It's Already April

Tomorrow is Picnic Day. We've officially failed at keeping our postings up-to-date. Some highlights of the year:

Dodgeball Palooza! (24-hour dodgeball tournament)


Fun trip to the City with the Jarvi for a hike and some dinner.


Katie (sam's sister) came to visit.


We got to know our new nephew (Luke) better.


And spent quality QT with friends.

That's about it for us lately. We'll try to do better...

Happy New Year!

Someday we won't have to play catch up every time we edit this blog, but for now, we're going to have to recap the last four months.

SEPTEMBER
September was a social month for us. UCD started up at the end of the month, so all of our college-aged friends came back to town. We busied ourselves with prosecuting and teaching during the week, and filled our weekends with ice cream socials, pizza parties, nerts, and volleyball games.

Sam and Carie eating lots of ice cream at the Gladdings'. Shiloh and friends at a UCD volleyball game. Here is Sam with the Jarvi and Natalie, trying to look like they know how to make pizza.

OCTOBER
In October, we realized that we couldn't have our cake and eat it, too. We needed to fit sleep into our schedule somehow, especially with a myriad of intramural sports crowding the precious hours between work and bedtime. Weekends remained cherished times; among them were a Mt. Hermon retreat, Apple Hill trip, Pumpkin Patch visit, AIA Girls' retreat, UCD football games, and of course, a Halloween celebration with FBC's Young Marrieds' Class.

Apple Hill - Mike, Shi, Sam, Nat, Justin.

Coed Flag Football.

Farmers. Happy Halloween.

Mt. Hermon FOG retreat.

NOVEMBER
November was eventful - Sarah turned 30, and Bethany threw a humonstrous party for her , where everyone was decked out in red and bore gifts of Diet Coke and Pickles. Armstrong the Determined (now Luke Samuel Armstrong) was growing rapidly so Bethany had a few baby showers. Nana (Shi's mom's mom) moved from Sac to Davis, but passed away soon after, and we attended her funeral. The Nicholsons and some other friends shared Thanksgiving with the Sorbellos (including Pop-Pop, Shi's dad's dad) in Davis. The annual Kickball Pallooza occurred (Sam is now a 2-time defending champ). And, of course, IMs were in full throttle.

Three Sorbellos and an Armstrong - at her shower.
Shiloh and Jeremiah in an intense game of Chess...at Starbies.
Nana's funeral in Merced.
Team "One Flies Up" - we're bugs, if you can't tell.

DECEMBER
December flew by. It was crunch time for Sam at school, giving finals before the students went on break on the 21st. We attended Dan & Justin's first annual Obnoxious Sweater Party and won the door prize for most obnoxious outfits - crafted last-minute by Sam and Jen. The days leading up to Christmas were spent with the Nicholsons in Atherton. We did a lot of hiking - Stanford Dish, Windy Hill, and Stanford campus. Christmas night we returned to Davis for some Sorbello family time and one day of "down time" before Shiloh had to return to work...though when he arrived on Wednesday, he found that he didn't have to be there after all - National Day of Mourning for Gerald Ford. On New Year's Eve we helped out with FBC's Youth Group, which hosted "The BASH" for Davis kids and had a lot of fun watching lip syncs and playing DDR ("Dance Dance Revolution" for folks that don't hang out with junior high students).

Ugliest sweaters in town.

Christmas Card

Shi and Dan Rowe at the BASH.

Summer Is Over :(

Summer was long and glorious, but sadly, has come to an end. We spent a sticky 10 days in Nicaragua doing all sorts of fun things: finding enormous bugs, digging tons of grass away from a baseball warning track, swimming in the warm, salty lago, getting worked by 9 year old soccer teams, playing balderdash with missionaries, creating the least creative balloon animals in the world (centiron, espalda, sombrero?), and more. Shiloh even gave a talk to all the little nicaraguenses who showed up for a youth group meeting.

Back in Davis, Shiloh bucked down (between BBQs, basketball games, golf...) and started looking for a job. He's now technically certified to mold and influence little brains in to history, math or spanish geniusi, but chose a different route. After only a month of searching, he landed a studly job as a Deputy District Attorney in Yuba County. What does that mean? He has entered the real world and summer vacations are over forever. Today he finishes week one of his daily treks to Marysville to solve crime. Don't you just feel safer?

Sam has been relishing her stress-free summer, though keeping busy with gardening, scrapbooking, laying by the pool, and other not-so-demanding tasks. Today marks the end of her first week back to work for Staff Orientation, and her last week of semi-freedom before the kiddos come pounding at the doors, dying to sit quietly in their seats and soak up as much math and physics as possible. (Yeah right.)
(fourth of July - oohs and ahhhs)

Summer Is Near

The school year was loonnnnng with ups and downs all over the place, but summer is almost here! Sam has only three days of school left (and they're minimum days!) while Shiloh has to trudge through another two weeks (poor Shiloh!). On the 16th of June we'll leave for Nicaragua with a team from mppc (check out http://www.mppcmission.org/trips/nicaragua/2006june/index.htm). Before we go, here is a recap from the last few months...
In January, Shiloh was invited to speak at Athletes in Action's weekly meeting. Our "old people" Bible study took a break to go support Shiloh in Young Hall 194. Since then, we've been to AIA many times because Adam, Jeremiah, and Justin were also asked to speak.






Shiloh also was an assistant coach for the Davis High Varsity Basketball program under Coach Gonzales. He and David Butterworth played a huge roll in taking the team to the playoffs for the first time in six years! Hustle, hustle, hustle.

Happy New Year!

Our first week and a half of winter break was excellent. We had two Christmases (one at the Nicholsons', one at the Sorbellos') and we made out like bandits - KitchenAid Mixer and a sweet HP printer, among other, smaller treasures.


The day after Christmas #2, Shiloh played in an Alumni vs. current DHS section-champs soccer team (on a field of mud soup instead of grass). Sam has been reading and scrapbooking to hear heart's content and received enough encouragement in Christmas presents to support the latter habbit for yet another year.


Last night, 2005 culminated with laughter-filed games and the clash of pots and pans echoing through the streets of Davis at midnight. Today, we're kicking off this year with the most rainfall that Yolo County has seen in seven years...it's ugly out there...a perfect day for more scrapbooking!