All things Young

An update from Erin

2006-05-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

Mark celebrates his 9-week birthday today--yay! Sorry we haven't written much at all. I've barely found time to upload photos to FlickR these past few weeks. I guess I owe a brief overview of the past 9 weeks.

We had some nursing struggles the first few weeks but with the help of excellent lactation consultants and the support of good friends from church, at around 4 weeks Mark started nursing correctly with some assistance. Now at 9 weeks we're doing much better. He is on a 3-3.5 hour schedule more or less--eat, wake time, diaper change, and naptime. Mommy often naps with him. He is sleeping 7-8 hours straight at night which is a MARVELOUS blessing. He has his 2-month checkup tomorrow and will start getting his vaccines (ouch).

Mark is now starting to smile back at you when you smile at him (and are about 6-8 inches from his face!). This is HUGE to us first-time parents. He also coos and makes "talking" sounds. I swear he even laughs/gurgles a bit when he's excited that you're excited that he's smiling. His most fun time is right after feeding--he moves into a "quiet alert" state where he smiles, coos, and is in a great mood. He also fills his diaper during that time!

Daddy went back to work after 4 weeks of paid paternity leave (yay for Microsoft!). Although that is an amazingly long leave in the corporate world, the time went too fast. And unfortunately some fires sprang up at work that caused a lack of progress on the next deadline, so when he came back no one had been able to do his work for him. Needless to say work has been a little hectic with trying to cram too much work into too little time. But Mark is always glad to see Daddy come home so he has someone new to smile at!

Well Mark just woke up from his nap and he sounds unhappy. I will try to write more again sometime soon!

A brief break in guests...

2006-04-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

After a whirlwind of wonderful family visits, Matt and I get a short break until Minnesota friends arrive May 3. It has been great to have help with the household tasks, shopping, meals, and baby care. Matt and I got to go on a date to see a Shane & Shane (Christian acoustic guitar group that is awesome!!) concert while Auntie Abby babysitted!

Mark continues to grow and change--he's now 6.5 weeks old! Last week he weighed 9lbs 6oz and was 21" long. I swear he's starting to smile on purpose (not just when he has gas) and can bat his hands at hanging toys. His quiet alert awake times are so much fun--I was even able to give him a bath today without him crying!

I uploaded photos to FlickR from Matt's parents' (Joe & Ellen) visit and my sister Abby's visit. That will have to do for now until I find more time. :)

I've fallen in love with a burrito... and I think you will too :)

2006-03-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

IMG_0091
Originally uploaded by matt.young256.

I finally decided on a photo hosting service, sorry for taking so long. I know many of you were ready to hop on a plane just to get a peek at the little guy.

This collection is from Mark's first two weeks. We just wrapped up week 3 today, which I hope to post tomorrow. Isn't he cute!

Oh! You can order prints using flickr, but I believe you need to signup for an account before you *see* the order prints option.

Finally home :)

2006-03-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

Mark came home yesterday for the first time, home sweet home.

I've now had a taste of caring for the little guy for entire day and I'm starting to understand the meaning of sleep deprivation! :)

Here are some more pics of the little guy.

Day 3 - Sleeping boys.

Sleeping while being burped.

Sleeping at home, how adorable.

Day 2

Mommy holding Mark for the first time.

Baby Young has arrived!

2006-03-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce the arrival of the newest addition to the
Young family! At 4:05 am Thursday 3/9/06 Mark Andrew entered the world weighing in at 7 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches of pure boy!

Post-Christmas update

2006-02-11T00:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve written. Christmas is always a busy time of year so I guess now that it’s February I don’t have any excuse! I’m sorry if you’ve heard some of this before, but I’m writing to a diverse audience so please bear with me!

