HaPpY TuRkEy DaY!!!

Things I am thankful for......

• Jesus's blood that cleanses me everyday
• My husband that adores me
• My fantastic family although we were so far away today
• The Haughs for being Christ and taking us in today as one of their own
• The year that Matthew and I have gotten to explore and experience the state of Pennsylvania
• My ability to work, and work hard
• The power of prayer
• ALL of my nieces and nephews
• The days that we get to see the sun in Beaver County
• Our church family
• Sleep
• I only have twenty nights before I get to sleep on my Tempur-Pedic mattress again
• milk and cheese (or dairy cows)

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving with the Haugh family in West Virginia. I just want to say that God has truly blessed my little sister with the best in-laws. The family that she has married into couldn't be a better example of Jesus living in us. They were so generous to invite us to be a part of their holiday. I can't thank them enough for making us feel right at home. The bed was awesome, the food was spectacular, the fellowship was phenomenal, and we felt very loved!! Thank you Haugh family. We hope to see you again soon.

What???






Well I feel a little like Kate from LOST! Matthew, Cassandra, Zach, and I decided to go camping Saturday night. There are many stories that could be told from this endeavor but I will only share one. We were all cozy inside our little tents under many many layers of clothing and blankets. There was a very interesting rustling sound followed by a ripping sound. I didn't have
much energy seeing as it was 2:30 in the morning, but we thought we should investigate.
Matthew told me to open the window (just in case.) I shined the light on the picnic table and saw that our bag of trash was now on the ground. A friendly raccoon wanted some of our treats. Zach and Cassandra braved the cold and put all of our goodies back inside the Pathfinder. We were all back inside our tents burrowing in our covers. About two hours later we heard what sounded like a stampede of sorts. This time I was so tired I didn't even care. At 5:30 Matthew decided he had had enough cold and got up to make a fire. Although Cassandra and Zach were still inside their tent we were talking and laughing about all the excitement we had had the night before. Zach said "Hey did you hear those deer that ran through our camp this morning?" Matthew said "I'm not so sure it was deer. Get out here and look at this." We all unzipped and jumped out as fast as we could. There were two random horses standing just outside our camp. It was very eerie to see what you would think were wild horses. Now I know how Kate felt staring at her black horse on the island... Later in the morning Matthew worked his horse whisperer magic and bonded with "Vondergren" the brown horse. That's how I was able to get the picture. More about the trip later....

CrAzY

Abraham and Sarah....

We were talking about Abram and Sarai last night at church and it is really funny to me how much our lives are paralleling the lives of these great characters of faith. I wouldn't even start to compare my faith to that of Sarah, but with God we were able to "leave your home, your relatives, and your father's house, and go to the land that I will show you(Gen. 12:1)." After selling most of our worldly possessions we kissed our family goodbye and God showed us Pittsburgh, PA. Which Matthew would say is like going to another country, because of how far it is from home. We still have faith that God is planning something BIG! Sometimes I wonder were we will end up next. In just 30 days Matthew has to fill out the paperwork listing the five places we would be willing to move to. Please pray for us that we will be listening and looking for God in this decision. For some reason we don't think that ATC really has anything to do with God's plan. Pray that the community we will be moving to will be ready for us and that we will be aware of how God wants us to serve him in that new community. My hope is that part of God's plan is that we will get to start our own family soon. But if we end up anything like Abraham and Sarah we aren't scheduled to have a baby for another 24 years. Abraham left home at seventy-five and had Isaac at ninety-nine. Lets all hope that this isn't God's plan for us, because I think I would just give up. Boy listen to that lack of faith. PRAY FOR ME

2006 Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends!

