The Grass actually is Greener!

You know how they always say the Grass is Greener on the other side? Well, in this case it actually is! We thankfully got our power back on Friday night about 5:00. So, we were only without for 3 full days and 2 nights....and let me tell you, it was terrible. So, I definitely feel very blessed to be with power unlike the thousands of people in KY still without.

On Saturday my dad came up with a generator and a kerosene heater so we will be better prepared for the next bad storm that comes through. He also brought his chain saw and his new pole saw to help us recover from the damage that the trees caused. It was hard to tell because everything was covered in snow, but 1 large branch in particular was about 1 foot away from falling on our house. So, we are even more blessed than we knew!

Jared also had the opportunity to organize a chainsaw crew from our church to minister to some of the worst houses in our city. At a moment's notice he had a crew of 40 people that was able to service 26 houses in about 4 hours. It was great!

Yesterday we had very warm weather and all of the ice melted away from the trees and the snow began to melt. For the first time in a week we are actually seeing grass! Needless to say, I am ready for the SPRING!

Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement!

Weather Update

Well, we still have no power in our house. Rumor in the neighborhood is that it could be up to 14 days until our electricity is restored. We are still being taken care of by lots of kind people in our church.

There is supposed to be some warm weather this weekend (a high of 35--woohoo), so hopefully some things will begin to thaw. Dad is bringing us a kerosine heater tomorrow so we can heat our house at least enough to keep the pipes from freezing. He is also bringing his chain saw to help us remove some of the debris from our yard and from on top of our house. It will be nice to get this all done before the "Blizzard-Like Conditions" that are supposed to be coming our way on Monday and Tuesday.

My dad is also being gracious enough to take Asher back home with him. He hasn't adjusted very well to moving from house to house. So, he will go stay with his girlfriend Roxy in TN for a few days!

If there's anyone out there reading this blog that knows of a church in FLORIDA looking for a children's minister...give them my number!!! Just kidding :)

Winter Wonderland or Winter Disaster?

Well, it is days like these that I seriously miss my Tennessee home. Monday night we got several inches of Snow. Tuesday night several inches of ice were topped onto that. Wednesday morning several more inches of snow were topped onto that. Oh did I mention that we haven't had power since Wednesday morning at about 9:00?

So, needless to say, it's been a crazy couple of days. Above are some pictures of our house and the trees that are falling in our front yard. Things have been quite a mess.

Hopefully we will have power soon. For now we have some wonderful friends who are letting us sleep and shower at their house. They even let Asher come spend the night!

The Experience

Well, it has been awhile since our last blog post. To catch you up...we had a very thankful Thanksgiving, a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. There. :)

As you probably noticed, the title of this post is "The Experience." Well, last weekend, Jared's brother Jason and his wife Rachel came in town for a visit and to say the least, it was an EXPERIENCE!

They arrived Friday night. We said quick hellos and then all went to bed to get ready for the big day we were going to have on Saturday. You see, Jason celebrated his 28th birthday on Saturday and we had big plans for him.

We all got up pretty early on Saturday...morning pictures, not our best! What's on Jared's shirt?

Jason and Rachel take much better morning pictures than us!After a healthy breakfast of Cinnamin rolls, Jason opened his presents......and Asher helped!After doddling around for awhile, we all got showers and got ready to go...much better! We drove to Cincinnati and arrived on the outskirts of town just in time for lunch in Skyline. (For those of you Tennesseans who read the blog: Skyline is a chili place known for its coneys and chili with spaghetti noodles in it. Yuck!) But, eating at Skyline was all a part of the Experience!

This is the Cincinnati skyline as we were coming into town...pretty blue skies for Jason's birthday!After driving through Cincinnati, we went on to Westchester, OH to the IKEA store. Jared had sold some stuff on Craigslist so we could buy a new desk and Jason and Rachel were looking for some bookshelves. If you have never been to IKEA, you must go! It is such a neat experience. It takes a good 2 hours too look at everything in the store and it is all very trendy, but inexpensive furniture and accessories. I highly recommend going to check it out sometime. Now, let me give you some background information. All week long Rachel had been telling Jason that we had a surprise for him for his birthday. He knew we were going to IKEA, but he didn't know what the surprise was. So, for lack of a better descriptive word, Rachel told him that we were taking him to an "Experience." So, when we came out of IKEA and realized our furniture boxes were a little bigger than we had planned, we were in trouble. You see, we thought we'd be able to fit our furniture in the cab of the truck while we were at the Experience. But, the boxes were so big they barely fit in the back of Jason's truck. So, we kind of went into panic mode. Just as we were about to have to drive 2 hours back to Louisville to drop off our furniture and turn around to come back to Cincinnati for the experience, I remembered that a girl I work with in KY was from Cincinnati. So, I called Tina up and she came to the rescue. She called her mom and dad and asked if we could leave our furniture there until we could come back for it. HOW RANDOM IS THAT???? Well, it was all part of the experience!

