Welcome to our life.

Oct 14, 2008

Coming Soon....

Baby Brown will be making an appearance somewhere near May 4th. We can't wait!

Oct 3, 2008

On Tuesday we took our good friend James back to Atlanta to catch his plane back to Scotland (via New York). He had been staying with us since last Thursday, having come to us from the Strains in Mississippi.

We hadn't seen James since the summer of 2007, so it was good to just spend some time catching up, and getting to know what was going on in Scotland and the Free Church.

James was our first guest in our new home, here in Savannah, and he did remarkably well with the primitive conditions which awaited him. I am afraid that the best we could do for him was set up an air-mattress in our Dining Room, and make that a make-shift second bedroom. Oh how we look forward to a house with more than one bedroom and more than one bathroom!

We showed him many of the sights of Savannah, and took him on a trip to Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina on Saturday. It was a beautiful day, and we spent it on the beach, enjoying the sun. It was nice just to relax by the sea.

A fun time was had by all.

Sep 13, 2008

Home Sweet Home.

We are, once again, sorry that there has been a lack of postage on the ol' blog. We have little excuse, but our reasons are as follows: 1) We had a crazy move in to our apartment, and are only now really getting settled, 2) We are adjusting to a new schedule, with Alex working and Sara staying at home, and not the other way around, and 3) We have no internet in our apartment and so have to blog form the church office.

However, all that aside, here are some pictures of our new home on 105 West Jones Street, Savannah. We are loving our new home. It is right in the historic district of Savannah, which means that we can feel uber-chic as we leave our home, and wander round our neighbourhood, and it also means that Alex can walk to work in 7 minutes. We love our apartment too. It is a step up, to say the least, from Atherton Drive in St. Louis. We have high ceilings (like, 12ft high high ceilings!), mouldings on the ceilings, picture rails, shutters and a back door into our bathroom. Here are some pictures:

Our bedroom, which is at the back of the apartment, overlooking the lane.

Our Living Room, which overlooks Jones Street, and the crowds of people lining up to eat at Mrs. Jones' Restaurant which is below us.

Our Kitchen.

And, our Dining Room, which is between the bedroom and the Living Room.

We like our home. Come visit us, and you will like it too!

Aug 19, 2008

An update.

Well, its been awhile since I've posted on this here ol' blog so I thought I'd put up a quick update. I apologize for the lack of pictures of late, but our furniture still hasn't arrived (a long sordid story to be saved for another day) which means I don't have that pesky cord to upload photos. So, my words will have to paint a picture for you!

We've been busy settling into life here in Savannah. Well, settling as much as you can without furniture. Friday was a bit of an emotional day filled with several heated conversations with our movers. In the evening we ventured out of downtown and found the closest Publix (Publix is the grocery store I grew up shopping at and I am thrilled beyond measure that I get to shop here again!) and also discovered another favorite grocery store, The Fresh Market. On Saturday we made a trip out to the beach and went for a walk amongst the sea-bathers. We didn't stay long because it was overcast and we only had enough change to buy 40 minutes at a parking meter. The rest of Saturday we just spent chilaxin' in our hotel room. Its been nice to have a change to just take naps, veg in front of the tv, and rest alot after the stress of moving. Sunday was a great day at church. We met lots of great people and alot of our anxieties about being in a new church went away. In the evening we went out to Point Pleasant (the camp that IPC owns on Wilmington Island) for the evening service and a meal. Yesterday Alex had his first day of work and loved it! (I won't say much more, though, I'll let him share.) In the afternoon we had out of town guests for a few hours. Alex's aunt and uncle along with their friends stopped in town for a few hours to see our new city on their way from Florida to Canada. We enjoyed having them. I'm afraid I might have walked their legs, off, though. A word of warning- the Savannah tour is a walking tour when you come to visit the Browns! Today Alex has been at work and I have been exploring the city on my own. I found the closest Target, got a library card, and now am hanging out in my most favorite place in the city, The Paris Market, which is a delightful little gift shop and cafe where you can get unique french inspired items and where, currently, I am enjoying the most deliciously refreshing beverage- a lemon pomegranate french seltzer. If you come to visit me I'll bring you here so you can partake in the joy that this lovely pink drink can bring!

Well, my friends, its off to explore some more. We'll get pictures up as soon as we can. Until then pray that Jose shows up with our furniture next Monday.

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday to my dear friend Sarah Hager!

Aug 14, 2008

We are here in Savannah!

