Four Month Hiatus

Once again, I have allowed time to slip by me, and I have neglected to update my blog. I'm sure many of my readers have long since moved on since I have barely written a post this year. Although I'd like to think that life will finally slow down now that I have graduated (whoo!), I have a feeling my extra free time will fill up quickly (with things to be described in an upcoming post). I'll recap the past few months (or year, really) with the Christmas letter that we sent out to friends and family:

Merry Christmas to our dear friends, family, fellow bloggers and readers!

As 2012 comes to a close and as we all look forward to what’s in store for 2013, we hope that you and your family are doing very well! God has blessed us in great ways this year, and we would like to share some of our 2012 highlights.  

The most exciting event this year was most definitely when my dad became a Christian and then was baptized on July 22! Praise God who is faithful! Although his soul is now healed, please pray for physical healing and relief because he still struggles with a great deal of back pain and discomfort. Thank you for your prayers!

In March James and I celebrated our 4^th anniversary by spending a night at Patti's 1880's Settlement in Grand Rivers, KY. James had been there a few times with his family, but this was my first visit to Patti’s. The pork chops are definitely worth the drive!

In May James’s sister Casey and I spent two weeks in Europe for a Holocaust Travel Study with groups from UT Martin, Union University, and Rhodes College. We visited Poland (Warsaw, Oswiecim, and Krakow), the Czech Republic (Prague), and Germany (Dresden and Berlin). We toured ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka (extermination camp), Auschwitz I (main concentration camp), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (extermination camp), Auschwitz III (factory/work camp), Terezin (concentration camp), and many Jewish synagogues, cemeteries, museums, and memorials. Words cannot describe these humbling, surreal experiences. Casey and I have both been captivated by the history of the Holocaust since we were young, and we will not soon forget this incredible trip! 

On December 15, I graduated from UTM with a Master of Business Administration. I plan to continue working as the secretary in the Department of Engineering at the university as long as James is working on his nursing degree. As James continues his studies in nursing, he also enjoys his job installing and repairing classroom technology with UTM’s Information Technology Services. Over the past several semesters, James has also taken scuba classes. Diving has become one of his favorite hobbies. He has attained several scuba certifications and has had many opportunities this year to dive at Mermet Springs in Belknap, IL.

Speaking of opportunities, we have booked a 7-day Carnival Caribbean cruise in May 2013 to celebrate our 5th anniversary! James has already planned an excursion to go diving in the Cayman Islands. This will be his first ocean dive! Our ship will leave from Miami, FL and stop at 4 ports: Cozumel, Mexico; Belize; Mahogany Bay, Isla Roatan, Honduras; and Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. We have never been on a cruise, so we are excited to try something new like this together!

This year we also visited with James’s aunt who was in town from Africa (my first time to meet her!), went camping with his family during a beautiful fall weekend, and celebrated with many of our friends and family who either graduated, got married, and/or had babies. This summer I helped with VBS at our wonderful church and this fall I attended an uplifting women’s conference with her mom and home-church ladies. James still actively plays the drums at our church and for other ministries through our church. We give thanks to God for how He has worked in our lives this year.

One last thing we’d like to add: In September, James officially got out of the Marines!

We hope that you and your family have a joyous Christmas season celebrating the birth of our Savior!

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill!” Luke 2:14

Three Month Hiatus

Since I began this blog in July 2009, I have posted at least once a month . . . that was until this summer. Somehow time got away from me, and I neglected my blog for, not one, but three months! Shamefully, I have also gotten extremely behind on reading my favorite blogs written by friends, family, and blogger world acquaintances. Classes begin soon at UTM, so life will only get busier!

To recap the month of May, I traveled to three countries in Europe for two weeks. My sister-in-law and I had an amazing time in Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany on the Holocaust travel study trip. It would be difficult to sum up the trip in a few words, so I'll just post some pictures instead:

Warsaw Uprising Memorial

Auschwitz

Auschwitz Birkenau

Auschwitz Birkenau

E. Wedel Chocolate in Poland

Astronomical Clock in Prague

The UTM group

Terezin Concentration Camp

Terezin Memorial

Brandenburg Gate in Berlin

German Curry-wurst

30 days!

For the past several months, I've had a Holocaust trip countdown on my desktop computer at work. Today marks 30 days! Last night, part of our group gathered for a pre-departure meeting at Union University. We had the chance to meet many of our fellow travelers while also learning important information about our trip. Dr. Carls put together a handy booklet filled to the brim with all we need to know and more. Being at that meeting and talking about the trip made Casey and me so impatient and excited about going! I know it'll be here and gone before we know it, but that doesn't change the fact that we wish we were leaving today!

