Thursday, May 24, 2007

Memorial Day Weekend!

I'm off to the airport in a few minutes to pick up my good friend Alyson. She's flying in for a weekend of sitting around doing nothing - and she's excited about it! Thank God for good friends. Have a great Memorial Day and remember to thank a veteran for giving of their life and time to ensure we keep the freedoms that those before them fought so hard for. Jonathan, Reggie, Granddaddy - thank you so much for all of the sacrifices that you've made. I love you! Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Enjoy it!

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

A sad day...

Our TV died this morning. Broken. Kaput. Nothing. What's even sadder is that we had just gotten it hooked up and working yesterday. Oh well. Britney didn't much think it would survive the move.

This is the latest in a series of attacks against our family since we moved here. Obviously, our biggest struggle has been our house in Georgia not selling. We haven't been able to buy or do any of the things we had planned because of that. We were both starting to get a little freaked out about money, especially after we got the bill from the movers last Wednesday. So, we decided that we would seek God and what His will is for us like we never have before. Thus, the full-on war began.

Wednesday night, Carter didn't sleep very well, so I was sleeping in his bed with him. I twisted wrong and pulled what felt like every muscle in my upper back and neck. It was 5:00 in the morning - not a great way to start what would turn out to be a very bad day. It's feeling much better now - thanks to a great husband who has been taking good care of me!

Thursday morning was the elusive trip to Sioux Falls - enough said!

Friday was actually a pretty good day. We've met a lady down the street who has 3 kids - six, four and 15 months. So, we played with the younger ones most of the day.

Saturday was good until my oven acted up (again) while baking Britney's birthday cake. Apparently the thermostat or something is busted on it because it cooks VERY VERY HOT! I made a cream cheese pound cake (is your mouth watering?) that was supposed to cook for 1 hour and 55 minutes at 350. Instead, I had to cook it at 225 for 1 hour and 20 minutes - and one side of the outside still turned black and I USED MY STONEWARE BUNDT PAN!!! AGH!

Anyway, Sunday was a great day with Britney's birthday and church. We went to Jerry and Mel's church and they had a missionary from France in to speak. He was incredible! But, we both realized that there are very few churches reaching our generation or even the next one. We were the youngest couple in the church (with the exception of Britney's cousins). No young marrieds, singles or even many high schoolers. It made me sad and also made me realize that we ARE here for a purpose.

Enter Monday - Carter didn't sleep much at all Sunday night and Ashlyn was up by 6:30 in the morning. Both kids woke up with a cold. We were all grumpy Monday and didn't get along well all day.

Which brings us back to the TV - and money - and the fact that our house still hasn't sold and God is in control! When we realized the TV was dead, I just started laughing. Satan CANNOT steal my joy!!!

So, if you think about us over the next few days as we continue to seek what God's will is for us and what His plan is for us, please pray that satan would leave us alone.

James 1:2-4 (ESV) Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Carter, Ashlyn and a Broken Car

I know it's been awhile since I updated. Sorry about that. We've just been unpacking, grocery shopping and playing outside. Nothing too exciting, so I just thought I'd share some of the highlights and lowlights of the last week ;)

Ashlyn got registered for kindergarten this week. It was exciting and sad at the same time. Britney was excited because the school uses all Macs! She's getting so big that it's hard to remember all of those sleepless nights when she was so sick as a baby. Her "mama" tooth is also starting to come in where she lost her two baby teeth. She has really blossomed here and has such an imagination!

Carter is still the most adorable little tornado! Every day he drags his cars out all over the living room and pushes them around. His favorite toys these days are his John Deere tractors and wagons. He "put, put, puts" them around all day. He also loves his Elmo toolbench, which he got for Christmas, but we left in the box so I didn't have to re-pack it when we moved. He'll stand up in the playroom by himself for half an hour singing along with Elmo about "working at the tool bench!" I bought him new sandals this week and we ended up with the Buzz Lightyear light-up sandals from Target. He SCREAMED when I took his old shoes off (which were way too small, but he was very attached) and didn't want to try ANY new shoes on, until Ashlyn was kind enough to point out the ugly Buzz Lightyear ones. Now, that's all he wants to wear. Which, isn't necessarily a bad thing except that it's been in the 60's here the last couple of days, so MY SON has worn his SANDALS with SOCKS! I know - it's the worst fashion catastrophe, but sometimes it's worth one less fight in the morning.