First, a baby update. I am now 36 weeks along and my due date is March 9. My belly is getting bigger but my weight and size are on track for a “typical” pregnancy so that’s reassuring. The doctor said yesterday “this is going to be a March baby” and isn’t concerned about me going into labor early unless my water breaks unexpectedly. We are having a boy (yay!) and are so excited. I recently set up the Pack ‘N Play with bassinet where our son will sleep the first few months—just looking at it every day is a serious reality check! And no, we’re not entirely sure on the name, but the list is down to 2-3 now. We’re just going to have to meet him to decide. My family held a baby shower while in Wisconsin over Christmas (thanks Mom and Abby!) and we received many needed things. Then 2 weeks ago our church threw us a surprise baby shower with everyone from the church—we thought we were having dinner with one family, but everyone was there to celebrate with us! We were incredibly blessed and I now feel satisfied we have the essential starting gear for our son.

Our church, Crossings Community (www.crossingscommunity.com), is simply amazing. It’s small, about 50-75 people. Their generosity towards others and commitment to love and community is authentic. They really believe the Bible is truth and that we need to constantly apply it to our lives, changing our ways where they don’t match up with God’s. Each Sunday we are treated to an exegetical teaching (currently from Ephesians) by one of the leaders in the church. They are committed to building strong families and individuals first, then building the church into maturity. Currently 3 of the leaders are in process to be sent out from our body for training in church planting (in Iowa, of all places!). We are partnering with another church there that is aligned with our values and has been training up leaders for many years. Our 3 leaders are training up several other men to lead our body. Everyone is encouraged to serve the body and reach out to non-believers using the gifts God has given them, and there is much mentoring and accountability.

Speaking of serving the body, Matt is starting to get involved on the worship team at Crossings. He’s played drums and guitar a few times. It’s been great to get the drums out of storage, haul them to church, set them up, hear Matt play them, then tear them down and take them home (often I wonder why I married a musician who has to bring 8 “instruments” with him in order to play!). Just this past week Matt figured out how to fit all the drums in the car with the baby seat (and me) so we’re covered in that regard—I was a bit concerned about the baby fitting. J I’ve volunteered to edit a core doctrinal document written by one of the leaders (the it’s and its were driving me nuts) so it looks like I may serve as the grammar editor for future writings. We also started attending a Friday night Bible Study called First Principles covering the foundational beliefs of our faith. We just finished a study on marriage, the family, and roles of men and women, and are thankful Crossings is dedicated to teaching the basics before trying to actively incorporate new people into the church. There is a lot more unity and really knowing each other when you wrestle through and agree on core beliefs and practices in a small group. And we are VERY thankful for the equipping Maranatha gave us in these same areas!

Sorry to talk so much about Crossings but it is a huge part of our lives here and we love it! God is so good.

Matt’s job at Microsoft is a mixture of satisfying technical challenges and frustrating corporate bureaucracy. He is dedicated to writing quality software that people can use and that makes his company money. Thankfully his team has the same outlook and methodologies for achieving that goal—he works with wonderful people who recognize his skills and encourage him to make things better. Mostly we’re learning to let the frustrating things slide and learn from the experience. It’s really confirming that some day we’d like to run our own business, though we recognize the benefits of working for a large company. For example, my pregnancy has cost us $0 for medical care and Matt gets 4 weeks of PAID paternity leave when I go into labor. It’s an amazing blessing!

Matt still does Guys’ Night Out on Thursdays (after a 3-week break to attend Childbirth Prep classes with me—what a great husband!) with Rob and several other friends. Sunday mornings he has breakfast with the Crossings men. In the evenings he plays his guitar, dreams of buying a guitar amp, and escorts me on walks around the neighborhood. He takes excellent care of his pregnant wife, often offering foot rubs when I’ve had a tiring day. :) My days are full of housewifey things like cleaning and laundry, running errands, getting new tires on the car, working freelance on websites, sleeping, reading, shopping Goodwill/Salvation Army for baby bargains, going for walks, and trying to eat healthy. We spend a lot of weekend time together, savoring the freedom of “no baby yet”.

Last but not least, for all you folks with snow still, our weather. This past week it has been 75 degrees every day, and the crab apple type trees are laden with blossoms. So I guess we went straight from fall to spring here… still so strange to us.

I’m attaching some photos: my baby belly at 34 weeks, the crazy daddy-to-be breaking the rules as usual and both of us at Yosemite in December (this is a redwood tree that fell over—you’re looking at the roots). We miss you all very much and hope to return to the Midwest in June for 10 days or so. Hope all is well with you, and when you have a minute we’d love to hear an update on your life!

