Andy and Sheila's Weblog

Summer!

andyandsheila — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:24:46 +0000

Again, it has been WAY TOO LONG since we’ve updated. Busy, busy, busy. Hopefully we saw most of you while we were home in MN. We had a very relaxing vacation the first two weeks of July. Cabin, Twin’s game, Andy’s birthday, visiting with friends, etc. It was fabulous. We just returned from another week in MN/WI for our family camp, Northern Pines. It was excellent as always and wonderful to have the entire Otness family together at NP for the first time.

By now, we hope that we have been able to share with all of you our good news! If not, we are expecting a little bundle of joy around December 21. We just had our 20 week sonogram yesterday and are so excited to meet our little one. Check out Baby Smude’s very own website at http://babysites.com/sites/babysmude/ That site was also added to our blogroll at the right, so check back often to see how the little peanut is doing before and after December 21!

Sadly, the “summer” is quickly coming to an end for Sheila. While the very hot weather we’ve had here in Maryland this summer continues and the true summer won’t be done for quite awhile, she has to report back to school on August 19th and the kids start the 25th. The short two months flew by!

Andy is staying very busy at work having taken so much time off this summer. He didn’t miss much while he was gone, but projects are back in full swing now. He is also still running every day. He has more than 200 days in a row and still going strong. He is even toying with the idea of a triathlon in the future. We’ll see.

We hope your summer has been wonderful and relaxing. As always, we would love to host you in Maryland. You are always welcome and we LOVE to have visitors. Blessings to you and yours.

He is Risen!

andyandsheila — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:07:31 +0000

We pray that you had a blessed Easter and were able to take the time to reflect on the true meaning of Easter and the celebration it is. We enjoyed a moving and exciting worship service at church. Andy played his trombone in the rocking praise band. It so wonderful to be reminded of all that Christ did for us!
We enjoyed having Andy’s sister, Rachel, join us for the holiday weekend. She arrived Thursday and we spent Friday in DC sightseeing and enjoying the beautiful cherry blossoms in peak bloom. Beautiful!

It was a gorgeous weekend with temperatures in the 70s. This weather is supposed to continue with even warmer days Tuesday and Wednesday. While Rachel was with us we did a ton of cooking: sugar cookies, nachos with homemade refried beans, egg bake, yum, yum, yum! We also did some shopping! Sheila loves her new dresses and Andy is thankful for new shoes, that will keep his feet dry!

The month of March flew by! Sheila had spring break this past week and is not quite ready to return to school tomorrow, but enjoyed her Mary Kay conference, volunteering at a Compassion Radio-a-thon, and doing some scrapbooking. She didn’t get to sleep in quite as many days as she would like, but got a lot done on the to-do list.

Andy recently finished a big project at work and enjoyed a few slow weeks. He is currently looking forward to the next big project with 40 flights starting this week. He had the opportunity to attend an Engineering Excellence Round Table Discussion at Boeing offices in Crystal City, VA. At the event they talked about what engineering excellence mean and what the road blocks to engineering excellence are and how to overcome them.

Andy has also been running a minimum of a mile everyday. Today was day 80! Sheila is impressed and occasionally runs with him. Andy ran his best mile yet on Saturday with a 6:56. He was excited to have made his goal of going under seven minutes.

Looking forward to spring! Hope all is well with our family and friends around the country. Leave us a note to let us know you visited.

Andy and Sheila with Miguel, A Compassion LDP Student

Fighting Back Against Cancer!

andyandsheila — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:52:05 +0000

Help support us in our fight against cancer by donating to our American Cancer Society Relay for Life Team. Click on the image above to go to our personal donation page. Thanks in advance for your support!

