Blessings in hard times

You know how people say that they never would have experienced or received the blessings they have if they hadn’t gone through trials and hard times? Sounds like a bunch of bunk, doesn’t it? Well, you heard it here… it’s true! Most of the readers of this blog know that just a little over a week ago, I had a miscarriage. I am happy to report that physically I am healing just fine and as far as we know, I have no reason not to believe that I won’t go on to have a perfect pregnancy in the future, which is wonderful. Emotionally, the healing is taking a bit longer and I expect to grieve over this for a long time, maybe even forever, even if just a little bit. What I’m trying to say is that I’ll never forget it, and I know that is normal.

But what I’d rather focus on in this blog post is the love of our friends & family we’ve received during this tragic event. We really debated whether or not to share the news about this, but in the end, we decided we wanted our good friends to know and we needed the prayer support. This is a corporate thank you to all of you who have been thinking about us and praying for us, your kind words in your emails, and for those special few who sent cards, flowers, and made meals for us. You are greatly appreciated!!

And even more important than our dear friends, is our loving and caring Heavenly Father. Through this He has been faithful to us, comforting us, healing us, providing us with hope and grace. I know that we as God’s children experience these things daily, but they seem to be much more evident in difficult times like these.

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (look it up!)

Ringing in the New Year - in Oklahoma!

This past weekend we got to celebrate Christmas #2 with Bobby’s family in Oklahoma. We arrived late Friday night and came back to St Louis Monday afternoon, so it was another quick weekend getaway. The plane tickets may have been $314, but being with family on New Years was priceless. How about that for cheesiness!?! It is true though.

Saturday afternoon we got to eat lunch with Bobby’s aunt, uncle, & two cousins at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Ted’s. Ok, so normally I don’t really get that excited about Mexican food, but even I love that place – they completely lavish you with chips & cheese dip (and salsa, but who cares about that?!) and keep refilling them to your heart’s content. The service is great and the food is better. And to top it all off, we got sopapillas! Yum!! Saturday night we had a big turkey dinner and opened presents. Sunday morning was a wonderful church service at Heritage PCA, followed by family portraits at Walmart. The rest of the day was spent eating, visiting, playing games, and of course watching the ball drop in NYC at 11:00 pm central time – that anticlimactic event I’ve had to deal with for 4 years now.

Monday afternoon we were all dressed in our official Fiesta Bowl t-shirts

but Bobby and I had to fly back to St Louis to watch the game. And that is what we did – until after midnight! I still can’t believe OU lost, but wow, what a game!!

Christmas on the farm

We had the great privilege of spending Christmas weekend in southwestern Pennsylvania at my Aunt Traci & Uncle Jack's farm. We arrived Saturday afternoon and Bobby was whisked off to Hunting Hills where he got to enjoy shooting some birds. Meanwhile the ladies went to a candlelight service at a little country church. Then we all met up for dinner that evening. Sunday was nice and relaxing, and I was excited about getting to see the Steelers play, but the game was a major disappointment. Monday morning was a blast, more family & friends arrived, we had a delicious brunch and opened a bountiful amount of presents! Then we left the farm, drove two hours north to New Castle to exchange more presents and visit my mom's side of the family. The bad part was getting to bed late and waking up at 5:00 am (yes, that's 4:00 central time) to fly back to St Louis so that I could go to work... but hey, let's not focus on the negative! Here are some pictures from the weekend:


Bobby and his birds


















The Hammond family Christmas photo


















One of my favorite presents this year - my mom had my wedding gown preserved. Only to be taken out of the box when I have a daughter to try it on someday. Or if I have a mid-life crisis and get determined to fit back in it!

















And this picture is just to prove that we really were on a farm... Pattycake the Pig, running up the steps because it's feedin' time! Isn't she adorable?!

Party Season

'Tis the season for parties & open houses, and fortunately other people have been hosting them so I haven't had to! True, I do love entertaining, but it really is nice when we can go to other people's houses and enjoy their clean, inviting homes and eat all of their food.

This past Saturday, our neighbors that live on the other side of our ceiling, Currie & Abby, had a fun little gathering. Unfortunately though, only one picture was taken all night, but it's a good one!

Here is Jessica, me, Abby & Joy - all seminary wives. Jess and her husband, BJ, don't live in Atherton yet, but they hope to soon.

Last week we got to go to another party. Technically it wasn't a "Christmas" party, it was actually a going-away party for our dear friends, the Zellners. We are very sad to say good-bye to them. Eric & I worked together at my first job here in St Louis - while I was running errands & doing laundry all day, he got to do all the cleaning - lucky guy! It was great to get to know him, his wife, Susan, and their two precious girls, Olivia & Emma Frances, well over the past 3 1/2 years. Wow, has it been that long?!

18 days until Christmas

We put our Christmas tree up this past weekend and I wanted to show it off.



















Here is our Nativity - notice, the wise men are far away.















Bunny's favorite winter activity is to wreck havoc on the tree skirt so I tried to capture that for all to see. Whenever we start playing with her, she goes directly to the tree skirt and won't play until we come over there.

Winter Storm Hits the Midwest

I really thought I would not make it home from work last night. Give me a foot or two of snow and I can plow right through it, even in my little Altima, but hit us with sleet and freezing rain and two inches of ice, and I'm a wreck (fortunately not literally). My new work hours are 11-8:30 and the sleet began around 9 am, I made it to work just fine, but my drive home last night (fortunately they let me leave at 6:15) was hazardous, to say the least! There was a layer of ice, snow drifts and slush all over the roads, and the lane markers were completely invisible. Every little movement I made, even at 15 mph, my tires were sliding all over the place, and my 9-mile commute took me over an hour - and I drive on some really major roads!

