The Team is Getting Bigger

It's been WAY too long since we last blogged but we'll skip all the boring stuff and go right to the biggest thing in our lives since then. As most everyone knows now... we're pregnant. (Not so much we I guess as me.) The due date is October 10th, we did not find out what the sex of the baby is and we're both super excited. The nursery is almost ready as we mostly just have a few finishing touches and need a crib. Now we're in a "wait and get huge" phase. I feel big already but I'm sure as the next three months come and go I will learn a whole new meaning of big. We'll keep you updated though with pictures of the growing belly and more importantly baby pictures after the little one joins us. -April

Snow, Snow, SNOW!

So tonight for the second time, we enjoyed one of the many joys of homeowning: shovelling the driveway. I remember as a kid, I used to really dislike shovelling the snow, mostly because I didn't really see the point. But tonight in the quiet darkness that comes so much earlier in the evening these days, perhaps I discovered something different about this driveway; it's mine. And as my breath steamed past my eyes in the cold, I realized the audacity the snow must have, landing on MY driveway. Smiling to myself, I turned a chore into a game, a battle of will. "Snow on my driveway? I don't think so!" And for the second time, we procceeded to let the snow know who's driveway this was. "That's right, there are some new shovels in town, and we're clearing out the riff raff. Tell your friends."
TeamFreed 2, Winter 0.
I'm pretty sure after tonight, the snow will start falling just on the yard, in an effort to avoid another embarrassment.
On a side note, my sister asked me if I thought my kids would be competitive. The only way that could happen, I responded, was if we had kids. ;)

Paint, Paint, and more Paint!

When buying a house you have to make it feel like your own. That usually means painting. Painting we have done. Luckily it has not all been done by just Wilder and I. Thanks to both of our parents, Amy, and Alan we were able to pretty much finish it in one weekend. Here are some before and after shots of a few of the rooms in the house.
Kitchen (after only):

Living Room:

















Dining Room (after only):


Family Room:

Turkey Day!!!

Well, what's a brand new house without a rush to clean everything up? We ambitiously decided to host Thanksgiving this year, and didn't really realize what we were getting ourselves into until about a day before the inlaws started showing up. But, since we're not the sort of people who admit when we're in over our heads, April and I scrambled to get everything ready for our first large scale meal. Amy and Kash drove in wednesday night from Des Moines to join us, David, and the Freed parents in an amusing night of Nintendo Wii fantasticness. Anyone who is wondering, "Is the Wii fun?" It sure is. And you know it's especially amazing when my mother is celebrating after serving an ace right past me in Wii tennis.
So late Thursday night DJ and Alan roll into town, and Thursday morning the preparations begin. We had all the classic Turkey day stuff, including my crowning achievement, a 22 lb bird (cooked brilliantly, if I do say so myself). But it was my wife that was the star, coordinating the first beautiful multi dish nine person meal in the history of our new home. This year, I decided to flex my creative muscles, and put together a comic book commermorating our first Thanksgiving. I took pictures of everything, and it came out prett well. I'm not quite sure how to share it with the world yet, so stay tuned. It was a fantastic day with friends and family. Not everyone could be there, but hey, there's always next year.

New House!

Wilder and I finally bought our first home! We are so excited. We closed on October 31st, which was only about three weeks after we first saw the house. God was really faithful in our search even though I did not always realize that. He stalled us with another house for just the perfect amount of time to be able to get this one. We first put on offer on a different house in the beginning of September, hoping to close by the end of September. We knew it needed some work but offered below asking in order to be able to do that. We were so excited. We waited over four weeks to get a response of no from the seller. It was a long discouraging process. We started looking agian even before we heard back. We weren't see anything that we liked as much as that house. The the first week in October we found the perfect house for us. It had only been on the market for a few days and we made an offer the very next day. We are pretty sure that we got a great deal on the place and are looking forward to many years here to grow as a family.

A New Gopher Football Season

So last night we went to the Golden Gophers' home opener football game against Bowling Green. Every year, the Gophers' first game is a tune up game against a lesser school, so they can iron out some of the kinks in the system before they play someone dangerous... Well, that was supposed to be the plan anyways. So April and I went to the game with our friends Kim and Ellen, and we sat in the student section near where the players run out onto the field, and there was excitement in the air as the possibilities of a whole new season hovered only moments away.
Excitement turned to frustration as a pourous defense and an inexperienced offense let Bowling Green (who?) head into half time leading the Goph's 21-nil. Not exactly the start we were expecting from the tune up game.
Alot of the students started leaving, and the fans didn't look very happy. And then the gophers did something amazing. They got a stop on defense. We finally scored a touchdown, and April told me to start taking pictures of the score and the game as it progressed, in case we were about to witness an impressive comeback.
And slowly but surely, The Gophers got back into the game...
And then tied it up...
And with two minutes left we took the lead!
It was an amazing feeling to watch as looming embarassment turned to new hope, but unfortunately, our defense had to make a stop for us to win. And so into overtime we went, and after regaining the lead, we lost to Bowling Green in overtime. So begins the Brewster era in Minnesota. It could be a long season.

Cabin Fever

Unfortunately the title has nothing to do with a cabin. We neither own a cabin or have been to one in quite a while. It is referring to us being in the midst of a home search and being ready to move out of Wilder's parents' house. They've been so great to let us stay here while we look for jobs and then a house but it is now past time for us to have our own place finally. We are beginning to look seriously now, instead of just on the internet like I've been doing for the last two year. What an overwhelming process! We're in the middle of trying to find a realtor so we can then start looking at houses and not be restricted to open houses only. We are also praying that the right place will come along; by right I mean for the right price. We really only care about location and price (and a little bit about size). We are very willing to buy a place that needs some updating as long as it is nothing to big that needs to be done. Now I just need to be patient for the right one at the right time.

Hole in one!

One thing that we have been enjoying this summer is disc golf. Brent gave Robin some discs at the start of the summer, and so we decided that we would get a couple discs to play as well so we could play a round every now and then with Baby sister. We did not realize how much fun we would have! So we've been playing more and more, and learning about different discs and different courses. My favorite course, of course, is at Covenant Pines. What I like most about it, besides being at the ever amazing Pines, is that there are three sets of tees, so while there are only nine sets of chains, you can play twenty seven holes, and the courses range in difficulty.
So we were up at the Pines this past weekend, and I was playing the yellow course with some of the guys (yellow is the shortest set) and on the first hole, I threw a hole in one! I was really excited, because it was my first hole in one. I ended up seven under par for the yellows, and it really encouraged me to get better; it's funny how we tend to work harder at the things we're better at. Shouldn't we work more on the things we're worse at? Anyways, I love Disc Golf.