Office/Scrapbooking Room

andyandsheila — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:00:52 +0000

Here are photos of our office. Andy built Sheila a HUGE scrapbooking desk out of craft storage cubes and MDF. It is currently much messier than the photo as Sheila has been utilizing the space a lot during her week off. This room is traveled themed. All the decorations have been acquired when we have traveled the world! This is also the room Sheila runs her Mary Kay business out of (more like out of the closet). Also, notice the beautiful parquet hardwood floors that are throughout the house.

Scrapbook desk

Above the scrapbook desk

View from the doorway of second desk, closet is on wall to the right

Living Room

andyandsheila — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:37:56 +0000

I realized that we have not posted photos from all rooms of the house. Here is the living room finished. We hope to build built-in bookcases across the wall where the TV is now and mount the TV someday. The first picture does not show the paint color well, but the second one does. We love the color. It is different depending on the time of day. We store all of our many boardgames in baskets under the coffee table. The window is very large behind the couch but it was too sunny to capture it. Enjoy!

Uppercase Living expression I finally had time to put up. Love it!

More Like Snow WEEK!

andyandsheila — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:26:31 +0000

Well, it has been a week filled with snow! It has been pretty crazy around here weather wise. We got 12 inches Jan. 30, and then another foot this past Friday to Sat. Places north of us got up to 32 inches this past weekend! They thought that was the blizzard to end all blizzards out here, but then we got freezing rain on Tuesday and another blizzard on Wednesday! Needless to say, we are having a snowier Jan. and Feb. than MN!

It started last Friday with the blizzard moving in. People were stocking up as if they weren’t going out for a week, I guess they were right. There wasn’t a loaf of bread, carton of eggs, or snow shovel to be had.

School has been canceled for over a week. Last Friday they called of snow in ANTICIPATION of the snow, which while it started snowing 10:15 a.m. on Friday, in didn’t start accumulating until around 5 p.m. We could have had school. Then each day since Sheila has received a phone call from the county reporting school closed the next day. Yesterday, they didn’t just close school for today, but Friday as well.

It takes them a long time to clean up snow around here. They just don’t have the equipment. Although, they aren’t very efficient at it either. The two highlights of watching Southern Marylander’s deal with snow have been: 1) watching ELEVEN snow plows going down the main road at the same time, while we sat at Applebee’s with only 10 other people brave enough to be out. You’d think the plows would know to split up and be more efficient. 2) Our neighbor must not have wanted to shovel the driveway, because we watched him last night drive his SUV back and forth, back and forth on his driveway to pack down the snow. He almost got stuck once too!

Without have school, Sheila is getting so much done at home, including lots of scrapbooking. Having all this time has been awesome! Even the Navy base was closed yesterday, so Andy got a snow day too! We pretty much don’t have a single thing left on the to-do list. Sheila realized that in the past 13 days, something has been canceled each day due to the weather:
Jan. 30- Sheila’s grad class canceled
Jan. 31- Church canceled
Feb. 1- School canceled
Feb. 2- Relay for Life meeting canceled
Feb. 3- Sheila’s grad class canceled
Feb. 4- Andy’s rehearsal canceled
Feb. 5- School canceled
Feb. 6- Sheila’s grad class canceled
Feb. 7- Church canceled

Feb. 8- School canceled

Feb. 9- School canceled

Feb. 10- School canceled and Sheila’s classes canceled

Feb. 11- School canceled

Feb. 12- School canceled

Isn’t that crazy! No wonder we’ve gotten so much done!
Here are some photos of the snow prior to the second blizzard on Wed. where we got 5-6 more inches at our house, but DC and Baltimore got between 10-19 inches. Thankfully it is sunny today and it is melting quickly.

View from the door Sunday morning

Tree in the front yard

For Valentine’s we are going to go to a sushi bar in town and exchange gifts. Nothing too big. We are watching our friends’ 3 kids (ages 6, 4, 3) this weekend and staying at their house, so that will be fun. We are looking forward to it. May you honor and celebrate those you love in an extra special way this Valentine’s Day. They deserve it! Leave a comment to let us know you visited!

