Just an update

This is the Bart I am always talking about. It stands for Bay area rapid transit and it goes where the map below shows you. The different colors are all the different lines, but they are all the Bart. I just thought you might like to have a visual! Well, hello there everyone! I was just on the computer looking at the Bart schedule and I thought I would drop a quick note to say hello! Not too much has happened since I last wrote. 3 of my friends at work just found out they are pregnant, THREE, and it has been all the excitement this week. We worked together this weekend and talked a lot about having babies, they all thought it would be "sooo fun" if I were pregnant too.......... hmmm I'm not so sure about that, but it will be fun to have three pregnant nurses working with me!! Well, maybe! Anyways, I am also very excited because three of my closest friends from nursing school are coming here to visit this Friday and staying with Robby and I for a couple of days! I really can't wait! I was able to work my schedule out and I won't be working at all while they are here! Robby is a little nervous about having a house full of girls, but he will do just fine! I'm not really sure what all we will have time to do, but I know we will spend at least one day running around SF and seeing all there is to see there! Ally and Jake will also be coming here in March for Robby's spring break! I'm really glad people are coming to visit. I mean, it is a free place to stay in California! Plus it has been forever since we have seen Ally and Jake, and I really miss them! Robby and I bought a nice queen size blow up matress to put in the computer room. I hope it is comfortable, but anything is better than sleeping on a futon! Robby is still painting away! He has now painted 8 water colors so far for his thesis and he is planning on having around 30 or so! I really hope we have an artistic kid, I really love watching someone paint. Especially when they are really good at it. Well, I better go, I will write again probably after Rachel, Amanda, and Ashley leave and I have some more pictures to post! I love you guys. ~Dea

Birmingham

This is a picture of coal miners in Birmingham taken by Arthur Rothstein in 1937, collected under the Farm Security Administration. Robby and I both fell in love with it; it is quite beautiful and thought provoking. He showed it to his thesis class and they loved it too. Berkeley is such an artsy school! His teacher said " The image is very influenced by early modern photography of the Bolshevik Agitprop era. Or is this just an accident? I had not understood Birmingham before as such an important industrial city. This thread alone is very significant, and just one of the rich threads that are coming into hazy focus". I think choosing to go to school at Berkeley has really helped Robby to grow and explore his capabilities. He is such a fine cut person, you know, an inside the lines type. Here, he is really learning about art and exploring his creative side. I think it will help him to be a better architect, I like seeing the things he does and hearing what his teachers say about his projects. It is just fun. One day I think I will frame this picture, infact, I would like to frame a lot of the pictures that the FSA collected of Birmingham. There is so much history there, such an incredible story lies in downtown Birmingham. It is sad to me how downtowns die, they start off so beautiful and full of potential, and then people move furthur and further away. People become scared to go there and won't take their children there anymore. It becomes kind of a ghost town at night, only existing during the day as a place for businessmen to drive and then leave behind. Somewhere along the way you could have just taken downtown Birmingham away and still had this entire outside city that would continue to exist with out the heart of where it began.

The Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge

Robby infront of the GGBThe post we set the camera on was a little slanted!The Bridge is more orange than red! It was such a bright sunny day on the bridge, it hurt my eyes!!!! There that's better!!!! Robby on the bridge View of San Francisco from the GG Bridge, there are so many buildings in such a small place!

Well, finally, Robby and I rode the Bart into San Francisco today and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was such a beautiful day! There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the fog is gone at this time of year so it was just perfect! We took so many pictures, but these were our favorites. We talked today about how much we like living in a place where there are so many things for us to do outside. I think I would like to live in Maine or New York, somewhere on the East coast for a while. I like traveling, but going somewhere for a couple of days just isn't the same as experiencing the culture of a place by living there.... don't worry guys, we just talked about it. Honestly, we go back and forth about what we want to do with our lives... our jobs, traveling, kids, a house. I think that is what's most fun about our marriage, we get to create a life together. Isn't that what it is all about anyways? Creating a wonderful life together; one that you are proud of, one that you know God is proud of. We are excited about our future; about what God has planned for our lives! We miss you all very much and love you. ~ Dea

Twins First Birthday!

These are some great pictures Mary sent to me of the twins' Birthday lunch! I just thought I would complete my little "ode to the twins" with the most recent pictures of them. The picture on the top is great! Harrison is on the left and Hudson is on the right. I also loved the picture under that of the twins, their BEAUTIFUL mommy and their big brother, Thomas, riding their birthday gift around them! You can tell how big the boys have gotten when you see them next to a grown up, although my sister is so tiny they do look a little bigger next to her than they really are!!! Well, Happy Birthday boys, I love you. ~ Dea

Tilden Park

Well, it has been a while since I have written just to tell you guys what is going on here with us! We are finally starting to get back into the groove of things. Robby had his first classes Tue. He has decided to make his thesis project consist of watercolors and is very excited! My sinks are full of paint and there is art stuff everywhere! Robby is a very talented artisit and I just love seeing how the things he has been painting turn out. He painted the most beautiful picture of Uncle Jackie's place. I don't know how he does it! I have been working since the day after we got back, I sure do miss those month long Christmas breaks... maybe I will go back and get my masters!!! Work continues to be a challenge for me every day. The stress is tramendous. I think it is just the nature of the field I have chosen to go into. It breaks my heart because most of the people I work with are depressed, divorced, and just hard to be around. I pray about where I work when we move back to Birmingham. I don't think my heart can be around people like this all of the time. I suppose it is just the difference in how we were brought up. People here have such strange views on everything. Anyways, all I can do is just continue to pray that I can be a witness to my coworkers of God's love and compassion every day. I have to remind myself of that a lot. It is really hard to be up beat and thankful when things are so hard. But then I see the view out of the windows in the ICU and I don't understand how people here don't know God, it is breath taking how much beauty there is in this place. The pictures I have posted are from a park 5 minutes from Robby and I's house. It is called Tilden. It has the best views of the bay area. When people come and visit we have to take them there. You won't believe what you are seeing. How wonderful is it that God painted such beatiful things for us to see, they didn't have to be beautiful, He just wanted them to be that way. Sorry about the "deep thougts", I get melancholy sometimes and start thinking with my heart instead of my brain i suppose! I love you all and I am missing everyone too much. ~Dea

Happy Birthday Harrison & Hudson!

You've come a long way boys!

We love you so much! Happy first Birthday! Wish we were there to celebrate with you both. love ~ Dea and Robby

Back in California

Birmingham has its beautiful places too! This is the Austin's house. Robby in the airport in Philadelphia Well, we are back, and I can't describe how I feel. I am excited to be starting a new semester of school with Robby and deciding what fun things we are going to do this time around but I am also very sad to be so far away again. We had a wonderful visit to Birmingham. The only bad part about it was how quickly it went by. We were also sad that we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to stop by and visit. We had no idea 7 days could be so busy! Thanks to everyone who made those days so special! Well, I have to say that I felt really bad when I got home last night. When we were with Robby's parents I made a statement/ joke about him not helping me out with house stuff, but when we got home last night everything was perfectly clean and in place. He had put up all of the Christmas decorations, taken out all of the trash, cleaned all of the dishes, the house was in better shape than I had left it when I went to work the morning we flew out of SF to come and visit! I felt so bad I could have cried! So, take this as a disclaimer if you will, Robby is the best husband ever and he does help me out more than I realize! I'm stupid! I've got to go to work now, and so it all begins. Andrea