Let's see...what else? Oh yeah - the broken car :) The kids and I had a great day planned yesterday to go to Sioux Falls for shopping and lunch with Britney's aunt Mel, his cousins Robin and Marci and Robin's daughter Haylee (she's 3 weeks younger than Carter). We all piled into Mel's van, two hours later than we had originally planned, and headed out. We made it exactly 20 miles when the kids were getting antsy. Then the car made a loud clicking noise, like when you run over rocks in the road and the power steering went out. Luckily, we were already getting off the interstate to start a movie for the kids. We pulled over and I called Britney. He came and confirmed what we already knew - we had thrown the power steering belt. So, a couple of hours later, we were on our way - BACK HOME! Haylee and Carter were both asleep within minutes of getting back on the interstate and our trip to Sioux Falls was postponed. Bummer!

This weekend we'll celebrate Britney's 31st birthday with brats (the food, not people) and birthday cake. We have a few family members coming over to have lunch with us. We hope you all have a good weekend and enjoy the nice weather I hear is coming to the South!!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Decisions, Decisions

I'm sitting here in the living room, looking out the window on another beautiful morning. The weather here has been perfect the last few days. Highs have been in the 80s with very low humidity. There hasn't been much wind either. The hardest decision I've had to make the last few days (besides where to put things) is what we're going to do with our days!

Tuesday the kids and I worked in the yard all day. We planted some wildflower seeds in a new flower bed that we dug out. The kids also played frisbee and on their new slide that Nana gave them for Christmas. By the time we went inside, they were covered in mud from head to toe and left a nice ring around the bathtub once they were all clean! One of our neighbors stopped told me that she could always tell how much fun her kids were having by how dirty they were. By the looks of Carter and Ashlyn, they must have had a blast!

Yesterday we spent the day at the lake. There is a pretty big lake in Worthington, about 15 minutes away. We found this little park that joins right up to the lake, so the kids could play on the playground for awhile and then play in the sand and they even ventured into the water about knee-deep. I'm sure it was cold, but they insisted it wasn't, so I let them play.

Hmmm, so what should we do today? I'm sure we'll be outside again and I need to walk down to the grocery store and the hardware store. So far, life here is very good. I hope I'm still saying the same thing next January and February :)

Sunday, May 6, 2007

Small Town, USA

Small town life is so good. I love it here and can't believe how much it feels like "home" to me already. The last week is somewhat of a blur, but I'd like to share some of the things that have stood out to me.

The biggest one is probably grocery shopping. The kids and I went to Hy-Vee, a small chain grocery store that is probably only in the Midwest. There is a WalMart close by, but I wanted to get out of my rut and try something new. Britney would say their meat counter is incredible - and they actually have a meat counter where you can go in and order your "usual" of whatever cuts of meat you like.

At the register, the cashier asked me if I would like to "drive up" today. I thought she was asking for a donation to something, but she politely explained that I could drive up to the curb and they would load my groceries in the car. How's that for service! Anyway, once I explained that we had just moved from out of town and that's why I didn't know what "drive up" meant (duh!), she invited me to church. She was very nice and politely answered my questions about their church the best that she could. I don't know why that stuck with me so much, but it really made an impression.

The other thing that has stood out to me is the wind! While most of the time there is just a nice breeze blowing (kind of like being at the beach), yesterday and Friday were down right gale force winds! Remember watching Little House on the Prairie when it took them pushing against the door of the house to just get it open enough to squeeze inside? That was no exaggeration! We were on the playground the other day when a gust of wind came out of nowhere and literally knocked Carter to the ground. He just layed there for a minute because he didn't know what to do. Then, in true Carter fashion, he laughed and got up and said "silly wind!".

I think my favorite part of Adrian so far is the fact that we can WALK anywhere we need to go. If we were Catholic, we could even walk to church (it's a block from our house). But, the library, bank, grocery store, pharmacy, consignment shop, etc. is all within just a short, flat walk from our house. Hopefully that will motivate me to get some more exercise!

Well, I hope this gave you a little bit of a glimpse into our life here so far. Feel free to call or email anytime (or visit!).