John and Elizabeth are employed!

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's ....

John getting home from work on the moped.

Hello everybody! We're very sorry about the long delay in posting. Here's a quick update since it is late, and I need to go to bed soon!

John and I are employed! That's the biggest news.

John got a job at a used textbook store in town as a purchasing manager and will begin on Monday, November 5th. He'll have to say goodbye to the Penn State bakery where he's been working as a temp and enjoying all the baked goods he can possibly eat in one shift!

I (Elizabeth) just heard back today about the job I've been holding out for at the Centre County Women's Resource Center, and I got it!!! My title will be Counselor/Legal Advocate. I'll be doing a variety of things including accompanying victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking through the court system as their advocate, meeting victims at the hospital as part of a team that responds to reports of sexual assault, traveling to rural parts of the county to network and spread the word about the Center's services, meeting with victims living in rural areas to provide support services, etc. I'm starting on November 5th as well.

We went camping last weekend in Bald Eagle National Park with Pete and plan to go to Washington DC this weekend, our last home football weekend. We'll be staying with Chris this time, which we're really excited about.

Before I hit the hay, I think I'll post a few more pictures so you can see what we've been up to. We miss you all. We're thankful Christmas is fast approaching.

At the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC with our friend, Natalie

At the 5k Walk/Run for the Women's Resource Center in State College, PA
(Thank you to those who sponsored us! There was a very high turnout this year!)


Camping at Bald Eagle National Park last weekend near Howard, PA


It got so cold while we were camping that Pete had to stay in the car for good portions of the weekend to stay out of the wind.





Pete wasn't very fond of the camera when we first got him,
but I think he's starting to pose for us!

Bees!

Our neighbor, Liam, decided to harvest some honey this weekend so Terry and Sherry came up to watch. We helped cut the caps off of some of the frames and then extracted the honey by spinning it in the extractor. Here are some pictures...

Jamie cutting some caps

Elizabeth doing the same with Terry supervising

The honey pouring out of the extractor into a sieve

The finished product!

We also went out to the hives afterward to see the bees in action...

Liam smoking the bees so they calm down a bit.

One of the combs. The hive they are working on is called a "Top Bar" hive. The bees create the comb hanging down from the top bar that he is holding. It is supposed to be a more natural way to raise them, but it is harder to harvest the honey.

Bees at the entrance to one of the more traditional hives.

Well, no one got stung and he harvested about two gallons of honey, so I think it was a pretty successful day!

Here are a few more pictures of our campsite this past weekend. Hunter is very interested in what Elizabeth was cooking in the picture above. You can see our tent in the background; Darcy and Jamie's was just off to the left. Below is the swimming hole. The black bear that we saw would have been just at the top of this picture.

Pictures!!!

Kicking up our feet after a morning of swimming in the river. A few moments after John took this picture, he saw a brown bear on the other side of the river! Thankfully, Pete did not feel the need to prove his manhood right then.

A not-so-lovely camping shot of us in the tent... but at least you know we're still alive!

John and Pete sharing a book on the way back from Charlottesville.

We had a great time camping last weekend. John worked until 11:30pm Friday night so he didn't get to the campsite until close to 2am. Thankfully, we had a very restful time there with no schedule and great weather during the day. Saturday night, though, there was a HUGE thunderstorm. We braved it in our tents but listened with great attention to each crack of thunder while we fell in and out of sleep through hours of heavy raining. The cars weren't half a mile away, though, so we never felt like we were in much danger during the storm.

Here's a picture from Charlottesville the weekend before. We got to see Abby, but she's not in this photo:


We're staying in State College this weekend, just not at the house since there's another game. I'll be temping all day Saturday at a banquet event, but John has the whole weekend off. My parents are coming up to State College the next weekend to learn from our neighbor, Liam, who will be harvesting all the honey from the many beehives he maintains. My dad is interested in doing that eventually so he wants to watch.

Thanks to everyone who has posted so far! We miss you all.

Temping

Hi everybody! We got a new laptop while we were in Charlottesville because our other one was broken and didn't like our attempts to fix it! We're having some problems, though, getting our digital camera to work with this new computer so there won't be any pictures this time.

As far as work goes, I temped a couple of days last week at a construction office, and John started yesterday at an electronics factory. John's working 3:30pm until 11:30pm, Monday through Friday for two weeks which should be interesting. I start on Tuesday at an insurance office as a receptionist for two weeks. We're both on the job hunt and are grateful for these temp jobs that allow us to wait a little longer for jobs we're interested in. There's a position opening up at the end of September at the Women's Center here in town that I'm hoping to get. John's gotten to meet with a few Penn State professors, too, to talk to them about on-campus job opportunities. Being such a small town, much smaller than Lawrence even, State College doesn't have a ton of job openings so it's going to take us a little while to find a good fit. I've taken a few teaching jobs at the Red Cross while I'm looking, but I don't want to keep doing that so I'll only be taking a few.

Darcy, Jamie, John and I are going camping this weekend about an hour and one half away from State College. The Notre Dame vs. Penn State game is here this weekend so I'll be happy to avoid all the chaos by being up in the mountains! Jamie's a fan, though, so I think we'll be sneaking back into the nearest town to have dinner on Saturday night and watch some of the game.

We love all of you and miss you. Please feel free to post in response to any of this or to tell us what you're up to. We definitely read them (thanks Grandma and Papa for your posts!).

Labor Day Weekend

John and I will be heading down to Charlottesville, VA this weekend to see my parents and sister, Abby. Unfortunately, we won't be going through Washington DC where we could see Chris. Hopefully we'll get to do that soon, though.
Darcy and Jamie have rented out their home for all seven Penn State home football games in September and October so we will be doing various things each of those weekends. John and I are embracing this as a chance to get out and see the area, do a little camping, and go see friends in surrounding cities. We're planning to go camping a couple of hours from State College over the weekend after Labor Day with Darcy, Jamie, and the two dogs. Pete will LOVE being off leash in the forest for a couple of days where there are countless things to investigate.

Contact Information

We hope to hear from all of you!

JohnMWalk@gmail.com
ElizabethLCook@gmail.com

2335 Circleville Road
State College, PA 16803

Our cell phone numbers will stay the same, but we have Verizon now. If you have Verizon, too, our calls will not use any minutes.

John 785.766.6648
Elizabeth 913.485.5433

More Pictures From Pennsylvania

The Garden

More of the Garden. We have made fresh salsa with tomatoes and jalapeños from the garden. They also have green peppers, different types of lettuce, kale, peas, beets, carrots, parsnips, and a lot of different herbs.

The bee hive. The bees pollinate the garden so much that Darcy and Jamie have more tomatoes than they know what to do with!

One of the chickens

Hunter waiting for a treat. He loves to eat tomatoes!

First two weeks

Hi Everybody!

These first two weeks have been very busy. We've gotten our car registered, transferred our driver's licenses, applied to some jobs, met with Penn State faculty, moved everything into Darcy and Jamie's house, and John's managed to read the first FIVE Harry Potter books! We've so enjoyed spending a lot of time with Darcy, Jamie and Hunter. Pete has taken his time getting used to Hunter but they have had their moments of canine camaraderie... usually when there is a squirrel in the yard they both have their eye on.
We hope you'll check in once in awhile to see what we're up to, and we'll try to post on a regular basis. Drink an extra Los Tules margarita for us since there truly is NO Mexican food here! We think Los Tules II would be very successful here!

We have a flight booked for Christmas so we'll definitely see you all then if not sooner.

Much love,
Elizabeth, John and Pete

In the truck on the way out to Pennsylvania

2335 Circleville Road

Pete in the backyard listening to the sounds from the kitchen