Fall is just around the corner

Spokane is feeling more and more like home these days since moving in to our new house in April, and most of that is due to Megan adding her own little touches that make it our own. We don't know how long we will be here, but for now it's home sweet home. When we first started blogging, the idea was to be able to share what was going on with family and friends after moving to Spokane. While that is still true, the blog also acts as a journal of sorts that we can use to look back on for ourselves... while blogging isn't our top priority, it is still a fun way to keep track of all that we do.

Megan recently took a full-time position at the hospital that matches up great with my work schedule. We are both working nights right now and we get two days off together every week. (When Megan was supplemental were lucky if we had one night off together a week!) We are excited to get back in to the regular rhythms of Life that come after summer, but first here are some highlights from the past couple months.

6.28.09

I'm excited for my buddy Ryan who is getting married in less than month. I'm also excited that his future bride Emily grew up just not too far away from our house, which brings them to town once and a while. At the end of June, we got to hang out at a BBQ celebrating Emily's graduation. Afterwards we had some fun with the bocce balls.

7.6.09
For as long as I can remember Megan has had a heart for Africa. Since I started working with Horizon Air we decided to make the most of the flying benefits I get, taking at least one oversees trip a year. We try planning out trips where we know people, and our good friends the Allen's are currently in Lusaka, Zambia. So we flew south for the summer on a 10,000 mile journey that we will always remember. 1 hour from Spokane to Seattle. 5 hours from Seattle to Atlanta. 15 hours from Atlanta to Johannesburg. We spent two nights in Joburg checking out the downtown, Soweto and Nelson Mandela's house before the one hour flight to Lusaka.

Joburg

Soweto

We spent a week in lusaka with the Allen's. It was great to see Steve, Steph, Cam, Brady, Julia, Jojo and meet Rhoda for the first time! We had some quality time hanging out and seeing all that they are involved with. We visited an orphanage, school, hospital, retreat center, compounds, houses, attended a church service, I sat in on the class that Steve teaches, me met a lot of people and saw first hand some of the ways God is working in Zambia. One week was way too short... It was neat to be able to but names with face and places, to meet many of the pastors that Steve works with and hear their stories. Those are some amazing men of God.

Arriving in Lusaka

At the Allen's house after getting picked up from the airport

Lots of vendors on the side of the road. Selling everything from rocks and steel to produce and cell phone minutes


Pastor Jerry's Church

Megan with a bunch of the kids after church

Cute little girl that was fascinated with the big mzungu (white person). She sat in front of me at church and starred at me the whole time, and then followed me around everywhere after church... she was cute

Dinner the last night at the Allen's house. I'm so glad we made it down to see you guys. We had a blast. You were great hosts!

Safari
We also went on a Safari at Chaminuka while in Zambia. It was a combination of Safari, Feast, Fishing and Fun.




Not sure what Simba was snacking on


We BBQed up a couple of these Impala's for lunch...





Vic Falls
Zambia is home to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Victoria Falls. If you combine the the height, 360 feet, and the width, 5,600 feet, Vic falls is argued to be the largest waterfall in the world. It was an amazing sight to see, it is so massive. We took the 5 hour bus ride from Lusaka to Livingstone. Our friend Owen, who was also in Zambia at the time, went with us. We took a greyhound type bus, but where there are normally 2 seats on each side of the aisle, this one squeezed in 1 extra seat just for fun, so there were 2 on one side and three on the other. So the three of us crammed in and lived to tell about it. (mind you there was no a/c and a good hour or so was spent on a dirt road) We had a great time hanging out at the falls (where we got drenched), Meg and I had a date night on a sunset cruise that went down the Zambezi River where we saw lots of wildlife like Elephants, Giraffe, Hippos and crocs. We also decided to all jump off a bridge with a rubber-band attached to our feet... this was my second jump and I loved it! This was Megan's first and probably last time. She had fun, but it took a lot of coaxing to get her to actually jump... :)






What an awesome trip! One we will always remember. We hurried home for Oma's 85th birthday celebration. Of course flying stand-bye we didn't make our direct flight back to the states to Atlanta, so we decided to go through London and then on to Seattle. Total time door to door to get home i think was over 40 hours between sitting in airports and on the plane. We got to sit by each other on each leg there and back, and oh, I forgot, we got first class going down there from Atlanta to Joburg! Thats the way to fly, but now every time we get coach Megan complains :)

7.30.09
When we got back from Africa it was back to work, so we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary a week and a half late. We decided to go camping again and headed out to Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho, the fifth deepest lake in the U.S. It was kinda last minute so when we got there there were no campsites left, so they put us out in a group site all by ourselves... It is great getting away and "roughing" it for a couple days. We love camping.





I think I won like 8 out of the 10 games we played of yatzee and sequence... Megan might dispute that claim.

8.7.09
Spann family reunion in Nampa, Idaho. That was fun. (time for work, need to hurry)




8.30.09
Josh and Mandy get married! I was a groomsman. That was a lot of fun. Congrats you two!

Rehearsal Dinner


Alright, the mother of all blogs is done. I'm late for work. Peace.

busy summer

our summer has been jammed pack. megan and i are both looking forward to fall... well, i know i am :) megan would probably prefer that summer lasted a couple more months... school starts up for me next week and with that comes stability to our schedule. here are a few highlights from this last month. we had some good times, lots of time on planes and the rare occasion that found us in the automobile.

this week i flew on four consecutive days. megan and i flew to seattle on monday to hang out with ryan and emily (emily it was great to meet you, even if you did try to give us mono), then flew back to spokane on tuesday so that i could work that night. wednesday i flew to seattle and picked up my friend chappy and we headed down to san fran for some quality time before he and his family moved down to nola. we stayed the night and headed back on thursday. good times with great friends!

i would tell you the name of the pizza we had, but i would need you to fill out a disclosure stating you where 18 years or older... you can only find a place like this in san francisco.

next i had the pleasure to once again make my way to daroga state park for summer safari. megan was camp nurse and i was the MC and one of the speakers. it was a great week, probably one of the best all around camps that i have been apart of. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and some new ones. this is me and jay making up a bunch of rubbish as we attempt to explain the rules to dye wars.

the last day of camp a couple of us staff people hijacked one of the boats and got in some tube time... patrick got the short straw. on the outside of the patrick sandwich was, big bear... and bigger bear... phil is a little creatively challenged at times.

family reunion in moses lake for megan's mom side of the family. megan with cousins paige, aka "pp" and ashley, aka "munchkin".

check out the form... bowling is cheap in moses lake, we payed $1.25 each.

megan and i spent sunday afternoon at fost falls food fest to watch our good friend austin jam away with his band. it was over 100 degrees, even the shade could not keep the sweet from running off the tip of my nose. does anyone notice something different about megan...?