Storms

Exactly two weeks ago, I was waiting out a storm in the basement of a local library. Storms were forecast for the evening, but my friend Brittany and I went to cheer on our friend Leanne at her softball game. We could see the dark sky to the west of us, but we were happy that the rain held off long enough to get both games in.

As soon as we got back in the car, I turned on news radio to get the latest. Surprisingly, a handful of counties, including ours, were under a tornado warning! It was a bit surreal as we drove toward home, just waiting for the storm, still to our west, to hit. Brittany stayed on the phone with her husband while I focused on getting us home before the storm. Realizing we wouldn't make it in time, and strongly encouraged by Brittany's husband to find a safe place, I suggested seeking shelter in the basement of the library. We pulled up, parked the car, and hurried to the building. The library's employees directed us to the basement, where everyone else was already gathered. We stayed there for an hour, sneaking up the stairs to get reception to make calls and assure our families we were safe, listening to the crazy wind, and looking up as the lights flickered.

Brittany and I may look frightened, but we felt safe in the library's basement, and we agreed there was no better place for two bookworms to be stuck during a storm.

Finally, it was safe to leave. I drove the car slowly down the street, doing my best to avoid fallen branches or flooded pavement. Main Street was closed, likely because of fallen trees or power lines. Our town was spared from the tornadoes that came through the area, but we still had some damage. A huge tree across the street from my apartment was completely uprooted, and branches littered our complex.

This branch had been threatening to fall for the last few months, and the storm finally brought it down, along with part of the fence.

It was the scariest storm of the summer, but I'm glad I was able to hang out in the library with a good friend instead of hanging out by myself in our apartment building's creepy basement.

Here's another view of the damage from our balcony.

While Dave's Away . . .

Dave took a last-minute trip to Scotland to be with his family for nearly 3 weeks. He left two days after the school year ended, and he returned this past Wednesday.

I know that we dated long-distance for nearly 2 years before getting married, but 3 years have passed since we said, "I do." It was weird signing on to Skype every evening when I got home from work so I could talk to Dave for an hour. I'm sure it was weird for him to either stay up late or get up in the middle of the night to talk to me. But we made it. He had a good visit with his family, and I was able to hang out with friends and family a lot. Here are some highlights from our weeks apart, at least from my perspective.

This is how I stayed in touch with my husband every evening. Thank you, Lord, for Skype!

Pret A Manger is one of my favorite restaurants in the world, but I've been able to eat there only when I've been in London or Glasgow. The company recently opened a location in Chicago, and I was able to try it with my friend Sarah. It was just as good as I remembered.

Dave bought us tickets to Peter Pan and a pirate cruise as a reward for my finishing a difficult project at work. Unfortunately, he wasn't here to experience the fun, but Sarah and I thoroughly enjoyed his gift. The pirates on the pirate cruise were hilarious!

Everyone on the boat received an eye patch, so Sarah and I took a picture of our pirate-y selves.

Poor Dave also missed the annual Scottish Festival. (I think he didn't feel too badly about that, considering he was actually in Scotland.) I took my parents along for the day, and we had a good time catching up with friends, shopping for Scottish goods, and checking out this sheep herding demonstration.

We also bought ice cold Irn Bru to enjoy. Yum!

All in all, the weeks flew by, and before I knew it, I was on my way to the airport to pick up my husband. It's good to have him back home!

Catching Up

For the last two months, life has been crazy! Work was already busy, but then we had a great opportunity that required all hands on deck and some crazy hours. Last week, for instance, I worked from 8 in the morning until 11 o'clock at night, with only an hour break each for lunch and dinner. This week, I'm still working overtime, but nothing like that crazy day.

Needless to say, I haven't had much time for blogging. I thought it might be nice to catch up on what I've been doing the last two months with a photo roundup.

My friend had her baby at the beginning of April, so a few of us picked up lunch for her on a Saturday and stopped by to see her and meet her bundle of joy.

My mom and I went to Ladies Day at my alma mater the next week. We love going to conferences together. Our next conference will be the Beth Moore simulcast in the fall. We can't wait for that one!

My brother got baptized Easter weekend. Each person being baptized recorded a video testimony, and I definitely shed some happy tears when I watched my brother's. What a blessing to see my baby brother publicly declare his faith in Jesus!

We have two mourning doves, named Max and Thea, who like to hang out on our balcony every spring. In previous years, I'd sweep off their nest whenever they'd attempt to build it on our air conditioner. (Sorry--I like looking at birds but not having them so close to my door. What would happen if we opened the door and one of them flew in?) Anyway, with the cold temps this spring, I wasn't outside enough to see them building the nest until it was too late. So we had our friends as neighbors for a few weeks, until they demolished the nest and flew the coop.

I've enjoyed as much sweet tea as possible from Chick-fil-a. Thank you, Lord, for bringing Chick-fil-A to Chicagoland!

Dave and I enjoyed our first Andy's frozen custard of the year.

We had my parents over for a good old-fashioned Sunday dinner on Mother's Day. I made a pot roast for lunch. It was delicious, and I loved the opportunity to cook for my mom after all the cooking she's done for me through the years.

So, that's what's been going on in our lives. Up ahead, we're looking forward to a trip downtown to see Peter Pan, many trips to the cinema to see the summer blockbusters, and time with friends and family as the weather (hopefully) warms up.

Lottery Tickets and Other Gifts

This blog may end up a chronicle of funny things my Sunday school kids say, but because I don't have cute children yet, you'll just have to read all about the church kids (and then I will share plenty of funny stories of my own children when they provide the entertainment).

