Noah and Katie: Engagement Party!

Last weekend we drove up from Bloomington to Wheaton (wow - a weekend visit!) for Katie and Noah's engagement party - a great Saturday night celebration with food and 50+ family & friends. And of course we all got to hear the newly engaged couple tell the story of their last year and the romance that now leads to marriage. Wedding date less than 4 months away!

*as folks arrived to the front door Jim took photos for a photo-guestbook (trans. Noah's flash cards), which is why several photos are group shots in the driveway

Noah and Katie (center) with Gieser cousins Susie and Melanie, who will be the matron of honor

The couple with more Gieser cousins (and spouses and some of their kids), Susie and Wendy, also bridesmatrons (if that's a word)...

And here's Gieser cousin Steve with wife and two of their three kids (sorry Steve was blinking)

And Jul with our friend Steve - hey the last time we had such a photo was in Cape Town!!! Now on this side of the ocean, Ivester. Who will make it back to South Africa first next?

Ah yes, the food!! The Gieser kitchen has seen many years of group parties and people jostling (good-naturedly of course) for stuffed shells and chicken piccata along the kitchen island. Mom you did a beautiful job of decorating and "setting stage" once again!!

And then of course there's the slave labor dishing up cake & ice cream for the guests. Well but we love to do it!

And Lars loves to eat it. He's Elf as a young boy, after all.

Katie and Noah, what moment in telling your story was this?! Maybe when Dad asked some particularly relentless question like "Tell us, Noah, what do you find most attractive about Katie?" But you answered calmly and flawlessly! Welcome to the family.

First days in Bloomington

Yep that's us. We're here now. (Well, we're always here.) And the blog title is currently under construction. I haven't had the heart to officially change it 100%... and I'm still in search of a good photo to put as the banner behind the title. At this point we're just "doing one thing at a time, slowly." That's life in transition!

Day One in Bloomington: move all our stuff into a storage unit! (Isn't this just a classic photo.) Fortunately Mom and Dad Gieser were with us (for a couple of days last week) to help, and so was Ryan Brasher - a Wheaton College buddy also studying at IU; he's 3 years into his PhD. It is a huge comfort to have a friendly, familiar face to welcome us here!


After we moved everything into storage except for a few clothes, we temporarily moved ourselves into a basement apartment at the home of a church family we met through a connection with a missionary friend in Cape Town. Yea, crazy. But Wow. Staying in this apartment has enabled us to have time to look for a townhome, Jim begins his assistantship/job and we slowly get familiar with the town.

Here we are in front of the Sample Gates on Indiana University campus. (Notice the cyclist at the left of photo. Lots of that around town, which excites us!) This area has long had several profitable sandstone quarries, so many of the buildings on campus like the ones you see here are built with it. Very beautiful.

Thoughts on 6 Weeks Back

It's now been about 6 weeks since we arrived back in the US! We expected there would be cultural readjustments or "reverse culture shock", although to be honest it's been tougher than we'd expected. Very frequently in the back of our minds we compare South Africa to the US (and vice versa), and sometimes feel funny when something here now feels unfamiliar or distasteful. But then there are a lot of simply funny moments, too.

Here's a taste of some thoughts and observations on American life and the readjustment these past weeks:

