An uneventful update

Happy Birthday Johnie!

The last batch of bad weather really didn't affect us at all, which we didn't mind one bit! We just had a lot of sleet Thursday early morning and throughout the day, and just a little bit of freezing rain. The did cancel Thursday evening classes, though Brad and I saw no reason for it really. We were right back to class on Friday. Friday night we went over to Jason and Leslie's for dinner and ended up hanging out there for quite awhile. Then Saturday morning Brad went and helped another couple from our class move into their new home, while I went shopping for a gift for Rachel's bridal shower (Daniel's fiance). Her shower was this afternoon, and was a lot of fun! Then we had a couple over for dinner, which was also a blast because we don't host people over here very often. Tomorrow we have Sunday school, church, and then are going out to lunch with our class to celebrate February birthdays. Later in the afternoon we're heading to campus to work out, because Brad and I are finally motivated to start working out consistently. Busy weekend!!! It's all been really fun, but the bad part is that I really should've been studying all weekend long (which is what I really did plan on doing). I have 2 tests and 2 assignments due Tuesday, and then 2 tests on Friday. Three of the four of those tests are the first tests in my classes, which are always the scariest because you have no idea what to expect and no idea how much to study. So I'll probably be pretty stressed all week... your prayer are greatly appreciated!! :)

Natalie, hope you had a great time Friday night! I can't wait to hear about the show... sounds like something I would've loved!

Johnie and Dee, glad to hear your back home safe and had a good time! Can't wait to hear more about it, and see more pics! Our calendar is open for March 15-16. It'd be so great if you guys could make it down here or if not we'll just head up there... we had actually just talked about it a few days ago and thought that weekend was perfect for a trip back home! Dee, hope you can work quickly through all the papers tomorrow. I'm sure your kids will be so happy to have you back!!

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.