After having my husband back for three days we are daddy less again. THis time he will be working until Sunday AM so that is another 5 day stretch. The kids have been great today---hallelujah! Our weekend flew by. On Friday we met my grandmother, aunt & uncle for dinner to celebrate October birthdays. Josh, Aubrey & Sam finished training in time to meet us there too. ON Saturday I went to a yard sale & got some groceries. Then it was officially FOOTBALL time around here. So we watched football the rest of the day and did as little as possible. Because on Sunday Josh & Aubrey were able to get into their new apartment at the childrens home. So we moved them in and then settled in for some more football and fellowship. We also celebrated my dad's 54th birthday. His actual birthday is today but we usually do birthday celebrations on Sundays since it's one of the times that everyone was off. That will all change since the children's home jobs.

Pregnancy dream

I never had those crazy pregnancy dreams everyone talks about until now. Last week I dreamed that I was having a sonagram & all of a sudden my belly started taking form of my baby. It was like an out of body experience. My stomach all of a sudden came up & there was my baby staring at me face to face just inches away from my face. I don't know if it was a boy or girl- I wanna say a girl cause it had really long eyelashes. Anyways the baby smiled the most gorgeous smile & then disappeared & my stomach went back to it's 'normal' preggo shape. How wierd!

IT's been super windy here today. I LOVE listening to the leaves blow in the wind. The sound has a very calming effect on me that makes me wish I could drop everything and go for a walk. These kind of days are perfect for prayer walks. Reminds me of the good ole' days. Only I'm not worried that I am safe where I walk like I was during MC's. Guess I was a sheltered chicken.

Gas~

So there seems to be some kind of gas crisis. Georgia has no gas. The closest 'big' city Charlotte has no gas. Most of our gas stations around here have no gas. Is this happening down you way too?? We filled up our tanks tonight. So we should be good for almost one week depending on how much traveling we have to do.

There is NO gas where Sam is so on Friday we will have to take them gas so they can come home. So we will be driving an hour & a half to rescue him (and myself). Of course by Friday they may have gas & that would be great as well!

The countdown begins, just two more days until Daddy comes home. The first few days always pass pretty smoothly but by the third or fourth day everyone wants someone else to look at. Justus especially missed Sam. Leah has been doing well. She and Zeke fight like they are brother & sister.

Today was See You at the Pole. Sam usually heads up a youth rally at one of our local high schools. He had everything in place when he resigned so hopefully it will go well tonight. Our youth praise band always sings & tonight my brother Jacob is supposed to lead two of the songs. That is IF he can sing. He now has the same cold that is still sticking with me.

Weekend News~

Not to much to report. I've got an nasty cold. It started with a raging sore throat then my chest got tight & finally the whole headache, while breathing through your mouth thing. Luckily it didn't all hit at once. I was able to rest most of Friday & Saturday. And am feeling somewhat better. All just in time from Josh, Aubrey & Sam to leave for training. They're going to be gone thru Friday. Mom & I are tag teaming keeping up with Leah. And my own wild things are of course right here with me.

Today was our last official day at the church. And now I breath a sigh of relief that the hardest part is over with. I hate saying good-bye. Most of our students are on myspace so we will have a way to keep tabs on them & keep in touch if they want to. One week from Wednesday the church is doing a farewell party. I think it's awesome that they want to bless them. But it will be a little awkward when Sam had to take the kids from Nazareth to youth there. I'm not sure how long that arrangement will last.

Unplanned events~

Well, tonight we told the kids about 'our ' resignation'. As soon as Sam said it there was a hush over the room. One of our youth leaders said it was like all the air was sucked out of the room. Follow that up with some sniffles & lots of hugs and you get the gist.

The kids were so shocked. It was super hard & we still have to announce it in front of the rest of our church on Sunday. Not really looking forward to that but still it will be a relief to get that part overwith.

*Pastors original plan was to tell everyone on Sunday. We didn't really think it would be good to wait & tell the kids, we wanted them to know first.

ps Jamie-we were wanting to get pregnant, so we weren't preventing anything if you know what I mean.

Baby News~

I first thought that I might be preggo in July at our beach vacation. In June my cycle was little off so I wasn't sure what to expect in July. SO when I didn't have 'the visit' I was first of all relieved because we were at the beach after all. One night I randomly got nauseous, that was the first red flag. Sam kept asking me every four hours if I had started...he was making me nuts. I finally told him to cut it out & we'd have to wait another week or so to see what was going on. Nothing happened.

We were both excited. Eventually I told my mom because I just couldn't not tell someone...she got my dad to get a pregnancy test. Positive of course! So then we started the process of getting pregnancy medicaid and finding a doctor that I was comfortable with that actually takes medicaid. I had already decided not to go back to the doctors that delivered Ezekiel. I wan't happy when he came out black & blue because I had to wait on the doctor to get there & deliver.

So, last week I FINALLY got to go to the doctor. I was sick to my stomach on the way there. I was crying & getting all flustered. I have had some spotting this time and having to wait so long was really wearing on me. I was afraid that the doctor wouldn't be able to find a heartbeat. I was SO scared! Thankfully my Sammy was there to comfort me & pray with me and tell me everthing was going to be alright. And it was!!!

