Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Shawn and I went to Missouri for Christmas to spend time with my grandparents, parents, and aunt and uncle. We had a wonderful time relaxing, eating, and playing the video game Guitar Hero...even my grandparents got in on the video game action!! My grandma had these aprons made for us a few years back and it is now tradition to wear them while we prepare Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day lunch. My family took on very gender specific roles the day before Christmas...while the women spent most of the day in the kitchen making dinner and a gingerbread house, the men went out to a local farm to shoot clay pigeons. Don't they look like a rugged bunch?!? Apparently, both Shawn and my dad are good shooters! My grandpa was impressed with their ability. Other then doing a lot of eating...I'm pretty sure I gained 5 pounds in a week...it was great just spending quality time with my family. It is such a blessing to have a family that is able to spend long amounts of time with each other and still love each other at the end of the week! I'll leave you with two pictures...our fabulous gingerbread house and my 70-something year old grandma rockin' out to Guitar Hero!

Big Game!

Shawn and I had to opportunity to go see the Steelers play the Rams in the football game Thursday night in St. Louis. This was Shawn's first NFL football game and my first since I was a kid living in Pittsburgh. We arrived to the stadium about an hour before kick-off and were energized while walking through all the tail-gating. Man...NFL fans know how to party!! Once we found our seats (4 rows from the very last row in the dome!!), we got down to business...eating our hot dogs, brats, and nachos. That kind of food always tastes better at games. Even though this was a home game for the Rams, the crowd was a sea of black and gold waving the Terrible Towel. It was kinda sad for the Rams when they made their entrance on to the field since all you could hear was Boos! Shawn and I showed our team pride...me in a Steelers shirt and Shawn in a Rams jersey. The game started out very close...a winnable game for either team. We were able to see the plays very clearly with the binoculars we brought...the best $14 we ever spent! The Steelers put the nail in the coffin late in the 4th quarter with an interception returned for a touchdown. Steelers closed out the game with a 41-24 win. It was great fun being a Steelers fan as we all flooded out of the dome. The concourses and escalators were full of the chant "Here we go, Steelers, here we go!" Overall, our first NFL game was a blast and we look forward to going to many more!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Shawn and I love to decorate for Christmas!! The first year we were dating we started the tradition of stringing popcorn for our Christmas tree. While I put the tree together, put on all 700 or 800 lights and decorate the rest of the house, Shawn sits on the couch stringing popcorn. After he is done and we place it just so on the tree, we get to dive into our ornaments. We have an eclectic ornament collection. Many are very old and came from our parents Christmas collection. But, we have started getting some of our own and we always talk about the memories that go with each one as we place it on the tree. Some of our favorites include "Our First House," the hot air balloon we got the year we went on a balloon ride, a lady bug to remind us of our lady bug infested house, and our Steelers and Rams ornaments in honor of our favorite teams. Christmas is a very busy time of year for us, with shopping, wrapping, Christmas cards, and parties. We are looking forward to getting through the next week and a half and then we are heading back to Missouri to spend Christmas with my family. It will be a great time to relax and enjoy each other's company while we have time to reflect on the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

A Waiting List for a Waiting List!

We received exciting news yesterday afternoon...we are on a waiting list for our baby! Granted it is a waiting list to get on the official Colombian waiting list, but it is a list none the less. We are one step closer to our little one! So this is how it works: #1. We have been placed on our agency waiting list for Colombian adoptions. We are expected to be on this list until mid-to-late 2008. #2. During this period we will complete our home study (in Jan/Feb) and then start preparing our dossier (paperwork going to Colombia) during the summer. We will send in that paperwork around the same time we come off the agency waiting list (mid-to-late 2008). #3. Once Colombia receives our paperwork, we go on the official waiting list for the adoption house that we are going through. That wait is estimated at about 12 months! So a very preliminary estimate is mid-to late 2009 when we will meet our child!! All this can change at a moments notice...but at least now we have some idea of how things are going to progress. We appreciate all your prayers and encouragement and we will keep you updated!