We arrived safely in Savannah around 3.30pm this afternoon (thursday). Our stuff was picked up by Jose, and friend, on tuesday and we left St. Louis yesterday morning. Because our little car is pretty old we let him have it easy - we drove at 55-60mph almost all of the way to Chattanooga (getting there almost entirely one tank of gas!), where we spent the night in the Alumni guest room at Covenant College. For dinner that night we went down the mountain into Chattanooga to Sticky Fingers Barbecue, and had some pretty tasty ribs. We left Chattanooga around 8am and drove the rest of the way. It has been a long drive, but we are here, safe and sound. Our stuff will arrive either tomorrow or saturday - we will find out tomorrow morning when it will get here. But as for tonight we are relaxing in our hotel room, and will go and stroll around downtown.

(We took pictures, but the cable for getting them from the camera to the computer is packed in our coffee table. We will post pictures as soon as we have that, and a internet connection in our apartment by which to do it.)

Jul 26, 2008

A lot has happened since I last posted.

It has been a while since we last posted on this blog - as you probably noticed. Well, it is because life for the Browns has been a bit busy, a bit stressful, and a bit eventful.

I (Alex) finished up my first semester for a ThM at Covenant Seminary. It was a really great semester, and I learned a lot - I am very glad to have had the professors I had, and been in the classes I was in. It was good to be in such a different atmosphere from the Free Church College. The semester did end rather frantically, however, largely due to a miscommunication with the professor who was supervising an independent study paper that I was writing. However, I got all my papers in on time but not before coming close to packing it all in because of the stress - however, my lovely wife helped me get a grip and get the work done. I learned a lot about communication also.

In the last post Sara posted about our visit to Savannah, Georgia to visit with our friends the Wallers and to attend the Kirkin' O' the Tartans service, which really was an experience. However, the trip was also somewhat of a candidating trip for me - that part we didnt tell you. I had applied for the position of full-time Pastoral Intern at the Independent Presbyterian Church last year, when we thought we were getting married in June. Obviously our circumstances changed and so did IPCs, and they were unable to take on an intern last year, and so I thought nothing more about it. However, I got a call from Bradley Waller, asking if I would still be interested in the position as the church would still be interested in me if I were. So, part of this weekend in Savannah was an interview with Terry Johnson (the Senior Pastor) and Ron Parrish (an Associate Pastor), and a chance to meet with the elders, and also see if IPC was a place that I wanted to be. Well, it all went very well and I was offered the position and I have accepted. I start in Savannah on the 18th of August, and we will move down the week before.

So, that is very exciting, but it led to the dilemma of finding a place to live in a strange city which is half a country away. We couldnt make it down there, and so were left with the internet. This is fine except that we really wanted to live in downtown, historic Savannah but downtown Savannah has pockets of not-so-good places. The story is that it used to all be quite rough down there, but when the Savannah College of Art and Design came into town they ritzed the place up and have attracted people back to downtown. However, when inner-city regeneration takes place without a Revival, the bad elements do not go away, they just get pushed out a bit, and so downtown Savannah still has some places that are not ideal to move in to. These are the places that are often on Craigslist, and we were kinda clueless as to which parts were good and which parts weren't. So, with the help of Brad Waller and our friend Nate Henderson (whom we are still to meet), we waded through ads for apartments for a good few weeks, and depressingly were finding nothing that is suitable. By last week we had decided that we were going to quit looking in downtown and started looking at generic apartment complexes in the suburbs. They were nice enough, and most had a gym and pool, which was very nice and were getting excited about living in the suburbs. That is until Nate Henderson called. He had been on the phone to his old landlady, who had something for rent in the historic neighbourhood of Savannah, and we had first refusal on it. He told us that it did only have one bedroom, and were really looking for two but he could not have recommended it more highly. So, we got in touch with the landlady and thought about it for a couple of days and we have taken it.

Our new apartment is right above Mrs Wilkes' Boarding House! We will be living right in the heart of historic Savannah, just a few blocks from the church. We are pretty excited about living there, and are very glad that we did not opt for an apartment complex. Now we just need to work out how we are getting our stuff down there, but that is a lot less stressful of a prospect now that we have roof over our heads.

And that pretty much sums up things, for now.

May 7, 2008

Savannah

This past weekend we flew down to Savannah to visit our friends the Wallers and so Alex could speak to the youth at Independent Presbyterian Church during Sunday School. We enjoyed warm weather, a carriage ride tour of the city, a boat ride, a day at the beach, lots of good food, meeting new friends, resting, laughing, smelling the ocean, reliving childhood memories, and being away from reality for a few days. All in all it was a great trip! Here are just a few pictures from our little Southern adventure.