After the meeting, Casey and I enjoyed a relaxing and decadent dinner at Olive Garden. Both of us agree that Olive Garden is our favorite restaurant, and we did not hold back. We got bread sticks, bread stick sauce (which I had never heard of...goes to show how much I get to go to OG), appetizers, salad (Casey skipped out on that), and then we shared our entrees. Oh and to top it all off, we each enjoyed a 25 cent Roscato wine sample. Yum-ME! After dinner, we rushed over to Dick's Sporting Goods and Target before they closed. It was a whirlwind shopping trip, but we both found goodies to pack in our suitcases next month!

April Update

Just wanted to stop in and update my dear readers on what's new with us. April is going to be an extremely busy month, so I may not get another chance. Let's see...

-I decided to defer my UTK enrollment until Fall 2013. I've had senioritis lately, and the thought of immediately starting a new program after I graduate with my MBA this fall just stresses me out. I think taking a semester off will be just what I need for a fresh start in a new program.

-James is really struggling with nursing right now. I don't want to share too much before we know anything for sure, but it looks like he may need 3 more years to finish instead of 2.

-My Holocaust travel study is in 45 days!

-I finished reading Working It Out by Abby Rike yesterday. It's such a great book about life, tragedy, fitness, faith, and hope. Abby was on The Biggest Loser during Season 8. I had the opportunity, thanks to my dear friend Brandi, to attend a Healthy Woman event at UTM on my birthday where Abby was the keynote speaker. She has an amazing story to tell, and I felt so honored to hear it. Afterward, I got to meet Abby, buy her book, and get it signed. I watched Season 8 of The Biggest Loser on Netflix during the next few weeks so I could see Abby's transformation. After sharing my experience with my family, they showed interest in getting to hear Abby too. So for Mother's Day, my mom, sister, and aunt will be attending another Healthy Woman event in Clarksville to hear Abby!

-I know most people (like my mom) think that I am "skinny enough", but one of my New Year's resolutions was to "exercise more and eat healthier". I have been doing just that since the beginning of the year. In fact, I have lost 9 pounds! My goals are not necessarily to be skinny but to be healthy. Eat better, lighter, and less. I tend to overeat at most meals, and I normally don't practice self-control. In the past I have tried different things to create better eating habits, but I only ended up on a roller-coaster ride. The yo-yo effect, if you will. Most women spend their entire lives caught up in the yo-yo effect. My goal is to not do that. I want to be able to create healthy eating and exercise habits that last. This time around, I am taking tips that I've heard from The Biggest Loser about making better food choices and am exercising 3-4 times a week. I also use a calorie counting app on my phone called My Fitness Pal. It's not always fun to log my calories, but it really does help when trying to eat better. Obviously, it's working!

-Good Friday is tomorrow and Easter is Sunday! This is such a reflective time in the life of a Christian. It's just amazing to realize that Jesus gave it all so that we could have the hope of eternal life. The following is a quote that comes from Abby's book:

"Hope is many times equated with 'wishful thinking' from our society's viewpoint. But the Bible's meaning of hope is totally different from from society's meaning of hope. The word 'hope' in the Bible carries with it the meaning of: 'Confident expectation; joyful anticipation; a firm conviction about the future.' If we know Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we not only have hope, meaning, and purpose in our lives on this earth, we have confident expectation, joyful anticipation, a firm conviction that we will see our loved ones one day. That's the hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us today."

Excerpt by Tim Watson from Abby Rike's book "Working It Out"

The World Is Getting Smaller

You probably don't remember my post Six Degrees of Separation. In it, I described a web of connections between me and several friends. It's amazing how small this world is getting. Today I found out that one of James's friends from Paris is engaged and, get this, she's marrying a guy that I worked with at Camp Redcloud in Colorado! I just think that is incredible.

I mentioned in the "Six Degrees" post that I had a few stories for another day. Today seems like a good day to tell the story of Pete and SB. I met Pete at a church in Martin in the spring of 2005. I told him about Camp Redcloud and that I was going to be working there during the summer. He was very interested in working at the camp after that. He decided to go with me, so we packed up our stuff and rode to Colorado together. He worked at the horse camp, and I worked at the family camp. SB, who was from Florida, worked at the family camp with me. Pete met SB and they fell in love that summer. When I otherwise would have never seen SB again, she decided to move to Tennessee and marry Pete. She and I were  even roommates for a few months before they got married. Ever since then, they have remained very dear friends of mine. It amazes me that if I had not met Pete and told him about Camp Redcloud, he may not have gone to the camp where he would meet his future wife SB.

