A couple of quick notes

Yesterday was a GREAT day at the farm!!! Yes, like I've said before, these trips to the University Lab farm have gotten to be almost a daily thing. I think I like the trips almost as much as Hope does. But yesterday was so much fun!!! We noticed a new calf in the calf barn. She didn't even have her ears tagged yet. My guess was that she was about a day old. So we spent some time in the calf barn visiting with all the calves. Then we headed to the "maternity ward" to check in on the pregnant cows. There was a brand spanking new calf laying on the hay!!! We figured it was probably about 8-10 hours old (what do we know about calves??). We were so excited!!! Then we headed to another barn and on our way back to the car we were getting ready to take one more trip through the calf barn and we saw two farmers (two college girls who are working at the farm for the summer) carrying the new calf into the calf barn. YEAH!!! We found out the calf was actually only TWO HOURS OLD! It was still wet!! Hope not only got to pet the new baby, but she got to help the farmer (Kat) give the baby her first bottle. Such a neat experience. There are 6 more cows in the "maternity ward", so we'll be having lots of new calves in the next week or so.

I'm headed to Stevens Point in about and hour. My Mom, even as I post this, is having rotator cuff surgery. The surgery was scheduled to start at 7am and was supposed to last about 4 hours. Sheesh!! That's almost as long as my gastric bypass surgery was. So please say a prayer for my Mom. The recovery for this surgery is supposed to be pretty gruelling, but once that's done it'll be so much better for her. I'll keep you posted on that.

Wednesday I head to Dallas for 5 days of R&R!!! I'll be staying at my friend Pam's house and she won't even be home. I'm bummed that I won't get to spend any time with her, but it'll be so peaceful. They have an AWESOME in ground swimming pool with a hot tub attached. Pam also got a baby grand piano for her 50th b-day a couple of years ago. As long as her blender is working so I can make some margaritas (lol) I'll be in heaven. I'll miss Hope so much though. I suppose I'll miss Mark, too (hehehe). This will be a great break for me though. I'm feeling a little guilty about leaving Mark to fend for himself and Hope, but I figure that I did it for almost 8 months while he was in Stoughton and Appleton, so I think I can use this trip. Plus, maybe it'll help him see how much I really do at home. That's always a good thing. I know when he was gone I realized how much he does, too.

That's all I've got for now. Thanks for reading and thanks for keeping my Mom in your prayers!

A trip around the world??

My friend Lloyd is a musician. He belongs to an awesome Christian band called Echelon and he also does solo stuff. Hope's favorite CD right now is Echelon's latest CD. One of the songs on that CD has a chorus that goes like this: "You, giver of life, maker of all things made that have been made. Oh I could go 'round the world and find nothing better to do than worshiping you, Lord." It's a great song with great music and great words. Well, Hope knows the words and we sing it every day. Tonight as she was finishing supper I was singing the song to her. A few minutes later, here was the conversation:
Hope: Mommy?
Mommy: Yes, Hope?
Hope: Can I go around the world with you some day?
Mommy (melting inside): Yes, Hope. That would be really nice. Where would you like to go first?
Hope: First to the farm to see Baby Reddy. Then to the playground. Then around the world.

I just smiled and gave her the biggest hug. I just thought that was so precious!!

What a great weekend

Both Mark and I actually had four days off this weekend, so it's been a really nice weekend. The weather mostly cooperated (say a prayer for those whose lives have been changed by the tornado in Hugo...a suburb of St. Paul, MN) and we were able to be outside a lot. Due to the fact that I'm going to try to be in bed by 10pm (WHAT???), I'll keep it brief. We got to go geocaching THREE TIMES this weekend. We found a total of 6 caches. Fun!! The first day, Mark had a woodtick on his ear. Today I came home with THREE of them. I still have the creepy crawlies, so I think I need to take a shower before I go to bed. We also went to a couple of graduation parties, the farm a couple of times, Como Zoo (where Hope went on a carousel for the very first time. She was a bit freaked out by it, but she made it through and I think it'll be easier next time), and to our friend's Scott and Jan's house tonight for an impromptu picnic.

I didn't get anything done in the garden or in the house, but it was worth it. We spent lots of time together and it was great. I just wish it could always be like this...but work calls tomorrow.

With that, I'm off to get the creepy crawlies off and hit the hay. Please remember all those who have given their lives for our country as well as those men and women currently serving in our military. Today we're saying a special prayer for my nephew Andrew who most of you know is serving the US Air Force in Germany.

Heartbreaking news

I just read something heartbreaking on line. Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman (one of my all-time favorites) and his wife experienced something horrible on Wed. night. Their 5 year old daughter was killed in a car accident in their driveway. Maria was their youngest daughter and they had adopted her from China. Here's a link to the article. Please keep this family in your prayers. http://chapmanchannel.typepad.com/inmemoryofmaria/