First of all, there is the cutest little girl who recently joined our class. She's one of the younger children in the room, so she still has that little-girl voice, which I find super adorable. Today, she was asking me a lot of questions, such as, "Where do you live?" "What kind of car do you have?" "Where is your car?" At one point, she noticed my ring and asked, "Why do you wear that?" I replied, "Because I'm married."

"What did you marry?"
"A boy."

I loved that she asked what I married. So cute! Because we'd talked about my being married, I pointed Dave out to her when we passed him in the hallway on our way to a bathroom break. On the way back, passing him at the information desk, she asked me, in her soft-spoken way, "Is that the boy you married?"

Later, during my small group time, I asked the children questions about Mother's Day, including what presents they gave their moms. Most kids had the typical answers: flowers, breakfast, cards. But one kid went the extra mile:

"I gave my mom flowers, a card, and lottery tickets."

You have to appreciate his honesty.

Dinosaurs Are Funny!

One of the reasons why I love working with preschoolers at church is because I hear some of the funniest comments from them. Yesterday was especially full of good ones. Here are a few memories:

A girl in my small group is the epitome of precocious. She often sounds like a grown-up, but she is still clearly a preschooler (she loves to grab the boys' hands to dance during worship, much to their chagrin). Yesterday, she came up to me with one of the toy dinosaurs and asked, "What kind of dinosaur is this? Is it a plant eater?" Uh. I looked in its mouth, saw no teeth, and declared it a plant-eating dinosaur.

This same girl, in the middle of our small group time, decided to tell me that dinosaurs are funny. Nothing more, nothing less.

My favorite moment of the day came when I was playing supermarket with another girl. She stood in the playhouse, and I sat outside, asking her for various items, which she would then pretend to give me. At one point, she decided to give me what she wanted to give me, so I was the recipient of apple juice and cranberry juice. I politely drank each glass of juice, proclaiming it delicious. Imagine my surprise, then, when she handed me my next drink and said, "Here's your beer."

Words of Hope

Have you heard of the trend that involves claiming a word for your year? I hadn't heard about it until a few months ago, but as we approached the start of 2011, one word kept coming back to me: hope.

You see, there are quite a few people in my life who are in the middle of a waiting period. I have prayed and prayed and prayed for God to end this waiting, but it just hasn't happened yet. As I was thinking about this, I thought of how I didn't want to give up hope while we waited. Sometimes situations seem hopeless, but I wanted to remain hopeful despite the discouraging circumstances.

Since choosing this word, I have been challenged. (Of course I've been challenged. In the same way that people are often afraid to pray for patience, I was a bit nervous to focus on hope this year because I knew I'd have plenty of opportunities to work on it.) Prayers have not yet been answered the way we have wanted them to be. I've been keeping an eye out for hope-filled Bible verses, and God has brought me to a couple in just the last two days through the copyediting project I'm currently working on. If you're in need of hope, my prayer is that you find it through these promises from God.

"Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: the faithful love of the Lord never ends!" (Lamentations 3:21-22)

"Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will. Then you will receive all that he has promised." (Hebrews 10:36, emphasis mine)

Road Trip to Wisconsin

Dave's been on spring break all week, but because I can't afford to take time off at the moment, we waited until the weekend to have some fun. Our original plan was to take an overnight trip, but thanks to some fun trips we're saving up for later this year, we decided to go cheap and do a day trip. Aside from gas money, we only spent money on our lunch this afternoon. I'd say that was a great deal!

First, we started our journey with some good tunes, courtesy of this FREE CD I picked up a few years ago in a tiny town in Scotland named Tarbert. We learned the importance of pedestrian safety until we grew tired of the songs and story after 44 minutes. I did enjoy hearing those Scottish accents, though.


So, where were we headed this morning? The Jelly Belly warehouse in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, of course! We took a tour of the warehouse on the Jelly Belly train, and at the end we were rewarded with a bag of the sweet treats. Yum!

Our stop at the Jelly Belly warehouse didn't take as long as we expected, so we drove up to Kenosha and discovered the Kenosha Public Museum, which happened to have free admission. Dave was frightened by this giant beaver, but I managed to convince him to take a picture with this beast. Speaking of beasts, one of the exhibits in the museum was about the woolly mammoths discovered in Kenosha County, complete with a life-size woolly mammoth and woolly-mammoth skeleton. Those things were huge! I attempted to take a picture but failed. If you're ever in the Kenosha area, you'll have to stop by and see them for yourself.

After our tour of the museum, we headed for lunch at our favorite Kenosha eatery--Fazoli's. There was a period of time when Fazoli's could be found in Chicagoland, but alas, that time has ended. When we discovered this Fazoli's last year, I was thrilled, and Dave quickly became a fan of Italian food . . . fast. This was our third trip to Fazoli's in a year, which is quite impressive when you consider that we live 90 minutes away from it. The breadsticks alone are worth the drive, friends.

With all our Kenosha points of interests visited, we decided to venture farther north to Milwaukee. Dave had just visited the city for a field trip with his students a couple of weeks ago, but I had never been. We wound up at the lakefront and took advantage of the beautiful weather by walking along the lake. I love my hometown, but there is no way you could easily find free parking next to the lake in Chicago. For that reason alone, I became a fan of Milwaukee. In the middle of our stroll, we found a cute coffee shop (it's that building behind us). It must be a favorite of the locals, because it was packed! We found a bench outside and enjoyed the sunshine.

On our way back, we walked past the Milwaukee Yacht Club. Most of the boats are still in winter storage, but I captured this picture of them. Soon they'll be found on the lake!

Have I ever mentioned how much I love being near bodies of water? They make my heart so happy!
I'm so grateful for the beautiful weather we had for our road trip today. It was a bit chilly (note the winter jacket, mittens, and wind-blown hair above), but it was lovely. I thoroughly enjoy days like the one we had.