Hello from cold Iowa!

Hello all- this week has gone by in a whirlwind. I can't believe it is already Thursday. Our life is full, busy, but fun. Jenna is the busiest these days with sax and guitar lessons, cheerleading practice and basketball practice. She really loves to be busy. Her first basketball practice on Tuesday night she sprained her finger really bad, it is blue and as fat as a sausage. She is still trudging on though, playing guitar and sax with it all wrapped up. The best she can anyway. Tonight she is determined to go to b-ball practice. She says she can learn to dribble and shoot lay-ups with her left hand this way! At least she is not a quitter!

House plans are moving on,,,going slow. There just seems to be one thing after the other. They finally got the backyard all dug up, trash and asphalt out and put back together. Then they had to redig the "footings" for the concrete to be poured. So...that got done, but then the land developer forgot to give the city inspectors some document saying that all the trash got dug up, so the concrete couldn't be poured. They went around and around with that all day yesterday until 4:00, and by then it was too late to start pouring. Because they couldn't pour the concrete yesterday they had to go and buy "pads" to lay down so the ground wouldn't get too cold and freeze. So...those cost like $600!!! Guess who has to pay for those?! That's right, us! We are going to see if the developer will split the cost with us. (He really should have to pay for ALL of it because it was his fault, but we aren't going to push it since they did dig up the whole lot for us at their cost.) They are supposedly pouring the footings today, then the plumber will come in and do his thing, and then they can pour the basement concrete. We are hoping to begin framing sometime next week! We are only about 1 month behind "schedule!" It is supposed to freeze rain this weekend, so that will probably slow things down again.

I am sure that is WAY more than you ever wanted to know. Oh well! :)

Decorating the Tree

Sunday night we decorated the tree.

Christmas Cookies

Hunting the perfect tree, visiting santa

We hunted for the perfect Christmas tree to take back to Iowa with us. Haley and Mik helped Jeff cut it down. There was a little snow on the ground, in the middle picture the kids are gearing up for a snow ball fight, after they played hide and seek among all the trees. We all visited Santa. Jenna wasn't going to, but she and Madison went together.

Beauty Queen

Haley got into my lipstick. The giggles were a delight to hear.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day was spent playing indoor football, wrestling with grandpa and Uncle Tony, playing games, cooking and eating! This is a picture of my sisters house. The yellow leaves were gorgeous on top of the snow.

Happy Thanksgiving

We are here at my sister's in Indiana this weekend. We came Wednesday morning. My parents and us caravaned here. We are enjoying our time here and relaxing. Thursday we did the traditional Thanksgiving things, cooked, ate and watched football, took a nap. We then all went to the movie "Fred Claus", it was cute, but my all time favorite Christmas movie is Elf, I still haven't found anything to top that.

Friday we went shopping, with the kids for awhile and then we brought them all back to the house for the men to watch. I got A LOT of my shopping done.

Our original plan was to leaving this morning, but last night after going out for pizza and then all terrorizing Sams Club we decided that we wanted to stay an extra day and come back tomorrow, Sunday morning. Jeff found someone to preach for us, (Thanks Phil!). Today we are going to help Leah's family pick out the "perfect" Christmas tree, decorate it and also make Christmas cookies. It will be a busy day.

Here are some things that I am thankful for this season:

1. A healthy family. Soooo many people have serious health issues that don't stop for this Holiday Season. God has blessed us with good health.
2. A family that I can drive 6 hours to visit and not dread the trip, but look forward to being together!
3. My job and my co-workers that make teaching fun. Although we don't see a lot of each other because it is a kind of a lonely job, when we are with each other we enjoy each other and there is no back-biting or pettiness. That is such a blessing.
4. My children who love the Lord and are trying their best, in their 11, 6, and 4 year old understanding, live for Him.
5. A husband that is very light hearted and keeps everyone around him laughing at his corny jokes.
6. A husband that carries such a huge weight is supporting his family with 2 jobs, and now is taking on another part time job of building a house. He does is all without complaint!
7. Enough food, clothes, and money to make my life comfortable. This is not taken for granted, as so many don't have their basic necessities of life taken care of. I am thankful that I can buy an extra bag of groceries to give to the needy and not be the recipiant of the gift.
8. A God who loves me even through all my failures. Who died to save me so that I have a hope for the future, here on earth, but also in heaven.
9. I am thankful for all my friends that enrich my life in so many ways, that means YOU!!!
10. Haley is thankful of water and other drinks. :)