Love,

Erin, Matt, and Baby

Update on the youngs

2005-09-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

The first piece of news that we can finally tell everyone is: we’re pregnant! We’re about 13 weeks along or so, due in early March. Sorry, but we couldn’t tell that many people before telling our own parents! We are super excited!! And yes, we plan to find out whether it’s a boy or girl ahead of time, but we haven’t decided if we’re going to tell anyone (ha ha).

Next news, we made it to CA. Quite the interesting past few weeks, but very glad to be here. Don’t miss the humidity in MN at all. It still hasn’t sunk in that we now are going to live here, but I’m sure that will be more real once Matt starts work and we move into our apartment and make it a home. Here’s a rundown of what’s been happening, and what will happen:

Aug. 19: We get to hear the baby’s heartbeat at our doctor’s appointment (about 170 beats per minute). We tell Erin’s Mom and Dad they are going to be grandparents… the expressions on their faces! Everyone is excited.

Aug. 23: The packers (not from Green Bay) put all our stuff into boxes and put bar codes on each box. That night begins our homelessness as we move into a nearby hotel.

Aug. 24: The loaders put all the boxes on a 75-foot semi trailer to take to storage in CA. They estimated we had 4,000 lbs of stuff; the average house is 10,000 lbs. Really nice guy that drove the truck and oversaw the loading.

Aug. 25: Someone else shows up to put our car on a trailer. We start our American rental car ordeal (hmmm, how much should I say about this?!?!). Let’s just say we appreciate our Toyota even more now.

Aug. 26-30: We flew to Denver to vacation in Estes Park for a few days. Second American rental car. ;) Stayed at Aspen Winds, a neat luxury suites place run by a Christian family (thanks, Bennetts!). Toured Rocky Mountain National Park, and continued dreaming about the hopefully future day we will be able to live in the Colorado mountains. Matt calls his parents to ask if they’re ready to be grandparents—they give an enthusiastic yes!

Aug. 30-31: Stayed with Uncle Carl and Auntie Linda in the Cities, chilling out, with the 3rd American rental car. Made sure to eat at our favorite restaurants before saying good-bye to the Twin Cities for a while.

Sept. 1: We arrived in CA, picked up the 4th American rental car, settled into our temp housing—a furnished apartment (think 1-bedroom apartment meets hotel with less maid service) in Sunnyvale paid for by Microsoft. It was a long day, with many surprises, including the fact that Microsoft had reserved my plane ticket but never actually purchased it! So when I went to board, they wouldn’t let me on the plane. We called our relocation person and left a message, then called Microsoft Travel directly and they worked with the airline to get the ticket purchased so we could get on (they held the plane 10 minutes for us!).

Sept 2: We find out (for the 2nd time) that our car is set to be shipped to Bakersfield, CA (a long way from Sunnyvale; they were supposed to have fixed this) but is currently in the Bay Area. We frantically call our 2 contacts for relocation and car moving services.

Sept 3: They turned the truck around that was carrying our car and delivered it to our temp housing. Yay!

Sept: 6: Matt will start work at Microsoft, beginning with orientation that includes getting his laptop, explanations of benefits, etc. Erin will start planning the IKEA purchases for the new apartment (we will get to have matching livingroom furniture!).

Sept: 26: We will start moving into our apartment, a 1-bedroom with 713 square feet, black granite counters, cherry wood cupboards, washer/dryer, a huge walk-in closet and bathroom, and non-white walls (taupe, sage, etc.). Matt estimates it will be a 4.5-mile bike ride to work, which we plan to drive beforehand. The apartment is in a smaller complex, very modern and newly built, with a pool, exercise facility, and lounge with 700-disc DVD changer.

So, that’s a summary of our life. Many exciting and life-changing changes! Hope you’ll stay in touch with us!

Email addresses still the same for now.

Love ya all,

Erin & Matt

April Update

2005-04-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

This is going out to a lot of folks because I don’t have time to write everyone individually. So I’m sorry if this is surprising or you don’t know enough details—email me if you’d like more clarity. Thanks for understanding!