Visiting with friends and family

Shawn and I have been home from Missouri for a week now, and we are still talking about the nice time we had visiting with family and friends. It is so nice that we both have Missouri ties...we get to see so many people in such a short amount of time while we are there! The day after Thanksgiving, when Shawn's mom and sister were braving the malls, Shawn and I drove about 2 hours to my grandparents house to hang out with them for a while. That afternoon, my college roomate, Cindy, and her fiance, Josh, also came to my grandparents house. This was the first time that we had met Josh and we all had a great time getting to know one another, playing games, and eating (as if we didn't do enough of that the day before!) Shawn and I were also able to hook up with his good high school friend, Bryan, and his new wife Katie. We had dinner with them one night and then watched the Missouri/Kansas game on Saturday night. Katie and I spent the evening looking at their wedding pictures and talking girl talk. It is so nice to have a girlfriend to hang out with now when Shawn and Bryan are together! Shawn's mom was sad to see us head back to Virginia, but fortunately she is planning a trip out to see us in the spring. It is so nice to have friends and family all over the US (and even the world) that we love to see and hang out with. It is a true blessing to have lifelong friends that like you, warts and all!

Thankful

We are blogging from Missouri this Thanksgiving Day. We have had a wonderful meal of turkey and ALL the fixins' and are now all kinda lounging around trying to digest! We have spent the week with Shawn's older sister, Kelly, and his mom, Jan. We all have so much to be thankful for this holiday season and Shawn reminded us with 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 that we are called to be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances. This is a really good reminder to not let the little (or even big) things in life cause us to lose the joy and thanksgiving that we have in Christ. It has been a wonderful week with family. Kelly and I have also continued on with the 3rd annual Hendricks family mystery puzzle. In case you don't know, this is a puzzle where you read a little mystery novel and then put together the 2 puzzles (whose pieces are mixed together and you don't know what the pictures are) to solve the crime. It is always a lot of fun for all the Hendricks clan, but it was up to Kelly and me to keep the tradition going this year. We are looking forward to next year when the whole gang is together, even the family that lives in Kenya! We hope you have all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Faith in Action

On Thursday night, Shawn and I attended the Family Foundation of Virginia Annual Gala. It was a formal evening at the Richmond Convention Center that serves as a forum for the Family Foundation to share their vision for the upcoming year, what has been accomplished in the previous year, and a fundraising event for the organization. The theme for this year is Faith in Action and the keynote speaker was Eric Metaxas, the man who wrote "Amazing Grace" (the biography of William Wilberforce that was written to accompany the movie by the same name). Eric has also written for Veggie Tales and was an absolutely hilarious speaker! He kept us all laughing, but also told about the role faith played in William Wilberforce's action to abolish slavery. It was a great evening where we were challenged to encourage our public legislators and to put our faith into action.

Big Day!!

Today we sent our formal adoption application to our agency by FedEx!! Our preliminary application was approved about 3 weeks ago, and we have spent these last weeks gathering up all of the paperwork necessary for our formal application. According to the FedEx scale, the packet weighed 0.55lbs...thats a lot of paper! Now comes the first waiting step of our adoption journey. It can take up to 4 weeks to just get the FBI background check back. We have to keep reminding ourselves that this is a long process...2 years or more, but we are really excited and will keep you updated as we get new information about our adoption journey.

Happy Birthday to Shawn!!

Thursday was Shawn's 34th birthday...he sure is getting old!! We celebrated by me serenading Shawn with the birthday song first thing in the morning, followed by opening presents, me singing the birthday song every time I talked to Shawn throughout the day, and then ending the day with a delicious dinner at Texas de Brazil Churrascaria. This restaurant was made for Shawn and his appetite. It is essentially an all-you-can-eat meat place. You start your dinner with the selections from the very large salad bar. There are things like olives, cheeses, tuna, salmon, california rolls, soup, breads, etc. If you don't get too full there, you start getting the meat being brought around by men carrying large skewers with various options. You have a little card at each place setting (like the one above) that is green on one side and red on the other. If you want more meat, keep the green side up and when you have had enough, flip it to red. We had filet mignon, garlic sirloin, lamb chops, sausages, Parmesan pork, chicken, barbecue pork ribs, and several other choices that I can't remember right now. We both ate so much we could hardly even breathe! I think Shawn's card was on green most of the night:) Since it was a special occasion, we decided to go all out and get dessert, too. We ended the dinner with Shawn's favorite, creme brulee. Before we could get in the car to go home, we took a quick walk around the mall to try to digest some of our food. Our night ended with both of us falling into a food induced coma watching our favorite show, Grey's Anatomy. And since you can never hear the birthday song too much, here goes one last time until next year:


Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday to you!

