Happy Spring!

Greetings from Durango, CO where we are spending part of Paul's spring break! (By the way, the date above is wrong...it is really Monday, March 23rd as I write this.) Paul finished his comprehensive exams at the end of February and passed with flying colors. Now he just has to finish off the rest of the semester and he will officially be a Denver Seminary grad! We thought we should take advantage of one of Paul's last breaks as a student before he goes into the working world by getting away for his spring break. Abby even took the whole week off from work!

As some of you may know, almost 3 years ago, we took our honeymoon in Durango. For Abby's Christmas present this year, Paul surprised her with a few nights at the same place where we honeymooned. We have been enjoying our little cottage in the woods and have ventured out to do a little hiking and explore the town of Durango and beauty nearby. We woke up this morning surprised by snow on the ground. It is absolutely beautiful and something we haven't seen much of this winter so we welcomed it! Today we are staying in where it is warm and doing a little reading...I guess for Paul it would be termed "studying". Tuesday we'll head back to Denver and then Wednesday morning head back to the Iowa to enjoy family for a few days.

We brought food to cook a few of our meals in our kitchenette but forgot there was no oven so here we are improvising our meal on the stove!

Animas City Mountain trail near Durango

Outside our cottage on this snowy morning

Our cottage in the woods where we are staying

Here are some highlights to report since our last posting:

*Abby went back to Iowa for a quick visit at the end of February to see family while Paul studied hard to prepare for his comprehensive exams. Abby couldn't believe how fast her niece, Leah was growing and savored every second with her.

Here is one of Grandpa's attempts to make Leah smile! She really likes Grandpa's voice and gave him most of the smiles.

Aunt Abby and Leah

One of our new favorite pics of Leah

*We have enjoyed the mild Colorado winter and have gotten to enjoy many walks/hikes outside. One of our recent favorites was at Deer Creek Canyon, just outside of Denver. We went on a 7 mile hike with friends, Rob and Darla. Rob is another philosophy major that Paul spends quite a bit of his class time with.

*Abby transferred within her company to a facility in Littleton that is MUCH closer to home! She is now working about 5 min. from home, rather than 30. She continues to enjoy working with the elderly in an outpatient setting.

*Paul began teaching a worldview class at our church the beginning of March. His wife is even enrolled in the class and is one of his best students! :) She seems to always have lots of questions trying to digest all of this worldview stuff; it's a good thing she lives with the teacher and can have one on one tutoring sessions if needed.

Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning signs of Spring!

A Taste of Iowa

Abby's dad took Amtrak from Iowa and came to visit this last week. The purpose of the trip was to escape the distractions back home in order to complete some of the demands of his summer coursework. So needless to say, Paul and Dennis spent a lot of time in the library together while Abby was at work. Dennis picked a great week to come, as four of the days he was out here were in the upper 60s! So the study breaks were spent outside on the trails enjoying the rays! We also got in a couple hikes together and were spoiled by a few good meals out! He was a very easy guest to host and fun to have around!

Our wonderful guest for the week!

We took a hike at Deer Creek Canyon, just 20 minutes away and had a great time. Unfortunately it was a bit muddy as you will see below but we didn't let that stop us!


Notice the pants rolled up due to the mud. Nice fashion statement, boys!

This is what we saw the majority of the 3 mile hike!

Abby and her dad enjoying a break with Denver in the background.

Avalanche Game!

For Christmas Abby gave Paul tickets to an Avalanche game at the Pepsi Center downtown Denver. This was the first professional hockey game the Hoveys experienced, having great seats to see plenty of close up views of elbows, shoulders, faces, you name it meet the glass. We were amazed that the fights broke out less than a minute into the game and consequently the players sent directly to what Abby liked to call "time out". Paul enjoyed teaching Abby the meaning of various calls and helping her understand the ins and outs of the game. Although the Avs got creamed 6 to 1 by the Blue Jackets, we still had a great time!

One of the many fights observed

Abby taking it all in! Notice the winter coat still on...it was cold close to the ice!

They had this crazy light show and dramatic music before the game and after every intermission before the Avs would come in.

Leah Nicole Glew

To honor our new little niece and the start of the nieces/possible future nephews on Abby's side of the family, we decided to give Leah Nicole her own blog posting! Leah was born Dec. 1st weighing 7 lbs 3oz and was 20 in. long. She was the main event at the Glew Christmas this year, managing to make it into almost every picture that was taken. We treasured our time holding her as much as possible as we knew next time we would see her she'll have grown quite a bit. Aunt Abby became pretty attached and wished there would have been some way Leah could have come back to Colorado with her and Uncle Paul. Maybe in a few years she'll be ready for a slumber party with her Aunt Abby and Uncle Paul.

Enjoy some pictures of precious little Leah!

Aunt Abby and Leah meet for the first time
I think we have an attached aunt on our hands!

Uncle Paul and Leah

Leah is wishing Aunt Abby and Uncle Paul didn't live so far away.

Family Christmas photo...this year a wonderful addition!

