Oh snap

This is easily one of the funniest commercials I've ever seen. It brings joy to my life every time I watch it, which thanks to youtube, is quite often!

Too hot to Handel

I wish I was clever enough to have come up with that title to this blog entry. As it is it was on the sign outside of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this past weekend as they performed Handel's Messiah. It was the first time either of us had ever seen or even heard the entire thing, and it was awesome. I highly recommend seeing it if you get the chance and this may become an annual tradition for us. People dress nicely on the east coast so we did our part and dressed up a bit for the occasion.


The venue was very cool.

On Saturday we hung out with our great friends/relatives Noel and Heidi. Noel was in D.C. for a preaching conference and it was great to get to spend some time with them. For some reason, this is the only picture we took while we were with them. The picture contains the following in order from left to right: First row: cinnamon stick, Second row: gigantic sugar cookie covered in sprinkles, chocolate cigar, triple-decker corned beef sandwich, Third row: Heidi, Noel.

That reminds me, I still have some left over chocolate cigar in our hotel refrigerator.

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Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we joined Sarah and Josh at my parent's house in Fredonia. We had an awesome time of just eating way too much food and playing tons of games...mostly Settlers of Catan. Zoe is my mascot.


As it turns out, my parents own a Snuggie-type thing that actually preceded the official Snuggie. As you can tell by the picture the old design was not quite as useful as the real deal, but Becky liked it anyway..and Zoe just likes being in pictures.

Stockings are still fun.

We went to see the Christmas Carol movie in 3D. It was cool, especially the part where we got to wear these awesome glasses.

On Thanksgiving I certainly felt very thankful to have such an awesome family...which is nice because we drove through a lot of traffic to hang out with them!

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The past two months.

These last two months have been a bit crazy. Here's a brief summary:

- I finished grad school
- We went to Austria for 10 days
- We packed up, said goodbye to all our Colorado friends, and drove through 4 days of rain on our move to Maryland
- I started my first ever real job
- We bought a house

Austria was amazing - it is such an incredible place. Here we are at a palace in Vienna.

Becky at the Vienna opera house. Yeah, that's right I went to the opera...3.5 hours worth.

My favorite part of the trip was hiking around in these Alps. Easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
The hardest part of leaving Colorado was saying bye to the students we had been mentors to for many years. Before we left, one of the students parents threw us a goodbye party.

Life in Maryland has been good so far. We look forward to updating the blog more often with what's going on in our life on the east coast.

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In good company

As Becky eluded to in the previous post, I completed my requirements for my PhD last Monday. In light of this, there is a bit of information you might find amusing. Another graduate student made an incredible discovery a few months ago. There is a plaque at our research center that lists the name and year of all PhD graduates from the center. Close inspection of this plaque reveals that none other than Charles Norris received his PhD back in 1992.

I am truly honored to be in the same company as this great man.

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Dr. Loomis!!!!

Bryant is now officially Dr. Loomis - woohoo!!!!!!!!

More updates to come...

Visit to Maryland

We visited Maryland for one of Bryant's job interviews and extended the trip for a mini-vacation. We spent some time in Annapolis, and I ate my fill of crabcakes. I love crab cakes. We also got to see Bryant's friend, Mike Benko, who lives in Washington D.C. He introduced us to Ethiopian food, which we ate straight out of a hat.

On Friday night, we toured Washington D.C. It was cool to see all of the history, and be reminded of our nation's past.

We visited the Korean War Memorial, which meant a lot to me as my grandpa fought in that war. I am very grateful for his service to our country, and all those who served so selflessly.

We also got the chance to see Matt and Eli Margaron and their beautiful girls, Emma and Leah. We hung out in Baltimore then headed up to their home in Bel Air for dinner. We also went to a beautiful farm for ice cream (which was obviously the highlight of the trip for the girls)!

This was a very nice long weekend, and gave us a great feel of that area of the country. Maybe we'll be moving there soon....