SNOW DAY!

andyandsheila — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:35:50 +0000

Well, it is VERY white outside today. This is the 4th time it has snowed in Maryland since December. Since it only snowed twice all last winter, this is a lot. Yet, being from Minnesota, we love it AND CAN drive in it, unlike the rest of Southern Maryland. No one is outside today, including us. We slept in, made pancakes, played the Wii, and exercised. Andy is trying to run a minimum of 1 mile a day for a year and I have worked out everyday for the past 15! We’ll get some house work done this afternoon and correct some papers.

I was supposed to have a final session of a grad class this morning, but with the impending snow, the class was moved to last night. So, one more class down. This one was very informative and I have my e-portfolio up and running! 5 classes left until I have my masters! I start two more this week. Wednesday nights February and March, and Saturdays in February.

The marriage ministry Andy and I are a part of held a date night last night. 32 couples came and played “The Not Necessarily Newlywed Game”. Everyone had a great time. Andy and I are passionate about building strong, Christ-centered marriages and were extremely pleased by the turnout and fellowship that occurred. We had a great time too, even though we didn’t do so well at the game!

Work has been VERY busy for both of us. We are trying hard to keep a balanced life by eating well, exercising, and deliberately planning in date nights and relaxing, do whatever time.

We hope that your January was a great beginning to 2010 and that you have a wonderful and relaxing weekend. Remember to take time for yourself and spend time with the ones you love.

The Past 5 Months in Review

andyandsheila — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:35:32 +0000

Wow! It has been WAY too long since we posted. Life is good, but very busy!

Here are some highlights from the past few months.

August:

- We traveled back to Minnesota for Paul and Amber Smude’s wedding.

- Sheila went to Northern Pines Camp in Wisconsin with her family.

- Andy was on travel for work for three weeks in Wichita to help out with another program.

September:

- We traveled back to Minnesota again for Ryan and Sarah Lee’s wedding.

- Our friends Jenna and Cora came down to visit from the bustling metropolis of New York City.

October:

- We traveled out to Colorado Springs, CO for the National Advocates Conference for Compassion International.

- Traveled up to New York City to visit friends.

- Our friends Andrew and Marike came up to visit us from Richmond on Halloween.

November:

- Sheila attended a conference for Compassion International in Philadelphia, PA.

- Sheila’s birthday!

- The Otness’ flew us to Minnesota to surprise the rest of our family for Thanksgiving!

And that brings us to December.

Sheila has been loving her 3rd Grade class this year at Park Hall Elementary. The behind-the-scenes work can be frustrating and tiresome, but it is very rewarding to see kids learn! She has been officially accepted to a Master’s program through The College of Notre Dame of Maryland in Leadership in Teaching with an emphasis as a Library Media Specialist (talk about a mouthful!). She is hoping to be complete after next fall.

Andy has been busy with a couple new projects at work. It is leading to quite a bit of overtime, and he is enjoying his increased responsibilities. He is just finishing up with his second course towards his Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering through the University of Southern California, and has decided to take next semester off with his increased work load.

The first official day of winter is right around the corner, and it has been getting colder in southern Maryland lately. Andy has had to scrape his car the past three mornings in a row! And colder weather in Maryland means lots of rain. We just got a ton of rain last Saturday, and it’s raining again tonight!

We went to pick out our Christmas Tree last week, and found a really nice one. It is standing in our living room, proudly displaying it’s silver and gold ornaments and topped off by a beautiful, bright red bow. We both love this time of year, preparing both our home and our hearts for the Christmas Holiday. We are anxious to be headed home to spend Christmas with our family and friends in Minnesota.