Happy New Year

Okay, so for the two of you who still read our blog... we're back! And our new year's resolution is to update our blog more frequently. Well, we had an eventful fall. Paul got through another semester of seminary... only one to go! We are both excited and anxious to see where God leads us next.

Let us catch you up on a few things that have been happening for us. Abby has been enjoying her job. I don't think she'll ever tire of helping the elderly! We've been enjoying Colorado and missing home. We had several opportunities to enjoy beautiful creation... driving over mountain passes, spending time with friends in the mountians, enjoying the unique colors of gold the aspens bring with fall, and hiking on some of the nearby trails. We've also enjoyed several visitors, and we will welcome more if you want to come. Time is running out!!! :)

We've been keeping active at church. Paul sang and played djembe for the worship team when they held a concert in a local park. He even broke out his acting skills for a skit at church! We've been blessed to be involved in two home groups through church. They are very different from one another, and we learn alot and are blessed by the people in both.

We just got back from an all-too-short visit to Iowa to see family over Christmas. It was great to see everyone, including the three infant nieces on Paul's side of the family, and the newly born niece on Abby's side, who is the first of our nieces and nephews on that side of the family. It was great to spend time relaxing away from the intense schedules we had been "enjoying" before we left. Abby in particular was thoroughly blessed and refreshed by her first extended break from work.

Paul continues to work at Lowe's, and will be spending plently of his winter break studying as he prepares for his comprehensive exams at the end of February, and for a class he is going to be teaching at church in March/April. Happy New Year to all!

Abby's friend from Luther College, Jenny, and her husband, Joe, stayed with us for a night in October and had breakfast with us before they continued to CO Springs to see Jenny's family.

We spent a weekend with close seminary friends up at a condo in Silverthorne for a quick getaway from Denver.

Abby's mom came to visit in October. They had a lot of quality girl time together while Paul was busy studying.

Beautiful fall colors!

At Hudson Gardens located right next to the seminary.

Abby's PT friends, Sara and Tanya came from Iowa for a weekend visit. Paul was amazed that they were able to talk constantly for about 72 hours!

We stayed here for Thanksgiving and were blessed to get together with several friends on campus who were also spending Thanksgiving in Denver.

We made our first turkey together...a success!

Opening presents from Abby's side. Notice the box that says "sort of breakable" for the old dishes thrown in to add weight to the gift. Thanks to Abby's clever mother!

At Paul's family Christmas.

Paul with niece, Brittney, waiting anxiously to open gifts.

Formal Christmas 2008 picture

Paul attempting to read to niece, Cassidy.

Summer Summary

Hello all. Its been some time since we last posted (again). We have had quite a fun-filled summer. Here's the quick summary. In June Abby's family came out to visit and we spent a few days up in the Breckenridge and Winter Park areas riding trains, shopping, hiking, and sightseeing. We also went to a Rockies game.

Getting ready to shop in Breckenridge

At the Continental Divide

Leadville Train

Paul and Dad working many long hours on this puzzle back where we stayed.

Winter Park Ski Resort

We went back to Iowa over the fourth of July weekend for Paul's younger brother's wedding, for which Paul played his trombone. It was a quick trip, but it was great to see some family, albeit for a short time, and the Iowa landscape again. We are also happy to report that we finally made it round trip between Iowa and Colorado without a breakdown - all it took was a new car!

Abby teaching neice Alyssa how to tie bows on the chairs to help decorate

All of our neices and our ONE nephew.

Before the wedding

Paul played next to his brother, Matt, in the brass quintet

The happy couple

We celebrated our birthdays after that. Paul is now 28 and Abby 26. We combined our celebration dinner and went to Olive Garden.

In August we went back to Iowa again for Abby's cousin's wedding, in which Abby was a bridesmaid. Again, it was a quick trip, and we wished we could have seen family more. We enjoyed staying with Abby's grandparents and Abby was able to even get away with some of the girls from her mom's side of the family for a quick afternoon. Paul got to visit some college friends in the area while back. We also got to see a lot of cute babies! Paul finally got to meet the Mulligan twins, who are very happy, giggly, fun babies. We also saw Paul's friends Lindsay & Zack's son Ethan and Paul's niece, Gracie, when we stopped for the night in Omaha at Bess and Bob's home. It was incredibly hard to leave so many people we love so much.

Cousin Melissa helping Abby with her nails for the wedding
Abby's mom's side of the family having some girl time
The beautiful bride, the bride's sister in law, and cousin Abby
She was GORGEOUS!
What a fun day!

We spent our 2 year anniversary in the car driving west back to Colorado. YAY!!!... well, at least we were with eachother ;-) We are planning to get away this weekend to officially celebrate...as if driving through Nebraska wasn't enough!?!?

We have been taking Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University through our church this summer on Tuesday nights. We have enjoyed both his humor and his stories of insight and practical wisdom on how to be financially successful - getting out of debt and building wealth, and giving like no one else. Its been a great help to us, and we highly reccommend it to anyone!

Paul also finished summer Greek, and is now staring down the barrell of another school year. He has one more year to go, and will be graduating (Lord willing) next May. No, we don't know exactly what we're doing after that, but God will let us know in his good time.

So, thats the summer summary from the Hoveys.