Apollo Ulrich

Yep... it's about the puppy again. One thing that we have learned for sure since having him is that a puppy will very nearly demand all of your attention...all the time.
Mostly because if you don't always watch him, it is inevitable that when you turn around he will have something in his mouth he shouldn't. No matter How much you try to keep things up off the ground.
He is also quite mouthy. He likes to chew on everything, including our hands, legs, arms, feet, and hair (if he can reach it.) Supposedly it will go away on its own around 16 weeks, we are doing our best to use the positive reinforcement method as everything we have read says that yelling and swatting will never work and only teach your puppy that you aren't trustworthy. Even though he will always love you no matter what. So we say a firm "no" or "no bite" and put a toy in his mouth. Unfortunately our skin must taste better because it's not working. Am I being to anxious for him to learn? It could very well be that this method takes longer than a week to learn. Does anyone have any advice?
Regardless of his relentless biting, with razor sharp puppy teeth... We love him. He is so cuddly (when he is sleepy)
Here are some pics of the cuddly Apollo. Enjoy!



Cute right?
He has also advanced very quickly and doing tricks. He now has come, down, sit, and jump. And we are working on Heel. He needs to be a good walker before he gets to big for me to hold back!!

New member of the family

Hey All,
Well as many of you have probably seen on facebook. There is a new member of the Belcher family. His name is Apollo, and he is a German Shepherd puppy.
Right now he is quite a ball of energy. But he is eager to learn, and spend time with us. I had some time this morning to work on some training. He has "sit" down to a t, and to my delight he is getting the hang of "down" I was so excited when he finally did it for the first time.

Anyway here is picture of our little guy


He is awesome.

Photo Dump

Hey Ya'll. It's been a while.

Today we are snowed in. There has been a state of emergency declared in St. Louis. So stuck inside we are. I thought I would make a little update of Belcher happenings. I wont even try to recap all that's happened since our last post.

We have been getting into a lot of stuff since being here it st. lou. For one I got a new Iphone and really enjoy it. One of the best things about it is having a decent camera with me all the time. Following are some of the photos I took off of it today and the accompanying info about them.

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We have a lot of candles. I always feel bad throwing away a bunch of wax when it could still be burned. So today I made a candle out of our old candles. Steps:
1. Put a bunch of wax into a glass (relatively thick glass....your going to be getting it hot).
2. Place the glass on the stove on low settings (I put it on setting 1-2 of 10).
3. Let it sit there till all the wax has melted.
4. Make a wick: This can be a strand of twine (nylon apparently works really well), or anything that would burn well. I have used tightly rolled toilet paper a couple of times.
5. Dip the wick in the wax and keep it upright. If you are using twine you can tie it to a support that is directly above the new candle to keep the wick upright (as shown below). It's also a good idea to anchor the wick, I used an unused nut tied to the bottom of my twine to sink it to the bottom of the jar.

6. Wait for the wax to solidify. Untie the top of the wick from it's support and snip it to the desired length. I think most would recommend a 1/4" wick.

Make sure not to rush the process. This will take a few hours.

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This is an interesting photo. There is a pretty good rail system here in St. Louis called the MetroLink. In one of the stairways I spotted this bit of what looks like street art. It's a drawing pasted to the concrete with some crude adhesive. If you've seen "Exit Through the Gift Shop" you will know what I'm talking about.

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Em and I went to eat at Schlafly Brewery on Friday. It was intense. My stomach could hardly handle it. I have decided that if I am going to be drinking beer (I had a Kolsch - on left. Em had a hefeweizen) I need to eat small portions. I went the opposite way that night and ordered their "Plate O' Swine". A bit of mash taters with sauerkraut, accompanied by a full pork chop, fried bacon and a sausage. Too much.

Em's might look bigger, I assure you they are both pints.

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I recently built a computer. I wont bore you with the components but I will tell you about it b/c I am excited. I have wanted to build one for quite some time. Plus now I can run Starcraft 2 and some other software packages that are important to me.

Props to my mom and dad - they provided the monitor for this
computer, which keeps the whole project on the cheap.

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A bad side of having the new Iphone (and a new computer for that matter) is the constant contact. I always feel the internet beckoning. I am thankful that Em and I purpose to read each day. It is a relaxing and necessary sabbatical from daily tasks and the constant hum of social media. Grumpiness ensues if these breaks aren't taken. It's making more sense why the Lord tells us to rest on a regular basis.

That's it. We'll try to keep things more up to date from now on.

TB

Encouragement

There is a lot going on, we have moved to St. Louis, Tyler has started his new job, and I am on the Job hunt.
Information on all of this will have to come in another post, right now I just wanted to encourage everyone with a quote that I just found on another friends post. It's a little past Thanksgiving, and Christmas season is getting ready to begin.
Read and be encouraged! The LORD is good, his love surely endures forever.