So, on the way to Tina's parents' we stopped by a Bob Evans to get a Thank you gift card for being so kind! This is me excitedly leaping from the restaurant out of happiness for not having to drive back to Louisville.

So, after driving about 30 minutes, we finally made it to Tina's parents' where we unloaded our stuff on their back porch. Here are Jared and Jason being troopers in the midst of the hilarity of our situation.
So, we basically, loaded our furniture into the truck at IKEA, unloaded it at these random people's house, only to have to come back 3 hours later, load it back into our truck, take it back to Louisville and unload it again. Whew...that's a lot of work. But, the good news is that thanks to our brief detour we got to see...

a statue of a giant preying mantis in someone's front yard...

and a statue we have come to affectionately call "Touch Down Jesus." By the time this was all done, it was time for dinner. So, we went to P.F. Chang's, Jason's favorite restaurant. If you can't tell, we are a little pooped.

After dinner it was time...for the experience! At this point, Jason still had no clue where we were going. Although, he did guess as many random things as he could possibly think of. So, we all piled in the car and started our drive to Northern Kentucky University, just on the other side of Cincinnati.

We were already parked and on the way into the colisseum when Jason finally figured out what the Experience actually was! It's hard to catch laughter in a still shot, but Rachel did her best. So, you are wondering, what was the experience was...

The MONSTER TRUCK NATIONAL TOUR!!!!
Happy Birthday Jason!

Greaser Babies and My Baby!

Well, it's been awhile since my last post and the reason for that is simple: my life is boring! I could have bored you with a few more posts about how I love where I live, but I desperately miss my friends and family back home. But, instead, I chose to post the link to this ridiculous video of babies singing songs from Grease. I thought it was absolutely hilarious! But, I also work with kids all the time, so maybe that may be why I thought it was so funny.

So, if you have nothing better to do, you can go to this link and watch the video.

Also, if you think about my baby (I should probably Clarify that I'm talking about Jared so that no rumors get started) this week, say a little prayer. Yesterday he started his D-Term, which is basically a 1 week accelerated class. So, he has class everyday from 8-5 and then he's done. The Up-Side is that at the end of the week he has 3 credit hours. The Down side is that he had a 12 page paper due the first day of class, he has to take a quiz every night and a final at the end of the week, and he has 20 page paper due 2 weeks after the class is over...not to mention the 5 or 6 books he had to read. So, there's a lot of work involved. On top of that, he is taking a J-Term, which is basically the same thing all over again in January. So, instead of taking advantage of his much needed Christmas break, he is knocking out 2 classes in 2 weeks...and he's doing it for our family. He knows how badly I want him to be done with school and he is literally working his tale off to get it done. What an amazing man!

Elli's Dedication

Well, apparentally Elli was dedicated at FBC Smyrna this past Sunday. I wasn't aware of the fact until AFTER she was dedicated because my ever-loving family wanted to spare Jared and I from feeling like we needed to be there. Of course, had we known, we definitely would have been there! Oh well...maybe we'll make it to her baptism. My sister put this pic on facebook and I am assuming this is the outfit she wore for the dedication. I can't imagine why else she would be wearing this adorable outfit! However, as cute as she may be, she doesn't look all too amused over what she is wearing!

Growing Up is Hard to Do!

Well, somehow Sara picked up on the hint that I wanted more pictures of Elli. So, she sent me some from her first bath. As you can tell, she is less than thrilled!

Then, here she is just sleeping like an angel that never cries. She's such a cutie. I miss her so much!

Here's the thing I don't understand about growing up. When you are born, God strategically places you into the group of people you would come to know and love and eventually call family. Then, you spend the next 20 years of your life getting to know them, creating bonds with them and learning to love them unconditionally. Eventually your siblings become more than just someone to fight with...they become your best friends. And you stop viewing your parents as people who are just trying to make your life miserable, but you come to understand that they are there to love you, guide you and encourage you to become the Godly young man or woman that they know you can be.

It's at this point, it seems, that it's time to say goodbye. It's time to "leave and cleave" as I've been told so many times in the last two years. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my husband dearly and I am so happy to spend the rest of my life with him. But it doesn't make sense to me that in gaining that love you also, on some levels, lose something. You lose the safety and comfort that are only brought to you in your family.

Of course, when we got married initially, I didn't feel this way. But now that I am 3 1/2 hours away from my parents and am soon to be 4 1/2 hours away from my sister--my best friend--and her sweet baby girl...it just seems so cruel. I know Jared and I are where we're supposed to be. But sometimes following God can be a lonely place...a place full of wonderful people, none of which you really, truly know. This place has a lot of potential to be called "home" someday, if only the void called "family" could ever be filled.

I will say, that I have the most wonderful husband who is so patient with me when I am feeling this way. He is never so selfish to make me feel bad for missing my family and friends back in TN.

Alright...I'm done being sad and sappy! I just look at the pictures of my neice and it makes me miss my family so much. I just needed a moment to get that off my chest! Thanks for listening!