Beyond my experience, here are some highlights of the storm's impact on St Louis:

• 500,000 customers are without power
• one of the major highways here (I-70) was shut down for awhile
• Metrolink (train) was inoperable this morning
• more than 1000 travelers stranded in Lambert Airport
  

Thankfully the sleet stopped sometime during the night and we woke up this morning to a winter wonderland! We were "supposed" to get 6-10 inches of snow, but only got 1-2. Normally I would be disappointed about that, but since there was 2 inches of ice underneath, I was happy with just a little more than a dusting this time. I am grateful now for the pretty sunshine that has come out and given us a relief from the precipitation so that the road crews can catch up and keep my roadways clear!

Every year

I have such a hard time getting in the Christmas spirit. I don't know if it's because I love fall & Thanksgiving so much and it's hard to let go of that season, because there is no snow yet (and it's 70 degrees outside!), or if it's because of the over-commercialization of Christmas that by the time it gets here, I'm sick of seeing Christmas decorations and Christmas songs. But whatever the reason, it happens every year. I don't want to get out the tree, the garland, the lights, the CDs... but I do it anyway, and you know what, the magic of the season eventually gets me and all of a sudden I'm little miss Christmas-girl.

But right now, on November 29th, I'm just not there yet... but then again, I hear snow is on the way... Better start bringing up the boxes from the basement, Bobby!!

Beautiful Day

Thanksgiving day has come and gone, but it was a wonderful celebration. We were fortunate enough to have both sets of parents and Bobby's sister, Mindy, with us as we hosted our first Thanksgiving dinner. We started off the day with a little walk outside - the weather has been sunny & in the 60's all week here in St Louis, then we watched the parade on tv, and started preparations for our feast. The turkey & ham were "smoked" the day before so we just pretty much had to reheat everything (thank you Currie & Abby for letting us use your oven!), but I was more concerned with the decor - and had a lot of fun dressing-up the table. If you're not already hungry, you may be after you read this... our menu consisted of: turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green beans, apple sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, whole wheat rolls, and baked pineapple. And for dessert we had oatmeal-pecan pie (a new recipe - yum!), pumpkin pie, rice pie, ice cream & whipped cream. Following the after-dinner clean-up ritual, we pretty much just sat around and visited until we all fell asleep. What a great day!


Here is Bobby, in his glory, carving the turkey.

Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday (after Veteran's Day) is almost here! I've always loved Thanksgiving - I love the season that it's in, it's near my birthday, it's more laid back and casual than Christmas because there isn't any stress over presents, and everyone gets to sit around, enjoy good food & each other, and reflect on what we're thankful for. So in light of that, I thought I'd take a moment and share what I'm thankful for this year...

1. First, my gracious and loving Heavenly Father. Each year I grow more and more in my faith and He is there to renew me each day and draw me closer to Him. I am so grateful that He calls me his own and loves me despite all of my flaws & shortcomings.
2. My wonderful and loving husband. Once again he amazes me with his hard work and diligence - he (somehow!) manages to balance school (full-time seminary classes & German), work (UPS and part-time job at Covenant), his internship, several pulpit-filling opportunities, and his family. Through all of this, we have been able to have great health insurance, go on a couple wonderful vacations, and will graduate in May with almost ZERO debt! wow!! And while you may think we never get to see each other, I never feel neglected. He works really hard during the week so we get to enjoy our weekends together - whether we're watching football, shopping at Walmart or going to the movies, our time together is always special!
3. Our families! I am so thankful that we both have such loving and supportive parents, we are truly blessed. And this includes our extended family too - we lean on them so much for support & prayers - we miss them all so much since we are far away from everyone, it seems, and it's so nice when we can get home to see them.
4. The CTS community & our fabulous neighbors. Never would I have guessed that we would make such wonderful friends here in St Louis, especially living in the ghetto! Atherton has been such a great place to live, even though we had our doubts and were disappointed when we couldn't get into Gulf Drive, we never would have changed a thing - except a second bedroom would have been nice... Building #8449 rocks!
5. Bunny & Brooks! My little critters bring me so much joy when I am home by myself - I love watching Bunny throw her toys around and constantly try and sneak into the bedroom (it is her main goal in life) and Brooks is so precious when you walk over to his tank and he swims (& wiggles - you should see Bobby inpersonate him!) just to get some attention. It's the greatest!
6. Email/Internet - without it I wouldn't be able to communicate so well with my dear friends all over the country - especially the one in Virginia who brings so much joy to my day while I'm at work. (yes, I check my email while I'm working... it keeps me sane)
7. This list is getting long so I'll summarize everything else into this last point: shelter, food, cars, HEALTH, safety, heat/air conditioning, cable tv, jobs, Body for Life, email, President Bush, Kirk of the Hills PCA church, Walmart, entertainment (movies, books, music, etc), and everything else that I can't think of right now...

So as you can see, I have a LOT to be thankful for this year!

Random pictures

For some reason my blog only lets me post four pictures per post so I thought I would make a new post just for those couple pictures that I couldn't post earlier... (I tried to see how many times I could put the word "post" in one sentence.)

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Bobby and I - taken at my parent's house a few weeks ago.














Here is a picture of Bobby enjoying the cheese fondue at the Melting Pot last Saturday night. (if it looks like he's tired, it's because we didn't get to eat dinner until 10:30 pm)
















Here is a cute one of our little Bunny laying on "her" pillow.