Love,
Emily

“To the Christian it should be great joy, by means of the harvest, to receive an assurance of God's faithfulness. The Lord has promised that seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, shall never cease; and when you see the loaded wain carrying in the crop you may say to yourself, "God is true to his promise. Despite the dreary winter and the damp spring, autumn has come with its golden grain." Depend upon it, that as the Lord keeps this promise he will keep all the rest. All his promises are yea and amen in Christ Jesus: if he keeps his covenant to the earth, much more will he keep his covenant with his own people, whom he hath loved with an everlasting love. Go, Christian, to the mercy seat with the promise on your lip and plead it. Be assured it is not a dead letter. Let not unbelief cause you to stammer when you mention the promise before the throne, but say it boldly—"Fulfill this word unto thy servant on which thou hast caused me to hope." Shame upon us that we so little believe our God. The world is full of proofs of his goodness. Every rising sun, every falling shower, every revolving season certifies his faithfulness. Wherefore do we doubt him? If we never doubt him till we have cause for it we shall never know distrust again. Encouraged by the return of harvest, let us resolve in the strength of the Spirit of God that we will not waver, but will believe in the divine word and rejoice in it.”
– Charles Spurgeon

The Wedding Movie

Josh Minogue was extremely awesome and did our wedding videography for us. We have been very excited to see what he has done and to show it to you all. Below is his finished montage of our wedding. Hope you enjoy it.

Tyler & Emily - Montage from Josh Minogue on Vimeo.

RRG

It has been a while again. No excuse this time, we just take a long time in between blogs. I could say we are contemplating what to write if that helps...

A number of updates, the first of importance though is our recent trip to the Red River Gorge.
Em and I have been wanting to camp for so very long. We wanted to experience the great outdoors, get away, live the simple way, have everything with us on our backs and hike into the woods. And we did it!
Here's what we found out

1. Water is heavy and our sleeping bags are large
2. The gorge isn't quite as big as I previously thought and was actually quite easy to navigate
3. Camp sites that look awesome during the day turn creepy at night
- Sounds that startled us (by us I mean Emily): Acorns dropping, leaves rustling, animals nibbling, howling, people talking, and crickets.
4. My new rain fly works really well

Long story short. We got uncomfortable and ended up trekking out of the woods at 1:30 am....
and it was great.
We were both slap happy half way through the 2 hour drive back to Louisville. We stopped for Ale-8-one and tried to make it home before the moon set.
We will try to whole camping thing again. We will persevere.

Other than that things have been pretty normal.
We are waiting to move to St. Louis, working on being faithful with the money, jobs, and time we have been given right now.
No lie, it's tough a lot of the time. But at the same time it is great.
We're happily married.

We are continuing to get more involved at Sojourn community church's east campus.
And we are planning trips, which is awesome.
To Nashville next weekend and Boston next month. Figure this time is as good as any.

Soon to come: a video of our wedding! Stay tuned.

Hello to blogging!

Ok... So its been a month since our last post. There are many reasons for this.
1. We have since lost internet at our apartment which makes getting away to blog more difficult.
2. We are busy!
3. This is my (em) very 1st attempt at being a blogger and I admit it, I'm a little intimidated. I've read so many other examples of blogging excellence and I fear I will not measure up.

So now it is time to face my fears. Here I sit ready for my 1st go at it...

Since our last post much has happened.
A large chunk of our time has been consumed with wedding festivities. Not our own of course, we are finished with all that craziness. It has been the wedding festivities of our dear friends. Tyler has been in two already, and I have been in one. And we have attended many we have not been in. For the most part we are done for now. All bachelor/bachelorette parties, showers, and dinners have come to a halt. And we have the weekends free again. whew! We wouldn't trade the time for anything. It is such a blessing to see the people we love get married! Marriage is such a gift from the Lord. (we know this, we are in fact married as well)

Also, Ty and I purchased my first real Bike!! I say real, and I mean its not from Walmart. It is a beautiful, Bike Couriers Bike Shop road bike. A Jamis Ventura Sport. Pretty sweet little road bike for a beginner if I do say so myself.
Having this bike is such a blessing because its just another thing that we both now enjoy, and can do together.

In other news... After much discussion with my hubs. I decided to cut my hair. So 13 inches is now sent off somewhere to be made into a wig for someone who needs it more than I do. And I must say, my neck is much cooler in this summer heat. :)

All in all, a lot has been going on. Tyler and I have occupied our time with much working, spending time with each other, and spending time with friends and family. The Lord has given us so much. Our prayer is that we will find a way to give the love we have received from Christ to others we encounter.

One more thing.
Can we pray for you? Prayer is so powerful, and we should all be doing it more than we do. If there is anything in particular post a comment or send us an email. Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice of his life to make a way to the Father, so that at any time, anywhere we can communicate with The Living God. Lets all take advantage of this and pray, and pray some more. And for each other. :)
egracebelcher@gmail.com
tyreybel@gmail.com

This is the end of my very first post. It's probably choppy and weird. But hopefully I will get better with time.

In Christ
Emily