Change is here! We came back from a recent trip with a surety that our time at CHAMP is over. We will be leaving CHAMP by May 6. We will continue as employees, but will work part-time remotely. Dave and Deb are fine with this (we told them last August we’d be leaving this spring/summer, when the current product is done). We will work for CHAMP from wherever we are for 10-15 hours/week at an hourly rate. The PDA product we’ve helped build is now in beta testing, and seems pretty stable.

Why are we doing this? For one, it’s time for Matt to move on to new professional challenges. We’ve grown a ton at CHAMP, but he needs to work with more experienced, passionate developers using the latest technology. Me, I’m ready to stop being a manager and just be a wife. If I get bored, I’ll pick up a job doing something non-computer, like working at a greenhouse or coffee shop. I still like working on websites, but spending 8-10 hours a day staring at a screen is not what I want to do for the rest of my life.
When we gave our 2 weeks notice, our co-worker who worked on our development team and was learning support also gave his 2 weeks. So this week has been a bit frantic as we start a recruitment process. It will probably also mean I will be working 20 hours/week instead of 10, but such is life. I’m just excited to be working remotely and starting the process of leaving CHAMP. We’ll also get a new toy: a cell phone! That way we can check email from the road and, if we have to, provide support to CHAMP customers. Crazy what technology can do these days.

Our immediate plans are to drive to Reno, NV to visit Matt’s parents; after that we’re not sure exactly where we’ll go (CA? CO?). Wherever we go, we will be gone for the entire month of May and possibly the first week in June. We plan to return to MN in June, and decide what the next steps are from there. We may continue our travels, working part-time, for a while; or we may decide Matt is going to apply at Microsoft in Seattle. We just don’t know right now, and that’s ok. :) God is sovereign over every situation and transition.

We’ll be keeping the house, and have friends mow the lawn and water our plants. If there’s anyone in Mankato who would like a new house plant, let me know! I seem to have accumulated several, including some from work. I don’t care if they die in your care either!
Well, I now have even more work to do than before, so I’d better get to it! Have a great rest of the week. Hope to hear an update from you if you get a chance.

Erin & Matt Young

2004 Europe trip in detail

2004-05-01T18:31:00.000-07:00

In early March 2004 we flew into London to meet up with my sister, Hannah, who lives and works in France. She was vacationing and we wanted to travel in Britain together. Upon arriving in London, we were severely interrogated by a woman customs official. She had another man standing over her, so we assumed she was being examined. At any rate, she berated us for not knowing where we were staying that night (Hannah had arranged accommodations and was meeting us at the airport), saying “How can you come to a foreign country and not know where you’re going to sleep that night?!?!?” She finally stamped our passports after we outlined our plans in detail and she saw our e-ticket for the flight home. Quite nasty. The funny thing to us was, after leaving England, we went to 5 countries not knowing where we were staying!

So Hannah met us and we spent one day in London, walking mostly. Saw Big Ben, Westminster (I think?), and toured a museum where Winston Churchill and his advisors lived during WWII. The next day we flew EasyJet to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we spent two days. We went to the Castle, walked the Royal Mile, saw the outside of Holyrood Palace, rested in the Botanical Gardens, and had fish ‘n chips in a local pub. Neat town with lots of old architecture mixed with modern shopping and restaurants. We especially enjoyed the Scottish brogue and our marvelous B&B with full Scottish breakfast (omelet, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, sausage, toast, juice, fruit, and coffee/tea). About the money system: the British pound (£) is expensive: £1 = $2 US, and all the prices were the same in pounds as we would find in dollars in the US (for example, an Applebees-type meal was £8, but that’s $16).

Next we took the train to Stirling, Scotland, where many battles were fought in the time of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (seen Braveheart?). Stirling was much smaller and the landscape more picturesque. We spent 3+ hours exploring the castle with an excellent audio guide, and met a nice bus driver who got us to the Wallace Memorial, a tower at the top of a hill with a great view. We shared an attractive and tasty meal at the Portcullis, where Matt discovered Dark Island, his new most favorite dark beer from Orkney. A loud night at the hostel with a local high school soccer team denied us some sleep, but nonetheless we boarded a train for Glasgow the next day.

