We're planning on mailing out a Christmas email with our PO Box down there and waiting on a Christmas letter until we find a place to live and a permanent address. So it might not be a Christmas letter, but you get the picture. I didn't want any of you to cry by your stockings Christmas morning, sad that you still hadn't received our missive.



November: We've gotten a lot done, but there's still so much to do! Don't remind me how quickly the end of the month is coming.


October: We are busy getting ready for the move to Seattle next month. Here's our temporary address, which the Lynks are kind enough to let us use, good from the end of November when we leave here till we find a place to live:

We're going to remain apartmentless for a time in Seattle until we find just the right place. Once we do, we hope you'll visit! (Or before, if you want to see our hotel.)

But, please, for your own safety, do not visit us in Indiana anymore — we've been combing the dumpsters for boxes (people throw away perfectly good things!), so our apartment is filled with empty boxes, with all our stuff sitting outside of them. There's no room to walk!

We've made a couple last trips to Chicago to see the Museum of Science & Industry, the Children's Museum at Navy Pier, and the Aquarium. Gotta get it in!

Steve's birthday is October 29 — 26 years old! We had a rollicking celebration, as usual, eating everything we baked all by ourselves. Yum!

September 27 and October 3, 2001: Rando & Sheba the gerbils have passed away. Read their eulogy here.

September: Like everyone in the country, we're shocked and saddened by the national tragedy. We've been glued to our set for the last few days, and we're listening to talk radio in the car! Our friends and family are all unharmed, but we pray for the victims and their loved ones, the rescue workers, and our leaders, and for peace. If the Red Cross site is still busy, try donating to World Vision's disaster relief. Steve remembered the pictures from the last time we saw the World Trade Center are on this site: the buildings that don't exist anymore, and Juliane & Stefan and us in the courtyard. Eerie.

Other than that, we're preparing for our move in November. I've packed several boxes already, and we're pricing trucks, boxes, mailboxes, visitor library cards, hotels ... aagh. Wish the Army would move us like it used to.

I'm singing at a wedding this month. Our new worship leader from Crossroads (new site — heavily under construction) is accompanying me. Yes! We finally got our worship leader! I'm free!! I'm free!! No more leading a team — now I just show up and sing. Or do a special. Or do a drama. Or play keyboard. OK, not entirely free, but that's what moving's for.

The Caldwell family reunion was wonderful fun! I'll put up pictures soon on the family page.

I've been busy with actual work and then planning for the move, so forgive me if updates are slow and incomplete. Our plan is to have the site updated by the time we move so that we can send out an email announcement of our move in place of our Christmas letter, and then a real letter when we have a real address to send it from, whenever that is. So please return when you want to and check to see what's new. God bless you!

What's below was written in June and July. Small August update: We visited Steve's family in Michigan last month, and we're off to a Caldwell family reunion in Indianapolis Aug. 10. My parents, Erik & Kim, and Ethan will all be there!

The Queen Mum made us this beautiful quilt!

The Europe Trip

Our big news from this spring (and what is keeping us, financially, from having an uneventful summer) is that we took a three-week trip to Europe in April and May. After a lot of planning and even more repacking (we managed with one suitcase to share — and a well-traveled suitcase it was, since it went up the Eiffel Tower with us!), we arrived in London on Holy Saturday. We spent Easter Sunday in Oxford and took off from there, cruising around England on our BritRail passes and then heading through the Chunnel to Paris, several cities in Germany, and a couple in Austria. We got to visit friends of mine from my junior high years in Berlin and see romantic sites from my Wheaton-in-England summer when Steve & I were just beginning to write to each other and had no idea where such letters would lead!

I could tell you about the whole trip here, but it would be so much more colorful if you would toodle over to the Europe photo gallery and enjoy the pretty pictures while I explain in the captions. It's less exruciating than a slide show, because you can go as fast or slow as you want and skip to the parts you'd like to know more about.

I'm also busy putting together a journal about our experience, complete with ticket stubs and brochures and candy wrappers (a big part of our enjoyment). If you visit, you can thumb through it!

Meanwhile, Back in Indiana ...

Just don't visit right now, because, even though it's only July, we're starting the process of moving to Seattle in November by going through our stuff and variously throwing out, selling, and giving away. There's no room to walk, so it's lucky we sit around a lot.

Speaking of which, work is busy for both of us. Steve's doing a lot of writing and design for The Bible League. His boss's Where's Philip? Bible study (which Steve helped edit and lay out) went so well that they're working on more versions. I'm working on the North American school ministry for TBL and Bible studies for the Africa ministry. I'm also getting more clients at my editing site, AmandaLCaldwell.com.

We stopped babysitting Evan last month for the summer, when his (real) dad's home. We're trying to decide what we'll do without our practice baby. My mom asked if she should put his picture on the fridge, since he's as close to a grandchild as she has at the moment. I think Steve's mom did.

Our real children, the gerbils, are their chewing, dooting selves. Evan's mom and dad took care of them for us while we were in Europe, and I don't think they missed us a great deal.

We'll still see Evan at our twice-monthly small group meetings, which are going very well. Steve's started a summer series on movies (surprise!). You can read summaries of the sessions on Steve's Film Forum site. He includes the questions he asked and how it went if you'd like to do something similar with your group. Links to each session:

Discussion 1: The Truman Show
Discussion 2: Titanic
Discussion 3: The Wizard of Oz
Discussion 4: Sense and Sensibility
Discussion 5: The Hurricane
Discussion 6: When Harry Met Sally/Cool Hand Luke

Our church has recently added a second Sunday-morning service, so that means more work for me in praise team, especially with so many people gone over the summer. As mentioned before, we're stuck here, so I'm the designated substitute for singing, keyboards, kazoo, triangle ... .

So that's all. We're going to spend some time this summer trying to finish up all the Chicago sites we want to see before we leave the Midwest. If you have a hankering to visit the Windy City, or Griffith (as I'm sure you do), stop by before the winter! (Just write several weeks in advance so we can move the boxes out of the way.)

Amanda (with Steve's implied consent)

P.S. Explore the rest of SteveAndAmanda.com — browse photo albums of the trips we've taken, including Europe; find links to many of Steve's and Amanda's projects; and read more news about friends and family. It's also the best placed to stay informed of our upcoming move, since we update it throughout the year.

P.P.S. Thank you for your help with our baby-name poll. It's giving us lots of good ideas. Check back once in a while to see which name's ahead.