Happy Birthday, dear Shawn!

Happy Birthday to you!



This picture is Shawn eating a piece of fruit that looks like an eyeball when he was in Thailand earlier this year...we forgot the camera on Thursday night:)

Richmond Outreach and Brazilian Lunch

Saturday was a very busy day for us. It was the first Saturday in I don't know how long that Shawn didn't have a freelance project to work on because he turned in the final installment on Thursday!!! It would have been nice to stay home and enjoy the time together, but we planned a day full of things to do. First we met up with our Sunday School class to do an outreach project for a widowed woman in our church. We spent the morning raking leaves, spreading dirt, cleaning out gutters, and eating! She had enough breakfast food there to feed a large army! Just like a grandma...always wanting to feed the young 'uns! One of the guys drove over a wrench on the way to the house and got a HUGE hole in his truck tire. There were many attempts to put enough air in the tire to drive a few miles, but eventually the truck had to be towed home. Oh well, a minor inconvenience in a day of good fun and hard work.

After a few hours at home, we headed to my friend Myrna's house for a traditional Brazilian lunch. In a house with 11 adults, we were the only ones that couldn't speak another language fluently...us selfish, egotistical Americans! She made Feijoada...essentially beef (or pork) cooked with black beans, served with rice and a side of collard greens (kinda). Since Myrna knows how picky I am, she also made some chicken nuggets in case I didn't like the feijoada. Shawn loved everything, and even put some of his favorite Sriracha sauce on it...I liked the beef and rice, stayed away from the beans, and ate quite a few chicken nuggets! Dessert was Key Lime Pie...delicious! Conversation was good for the most part...things got a little tense the few times that politics came up. Someone always graciously changed the subject though, and time at the Brazilian lunch flew by. We were so full when we got home that we didn't even eat dinner. I think that is a first for Shawn!!

Now that we are planning to adopt a baby from Colombia, I guess I'm going to learn how to cook some Latin American dishes so we can introduce our child to his or her birth culture. Maybe I won't start with Feijoada...I'm not sure how I would explain the chicken nuggets on mom's plate!!

Pumpkin Carving Fun!

Carving Halloween pumpkins has become a Hendricks' family tradition. Shawn cuts the lid off and scoops out all of the nasty gunk on the inside, I design the eyes and nose, Shawn designs the mouth, I carve out the face, put a candle it in and we have a perfectly designed pumpkin in one hour or less!

Halloween Fun

Ever since Shawn and I started dating, we have had so much fun deciding on Halloween costumes. We have been fortunate enough to be invited to costume parties most years since we met. Our 1st party, we went as a Union solider and a Southern Belle (complete with hoop skirt). That was fun...but it gets really expensive to rent costumes every year. Since then, we have either bought the costume from a party store or came up with our own using clothes from our closet. This year, we were invited to a party and were also hosting a party, so we recycled an old costume and bought a new one. Friday night, Gilligan and Mary Ann went to a costume party, only to arrive, peek through the window and notice that there was hardly a costume in sight. After a heated debate on the front porch of the home as to whether we should even go inside and make fools of ourselves, we decided to call it a night and go home. Fortunately, the hostess called us to ask where we were and we sheepishly answered, "In front of your house getting ready to leave!" The hostess assured us a few other people were in costume, so we went in and had a good time with friends from Shawn's work. On Saturday, we hosted the Harvest Costume Party for our Sunday School class. We dressed up as Cleopatra and Mark Antony and had a house full of creative costumes including Napoleon Dynamite, Captain Jack Sparrow, a football player, the Scarecrow, Wicked Witch of the West, and Cowardly Lion, Superman, a pumpkin with his farmer parents, and a 'Bun in the Oven' and her baker husband. We had a great time bobbing for apples, decorating pumpkins, and eating!! Now that we have finished with Halloween for this year, the discussions have already started about the costumes for next year. Let us know if you have any great ideas!!