I could go on and on but Haley would like to play a game on the computer so I will get off, she has been waiting patiently.

Please take some time to count your blessings this season! We have MUCH to be thankful for. Have you sat down and thought about all your blessings and made a list? It's amazing once you start, you can go on forever.

House Update!

PRAISE THE LORD!!! Does that give you any indication how the meeting went today! Well, God's hand was certainly at work today as one big-wig was there before the other big-wig. The first big-wig agreed to everything that Jeff wanted! The second big-wig, when he came late, was not happy with the first big-wig and they got into a big argument. But when it was all said and done, here is what we got.

Basically prayer option #1. They are going to totally clean out the backyard and pay for it all!!! They are going to finish it tomorrow or Wed.! So the building process can go on! Hopefully by next Friday the concrete guys can come back and finish pouring the basement!

I found this all out from our builder. Steve and Amy are the parents of "my" Mollie. When they came in for their teacher's conference tonight he gave me the good news. Jeff hadn't even had time to call me yet. We were giving each other hugs, we were all so happy. Amy said that she drove by the property today and prayed over it. I told Jeff when we were selecting a builder that we needed to support a Christian builder. Not only does he awesome work, but he is ethical and deeply concerned for our well-being.

Oh...ALSO...more good news!!! We got a second bid back on our lumber package: shingles, siding, frame, windows. It is 17K cheaper than the first bid!

Thanks for all your prayers. I'll let you know if we find another car in our backyard! Hey, does anybody need a car, you can have the first one! FREE!

Can you give me 3 minutes?

We really need 3 minutes of your time today, at least!!! Jeff and I are really in a fight. To back up, but make the story short, the farther they dug on our property the more they found. Our house would have been literally sitting on a dump!!! They found a car buried!!!!!!! Jeff and I are under a great deal of stress and very burdened about this. On Friday afternoon the diggers said they weren't going to dig anymore because they got everything out of where the actual house would stand, BUT, they left exposed a HUGE amount of stuff buried in the ground where out backyard would be. You can see other junk and literally an asphalt road that was dumped there. The road is about 3 feet under the top of the yard and is 4 feet thick. The land developer was stupid and said to our builder, "We are going to stop digging now because I don't want to open up a can of worms." (of what would be under the back yard!) So they are refusing to dig anymore! We just don't feel right having a back yard with junk buried under it. We paid way too much money to accept that!!!!

Jeff, the land developer and his cohorts, Steve (our builder) and hopefully our lawyer (which Jeff has consulted- and is very confident that they are in the wrong) are going to meeti today, probably at 3:00. We really need your prayer for that meeting!!! Here are the 3 options that we feel we can accept: Rated from best to worst.

1- They will say that they will dig the backyard and clean it out! (They have already put 25k into just cleaning up what they have done so far, it would probably be another 25k to do the backyard.

2- If they refuse to do this, Jeff is going to offer this as a option- would they clean out the backyard, haul away the junk, but they can dump the asphalt down farther in to the ravine behind our house and bury it. This isn't usable/livable space anyway. This way they don't have to pay money to haul away the HUGE amount of asphalt that is buried there!

3- As a last resort, if they refuse both of these we are going to get our money back. But here is the hitch. We are confident they will pay us back for the lot price, BUT will they pay us back for the work that has already been done to our property. The excavators have already dug the basement, and the concrete workers have already prepped everything to pour the basement. Plus our builder would have to be paid for all his work so far! So already we have done 20k or so work to the property. We are afraid that they will refuse to pay for this work already done!

