Ice Storm

The freezing rain began sometime in the middle of the night late Sunday. Even though Brad and I are avid weather-checkers, we had no idea we were in for such a bad ice storm. I wouldn't have thought anything about it Monday morning when I woke up, but thankfully I heard my radio alarm announcing school closings. I went and checked Missouri State's homepage, and sure enough, there it said that they would announce by 6:30 am whether or not the university would be open. I checked every few seconds from 6:10 until it was finally announced... but at that time they only cancelled classes until noon, and would determine by 11 whether or not afternoon and night classes would be cancelled or not. At least I had the morning off... poor Brad had to go on in to work. I had a big test that afternoon, and didn't know if class would be cancelled or not, so I just had to sit there and study until 11, when they finally announced that the university would in fact be closed all day. HOORAY! I immediately turned on the tv and relaxed!!! It continued to rain pretty much all day. When Brad got home at 4 or so, he said that the roads were pretty awful. At 6 I decided to head over to the Pea Pod to hang out with Kelly- it was my first time outside all day, and I decided to walk over there. A walk that normally takes 5 minutes took me a little over 15!! The sidewalks and ground were just completely covered in such a thick sheet of ice!

Here are some pics I snapped along the way.

This pic was an attempt to really show the ground covered, but you can't really tell. It kinda looks like snow on the ground because it's so white, but no, there was no snow... it was just such thick ice!

Again, this was only after the first wave of freezing rain; the ice was already 3/4 inch thick!


When I was about half way on my long journey over to the pod, I heard a transformer blow a couple of times... I'll never forget that sound from the ice storm last year. I didn't really think anything about it, though, until Brad called a couple minutes later, asking where the flashlights were!! Thankfully, we were only without power for 3-4 hours. And Brad and I just got dinner at Panera around the corner... a special treat!

The freezing rain continued all Monday night as well, so we followed the same routine Tuesday morning: wake up at 6, check our homepage to see if classes are cancelled, wait until they finally post it at 6:30, then head back to bed, then check again at 11 to see if afternoon and evening classes are cancelled. It seemed pretty ridiculous... I mean, the roads and sidewalks were soooo bad, but of course our university wouldn't just make the call to cancel for the whole day, they had to make us keep checking back in to see if we had classes in the afternoon. Anyways, we got the whole day off again, and the best part was Brad got to stay home with me this time!!

Here's a pic of the playground in our "courtyard" that I took Tuesday.

I snapped these last pics from where I work on campus on Wednesday. Campus looked so beautiful!! Zoom in if you can!

We know we haven't had near the bad weather you guys have had up north, but this was still one of the most exciting things for us to blog about in awhile! So thanks for letting me ramble on about it and post way too many pictures of it!!!

P.S. Happy birthday Natalie and Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!!

Ice-Skating

A couple of weekends ago we went ice-skating with some of the couples from our Sunday school class. Neither Brad nor I fell!!! We'll have to take you guys with us next time if it's still open! So we didn't get any group pics, just pics of the couples, so we thought this would be a good chance to introduce everyone to you!


Next are Peter and Jaye. They got married just a month before us and are a bit closer in age to us than most of the other couples. Of course, we're still the youngest, and the only ones left in school!

Here are Adam and Jessica. They've been married for about a year and a half now. Adam leads our Bible study Wednesdays nights at their house. He grew up in Peru with his parents as missionaries, and he and Jessica will be heading back into the field this October-ish.

A few couples couldn't be there, but at least this will give you guys a brief description so you know a little better who we're talking about when we tell our stories.

It's been awhile...

So it's been quite awhile since our last blog. Sorry!! I've honestly spent the past half-hour thinking about what I could possibly post. That's sad. All I've come up with are a few ways you all could be praying for us.

• Of course, our future is a big one. We need a lot of prayer to discern God's will in this matter and for guidance. After Brad graduates in May, will he start working (in which case, he'll have to start searching and applying for jobs soon... and then the next question is, what type of job?) or start on another degree down here (again, with the question of what to do)?
• Figuring out where to live next year... it's still a little soon to start looking but never too soon to start praying!
• Diligence- in spending time with God, studying, doing homework, picking up the apartment, and so on. There never seem to be enough hours in the day, and I know it's the same for you all as well!
• We'd really love to go on a mission trip this summer, but aren't sure where/when. Africa isn't going to work out because of Daniel and Rachel's wedding, but last weekend we met our church's missionaries down in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Preston and Courtney). They are such a great couple and it would be so wonderful if it all worked out for us to go down there this summer.
• We also need prayer in just handling adjustments in life. Things with my old friends have been pretty rough lately, and I just haven't been handling it very well. I just need prayer for strength to move on and focus on the new friendships the Lord has blessed me with.

We miss you all and love you!