Just one small decision can greatly shape the rest of our lives.

Distance Learning

One of my New Year's resolutions has been achieved! This is an excerpt from the email I received this week: This message is to notify you that you have been accepted into the University of Tennessee, School of Information Sciences as a distance education student for Fall 2012. 

Even though I'm being admitted for the fall, I won't start the Master of Information Science program until Spring 2013. The program will take three years to complete. With that and my last year of the MBA program combined, I have four more years of school.

As a distance education student, I will attend classes via the computer. I will be able to interact with the professor and other students as if I was present in the classroom. I'm really interested to see how it will work. More importantly, I'm just happy to say I'm going to be a true UT Vol! 

 

Holocaust Travel Study

I am so excited! In exactly 100 days, James's sister Casey and I will be going to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic! Let the countdown begin...

 

2011 Recap & 2012 Resolutions

A recap of the resolutions I made in 2011:

1. Grow closer in my relationship with God.
This is a lifelong process that is difficult to measure. My prayer is that I will continually grow closer to Him each year that I'm on this earth.

2. Read the Bible in a year.
Fail. I did great keeping up with the daily readings for the first 6 months, and I made it through Nehemiah. This year I will start with Esther and see how far I can get. Maybe reading the whole Bible in a year isn't the point anyway. As long as I'm reading, I'll be able to achieve my first resolution.

3. Train for and run in the 1/2 marathon in April.
Double success! I ran in two half marathons this year!

4. Exercise more and eat healthier.
Overall, I'd say this was a half success/half failure. I ran more with all my half marathon training, but my eating habits are worse than ever. With work, school, training, etc., I hardly ever cooked, and we ate out several times a week. Exercising more and eating healthier will also be a lifelong goal for me.

2012 Resolutions/Goals: 

1. Grow closer in my relationship with God.
2. Read and study Scripture more fervently.
3. Exercise more and eat healthier.
4. Graduate from the Master of Business Administration program in December.
5. Get into the Master of Science in Information Science program at UTK.
6. Pass the Certified Administration Professional exam in May and get the 9% raise.

Did you make any resolutions you'd like to share?

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Reading together

Coloring together

Sweet Evie

Out like a light

Super excited!

Look what Aunt Titi made Ava!

Nana's necklace with the names of all her grand-kids on it.

Like father, like son

Oliver and Tina

Playing with Aunt Casey's luggage that she got for the trip to Germany! Aunt Lexie got luggage for Christmas too. :)

Liz and Robert

Melissa and Jay

James and Lexie...Happy New Year!

December

December has arrived! I love this time of year. James and I bought a live tree this year, and we had it decorated the day before Thanksgiving. We've gone Christmas shopping, wrapped the gifts and nestled them beneath the tree. We attended our church's annual "Hanging of the Green" service. I've been listening to Christmas stations on Pandora 40+ hours a week. We've been to a few Christmas parties. We've exchanged Christmas cards with friends and family. This weekend we're going to visit my family, and next weekend we're going to visit his. The month is flying by!

Here are a few December highlights:

-James finished his first semester of nursing school with an A, two B's, and a C! I am so proud of him. One semester down, five to go!

-I finished the most difficult course in the MBA program with a B! Whew...so glad to have that class behind me. I have only five classes left before I graduate next December.

-I finished my second half marathon with my friend Christina. We weren't going to run together originally, but we were both so glad we did. This race was particularly difficult for both of us because we sustained minor injuries. You may already know about mine from previous posts. My knee started hurting around mile 5, and by mile 8 I was in excruciating pain. Christina injured her ankles a week before the race, so she too had a difficult time. Even though our bodies felt pretty lousy, there's just something about completing those 13.1 miles that made it all worth the pain. At one point, we ran through the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital campus, and we saw several children and families associated with the hospital. Those babies have endured far more than we will ever know. Getting the chance to run for them was amazing.

Check out this sweet Christmas video created by St. Jude. The little girl in the red and green striped shirt is Lucy Krull. She was diagnosed with cancer in February. Please continue to pray for her. Here is the link to her mom's blog where you will find all of Lucy's updates: http://erikandkatekrull.blogspot.com/