A Richmond Experience

Friday night, Shawn and I met up with my parents at the National Folk Festival on Brown's Island in Richmond. This is the 3rd and final year this event has been held in Richmond. Since it was the last year, we decided we should check it out. We didn't want to miss out on something really exciting. And since next year it is moving on to Montana, we knew it was now or never!! When we arrived, it seemed like a lot of people milling around with little purpose or understanding as to what exactly we were supposed to be doing. As the evening progressed, the stages started opening and folk music could be heard all around. The stage we were directly next to was some very unusual music from Canada, I think, and we were all very unimpressed. I even started chanting 'over-rated' very quietly! We all decided to walk up the hill to another stage to give the folk festival one last chance to impress us before we called it a night, and we ran into two guys from the hills of North Carolina...they called themselves "pickin' partners" and they played the piano and guitar. Jeff Little and Wayne Henderson entertained us for an hour with great music and funny stories. What was even funnier was the lady standing behind us that seemed to have a comment for everything that was happening on the stage...which she delivered in a very dramatic voice, complete with hand and body motions! Next time you see Shawn, you should ask him for an imitation, as he can give a perfect representation of this lady. The evening ended with a funnel cake and a shuttle ride back to the car. If you had asked us at the beginning of the evening if we would ever recommend the National Folk Festival, I'm pretty sure the answer would have been a resounding "NO!" But after the great entertainment we saw, we are disappointed that we didn't take advantage of this great Richmond experience in previous years. Rumor has it that Richmond is doing a local folk festival next year around this time, so maybe we will make another trip to Brown's Island next fall...if only to hear our dramatic lady friend again!!

The Joys of Owning a Home...

This was home improvement weekend for Steph and Shawn. We had a couple of big projects to finish up before winter and Saturday was the big day! A little background... when we bought our house, the deck was painted (not stained) a horrible brown color that peeled up every time it rained. I had the great idea last summer to try to get all the paint off with a pressure washer. Bad idea!! It didn't do much except damage the wood. We spent all last summer trying everything to get the paint off...scraping, a chemical that eats paint, sanding, and just peeling bits off with our fingers. We got worn out and then winter came so we just left it in a state of disrepair. After a lot of discussion over the winter and spring, a conclusion was reached. We would paint over the brown on the railings with white and then try to get the rest of the paint off the floor and stain it. And ta da!! It turned out really nice. We are just really happy to have this project done after almost 2 summers of work!! The other major project was giving our front bushes a big trim. They grow like weeds and they are taking over the front of our house. We decided to whack off as much as we could to try to get them under control. Shawn spent most of the afternoon with the hedge trimmer and ended up with a big mess of tree limbs to clean up when he was done. The bushes will look great next spring when the leaves come back and hopefully they will be more manageable next year, too. As far as projects went, these went pretty smoothly. Sometimes working on the house together can bring out the worst in us, but we were still talking to each other at the end of the day!

Football and Fall...Our Favorites!

The weather is turning slightly cooler here in Richmond and football season is in full swing. That means that from Saturday morning's ESPN College Game Day to Monday Night Football, the TV in our house is permanently set to football games! While some people only watch when their favorite team is on TV, we watch everything. Our games of choice are Notre Dame (too bad for us this year since they are 0-5), the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the St. Louis Rams. Last weekend we had the opportunity to go with some friends to see the University of Virginia Cavaliers play the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Our friends were Georgia Tech fans, but we were sitting squarely in the UVA section. Most people were good sports when we all stood up and cheered for the opposing team...it probably helped that our friends had their adorable 14 month old daughter with them! It certainly didn't feel like fall in Charlottesville on Saturday. It felt like it was about 100 degrees in the stadium without a breeze to be felt. UVA ultimately beat the Yellow Jackets and it was a sad trip back to Richmond. It is fun to sweat your pants off for a win, but just depressing to loose in such heat. We all had a great time, though, and Shawn and I are looking forward to seeing the Steelers play the Rams in St. Louis the Thursday before Christmas.

