i think i'll go to boston: August 2006

"shake and bake"

this week has been somewhat eventful...

matt started school on monday and received 110% on his first two quizes (100% plus the bonus question!). he stayed up until 2:00am last night writing his first exposition on james 2:14-26 and tonight he's studying fervently for his first exam on james (by the way, fervent in greek is "energeo" - it's on his test tomorrow). oh the joys of being married to a bible major!!

i have been busy immersing myself into the boston culture trying to find myself around for interviews with staffing agencies. on tuesday i met with a company called beacon hill staffing and paid $22 to park and had to walk 2 blocks in the pouring rain (i'm from oregon - we don't use umbrellas), so needless to say i was a little wet for my first "interview". things went well and i have my first phone screening tomorrow morning. it was located right next to boston common which is by the state house (a historical landmark i think) and the public garden which is supposed to be beautiful (when it's not raining). i passed by the cheers restaurant and pf changs! YES! matt said we could go for my birthday :o)

today i went to back bay in boston which is in the prudential distict (i think). i took "the T" which is public transportation. it was a lot less expensive than driving and parking. i had a short walk to where i was going and took some pictures along the way.

here's a cool building i passed by - i don't know what it is, but i thought it was pretty sweet

here is the trinity church

and the tallest building in boston - the hancock tower

we have no plans for the labor day weekend, so we'll finish cleaning up the apartment and take some pictures for you all to see.

keep praying for a good job to come soon!!

"first day of school! first day of school!" -nemo

today was officially the first day of school. matt is taking a "blitz" class which is this week and next week (9 days total - monday is a holiday). class is from 7:30am-12:20pm (which for your so cal folks is 4:30 your time!!) he's taking Exposition of General Epistles - he's a smart cookie. he already has 50 pages of reading on the first night and a 12-15 page paper in a few weeks! gotta love it!! here he is in all his glory at 7:15 this morning

and then we received a surprise from our family (including truman) in oregon - they were gorgeous

we took an ikea run and our first run to the grocery store. it rained again today :o( i suppose we should start getting used to the cold wet weather :o)

love you all and miss you guys!

we're here!!!

so we're now officially in boston - we got here on friday afternoon. it poured rain for our four hour drive from new jersey to boston :o) gotta love the east coast weather! we are settling in our "apartment" which is in the attic of an old mansion on campus

if you see the 4 windows on the top of the house, that's us! the 2 on the left are our living room and the 2 on the right are our bedroom.

we're still unpacking and making it "home". we'll send pictures when it's presentable :o)

as for now, we still have the same cell phone numbers, but you'll have to excuse the bad reception we get here. if you need our updated address it is

Matt & Allie Shilling
Boston Baptist College
950 Metropolitan Ave #258
Boston, MA 02136

we do have a few prayer requests
- i'll (allie) have a few appointments this week for a job. we need the paycheck asap, so pay for a good paying job close by.
- matt starts school tomorrow and from what we hear, the academics are pretty tough, so pray that he can clear the cobwebs quickly and have lots of energy to finish strong!
- our friends jeremy and ronnie are looking for an apartment and are anxious to find something soon. we're enjoying their company here, but the beds and showers in the dorms aren't so welcoming.

we love you all and would love to hear from you!!

our email addresses are:
matt.shilling@gmail.com
allieshilling@hotmail.com

the big apple

we got to new jersey late on wednesday night and spent the night at matt's mom's house in twp of washington. we met jack and lily too. it was good to see mariah and jay and spend some time with them :o) thursday we slept in (which was wonderful!) and then went shopping. we went to H&M for the first time - I think that's our new favorite store.

and then we got to go to new york. besides the high parking prices it was amazing! we had true authentic nyc pizza - sbarro :o) and enjoyed the sights and sounds of times square

tuesday in chicago

tuesday was a dream come true - going to chicago AND a cubbies game!! we had the privilege to say with matt's great aunt kay just north of chicago - she was SO sweet and very hospitable. we had a warm place to stay and a yummy breakfast the next morning :o)

first was lunch at portillos (how could you not visit while in chicago)

and then we took the "skokie swift" (public transportation) to the cubbies game

here she is in all her glory...

they HAD to get new hats in chicago :o)

and to top it off, we had some pretty sweet seats

the cubbies lost, but it was the best part of our trip!!

here some pictures of the city the next morning - we didn't have time to sight see the area, but jasen and amanda agreed to go back with us and be our tour guides

grandma & grandpaw - we took this one for you

days 2 and 3

last night we didn't have internet connection, so i'll do my best to speed you up to where we are tonight. several of you wanted to see pictures of our beautiful country, so most of these are the photos we took while driving.

yesterday we left richfield, utah

drove through the rockies in colorado

through vail (which was freezing, but absolutely gorgeous - we'll definitely go back to visit!) the highlight was the starbucks at the gas station - you better believe we stopped! we hit a little rain between vail and denver, but all of our stuff stayed dry.

through denver - didn't really see much of it, but we did stop at mcdonalds for a bathroom break. we did however notice that they have a dvd rental machine in the parking lot of mcdonalds which seemed to be a hit.

here's our shout out to rainbow sandals (we're proud of our california blood)

through the flat part of colorado and saw a beautiful sunset

and onto to nebraska - gotta love the bugs on the windshield

today we drove through the MANY cornfields of nebraska and iowa. nebraska is VERY flat and iowa has some interesting people to say the least - the state troopers were everywhere and pulled jeremy over for "speeding" while on cruise control??? what's up with that?? he got away with a warning :o)