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Homemade Cappuccino!!

As previously mentioned, Bryant gave me a stovetop espresso/cappuccino machine for my birthday. Since it was intimidating to try out, we invited our good friend Joseph over for the debut. Joseph is a very talented barista and taught me all the technical aspects of making a great foamy cappuccino.

We also played Settlers of Catan - our new favorite game - with Joseph and Nicole (both of whom we know from Flatirons Student Ministry). A great Sunday afternoon of fellowship and coffee!

Taylor Swift!!

In the past year, I have become a huge Taylor Swift fan. My girls also love her music, so we headed up to Cheyenne, Wyoming to experience her concert at Frontier Days in July.

We had no idea, but apparently, Frontier Days is pretty big deal, and cowboys come from the surrounding states to take part in the festivities. We're not cowboys (or girls) but we had fun.

We had a fantastic time at the concert - I'm ashamed/proud to say that I knew every single word to every song.

After the concert, we headed down to Fort Collins to stay the night in a hotel. The manager let us go swimming after midnight, which was a great ending to such a fun trip. I have been blessed to get to know these girls over the past three years, and am so excited about the girls they are, and the women they are becoming.

Becky's Birthday

Last Sunday was my birthday, and Bryant spoiled me like crazy (I have married an amazing man!). The day started with a delicious breakfast in bed:

We spent some time in the afternoon at the Louisville Community Pool. I have been wanting to go swimming for about a year now, and figured my birthday was the perfect day. We really miss Lake Michigan and the easy access to swimming that we had in Michigan, but the pool here was a nice substitute. And, since Louisville was just named the #1 small town to live in, by Money Magazine, I figure this is the best community pool in the country!

We ate at The Kitchen for dinner in Boulder, and the food was magnificent. I would strongly recommend that restaurant for a special occasion. Since both of our families live out-of-state, all of my gifts were mailed to me, so I opened up gifts at three hour intervals - what a fun way to do gifts. The last gift I opened was from Bryant, and it is a stove top cappucino maker. I had no idea what it was, but am so excited to use it. Our good friend, Joseph, is a barista, and he is going to show us how to make a stellar latte.

On Monday, my girls came over with lots of birthday cake and flowers.

I feel incredibly blessed to have such a thoughtful husband, and great family and friends. Thanks for all of the birthday love!

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Another Visitor!

It has been a fun busy summer of friends visiting us. The most recent guest was Sarah, who has been one of Becky's closest friends since their freshman year of college. We fit a lot into one weekend. Highlights included a gorgeous hike and a Rockies game.

Becky, Sarah, and of course Zoe the dog.

The view at the top.

Rockies game.

It was an incredible game, as the Rockies had their biggest come-from-behind win of the season and won it in the bottom of the 9th...which by the way is how they won the last time we went to a game last season. It really is quite incredible how well the Rockies do when we're in attendance. If you calculated the Rockies home winning percentage and compared that to the winning percentage of the games we have attended over the past six year, the difference would be incredible. Perhaps I should be the mascot instead of this creepy thing:

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The Independence Day Cup

Happy 4th of July to everyone!

This morning I got to be a part of what I 

think is a rather hilarious tradition. For the last several years, on the morning of July 4th, a group of English guys square off against a group of Americans in a pickup soccer match here in Boulder. 

This year I was invited to participate.

The funny part of this story is that I ended up playing for the Brits, as they were a bit short on players this year. This was much to the dismay of Becky who is now fearful our house may be hit with fireworks tonight in response to my traitorous actions. I figured it was semi-legit since my ancestor Joseph Loomis came over hear from England about 12 generations ago.

Either way, in the end, the Americans were victorious 3-2, to which my response is that I threw the game in favor of my countrymen. It really was a win-win situation for me.

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An Amazing Reunion

...as always, way behind.