We only had 4 hours or so in Glasgow and needed somewhere to stash our backpacks. The luggage lockers at the train station were expensive, so we decided to stroll the town a bit in hopes of finding a place to sit. Lo and behold, half a block away was the main stop for a bus tour of the city! So we stowed our bags in the tour bus and listened to a nice Scot describe the city. It was a “wee bit windy” but the architecture was interesting and in some cases amazing. For example, when the university moved to a different part of town, they tore down an important building and rebuilt it brick by brick on the new spot. After the tour we had to find the correct airport (found the wrong one first!) to make our flight.

From Glasgow we flew RyanAir to Paris. Take note: RyanAir is cheap, but you fly to airports that are an hour outside the city, which makes traveling to and from your flight a real pain. After doing that twice, we decided it wasn’t worth the monetary savings. Anyway, from Paris we took the train to Laon, Hannah’s hometown near Amiens. There we stayed with good friends of hers, Claude and Rose, in a lovely loft bedroom that belonged to one of their moved-out children. They spoke German, French, and pretty good English, and insisted on feeding us breakfast every day (rolls and coffee/tea in France). We picked up a lot of French interacting with them and Hannah. While in Laon, we toured the cathedral (amazing, but minus stained glass due to bombings during WWII), the ancient city walls, Hannah’s classrooms (she teaches English to elementary and middle school kids) and the local pastry shop. We also lunched with Hannah’s pastor and his family, Americans who have a Baptist house church where Hannah plays the keyboard. On the last night, Hannah treated us to a traditional French meal, complete with coffee that comes with a piece of chocolate (the French know how to enjoy coffee!). We really enjoyed Laon and meeting all the people Hannah knows.

From Laon we went back to Paris, intending to visit the Louvre but it was closed. So we visited some neat shops nearby (way out of our price range but fun to look—they had a Bodum store) and then walked through a park and down the Champs Elysees to the Arc d’Triumphe (sorry if I misspelled it). Then we flew to Rome, where we got a ride from 2 Tanzanians (Africans) studying to be priests. We met them in the airport (they were speaking English, a rarity in France) and, needing a ride from the airport in the boonies to the train station in the center of Rome, we asked them for a ride. Their friend Tony (a Brit) took us on a crazy ride through the city at 1am, where we almost killed 2 pedestrians and 3 motorcyclists. As Tony said, “In Rome, red lights mean ‘proceed with caution’” to the motorcyclists. We survived and got to the train station, which was the wrong one. But a hotel representative (shady guys who try to sell you cheap hotel rooms for high prices) offered a room 2 blocks away at an ok price, so we took it. We were tired of big cities and wanted to get out of Rome ASAP—it just felt dirty, corrupt, and way too big.

The next morning we boarded a train to Venice, and found a nice, simple hotel for a good price. We spent 2 days in Venice, and saw churches, San Marco square, and many pizza shops. The gelato (Italian ice cream) was amazing and a cheap meal substitute (Mom would cringe to hear this!). We saw lots of neat hand-blown glass, which the city is famous for, but took pictures instead of buying it. Venice smells (think ocean meets dirty Minnesota river) but its labyrinth of streets no wider than 4 men across were fun to navigate. Did I mention it rained pretty much the whole time, but that was fine because we had raingear and it kept the tourist numbers down! I think we would go back to Venezia (Venice) again.

From Venice we took a train to Innsbruck, Austria (a beautiful trip through the mountains in northern Italy and southern Austria). The ski season was just ending, so Innsbruck was pretty busy and the poor tourist-hotel-locater woman was at her wits end trying to find us a hotel. But a new B&B for backpackers had just opened, and she sent us there. Almut was the hostess, and she also owned the cakery and restaurant underneath the B&B. She was the sweetest person and we spent a lot of time talking together (her English was good, and we didn’t understand ANY spoken German). We held off from buying her pastries (baked fresh every morning by her brother) until the last night we were there, which was a wise decision because they were SO GOOD. We would have eaten them every day if we had tasted them earlier! Breakfast was included at the café and we got fresh rolls with fresh butter and homemade jam every morning, with pots of tea and coffee. A great way to start the day. For a treat one night, Matt and I found the German restaurant that I ate at with my siblings on our trip in 2002. The food was just as good as I remembered—maybe even better. Matt wanted to eat there pretty much every meal after that, but it was a bit out of our budget.

