The Hamilton Herald!

Extra!  Extra!  First edition!

Welcome to our new little Hamilton family (well, Hamilton couple, lets be honest) blog.  We're hoping this will help keep friends and family both near and far updated, even if we may sometimes lose track of who we've called with what news.

Right now, there's not a LOT going on, but a few things worth mentioning.

1. We have successfully recovered from our May 24th wedding... at least mostly.  I am in Thank-You-Card mode (finally), so if you haven't gotten a note from us yet, hopefully you'll see one appearing in your mailbox soon.  That being said, I still live in fear that there are gifts that we received but forgot to write down and may therefore forget to give the proper thanks for.  Hopefully I've got it under control.  However, if you shipped us a Fiesta stovetop set (S&P shakers and a spoonrest) via JC Penney, they did not do us the favor of telling us who it was from.  So, Mystery Giver, whoever you are, please know that the stovetop set is greatly appreciated and seeing daily use!
2. I (Terri) am off for the summer, and am really truly OFF for the summer for the first time in a number of years.  I have normally gotten a part time job to keep me occupied when not actively teaching school, but this year I'm home playing wife.  Good thing, too!  There's a lot of stuff to do around here, and I find myself wondering how we will manage to keep laundry done and food cooked and the house cleaned when I'm back at school 40+ hours per week.  In addition to the thank you card project, I have also painted our bedroom, sold several pieces of furniture on craigslist, baked about 8 batches of brownies, changed my name with everyone I can think of, changed/updated our insurance, banking, etc. and other things like that.  More time consuming than one might think.  Hm.
3. Andrew is "working" at our church this summer.  The quotes are not to imply that he's not doing productive things... rather, that he's not being paid for any of them.  He's planning to attend seminary come fall of 2009, and has basically been shadowing our adult education guy, talking a lot of theology, seeing the workings of the church, etc.  He's really enjoying it!  An opportunity to apply for a full time paid position at the church has presented itself, and Andrew has applied.  We're keeping our fingers crossed, but we have also heard that the church may not be to keen on hiring a church member for this particular position.  Time will tell.

And finally, to end this first entry, a story:

Sunday night, Andrew and I joined in a family gathering at his Uncle Teddy and Aunt LuAnn's new place in Lucas, and were just heading back to our house in McKinney from Jim and Anita's house in Plano (confused yet?) when we saw a driver acting a little nuts.  The driver, in a Jag, was going about 15 mph on a street where the speed limit is 40, and was hitting the brakes randomly as well.  I thought... elderly driver?  lost driver?  But as we passed the car, it looked like a young lady, our age or maybe a little younger, not in any kind of obvious distress.  So, we passed her by, heading on through a green light.  We then noticed that when the Jag (let's just call her "Jag", shall we?) reached the same green light, she stopped for several seconds before deciding to make a right turn and head north.

That was enough for us, we made a U-turn and then a left turn to head north after Jag.  Jag had apparently picked up her speed quite a bit, because we passed several other cars while trying to catch up with her, before realizing that -- there she went, making another U-turn!

So, we made a U-turn a little ways up the road, going south now, and had a much easier time catching up with her, as she was back to good ole 15 mph.  We stopped behind her at a red light, intending to follow her for a little while to see if she was alright, and figured we would call the authorities if necessary.  It didn't take us long to make our decision.

When the light turned green, Jag waited.  And waited.  And finally.... proceeded at 15 mph, through the light.  We continued to follow her and noticed that she was swerving quite a bit within her lane.  Our decision had been made for us: I called 911 while Andrew drove and continued to follow Jag.  Let's call her Drunk Jag, shall we?  DJ for short?

So, I called 911 and gave the dispatcher our location, DJ's plates, and continued to describe her driving behavior and our location.  Always the safety nut, DJ continued to stop and look both ways for several seconds after a light turned green, swerving all the way.  She would occasionally work her way up to the speed limit, but feeling reckless I'm sure, she'd slam on the brakes and we were back to familiar 15 mph in no time.

We kept heading south for several miles, all the time talking to 911, all the time hoping they'd get an officer out to us ASAP!  DJ finally turned left into an office park.  (Just in time, actually... very much farther and we'd have been in another city, 911 would have had to transfer us to a new dispatcher, and we would've started the process all over again!)  The road she selected ended with a stop sign where she had to choose right or left.  Stumped by this, the eternal decision, DJ waited for longer than usual, and to be totally honest, I started to get a little nervous.  What do we do now?

Luckily, we saw headlights behind us and sure enough, it was the cavalry!  Well, a squad car.  They pulled her over just as she had finally reached a decision (left, for the curious) and we watched from our car as DJ proved herself worthy of the title.

DJ was eventually cuffed and driven away in the back of the squad car, and we wrote down our statements.  (Mine was not nearly so entertaining as what you've just read... I do have some sense of timing.)  We headed home safe and secure with one less drunk driver on the roads!  Go Team Hamilton!

So, there's you have it.  A family update AND a story!  What more can you wish for?