This was taken from a friend's blog. I thought it would be fun to share.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Unwrapped and only one.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White (classy)!!!
4. Do you hang mistletoe? no
5. When do you put your decorations up? Haven't decorated at the house in four years!
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Cranberry sauce (the canned kind)
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: The year that Cabbage Patch Kids were flying off the shelves and no one could get their hands on them. Mom and Dad bought Steph a Russian kid. She peeked and knew she was getting it so Mom and Dad taped someearringss to a rock and filled the box with newspaper and rewrapped the huge CPK box. When she opened it she was so upset. Dad brought a brown paper bag in so she could throw her trash away and in the bottom was her Russian Cabbage Patch Kid.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can't remember but I was pretty old, because I can remember still believing when we lived in Virginia third or fourth grade maybe.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? As a kid dad gave us a one by one inch square that we could put anywhere in the gift then he would cut that much of the gift wrap. If we could guess what the present was correctly we could open it. If not we had to wait until the next morning.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I have only put up one, the first year we were married. It was a "real" tree and it smelled so good. White lights and a few ornaments thatreceivedeved as wedding gifts. We also bought a few on our honeymoon. Each year we buy one ornament for each other. Cool tradition but I never had the energy to put up a tree at home after I had already decorated and taken one down at school and one at church.
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Love it- but HATE cleaning the car off in the morning even though Matthew does it for me!
12. Can you ice skate? yes
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? Funny, I can't remember any gifts I received as a child. I can think of a ton of presents each of my sisters and brother received. I do love the earrings Matthew bought for me the first Christmas we were married.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Seeing our family and spending time playing board games!
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Mama Jan's green goo and my Mom's green sugar cookies with cream cheese icing!
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? We always play board games with the family and it is a blast!! I also love how my dad tricks us each year with some gift and we never know who the trick will be played on. Cooking with all the girls in the kitchen is great too!
17. What tops your tree? A MOOSE, the year I put it up.
18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving! But I wish we would do service projects as a family instead which technically is giving.
19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Sleigh Ride

20.Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? YUM, especially the multicolored ones!

Tag - if you read this you're it!

(You can respond in the comments by cutting and pasting if you want.)

SCRAPBOOKING!!
I have fallen in love! It has taken awhile to jump on the bandwagon but boy am I glad I am on it now!! My mom and sister have been doing this form of art for awhile, I always thought that I didn't have time. God has truly blessed me this year with time. I have so enjoyed the time to just be still. Not only have I gotten to start new hobbies (scrapbooking) but I have actually had time to just sit and read. Matthew and I have started walking this year. Not only is it good for our hearts and bodies, but it has made us so much closer.


Talking, even if it is about the weather or what we each did that day has just made our relationship that much deeper. My favorite walks are when we get to actually share our dreams with each other. This just wouldn't happen or even come up while sitting on the couch watching TV. I highly recommend making "family walks" a priority in your life. Well I got way off my subject but I guess I was just speaking from the heart this morning. I'll just leave you with a little glimpse of the book I made for Matthew this week. It's his Christmas present so all of you will get to see the whole thing when he opens it at Christmas. I'm also working on a book almost like a journal of our adventure in Pennsylvania. Have a great day everyone.

Happy Belated Birthday!!





We had a great week with Mom and Dad!! I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write about it. Mom and Dad flew in on Wednesday night and stayed with us to celebrate Cassandra, Matthew, and Zach's birthdays!! On Thursday morning we met Cassandra in Dover, OH to do the "amish loop." It was great Mom was in heaven looking at all of the crafts. It was a little more commercialized than we expected. A lot of the souvenirs were made in china and we expected more local flavor. We played in Parkersburg for the next three days. Mom got to learn how to spin on a spinning wheel. I got the scrapbooking bug. (which is why I haven't blogged lately) We watched Zach's awesome soccer game! Drank lots of coffee ate lots of pizza and played dominoes. On Sunday we worshipped at New Brighton and then waited for Cassandra and Zach to drive up so we could go to "Shaker Town." It's a Christmas crafts festival!! My parents pulled one of their fantastic suprises as you can see in the pictures! Cassandra's absolute favorite ice cream is Yarnell's she got hooked long before Harding! Mom called about a week before their visit to see if I could be a detective. I called Cassandra all excited about some "rocky road" ice cream I had eaten, which I had not, but made a great lead in to my question of what her favorite flavors are. She didn't think this was to out of the ordinary I'm sure because of how passionate I can be about certain kinds of food. Mom then proceeded to call Yarnell's to ask about a possible delivery. They quoted her $200 for three gallons shipped overnight. Instead of ordering Mom prodded some questions about exactly how they would pack it to deliver it. She learned everything and got off the phone confidant that she could pull it off. They bought a special cooler and dry ice and called the airlines to get it all approved. When they arrived at to airport TSA acted like they weren't going to let them check it but Dad did some smooth talking to make his baby girl's birthday special!! My parents are the coolest and I love how they surprise us over and over again.