate.

it was the perfect mix of things. a lot of work, a lot of fun, a little crying here and there, a lot of laughter, not enough sleep, plenty of wine, a little craziness now and then, lots of beautiful conversation, good food, wonderful company, all which culminated in a marriage. this was, as i said before, an extraordinary wedding weekend.

from a to z

the arnold-zilen wedding weekend officially kicked off last night. bachelorette happenings last night were both fun and meaningful. love that girl, lauren! that's her on the left in the picture with char and i. lots of good talks and laughter all around, not to mention the good vino...

finally, some pics

so our celebration weekend has come and gone. it has not been without it's intensely stressful moments. but all in all, it was a fantastic time. we had many people come from out of town plus our awesome chattanooga crew to celebrate our 6 month old marriage with us. tons of people jumped in and helped make the whole thing happen. i think at around 4pm on sunday i kept repeating to myself, "i'm insane, i'm insane. where do i get these ideas? i must be crazy!" but it all came together beautifully! it was everything ben and i hoped it would be.

this image, however, is actually from the wedding ceremony itself which happened back in january. i have finally uploaded a few images from that onto flickr. hope you enjoy...

upguppy paused

quick note: ben informed me two days ago that upguppy has slapped a general password onto their website. which means it cannot be accessed. by anyone. they are still in the development phase and are not ready to release it or have the general public using its functions. i guess its kind of like building a house. you don't move in when just the frame is up. you have to wait until atleast the walls and roof have been put on as well. although some of our friends might dispute that (ahem, monty).

that all being said, i just wanted to let you peeps know in case you click on the upguppy links that i posted AWHILE ago.

script

the summer went really well at camp glad. i have been challenged greatly in certain areas, such as perseverance and objectivity when faced with conflict. i have felt a great deal of grace from the Lord many, many times.

getting up extremely early in the morning is not one of my strong points. me and 5:30am don't get along so well. ben was so encouraging, getting up with me and making me coffee while i was in the shower. i'd drop him off at work and then head out for the church.

it was a struggle to put a smile on my face as the kids started to roll in the door, but i realized very quickly that it was up to ME to set the tone for the morning in the kitchen. so i'd bury my face in my coffee cup and then come up for air with hopefully a greeting that was loving and welcoming. there was 'great success' often, but not always. something that gurney said very early on about not just teaching the kids but also learning from them was frequently in the forefront of my thoughts.

i was challenged in this every day. to be the "adult" voice in conflict gave me cause to reflect upon myself in many ways. i am generally, and especially in this camp glad environment, prone to think i am always right. it is often difficult for me to see that i might actually be wrong, and even more than that, that is not about being right or wrong. it is about the relationship, the communication, the love and grace that the Lord has shown us that i must give as well as receive in relating with the kids. it is an intangible doing that only makes sense in the actuation, the letting go of my own pride and sense of justice and instead asking for and allowing reconciliation and love to be the only thing i want. and there is no recipe for that. it is simply a doing.

as i am thinking about this, it has struck me that it makes so much sense why when God's Word became flesh, it was not as a thing, but rather a person, Jesus Christ. it would be so much easier for me to grasp in my brain a list of rules, but an impossibility to fulfill. truth only really happens in relationship with another person. the Lord has chosen to have his justice make sense in a person who has in turn chosen to reveal himself in truth to us through relationship with us. and it makes really good sense.

relating to another person well... i'm not even sure what that means only that it is kind of addicting now that i've gotten a taste of it.

all this working with kids? well, it is just hand in hand with all the other life stuff that the Lord has given me, such as learning to know and love my husband better, my family, my various relationships. it's all the same thing. the varying degrees of how much energy put where and into which relationship is an important thing to be aware of, but it doesn't make the doing in those relationships any different.

"upguppy" or "i spent the first 3 months of my marriage watching my husband create this pretty cool website which you should check out"

here it is, the website that ben's been working on for what seems like forever. mind you, this is just the alpha draft. they are not quite ready to move forward into the beta. i think that it still turned out pretty cool.

it's a top-10 ranking site allowing anyone to rank anything and everything they can think of, from their top-10 movies, to top-10 hotels they've stayed at, or even more serious topics like top-10 pressing issues of our time. if you check it out, please note that it is still in testing phase (evidenced by one of the first rankings you see "coolest coptix employees").

blogging hiadus

the blog has taken the back seat for the past little while. transition has been relatively smooth, but i have yet to set back up in front of my computer. i'm tentatively rethinking the purpose of this little guy, mostly because it originally was intended for updates on life after i moved up north. moving back south has thrown me for a bit of a loop. so a new title and a new purpose might be in the works.

oh, and my digital camera needs to be retired, so pictures might be a while in coming.

white men can dance

i've watched this so many times, because, well, it is really, really funny. and in light of all the recent "rove-scapades" from ron and josiah q., i thought i would post it. enjoy.

Daily Show - MC Rove

visitors, updates, ramblings...

paul and capria jaussen were in the city this last weekend visiting the rotten apple for the first time. ben and i got to hang out with them sunday evening. it was, of course, excellent. i had not seen either of them since they moved to seattle 2 years ago. not much has changed except for capria's hair length (lucky girl can pull off anything!)

and on to other news...

ben and i after much deliberation and consideration have decided that when our lease runs out (may 8) we will be leaving shelter island and moving back to chattanooga for a time. there are many reasons for this move, which i will not get into here. we made this decision a couple of weeks ago, but have not had the opportunity to share the news with everyone yet.

in lieu of this, we have both been caused to reflect on where we are now and what this means for us. the future plans we both had before we got married now seem farther away. yet there is an energy that seems to drive us both together and forward, though we know not to where we are going. is that faith? is that the Lord leading us? it is something we are both in prayer about. what this means for both our former plans for school we have no idea. neither ben nor i have given up on our dreams and goals. but they seem to be transforming into something else.

the words "relationships, friendships, community" are all becoming part of our dialogue more and more. and questions come after. what does the relationship between ben and i mean for the relationships with the rest of our community? and where does our community lie? we are in the process of learning about these things in our context of marriage. and this is beautiful. to share and be shared with. to know and be known. to love and be loved. and when we recognize this, we both look outward for those who are in our community, desiring to be with you again, to give to you these things that we are learning and growing in together.

this time here on shelter island has been a fruitful one. a place of healing, growth, solitude, learning, rejuvenation, and heck, an extended honeymoon...

snow!

i was starting to wonder if we'd ever actually get snow up here. i mean, when i think of an island, i think palm trees, white sand beaches, mangos, coconuts (kiko, you with me?) so, it got cold, but that's been about it until now.

we got our first snow fall. i'm experiencing it with a mixture of feelings. it's beautiful and adds visual texture to the already cold environment. that's great. but for a girl from california, i've finally realized the need for snow shoes. my feet have been perpetually cold and wet for the past week. (i'm such a baby...)

i've never lived in a place that truly represented the 4 seasons. california is almost seasonless, and chattanooga gets A snowfall maybe every 4 years. how fun to finally see a white winter AND to enjoy it with dreamy weaver.

'footprints' are from right outside our front door. 'flowers' are the hydrangeas from the back patio that were so beautiful and lavender in colour when i originally moved to shelter island. i guess they don't do so well in the icy conditions. ah, they'll be back...

nuptials

for some reason, i can't seem to upload a larger image here. but this is a shot from the bweavers wedding ceremony. thanks to em franks for taking some pictures. we're hoping to have some more images to put up on flickr as soon as we collect the lot of them from my mom and brian durham.

ta da!