Sorry for the Lapse!

Man, a month goes by really fast! Every week I think, "I need to update our blog," and obviously I haven't gotten around to it.

Things have been mostly business as usual for us lately. Weeks just seem to fly by, which is nice since I much prefer the weekend! On Sundays, I usually get a little blue that the week is about to start again. I need to get to a place where I appreciate each day a little more, even Monday thru Friday!

Things have been busy for me at work. We just moved into a temporary office space so that construction can begin on our new counseling center. It's not ideal - for example, it's not on our church campus - but it will do for the next 9 months to a year!

At home, we've had some changes too! Our TV died a couple of weeks ago, so we spent about a week researching our next TV purchase. Finally, we ended up picking one, but we ordered it from Amazon, so it will take a little while to arrive! Also, we had a really nice, new king size mattress given to us a couple of weeks ago (long story), and we love it, so we ended up getting a new bed last week! It's great to have a king size bed, and I'm so happy not to sleep on the soft mattress that Dan had before we got married!

I can't believe it's summer. I mean, I can believe it when I walk outside, but it's just hard to believe that school is out and it's almost the middle of June! I always miss being in school this time of year because of summer vacation. Every year I wonder if I'm really meant to be a teacher!

Well, I guess that's it for now. No one will probably read this because you've probably given up on a new post! I promise to do better next time!

Mother's Day!

First of all, happy Mother's Day to our Moms and all of you mom's out there. We've had a good day even though it wasn't as we had planned. Dan's mom wanted to go to the beach for the day, so we met her and Dan's brother and sister (Megan and Dustin) in Ormond Beach. Unfortunately, it was really overcast, so we just decided to eat lunch and walk around for a little while. It was still fun to hang out with them!

We did have a very special experience this morning, though. Our church has a tradition of praying on Mother's Day for couples who have not been able to conceive. We stood for prayer today and had a lot of people praying for us, which was so neat. It was also overwhelming! I shed a lot of tears. But we are really hoping that God will answer this prayer. We know He will at some point in some way! It's been a long wait, but we keep trusting His wisdom! The pastor asked couples to stand who have had this prayer answered in the past, and it was exciting to see how many stood.

Well, this is a short post, but other than work, that's about all that's been going on!

Day at Animal Kingdom

We haven't had too much excitement to report lately. I told my friend, Melanie, on the phone yesterday that I prefer to post when I have pictures because it's more fun, but of course, we don't take pictures every day!

Anyway, things are just business as usual around here. Things have slowed down a little bit at work for me, which is good because it's giving me a chance to catch up.

Congratulations to my parents, who are in the process of moving in to their new house! I can't wait to see it, but unfortunately that probably won't be until July. Mom, remember to send me pictures!!! Then I can put them on here. I know it's so beautiful, and it will be a great place to get away (as if going to Mom and Dad's wasn't already)!

So, to the weekend. We have annual passes to Disney World! I know, I know, you're jealous. OK, maybe some of you are. Anyway, that is one of my consolations for living far far away in steamy Orlando. I love Disney, so we find a way to fork over the money for passes every year to keep me happy! Actually, it's a good thing for us to have because we have people coming into town to go to Disney pretty often. With our passes, it's easy to go out and see them, spend time with them, and play tour guide a little bit.

So on Saturday, we spent the afternoon at Animal Kingdom!

This is a picture of us in front of Expedition Everest, which is a pretty fun roller coaster that goes backwards! We got to ride a few rides, including the Safari, which I love every single time. You ride around in a big "Jeep" and see all kinds of animals. Here's some kind of bull type animal that was very close to us.

After our fun day, we went to Boma restaurant at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It's an African Buffet, and the food is so good. Plus, the hotel is amazing. It has its own savannah where all kinds of animals roam. We had to wait an hour and a half because we didn't have reservations, but it was worth the wait!

Well, I guess that's it for now!

Weekend Getaway!

Well, even though it was a tough week, it came at the perfect time! Last weekend (actually on Thursday), I flew up to Greer (God bless Allegiant Air that allowed me to fly for $120.00!) to go to a Beth Moore Conference with my mom and sister-in-law, Heather! It was a wonderful weekend.

Actually, the conference was just on Friday night and Saturday morning. So Thursday I got to spend some time with my parents at North Greenville (where my dad works) and, of course, at their mountain house. It's almost done, and I regret that I don't have any pictures. It's so beautiful!

The conference was on persevering through trial and it was based on James 1. I've actually never done a Beth Moore Bible Study, so I was overwhelmed by what an amazing teacher she is. The topic was perfect for me. There are lots of blessings in my life, but there are some pretty big trials too (see last posting), so it was a wonderful reminder for me that God is doing great things! It was also so fun to be with my mom and Heather! The picture below is of us at the conference (with the 17,0o0 other women - lots of control issues in one place)

After the conference, I got to go by Newberry to see my best friend, Melanie and her daughters. She was at her parents house for the weekend because she ran a race that morning. I haven't seen her since last May, so it was wonderful to stop by even though it was a very quick visit. Anna was feeling a little tired, so she was not eager to be in the picture!