Tangent onto languages: we could pretty much understand written French and Italian, and somewhat understand it spoken, but German was entirely different. We could recognize some key words written, but spoken it sounded like a Slavic language to us. By the end of the trip, I was actually glad to be back in France because I had picked up quite a bit of French in Laon and actually felt more at home in France!

Back to Innsbruck—this was definitely our favorite spot. We bought a 48-hour city card (24€/person = $34) that gave us free admission to practically all the tourist places, including the 20€/person gondolas. The skiers take the gondolas to the tops of the mountains and then use normal ski lifts afterwards. So we rode several, packed tight with skiers, skis, poles, and dogs. Yes, in Europe, dogs go everywhere, including to the tops of mountains riding in packed gondolas. It was quite the experience. The views were breathtaking and the snow-capped peaks gorgeous. We also toured Schloss Ambras, a local Austrian castle with a collection of oddities (including clogs for women that were 10 inches high), and a bell-making museum. We walked a lot, viewed churches, and window-shopped. The city was casual, the people laid-back, and everything surrounded with mountainous beauty, and we seemed to fit in well.

From Innsbruck we took a train to Munich, Germany, for a day. We went to the concentration camp at Dachau. Dachau was one of the first camps to be created, and its managers established the policies used at all the other camps. It was also one of the last camps to be liberated by the Americans. It had a gas chamber, but it was never used for mass exterminations like Auschwitz. The gate into the camp is famous; written in German is the phrase, “Work makes free”, which tormented those kept inside and never freed. Much of the camp was destroyed after liberation, but the gas chamber, crematoriums, and main buildings survived. The housing for inmates was later recreated on-site, and several memorials to the victims were added as well. It was a somber, intense experience to wander the grounds where death and torture abounded. The whole mentality of the Nazis is simply incomprehensible to me, and downright demonic. One good thing: there were young German soldiers touring the area, and so we hope many generations will remember the awful acts of the Nazis and not walk the same path again.

After spending several hours wandering the grounds of Dachau (and avoiding the large groups of high school students from Italy who weren’t old enough to express respect for such a place), we headed back into Munich in search of a beer garden. One must consume a liter of beer, a soft pretzel the size of a large dinner plate, and real bratwurst while in Germany! It was difficult to transition from the somber atmosphere of Dachau to a “bier garten”, but we only had a few hours left so we made do. Then we hopped the underground to the square with the little miniature people who come out of the clock (Glockenspiel) to wander some touristy streets, window-shopping and eating bratwurst.

Finally we boarded our overnight train from Munich to Paris. We only had to make it onto our plane, and we’d be headed home. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. We made it to Paris Nord, the correct train station, but then when we went to our train platform to catch the train to the airport, they evacuated the platform! Then they reassigned the train to another platform, all in French over a crackling loudspeaker. I caught the train and the platform number, but not which train (they arrived every 5 minutes, and the overhead screens weren’t updated with the routes, and tons of people were pushing onto the train and even more were wandering confusedly) so we had to find someone who spoke English, and fast so we didn’t miss our plane. We found a security guy and asked, “ang-glay?” and he said, “oui”. So we tried “Charles de Gaulle”, met with no success, and tried “airport”. He rattled off some long phrase in French, and we said “which train to the airport” very slowly, and he said, “platform 44”, and we said, “which train”, and he said, “platform 44”. In one last desperate attempt, we said, “any train on 44?” and he said, “oui”. So we went and got on a train, and PRAYED it was the right one!