• Crossing the street: "Oh no! Which way do we look? Where are the cars coming from?! Okay okay, let's just GO." (US drive on the right. SA drive on the left.)
• Neighborhood security: there are no big walls in front of houses or burglar bars on the windows or electrified wires. People leave their car windows down when they park on the street! Some people even leave their houses unlocked when they go out!! (What a difference compared to Cape Town and everyone's hyper-sensitivity to safety and protection from crime.)
• Making telephone calls from one house to another: "Wait how expensive is this going to be? You mean I can make this phone call for free?" (SA landlines are costly and people avoid making calls.)
• People in the US seem to require much wider or bigger 'personal space' when standing in line or passing each other on the street or shop aisle. Americans will even give somewhat apologetic or sheepish looks and say, "Excuse me" as they pass by you in the grocery store, even when it doesn't require you to budge an inch. Sometimes I roll my eyes and think "Good grief man you're not even close to me."
• The cars are so big!! The first week or so that we had our Toyota Rav4 we thought, "Wow this is so spacious!" After a time of driving around on the roads here, now we're thinking, "Gosh this car is small." But we're so glad we have this car. Baby Beluga Tazz the Zippy.
• Grocery stores: so huge! Open 24 hours a day! (Why?!!) So many options! So much junk food! So expensive! Such exuberant and deceptive marketing on the packaging! ... well actually Jim is very excited about all the cereal options we now have again. And I love the bulk aisle.
• More on food: too many thoughts to put in one entry BUT one quick observation is how much Fast Food there is. There are so many options and chains. Just driving around town or on the highway there are innumerable McDonalds and Starbucks, and they are so tempting! No wonder it's easy to indulge (and thus indulge your waistline).
• Internet access: It's everywhere (esp. wireless) and it's fast. And you can download as much information as you want at no extra cost. People even seem to assume that everyone else has access at any time, just like they assume that everyone has a cell phone. (In SA the internet access is about 10 years behind - slower, more expensive and the user pays for the amount he/she downloads and uses.)
• Being close to family: wow we're actually in the same time zone as some of our family. And we can talk on the phone! And make plans to see each other sometime later this year or drive up for the weekend. I guess we hadn't even realised what we'd been missing - and it's a privilege to be near once again.

Today is our 8th!!

Today is our 8th Anniversary!

And this week we have safely arrived in Bloomington, Indiana - our new home for the next few years! We are officially Hoosiers now, though we still have no idea what that means. We've got lots of new things to learn about. (I'm using a red font in honor of the university's colors.) Although can we consider ourselves official if we don't yet know where we're going to live? Thankfully we were put in touch with a very gracious and generous family who have offered their basement apartment to us in the intervening weeks until we find our own place. And tomorrow Jim starts his new job/assistantship on campus.

More updates and photos of small town life in midwest America coming soon ...

You're all going to love Bloomington.

p.s. we've narrowed our house search option down to two places - and they are both 3 bedrooms. We're hoping to make a decision in the next few days. So who is going to be our first guest?! Dad?!

East Coast Road Trip: NY and PA

After DC we had a brief stopover in Maryland with Radu and Ruthie (longer next time we promise!!!!!) and then headed to beautiful, peaceful, rural New York to be with Uncle Chuck and Auntie Jo. As usual the highlights of our three days together were: long conversations, meals on the deck, working in the garden (ouch), hiking and bicycle-ing, and a special anniversary dinner out (40 years!). Wow, thanks you two!

Oh and the other highlight for me (Jul) is when U. Chuck lets me drive the '65 Chevy Truck. Sweeeet.

Heading out for a hike - a bit muddy after heavy rains but that made it more interesting! Also it was fun to use the Nordic walking poles. I'm going to keep an eye out for some on craigslist now.


On the weekend we drove to beautiful, peaceful, rural-urbs (is that really a new word?) Pennsylvania to see Mark and Kendra (good friends from Wheaton days) and Anna and Micah, who are both a lot bigger than the last time we saw them! What a joy to see them now settling into life, work and community in PA. Here are two shots of a short hike we did at a nearby state park (had to earn our Richey's ice cream, after all). The kids did great!


Pretty sure we are both laughing at Mark when this photo was taken ... or something to that effect. There's always a lot of laughing when we get together. Below, Mark works on grilling some ribs. Wow, delicious.

East Coast Road Trip: Washington DC

After leaving Durham we travelled up the east coast to Steve and Tiffany, currently living and working in DC area. This was actually the first time (since their wedding in '06) that the four of us having been able to spend time together!!

Above: the brothers

We arrived in time on Friday afternoon to see Steve "in action" at a funeral in Arlington National Cemetery, where he is now based with the Old Guard. Captain Gieser is also the executive officer of his company and the one who leads the procession and calls out the vocal commands (that's him with the sabre, on the left). Though you can't see it in this photo, there were about 100 soldiers and 6 horses involved in this funeral - complete with 21-gun salute, a band and a bugle playing "Taps." Quite an experience and a privilege to witness.



Yep, we're back in the good ole US of A. Can you tell?

Steve and Tiff (and the two baby girls-on-the-way)