After that, we headed to Greenville to meet Chris's family for dinner. We ate at Trio, which is so good. I don't think I've eaten there since before I moved down here. Below are pictures of us at dinner. Haegen Lee and Jake are so cute!

What a beautiful niece I have! After all that, I was very ready to get back home to see Dan, who stayed here for the weekend. He and his brother, Dustin, worked hard doing stuff around the house, which made the weekend doubly good! It was amazing to see all the people I got to see this weekend! I sure do miss SC! There's something so special about it!

Very Sad News...

Well, today was a big day because Alli had a vet appointment to get a check-up and also an x-ray to find out how many puppies she's having. The vet did her x-ray and came back in to inform me that she's not pregnant! He said she definitely has some external signs, which of course we have been noticing, but she has something called a false pregnancy. I can't really explain it all here, but the bottom line is, no puppies for now.

That news would be very disappointing in and of itself since it's something we have invested a lot in and have really been looking forward to, but it's even harder on top of our own struggles to have a baby. We've been trying now for about two years. It was a good thing that I had the day off today, because I've definitely been doing a lot of grieving.

I know in the bottom of my heart that God is good and faithful, and he's in control of all this stuff. But it's hard to face this kind of disappointment over and over again. Anyway, I'm sure we'll give it another try with Alli when her next heat comes (in five months). I guess we won't have to do all that work with puppies over the next couple of months, which is one bright side!

So just keeping those of you who read this posted!

It's been a while!

OK, so it's not as easy to keep writing on this blog as I thought it would be! Plus, we've both been so busy lately that I don't even have the energy! This week, I had the most sessions I've ever had: 23 - and that was after two cancellations! Needless to say, I'm very happy to be home, and I'm glad it's the weekend!

Two weekends ago, we got Alli's whelping box built! That was a fun project for us because we've never built anything together before. I would put a picture of it on here, but I'm too tired to get up and do that right now! I'm sure you'll see it when the puppies come! Monday, Alli goes to the vet to get a check up and an x-ray to see how many puppies she having! Hopefully, she will cooperate!

Last Sunday, I made my first big Florida mistake. I've lived here for five years, and I've been really good about using sunscreen! I haven't gotten burned the whole time I've lived here. But Sunday afternoon, I went to Dan's soccer game, and I forgot the sunscreen. My legs got so burned that I really could have stayed home from work the next day! But I didn't! I certainly learned my lesson! Now I'm in the wonderful stage of starting to itch before I peel. I have learned that we need to keep sunscreen in our cars!

This weekend, we'll spend Easter with Dan's family. Our church does a Saturday night service, so we have started going to that, and then we are able to go to his parents' church on Sunday. We're looking forward to a great weekend!

This week...

Well, I was meaning to post earlier, but I went to get some pictures off the camera, and Dan had already downloaded them to his computer. So I had to wait until today to get my hands on it. Dan took his sister, Megan, up to visit UF today.

We had a great weekend with Chris and Sarah last weekend! It was cold, so we didn't get to spend much time on the beach, but it was still fun to be with our friends and very relaxing! They have these automatic storm shutters on the condo, so we could put them down at night and it was sooo dark! Dan was excited because he and Chris got to play golf. I was happy that he was finally using the new driver I got him for Christmas! And we got to eat seafood! Oh, one other thing: we learned that soy burger crumble is actually good!

Alli and Riley had a fun time together. Riley definitely won the energy battle. Alli keeps slowing down a little more each week! But they still played and ran and swam and had lots of fun. You can see from the pictures below. There is also one where she's showing you how she's our 75 pound lap dog! My lap is her favorite place to be!

We've had a good week and I'm glad it's almost the weekend again! Wednesday night I had book club. We read a great book this time called Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. She's the author who wrote Chocolat. I recommend it to those of you out there who like to read!

We've been leading this bible study called The Truth Project for the past couple of months, and it's really good. Dan could explain it better than I can, but the premise is about whether we really believe what we say we believe and why. It has kind of an apologetic feel, but it examines things like science, the family, the state, etc, how God intended these things to be, and what our world has done with them. It's a lot of information! The only problem is that it's at our house, and it's long, so I'm looking forward to the end to get a little break. I like having people over, but it's a lot when we're both working so much!

This weekend our big project is building a whelping box for our little mama to be! We have to get it ready early so that she will get used to it and hopefully not decide to have her puppies on our bed. By the way, for those of you who wonder about our (or my) obsession with our dog, she's just our surrogate child as we wait (and wait) for God's timing for our children! She's a real blessing in the midst of this time, but we do have perspective! We know she's just a dog!