A couple of weekends ago Becky and I got to be a part of a reunion of sorts of most of my closest friends from college and their families. It was absolutely amazing to be together with everyone again. The last time this whole group of guys was together was actually for our wedding over four years ago. The families travelled from California, Maryland, and Michigan to meet up in Colorado, which conveniently is where we live.

We all stayed at the Rumohr cottage in Buena Vista which is about 3 hours west of Denver and is surrounded by incredible views of several 14ers. During out time at the cottage we hiked, played frisbee golf, ate great food, and just had a great time hanging out.

We took this picture prior to our hike. From left to right: Luke, Lindsay, Joel, Me, Noel, Matt (w/ 1-yr-old Leah on his back), Eli, and almost 3-yr-old Emma.

The view of 14er Mt. Princeton from the hike.

This is the view from the cottage back deck. (Me, Becky, Eli, Matt, Lindsay, Luke, Sarah, Joel, Heidi, Noel).

A stunningly handsome group of friends. We all lived together at various times throughout college and met on the 3rd floor of Durfee as freshmen.

I am very blessed to have such amazing friends, even though we are spread out all over the country. I hope we are able to do something like this soon, and that next time Ryan & Amber can join us (they were busy having a baby).

Many thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Rumohr for allowing us the use of your beautiful place!

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A Night on the Town

This past Saturday Becky and I had an incredible night in downtown Denver. As a bonus from her boss Becky had been given two tickets to the theatre event of our choice. We chose to see Rent at the very impressive Buell Theatre. Prior to the show we ate one of the best dinners we've ever had at Elway's Steakhouse with the anniversary gift my parents had recently given to us. It was a great night.

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A work of art

This work of art is called Justice.

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The Best Memorial Day Ever.

Behind as usual...

Our Memorial Day weekend was quite epic. As I'm sure all of you that read this blog are aware, our very close friends Tim & Rachel, and PJ & Kersta both moved away from us within in the past year. We visited Tim & Rachel in Dallas back in January but hadn't seen PJ & Kersta since they moved in November. We were all reunited at our place for an incredible weekend of fun and hilarity.

Along with the other 8th grade volunteer leaders at our church, Becky and I planned a big graduation party for our students from church for the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Almost as a joke I called Tim and suggested that him and Rachel come out to see their old students at the graduation party. He called back 10 minutes later and said they were coming. A couple of days before the weekend PJ & Kersta decided last minute that they were going to make the 13 hour drive from Tucson to join us in Colorado, and surprise Tim with their arrival early Saturday morning.

That Saturday morning Tim had gone out to the store and when he returned PJ answered the door...


That night Tim & Rachel took us out to eat at their favorite place downtown Denver.


On our way out from dinner Tim thought that Lowell would fit perfectly between these two mailboxes we walked by. He was right. As you can see Lowell is a very cool kid.


On Sunday we spent some time at the Boulder Creek Festival.


As you can see in the above picture, our friend's families have grown since we all lived in Colorado together, which Tim & Rachel adding Lowell to the family, and PJ & Kersta adding Sawyer the dog to their family.

We had such a fantastic weekend with our amazing friends, and it of course made us all wish we didn't live so far apart. We look forward to hopefully doing it again soon.

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Justin's wedding

This post is a bit overdue as Justin got married two weekends ago...but Becky and I got dressed up so figured we should put up some pictures. I had the honor of being a part of the wedding and we both had such a great time.


Immediately following the wedding the entire wedding party and their dates boarded a party bus and just rode around for awhile celebrating until we arrived at the Bob in downtown Grand Rapids for the reception.

Here some of the groomsmen are caught in a candid moment during a session with the photographer. And by candid I mean posed.


Justin and me at the reception. He was a happy man.


In addition to the wedding festivities Becky and I were also able to fit in some time with friends and family. It was a very rushed but fun weekend as it always is when we are able to make it back to Michigan.

Congrats to Justin and Krista! Hope we get to see you again soon.

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