House update

Well, the showing went well yesterday morning. The couple just did a quick look through, but I sensed it was fairly positive. The wife LOVED it (except she walked into the kitchen and said, "This is it?" I have the same reaction and I've lived there for 6 years). She was really impressed with all the storage areas (there are lots) and she was REALLY impressed with the fact that the house has two bedrooms and two FULL bathrooms on the main level. I wasn't sure if the stairs up to the loft and down to the basement (the husband has a bad left knee) or the small kitchen would be a deal breaker or not. Apparently they weren't because the husband called us around 6:00 last night to talk price. He did mention that the stairs were a bit of an issue, but that they were still interested. I handed the phone to Mark so they could talk about the price. Mark told him what we were going to list the house for and he didn't laugh or anything like that. He said they'd talk about it and get back to us. Now the story takes another interesting turn. We are set up with Keller Williams Realty for email housing alerts. We set up the criteria we're looking for in house (number of bedrooms, price, square footage, etc) and when something matches our criteria, then send us an email. Well, there's a house in River Falls that I walked through that I absolutely LOVE!! It's currently owned by a couple with two young girls. I know them because they're members of the church I worked at in River Falls and were involved with the children's ministry there. The house is PERFECT for us. Today we got an updated listing from KW and that house just dropped in price by $10,000. It's on the outer end of our price range, but if we can talk them down just a little more and if we can get the price we're hoping to get for our house, it would be so great. BUT...Mark and I did talk about how we love the location of our current home and how hard it is going to be to move from there. We talked about doing a really good add-on job which would mean adding two new rooms (an office for Mark and a guest bedroom) and the kitchen of my dreams. That would probably mean adding a 1/2 bath or 3/4 bath, too. The more I think about it, the more I think the cost would be way too high for us to do that. We'll see. We'll pray. There's also a house in Baldwin (right across the street from our friends Ron, Beth and Hope...hi guys!!) that I've been keeping my eye on. It also went down in price by $8,500. The new price on that one is $161,400. TOTALLY do-able for us for sure. So we'll see what ends up happening. Oh...the house in River Falls is just a block away from the Elementary school where Hope would go. It's also two doors down from a very good friend of mine.

More exciting news for us: we officially have a potty trained 2 year old. WooHoo!!! I know there will be accidents from time to time, but she really has this potty thing down-pat. She's even wearing big-girl panties now. This was a long road. Everyone kept telling me that one day it would just click for her. I started doubting that. They were right though. YEAH!!!

That's it for now. Time to get ready for my elementary aged kids that are coming in just 45 miutes. It's the last Kids Club of the school year. I love them, but I'm ready for summer to be here.

More to come on the housing situation....

Quick prayer request

I have a quick prayer request for everyone. The request: that the showing of our house tomorrow morning is successful. The background: There is this (older) couple that used to be members of the church I worked at in River Falls (they became "un-members" because of the Sr. Pastor's crap) who are our neighbors (they live around the corner). When the wife (we'll call her Jane) heard from her beautician that I was leaving Ezekiel and would be working for a church in Baldwin she called me to let me know that they were interested in buying our house. They were assuming we'd be moving to Baldwin. I let her know that we were not going to be moving to Baldwin, but staying in our house. Then a year ago (we were actually out for our anniversary dinner) we ran into them at a restaurant in town and they again let us know that if we were ever interested in putting the house on the market we should contact them before we sign a contract with a realtor. So Mark called them on Saturday. He talked to the man (we'll call him John) and I guess he didn't sound that interested, but he said he'd talk to his wife (they had company at the time, so it could have been that they were just busy and didn't have time to talk at the time). Well "Jane" called this morning and is really excited about seeing the house. They're coming over tomorrow morning at 10:45. Mark and I will be working like crazy tonight and tomorrow morning to get the house "packed away" so it doesn't look so cluttery. Mark also called the carpet cleaner and she's at our house even as I type, getting the carpets nice and clean. I'm so hoping this couple will buy our house. I think we can probably come to an agreement on the price (without having to pay a realtor we'd be able to take a little less of an offer than we'd have to otherwise). They've been in the house before (in the 70s when it was first built....and we've done a LOT of work in the house since that time). It would be a perfect house for them. Plenty of room for a retired couple. BEAUTIFUL view out the back (I'm going to miss that). Bathroom and bedroom on the same floor (I guess they don't have that in their current location). So if you could say a prayer, that would be appreciated. It would also mean being able to seriously start looking for our next home. YEAH!!! I'll keep you posted...

I'm so proud of my sister in law!

Today was mine and Mark's (is that correct grammar??) 6th wedding anniversary. We've been through so much stuff since we got married...most of it pretty tough. My weight loss surgery just two weeks before we got married (Yep...I just celebrated my 6th anniversary for that, too...and I have to get serious about this whole thing again, but that's a topic for another day), Mark losing his job of 17 years at Lutheran Brotherhood due to the merger with AAL, Mark's hip surgery, job stresses for me at Ezekiel, more job stuff with Mark, a miscarriage, the birth of Hope (that's been a GREAT thing, just so you know), a job change for me (that's been a great thing, too), parents getting older, and now trying to sell a house and figure out where we want to live. Anyway, there have been great vacations, great friends, time with our wonderful families, the ability to be able to do lots of updates on our house, great views from the back deck of our house and watching Hope grow up in those years, too. So for our anniversary today Mark's parents came and babysat for Hope after Andy's (Mark's nephew) confirmation party. Guess what we did??? We went to IKEA!!! LOL How romantic is that?? Well, it wasn't romantic, but it was fun. I love that store. I think Mark has grown to tolerate it. Then we went out to eat and headed home. On the way home we stopped at Mark's sister's (Cheryl) house to drop off Andy's confirmation gift. Cheryl shared some really incredible news with me: she was nominated as one of the contenders for Teacher of the Year in the Hudson School District. It's an awesome school district, so just to be nominated is a huge honor. Well, she WON!!! Cheryl teaches 1st grade and is an incredible teacher, so she is very deserving of this award. So here's kudos for my sister in law!! YEAH CHERYL!!!

I have much more to say, but I've got a headache the size of Cleveland and I have an 8:40 doctor's appointment in the morning, so it's time to go to bed. Until later...