Ok-so there are the prayer requests, obviously the best option is #1 but Jeff and I are willing to accept any, as long as all expenses are paid. As Jenna said to Jeff as they were talking, "Dad, we don't we a new house to make us happy, we are happy right where we are!" And that is very true.

I will post pictures of the car they uncovered. But I don't have my usb cord at school today.
It was funny, our builder was there when they uncovered the car. He said to the "digger", "Is that really a car?" (a rhetorical question- in disbelief) and the "digger" said, "Yep, that's a chevy!!!" Kind of humorous...but not really.

Please pray today!

The Saga continues!

Here are pictures of "Digging Day!" Excitement filled the air!!!

Our excitement came to a Screeching halt!!!

WELL, to make a LONG story short and "sweet". They found a DUMP under our property. An old farm dump. It used to be farm land and the farmer just took all his stuff; water heaters, other appliances, old carpet, pipes etc. etc. etc. and just threw it into a ravine (at that time) and buried it!!! He must have done it over and over again, as there was layers of junk-fill dirt, layers of junk-more fill dirt!! Well obviously you can't build on top of stuff like that. Our builder was very upset and video taped everything in case there was a problem with the land developer. They contacted the land developer and surprisingly he came right over to the site. He said to our builder, Steve, "What do they want, do they want a new lot, their money back, do they want us to clean this site up. We can have a crew over here tomorrow to clean this up." So after deliberation, we decided to have them clean it up. It will set us back probably another 2 weeks, but it is the best lot to build on. So that is where we are at. They will have to have huge equipment to get all the stuff out of there. Jeff said there is layer upon layer of stuff. (Sigh!)

Jeff and I aren't losing any sleep over it. In fact, last night, the house was locked up tight, lights were out, and everyone sleeping at 8 p.m.!!! Even Jeff, that is a miracle! It has been such a busy week that we decided to call it a night very early. I sure felt good this morning! :) Which is good because I have parent-teacher conferences late tonight.

Update

I won't be able to post any pictures today as Jeff has the camera for Real Estate.

We have been very busy, here is a short recap.

School continues to keep me very busy, we just finished the first trimester so last night I was up late formulating grades, report cards go home today. Starting Friday-Tues. there are Parent Teacher conferences so I have to figure out what I am going to say to these parents.

This past weekend Jeff's parents came. They came Thurs. night. On Friday the girls school had their annual Veteran's Day program, it is quite good! The choir sings and the band plays; Jenna with her saxaphone, her first concert! She also played her guitar for one of the choir songs. Jeff's dad was in the Navy so he came for that. They show pictures of all the vets up on the screen and also their relation to the school. So my girls had a picture of their grandpa up there, but they also had a picture of their Great, Great, Great Grandpa. Jeff's mom's Great Great grandpa fought in the civil war. It was a neat picture and the crowd ooh'd and ahh'd. We had a nice weekend with them. Besides the fact that his mom was recovering from a sprained ankle and had trouble walking, and THEN she was sitting on our kitchen stool and it broke! (the stools fault, no reflection on her!) She went sprawling to the floor and hit her head. Not good!

Leah and her family were also home for the weekend for the Iowa Game. They came over, with my parents on Sat. night and we all ate pizza together.

Update on the building process. Well, they have finally dug the basement. We were ready several weeks ago and then we changed a bunch of last minute stuff with the plans, so that set us back. So finally they went and staked everything out and then Jeff went up to the site and discovered that the house was in the wrong spot, so they had to move everything over 15 feet. Which doesn't seem like a huge deal, but part of our house would have been in the woods! So that set us back. They finally dug the basement and yesterday were prepping it to pour concrete. I guess the soil tech guy has to come out before they can pour and he flunked our soil!!!! He said that he detected top soil in it! Sooooo....we have to see now if there really is top soil, how much, do we need to bring in rock to dump in the hole etc. I don't know, I don't get it all, but I do know you can't pour concrete in top soil. We are trying to figure out why there would have been top soil there as this used to be all woods. This could set us back a couple weeks, but at least they caught it. We are not stressing out. It's all good. God knows when our house should be done, in relation to when we are going to sell our current house. Each set back will only work into His plan.