Thankfully, it was the right train. Now we had to pick the right stop. I had tried calling my sister to ask, but couldn’t get the only pay phone around to work (the rest used phone cards or credit cards, which we were not going to stick into a French-speaking phone—we might have called Indonesia for all we knew!). So we trusted to my 2-year-old memory and got off at the first stop (the correct stop!). Then we had to find someone who could tell us which of 3 terminals our flight left from (the terminals are so far apart you have to take a 15-minute bus ride between them). Finally a train information guy looked up our airline, told us which terminal, told us where to find the bus, and told us the bus was free. I could have hugged the man! So we made it to the terminal. Now we had to find our check-in area (by this time the flight was scheduled to leave in 45 minutes) which you do by walking in a big circle around the terminal. We chose to go to the right, and within 1 minute saw signs for Northwest Airlines and got checked in. Whew! Then through security, and up to the waiting area on some weird moving walkway through 70s-era ugly decor. We were starved, exhausted, and ornery. The plane was more than a ½ hour late to boot!

Lastly, we had a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam. Let me say, that airport is the best airport to have a long layover in! They had tons of comfortable, free chairs; reasonable Internet prices and plenty of access points; several food choices that weren’t too expensive; tons of duty-free shopping, including a large chocolate store and electronics store; and super-clean, free bathrooms fully themed—with sound, murals, and even scents to complete the theme (the women’s was a beach scene). Talk about a modern airport!

The ride home was uneventful, even though they showed the same movies as on the way over. We sat next to a guy from France named Francois, who was coming over for 2 weeks to check out a job in Eau Claire. We talked to him for probably 5 of the 8.5 hours which helped pass the time considerably. Gave him Matt’s email but haven’t heard from him (unless SPAM filters picked it up) but we hope he settled into the U.S. nicely.

Well, hope you enjoyed the tale! I put in a few photos. We definitely think everyone should travel to Europe at least once in their lives—it is an experience you don’t want to miss. We hope to go back someday, especially to Austria and Venice.

Ciao!

Erin Young
Project Manager
CHAMP Software, Inc.
www.champsoftware.com

Update Letter, 1.7.03

2003-01-07T23:44:00.000-08:00

Dear family and friends,

We were so excited to celebrate with you our entering into covenant for the rest of our earthly lives with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at our wedding! Here's a brief update on our lives post-wedding.

Right after the wedding, we honeymooned for one glorious week in Hawaii, and then another week in Colorado. In Hawaii our main activities were lying on the beach, eating delicious food, and drinking Kona coffee. In Colorado we did some backpacking and camping, and then spent a couple days at Bear Trap Ranch with good friends. It was a welcome vacation and a great time to relax and hang out together.

We then moved into a duplex in North Mankato. We started working for CHAMP Software in Mankato about a week later, and we are still employed there and are enjoying it. Matt is a Software Engineer/Team Lead and Erin is a Project Coordinator. It is both challenging and fun working at the same place. We get to see a lot of each other, and have learned a lot about each other in a short time. We are both doing what we enjoy and are good at, which is a real blessing. The company is family-owned and operated and rather small, which we are also enthused about. It makes us feel more like we're worthwhile contributors to the business. Learn more about CHAMP at their website, www.champsoftware.com. The biggest hurdle in working together is probably learning to balance our professional lives and priorities with our personal ones. It can be difficult to disconnect from work sometimes. But on the whole we very content with our situation, and it pays the bills too!

As to our marriage relationship in general, it of course has its good times and challenging times. It is incredible to see your own selfishness revealed through the choices you make regarding your spouse. We learn daily the reality of taking up our crosses and following Christ. Being married is probably also the most joyous relationship imaginable. As one of our good friends told us before getting married, it's like having a slumber party every night with your best friend! How cool is that!

This year we split the major holidays, spending Thanksgiving in Janesville, WI with Erin's family and Christmas in Reno, NV with Matt's family. Both celebrations were great, and we really enjoyed seeing our families and spending time with them. They are blessings to us.

We hope to stay in touch with you over the coming years! Please feel free to contact us at erin@mattanderinyoung.com. We'd love to hear from you. Much love, and God bless!!
Matt & Erin

Our wedding!

2002-07-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures! They aren't in perfect condition because I didn't have time to tweak them, but I think you will still enjoy looking at them. :)

Europe 2002

2002-06-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Erin and her three siblings (Hannah, Abby, and Brett) went to Europe June 11-27, 2002. We travelled by train through France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Belgium. You can see some of the photos Erin took with the digital camera here.