Christmas in Iowa - 2007

Well the holidays are almost over. Just one more "holiday" to go, and Andrew's birthday (29.....he's almost old!) We went to Andrew's family for Christmas and spent the day with Grandma Shirley and all the cousins. Thought I would post some pictures for you.



Here's Grandma Shirley and Andrew!



And Nathan. If any of you remember him, he was the ring bearer in our wedding. My, what a difference 4 years makes!



Well I hope you all have had a wonderful holiday! Merry belated Christmas, may you know the reason for the season and have a wonderful New Year!

Oh my gosh, we are finally finished! :)

Ok so after two years, and a few soap operaish moments (ie Andrew trying to chop his arm off with the chop saw, instead of the piece of wood he was attempting to cut), our basement is finally finished! Unfortunately, I don't have any before pictures (bad me! I have an excuse. I didn't have a camera until July of this year!!!) So you'll just have to use your imagination as I describe how it USED to be.

When we moved in back in November of 2005, you would walk into the room and half of the room was just the cement wall and the other half was covered in the 70's most popular style of wood paneling! The stairs were completely closed in so you had about a doorway's amount of room to get into them and it was just one big huge dark, dirty room. The furnace and hot water heater were just sitting one side of the room, completely open.

So we decided to take the one big room and give us 4 smaller rooms. One room became a storage area. We moved the washer and dryer hook ups to a different corner and made the 2nd room a laundry room/utility area. The third room enclosed another small storage space while closing in the hot water heater and furnace. The largest room is now our third "living room." We already have a family room and formal living room upstairs. Our already large 1700 square foot house just became an even larger 2000 square foot house. Yikes. I don't know what to do with all the space! We already got lost in all the space we had before. We also knocked out half the wall along the stairway in order to make a nice bannister area.

Adding all of this space also allowed us to move the office from our third bedroom to the basement. So we now have two guest bedrooms! :) I am so thrilled. It looks wonderful. Andrew did the bulk of the work with help from my father, his father, our friends Mike, Paul and John, my mother and I. So... Here are some pics!

Snow!

We had our first snowstorm of the year on Thursday! Didn't amount to much, but I love inclement weather! Everything but regular boring old rain. That's just boring. Freezing rain is expected today. I'll post some photos if it gets to be anything good. Too bad it's cancelled our Christmas party for this evening, but oh well. A nice day to just sit inside and look at all the pretty snow and freezing rain!

I have to brag.

Andrew just landed his student teaching assignment! He begins January 7, 2008! I am so proud of him and know that he will be the best teacher! He will be working with a kindergarten class at a school near our church.

Yay!




My Hero.

So it's been awhile

Ok. I realize it's been almost a month since I last posted. But you have to forgive me, I've been incredibly busy!

To start, at the end of October and the beginning of November, I had a total of 2 weeks out of the office and away from home. So I get back in town, for the first full week in the office and at home and catch up. Then I have a half week because of the holidays. One day of the holidays was spent with my parents and brother, then one day with some of Andrew friends from out of town, then 2 days up in Iowa with his parents and to see his grandma who is unfortunately in the hospital. We found out that week that she broke her knee and had a softball sized tumor in that area! It also unfortunately came back that it was malignant. But at last word, they found that it was just localized to that area and have since removed the tumor, so the hope is that all is out now and she will make a full recovery! We are continuing to pray for her, but at this point in time it appears all will be well.

So I get back from that trip and then I have to leave immediately for Huntsville for business for 3 days. So that puts me to the end of November already! And immediately upon my return, I am working like mad in my family room and my basement! For Christmas, my parents have completely remodeled my old wood paneling room. (pictures will be posted as soon as it is completed!) And our basement is at the point of needing carpet so we had to do the last minor detail work (staining the bannister, painting the doors, painting the trim, covering the ugly poles in the middle, cleaning it out of all the junk that has been used to work on it).

And now, I have to find the time to sit down and write out a Christmas letter (We've been married coming up on 4 years and have yet to send out Christmas greetings) and create an invitation to our New Years party!! Oh and somewhere in the last month, I had to go visit friends of ours who just had a baby! Well I didn't have to go, but who can pass up looking at little ones?? I won't say it was easy keeping the green eyed monster at bay, because it wasn't, but was worth it in the end.

Yes I still struggle with the whole miscarriage thing. I keep thinking that I'd be 6 months along now and probably showing. Every time I hear of another pregnancy successfully carried to term, I want to just cry. But my day will come and I am determined to leave it in God's hands and rely on Him to provide us with the children we want when the time is right. There must have been some reason that I had to go through this and I am just waiting on God to show me why.

Andrew is still looking for a place to student teach. We are praying it will be this spring so he can start teaching his own classroom next fall. I am keeping up the hope!! Pray for him on that! He is down to his last "class" before student teaching so it is very exciting that he is just that close to being done!

Well I think I wrote a book trying to catch you all up on the King's. Next blog will be with pics of my new family room and basement!