Amazon Adventure

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil. My work sent me to write a story about people who live in remote areas of the Amazon Basin. Many of them have no churches, Bibles or other believers among them. Through this story we hope people will pray that the Gospel will penetrate these hard to reach places. Here are a few photos from my journey. The picture above shows me in a village in Ecuador. This particular village has a Catholic church, but most of the people believe in spirits and visions that come from taking drugs and camping out near waterfalls. This may sound crazy to most of us, but this is a common belief among many remote people groups in the Amazon.

To the left you see the media team I went with (from left to right "Hollywood," "Billy Graham," Me and Guntherific). They were a great group of guys to travel with and did excellent work filming and documenting our adventure and the people of the Amazon Basin.

We did a lot of traveling on the river. There were some of the prettiest canyons and waterfalls I've ever seen. Locals told us the water we were in (to the right) had a depth the distance of a football field. I'll never forget how green the mountains were and the blackness of the water. It was an incredible week.

No we're not in the desert. We're on a sandbar off the Amazon River in Colombia. "Hollywood" took this shot to the left (and all but one of the photos I've posted from the trip.) This one has to be my favorite. I think it captures the challenge of getting to some of these hard to reach places. Our days were full of long hikes and hours on a boat. One day (after four hours of traveling up river) we had to turn back because the water was too low and the current nearly flipped our boat. It truly is a jungle out there.

When we did get to the villages, we met amazing people. But most of them still are without the hope of Jesus Christ. Most were friendly and enjoyed showing us around their village and telling us about their culture and what they believe in. One day a couple of them wanted to ask questions about American culture. They asked us what Americans believed about religion and God. They were shocked to hear that there are many who do not believe in anything. This is a foreign concept to most of the people of the Amazon who believe in many Spirits and gods.

And of course you can't visit the Amazon without running into a variety of wildlife. On this trip we saw monkeys, pink river dolphins, Mccaws (I think this is how you spell it. Think parrot with lots more color), crazy butterflies with all the colors of the rainbow and bugs with pinchers the size of Kansas. It was a great trip, and I'm blessed to be able to tell stories about what God is doing around the world. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

Wrightsville Beach Vacation

A few weeks ago, Shawn and I went to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina for some much needed rest and relaxation. Shawn had mentioned several months ago that he would like to use his surf board on vacation this year, so I spent some time checking the Internet for good places on the East Coast to surf and to take lessons...and Wrighstville Beach seemed like the place to go! So, we strapped the surf board to the top of my little car and started south. It didn't take very long before we realized that a 9 foot surf board on top of a tiny car wasn't going to make for a pleasant drive. The board vibrated on the roof pretty much the whole way there, making a loud noise, and stifling conversation. Needless to say, we were both glad to arrive at the beach!

We morphed quickly into "beach mode." That included sleeping in, lounging on the beach, coming back to the hotel for lunch, taking a mid-afternoon nap or swim, and then heading to surf camp. Shawn's surf camp met every afternoon from around 3:00-5:00. I took the video camera and filmed him most days. He had a great time, even if he was one of only three adults. He and the other two adults were in a small group with the big kahuna teacher, Brendan.

Some days were better than others for surfing, but for the most part, Shawn did great. He got up on the board a few times each day and had a really good time. I guess we will have to drag the surf board the next time we go to Virginia Beach. Fortunately, it is a much shorter trip!

Each evening, after surf camp was over, we would go back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. Some nights we went fancy and some nights were just at the local mom-and-pop joints. The picture above was from our dinner at The Oceanic. It was a great way to spend our 3rd wedding anniversary...great food, great view, and terrific company!

We were sad to see the week end so quickly. We were better able to strap down the surf board for the ride home so we were able to talk to (and hear!) each other on the way home. Shortly after we got back to Richmond, Shawn left for a work trip to South America...the topic of our next post!

Our First Post!

Well, we are entering into the blogging world. We are hoping to use this as a way to keep in touch with family and friends... sharing some pictures, stories, and thoughts about life. Come back soon for pictures from our recent vacation and Shawn's trip to South America.