The doctor found a 'strong' heartbeat. I could have cried all over again but I held it in and said a prayer of thanks to the creator of life. The spotting has stopped & the anxiety is gone! Thank you Jesus! I am supposed to go on Monday for my first sonagram but I'm gonna cancel since Sam will be gone. I will be sixteen weeks by then so I would have been able to find out if this one is a boy or girl. RATS, I have to wait a little longer!

Breaking News~

So, my life is officially being turned upside down. Thankfully I'm OK with it this time. Sam resigned his position as a youth pastor and this morning he had an interview at a group home. He got the job. HOLY COW! Our lives are about to change completely. We have been praying about change for quiet some time. And now it's finally here. I have to say that this is a bittersweet feeling. We are hoping to have an open ended relationship with our pastor so that we leave on good terms. Our pastor has even said that he will have Sam come back and preach sometime. Well, that is our goal. It is going to be difficult to leave our church family. I have no idea where we will go. It's hard not knowing where we will take Justus to church. He loves our church! Especially on Sunday mornings! January would have been the four year mark.

As for the new job I think it's going to be a HUGE adjustment. Sam will be working as an 'alternate' to the house parents. Basically he works with them as a team so that they can have their own family time. House parents have the hardest job because they are ultimately responsible for their cottage. Each cottage has up to eight boys at a time. They are troubled kids who have problems at home or school, that kind of thing.

As an alternate Sam will work 14 days a month (twenty four hour days). They usually do three to five days at a time but he could do up to seven days at a time. Again, HOLY COW! The longest I have gone without Sam is five days & it's not pretty when daddy isn't around! However, he only works ten minutes from home and we can go see him. During the day when the kids are at school he's free to hang out. And the boys (at work) go to bed at 9:30 during the week so we could go see daddy before bed as well.

I am nervous about all the changes but excited as well. My brother & SIL accepted a position as house parents in a different cottage. So they will be moving out at the end of the month. Everything in our life is changing! All these changes have occured in the past week. When God moves lookout!

ps~ we will still be involved in our church for a few more weeks, we're not leaving them out in the cold.

Making me laugh~

These mistakes were on our prayer request list today......they made me laugh!

"please pay for mental clarity and peace". I guess that is was supposed to say PRAY for mental clarity & peace but I'd pay for them as well!

"my aunt, will be having surgery on her food Wednesday" Supposed to say FOOT, what kind of surgery could you perform on food., unless it was turkey. Anyways, I had a momentary break from the usual.

Coming next year~

The cone of uncertainty~

It's great to see that Gustav didn't do as much damage as they thought. New Orleans dodged a bullet & I am really thankful for that and we don't even live there. But we do have family that lives there. My uncle is on the police department so he had to stay during the storm. He was there the entire time during Katrina too. I have an Aunt who lives there as well. She and her boyfriend left to be right outside of the evacuation zone. I haven't heard if they've been able to get back in yet.

So, now that Gustav is basically over 'we' the east coast are the next target for a hurricane & it's coming this weekend. The weather channel has been really sketchy about it though. They are forcasting that Hanna which is a tropical depression now will turn hurricane again & head right our way. How fun! OK, not really fun but something out of the usual. Anyways, on one hand they're saying it's coming this way & then when they show our weekend forcast rain isn't shown on the day that Hanna is supposed to make landfall in NC. Basically they don't know which way the tides will turn so they're riding the fence for now.

I have started a little list of things we will need just in case we lose power. Batteries, drinking water, canned stuff we can eat cold or over a camp fire. I doubt that we will need any of them but the last time a hurricane came the way they are predicting Hanna to come was (that I remember) HUGO in 1989. We lost power for a week. As a kid we had a blast! As a parent I don't quiet see it that way. Anything that we might buy can be used in the winter if there are ice storms. According to the almanac this is supposed to be a rainier/wetter winter that the past few, & in our part of the state it usually means icier which sometimes equals no power. At least the supplies will serve a double purpose.

All this excitement & probably no follow through. OH yeah, we do need some rain so that would be a plus.

So, this weekend didn't turn out to be as busy as I expected. Sam & I were going to go to a highschool football game but I wasn't feeling up to it so he went with my brother Josh. Carson High School is the newest in our county & they have a horrible track record. They had NO wins until this Friday when they beat North 36-0.....finally a win after a two year losing streak!

Saturday we planned to go to the flea market, again we didn't make it. Instead we stayed around the house & ordered chinese for supper. YUMMY!

Sunday we didn't get home from church until 2 & went right back up there for our church picnic. The boys had a blast!!! They had a giant slip n slide, pickle eating contest, a lots of good food. I'm glad we weren't busy on Saturday cause I was wiped out by Sunday night.

ANyways, today we went to Chic-fil-a, if you wore a team shirt (football) you got 3 free chicken strips! That cut our bill almost in half so we had a yummy cheap lunch! The boys played in the indoor playground for a while and then we headed to the library, which was closed. If I had actually thought about it I would have remembered that they are closed on most holidays. We also took the boys to the arcade to 'play' so video games. Most of the time they just run from game to game & so we get out pretty cheap on that end. Our last stop was at Walmart--the dreaded store!!! WE got in and out as fast as possible!

We're grilling tonight for supper---I know, we're SOOOOO creative! And the Y isn't open tonight. I'm a bit bummed about that just because that's when I have my best quiet time. Maybe tommorrow.