Exciting news!

First, we're pretty sure Edward's going to be done on the July 30th which puts us in Decatur around the 1rst (ish). Hooray for seeing all of you. We can't wait. Second, for the more exciting news, visit our blog.

Hawkins Family Schedule

Claudia was worried that not everyone in the family knows our schedule for the next few months. Just in case you are in the dark and/or care, here it is!

July 20-25: Visit to upstate NY. Richard has a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) course in Albany on July 21-22. I'm going to be visiting a friend in Rochester. We are going to spend July 23rd in the Rochester area visiting church history sites. We will travel on the 24th to Niagara Falls (Canada side) and return home on July 25th.

July 28: Betsey leaves the Cleve' for Decatur. Bye bye life in the Cleve'.

July 30: Richard's last day as a law clerk.

August 2: Richard loads up the moving van with our stuff for storage and to move to H.K. and heads to Decatur. This may happen over the weekend, but because we live above a restaurant, it is tricky figuring out when we can do this without disrupting the restaurant's schedule.

August 6: Sam Fenning gets married! Karl and Emily are going to be up from Bloomington for the wedding. We are going to crash (okay, Sam did invite us...) and are excited to celebrate our honorary Gimbel, Sam!

August 10: Hawkins family is having a family photo taken by Erin (Curry) Hoffman. Thanks for the recommend, Margie! We are so excited!

August 11-12: Hawkins family travels to North Carolina. We'll arrive in the early evening of the 12th.

August 12-17: Hawkins family in North Carolina with the Koomans. We will leave on the morning of the 17th.

August 17-20: Hawkins family in Washington D.C. visiting friends and our nation's capitol.

August 21-23: Travel to Pittsburgh and enjoy the sites of Pittsburgh. We are hoping to go through F.L.W's Falling Waters House, but they don't allow children to go through. We will have to stagger our visit.

August 23: Hawkins family leaves for Ireland!

August 23-31: Hawkins family in Ireland. We are still trying to figure out our itinerary. We will probably post it on our blog.

August 31: at midnight. Hawkins family arrives in Pittsburgh.

September 1: Pit stop in the Cleve' on the way back to Decatur. Calvin has his six month wellness visit with his doctor. Poor guy has to get some immunization shots!

September 1: Back in Decatur.

September 3: The moving company picks up our stuff to ship to Hong Kong from Ed and Claudia's house.

Some date after this, we are flying to Utah. We aren't sure the exact date yet. It depends upon when we are going to be moving to H.K., which depends upon how long they will put us up in a hotel in advance of Richard's start date. Richard begins work in H.K on October 4th.

Okay, so hope we get to see all of our dear friends and family before we go. Edward, any word on your schedule? We haven't heard any firm plans from you and Meridth about when you will be in Decatur. Ryan, are you guys making a trip to Decatur? I just heard this as a rumor...any plans? We will see you in Utah if we don't get to see you in Decatur.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend. I just talked to Margie and she had a great 5 mile run along the beach in Hawaii. I think she wins the prize for best weekend. We spent the morning shopping for work clothes for Richard. Running on the beach in Hawaii totally trumps wrangling two kids in Filene's Basement.

XOXOXOXO

Random Thoughts in July

One of the best parts of having the summer off is being able to catch up on some of the reading I never get to do during the school year. Whether it's professional reading designed to get me excited and enthused about teaching math to seventh graders, (and believe me--I've read three books so far, and several blogs and I'm actually started to feel excited and enthused) or scriptures and other religious readings designed to get me off my spiritual butt, and start acting like a follower of Christ, I have really been elevated by the things I've read. Even the many magazines to which we subscribe have provided fodder for increased contemplative musings, (although I may need to index the articles I want to quote from, so that I know which magazine and which author I'm quoting).

Anyway, despite all that (and please don't analyze that last paragraph for sentence structure or length), nothing surprised me quite as pleasantly as a cute little blog titled, "Flunking Sainthood". I don't remember the blogger's name other than Jana, but she is an LDS writer who shares some of her own (sometimes unorthodox) ideas about faith. I found her ideas interesting and yes, refreshing, and was a little jealous that she was able to express ideas so much better than I. So, I will provide the email address (my last link attempt was a disaster), and you can check it out for yourselves. Her first name is Jana--can't remember her last name, but she lives in Cincinnati, and has a non-member spouse.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/flunkingsainthood

I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions, even if they're different from mine (REALLY!)

Love you all, Claudia