Headed Home

andyandsheila — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:04:09 +0000

Wow, it has been a great week here in Ireland. We have seen so much and truly enjoyed our visit. We are headed to the airport in Shannon this morning (in the rain). We did see some rain everyday we were here but some days were much more wet than others.
On Wednesday on our way from Killarney to Waterford, we stopped in Cahir to see a castle with a moat and battlements and everything. It was like a maze to crawl through, but very fun. We also went to Cashel and saw that Rock of Cashel. There is an old church perched on the top of this rock that is perched about this small town. Hard to explain, but beautiful to see. We enjoyed our time at Waterford Castle, even though it wasn’t exactly what we expected. We enjoyed tea by the fire after a hike around the grounds. We relaxed in our room in our complimentary robes and slippers!
On Thursday we went through Kilkenny on our way to Dublin. This cute medieval town is right on a river and has a beautiful, large castle fully decorated. This was Sheila’s favorite castle. We made it through the Dublin traffic without to much worry and headed straight to the Guineess Storehouse. The seven floor muesum built around the original brewery was very informative and enjoyable. We enjoy our free pint from the top floor that has window 360 degrees and affords great views of the city. We spent the evening visiting pubs in the Temple Bar area (and Temple bar itself).
On Friday morning we took a bus tour around Dublin to see the highlights. Then we made the 3 hour drive across the country from Dublin to Galway. Galway is on the west coast and was celebrating its annual arts festival so it was booming. We enjoyed walking around this large city with a small town feel. We took a long trek out to Salthill, a seaside resort area with beautiful beaches and enjoyed dinner with ocean views. Caught some traditional irish music some pubs before retiring to our B&B.
Saturday morning we got up early to drive to a small town called Doolin to catch a ferry to the Aran Islands. These three small islands in the north atlantic were a highlight of the trip. Even though it was raining, we rented bikes to bike around the island of Inishmore. We stopped for lunch on the rocks overlooking a seal colony. We did see a few seals swimming far out. We also saw a huge pod of dolphins playing just off the coast. There is an old fort a top 300 foot cliffs that we extremely enjoyed. This trip was one of our favorite activities of the trip, even though it rained most of the time and poured on the ferry ride back. This was Andy’s favorite event.
We enjoyed some amazing beef and Guiness stew for dinner before catching the sunset on the Cliffs of Moher. AMAZING!!!!! Sheila’s favorite part of the trip.
So, now we are off and we hope to upload more photos for you to view soon. Take care and we hope to see many of you while we are in MN for Paul’s wedding July 29-Aug 2.

Hello from Ireland

andyandsheila — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:06:15 +0000

Hello everyone. We hope summer is treating you well. We just wanted to give you a quick update from Ireland. We decided to take a summer vacation abroad and we are completely enjoying ourselves on the Emerald Isle. We flew into Shannon on Monday morning and spent the day touring Bunratty and Blarney castles. We even kissed the Blarney stone. We then met up with Sheila’s childhood friend from Northern Pines, Kelly Seamans. She lives near Cork and she took us around, showed us the ropes, and let us stay with her. She took us to dinner at this beautiful manor house and then out to the local pub. Andy is fully enjoying the bounty of Guiness available here. He is also enjoying the challenge of driving a manual on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road on some VERY narrow roads at 100km per hour. We’re lucky to still be alive! (Just kidding)
On Tuesday we drove about an hour southeast to Killarney. We walked the town streets and did some shopping while trying to stay out of the rain. It has rained off and on since we arrived. The sun is shining now, but it is chilly today.
In Killarney we visited Muckross House, gardens, and lake. We also saw Torc Falls and St. Mary’s Cathedral. We drove part of the Ring of Kerry and saw some of the most beautiful green country side. Not to mention an amazing beach on Dingle bay, covered in jellyfish! Last night we spent a few hours at Murphy’s pub enjoying traditional Irish music and more Irish beer! Today we are off to Tipperary, Cashel, and then Waterford where we will be spending the night at Waterford Castle. We can’t wait!

We plan to do a more thorough update about the trip and the months of May and June (oops, where did they go?) when we return to the States. We love you all and hope you are doing well.