I should go, I am at work, so I should work.

School of the Wild!

I went into detail what School of the Wild is in my next post, as things are getting out of order because I am trying to go fast. I did leave out of my post that all this took place last Wed. (halloween) through Friday (Nov. 2nd), we were there for 3 days.

Here are the explanations of these pictures. 1st-2nd picture- Meredith explains all about 2 chickadees that we caught in our "mist net," they have a special liscense that allows them to do this, then she banded them. 3rd- Meredith lets some girls pet the bird. 4th- Meredith holds a nut hatch bird. 5th- I hold the nut hatch and I am going to release it back to the wild, she had already banded it. 6th- Here Jason cuts up some food that he grew in his garden for us all to taste. We got to taste peppers, apples, carrots, and a purple potato!!! (7th pic) I know there are lots of things I am missing that we got to taste, we spent about 2 hours in his garden. 8th- Jason and Chad help some kids plant some garlic in the garden while the other kids worked hard digging up sunchokes (sun flower roots). 9th- Jason slices up one of his tomatoes.

It was an awesome day. Not only did we learn all about plants but also about trees and prairie plants. We also got to play a fun game called "Coyote Tag" in the tall prairie.

School of the Wild!

The tradition at our school is that the 4th grade class goes to School of the Wild, a program put on by the University of Iowa. Basically, we spend 3 whole school days out in the wild.
There are 3 areas of study, one area per day. Wetlands, where we studied ponds, lakes etc. We were taught everything there is to know about wetlands. The second area of study is The Prairie. We learned about the decreasing prairie lands of Iowa, and the importance of it. The 3rd area of study is birds. We actually caught birds, about 6 different ones, and banded them so they could keep track of their migration etc. That is what was going on with the Hawk. They had caught a red-tailed hawk, had banded it and then let me let it go. After they taught us all kinds of things about it.

I can't even really express the awesomness of the 3 days. Our field guides: Chad-Wetlands, Jason-Prairies and Meredith-Birds are experts!! We just had a wonderful time! I took probably 200 pictures in 3 days!

Here is what going on in the picture collage.
1st- we go on a 2 mile hike through the woods and prairies to hit all the different wetlands to study. 2nd- the prairie we hiked through. 3rd-Chad explains to the kids that what they found in their nets was dragonfly larvae, 4th- one of my girls looks through a microscope at pond creatures. They were really weird looking! 5th- Chad explains to all the kids all about the spotted leopard frog they caught in the pond. 6th- Chad gives the kids a lesson at "Duckweed Pond." 7th- One of the 2 hawks I let go. 8th- Me cradling a hawk. 9th- a beautiful hawk.

Halloween

I know that I am back-tracking. I will get to the hawk releasing in a moment. I am afraid that I have lost all my fans because of my lack of blogging.

Here are a few snapshots of our pumpkin carving and of Halloween. The first picture is the surprise the girls found inside their pumpkin. When we pulled off the top there was "mysteriously" candy found inside the pumpkin along with the guts. Mikayla is convinced that the farmer was eating candy while he was planting his pumpkin seeds. Isn't that cute!!!???

Mikayla is an American Idol singer and Haley is a bride. I don't have any pictures of Jenna yet. She went with some friends. They went as all the characters of the show Hannah Montana. Jenna was Miley Cyrus complete with guitar. She said several people asked her to play them a song! Her friends were 3 of the other char. from the show. They had a great time, but I didn't get any pictures bc they were at her friends house. I will show those when I get them.

Just a hint...

Just wanted to give everyone a little hint...a little teaser...of what I have been doing lately! I have been releasing migrating hawks back into the wild!!! Read more this weekend! :)