A Reminder of the old Bachelor Life...

Greetings from the Ryan Family. Yes, it's been a while since we've updated the blog, but that's just how life goes. We've probably lost all of our readers and there's no one around to check and see the updates anymore, but oh well - I feel like posting so I'm going to.
Life is moving on! Sunday will be our three-month mark of married life! Unbelievable! The wedding seems so long ago, a distant memory of a foggy time; kind of like "Remember when we were two and used to play in the mud?" Only a little sharper than that I suppose. We've had quite a few little activities and occurrences this semester to add color to our lives (that's one of the things I truly love about life - it's colorful). I've gotten to do a tiny bit of performing this semester, which has been really nice. It started over the summer with the Speech and Drama camp they do down at the college here. They have a faculty repertoire night that they asked me to perform in for the campers, so I refreshed my memory on a Dave Barry essay (Homicidal Impulses that Never Quite get off the Ground), and performed it for a smiling group of highschoolers. Several months later our church was putting together an evangelistic meal for the community and was looking for entertainment... Someone told them I did a mean Dave Barry, so I did a repeat performance for the men of the community. It went ok, I managed to get most of my meal down before I performed (there's nothing like an after-dinner performance), and it seemed to be well-received. After that was the church men's retreat. I was told to get together a group and come up with whatever we wanted to. I really utilized my friends on this one, and me and three other guys did a few different skits for the fellas on the retreat - they seemed to enjoy that as well. I'm scheduled to perform a small piece for the Praise Service here on campus come Thanksgiving as well. They're not big performances, but I enjoy getting to perform a bit here and there. It's in my blood I suppose. The real climax to this whole story is that I'm actually able to try out for the Fine Arts production here at the college next semester (Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare). Every semester the college puts on a large-scale Fine Arts production (Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan, etc.), and they do it right. I am almost always involved with these productions from the technical side, due to my job in the video/audio department, and therefore am unable to audition for any roles, but this time I've been given the go ahead to audition. If I make it, my department will work around me not being available for technical work - how exciting is that! I really do enjoy acting (more than any other kind of performing even) and am ecstatic that I've been given this opportunity. The unfortunate side of this is that auditions are on Monday, and I haven't picked out or practiced my audition piece yet. Teri's given me a few gentle encouragements, but I haven't quite gotten around to it yet. Something I'll obviously be doing in the next few days. Teri will be auditioning as well, so we may both be spending our evenings cavorting through Shakespeare's world next semester.
Married life is going very well. We're both enjoying having each other around, and being able to come home to each other at the end of a day. I've been having to work in the evenings a little bit of late, so that's not necessarily crazy fun in a together sort of way, but the busy season will subside after a little while and we should see more of each other in the evening. As long as we're working here, in the departments that we're in, there will always be seasons of evening busyness. We went on a church date night a little while back. The church fed us a prime rib dinner and Pastor talked about aspects of marriage - it was nice. They had you sitting at round tables with two other couples, so we got to meet a few people as well. I had a moment of slight embarrassment during the meal - we were eating our salads, and I was lost in thought. When I came to, I found myself holding my salad bowl in my left hand up near my mouth; my right hand was rapidly scooping salad onto my fork and speedily delivering it into my mouth. I have no idea why I suddenly began eating like a Hoover vacuum, but I slowly put the bowl back on the table and glanced around a little bit to see if anyone had noticed my sudden voracious habits. Teri did, of course, and we had a good chuckle over it.
Teri is on the church's lady retreat this weekend, so I'm playing the bachelor for the night. It's our first night apart (I know, I know, you don't really care), and it's actually kind of lonely in this ol' apartment. I'm getting a little sense for how Teri must feel when I'm at work. She wasn't sure she was going to go on the lady's retreat, but decided that she would, and I think it's a good move. Now that we're settled down into our lives down here for a little while, our attitudes are maturing a little bit, and we're feeling more invested in our church family down here. I can't tell you if she had a good time or not because she's not back yet - you'll have to stay tuned.
We're excited about our Christmas vacation coming up. We're actually going to get to visit Omaha, NE (Teri's folks); Ottawa, KS (old friend's of mine); and Colorado Springs, CO (more old friends as well as my old home town). We haven't done any big trips like this in a while (excluding the honeymoon I guess), so it'll be fun. We're excited at the thought of getting away and changing pace a little bit. Routine is ok, but it lacks variety.
God bless you all as you seek to use your talents for Him.

--Nick