Highs and Lows

I've been a little absent in the blogging world lately. We've been steadily plugging away, catching up from being on vacation and just re-imersing ourselves back into reality. That's one of the hard things about coming home from vacation...it takes awhile to get motivated to be productive again!

On Sundays, I lead an 8th grade girls small group and one of the things I always do, to get us started and to get conversation flowing, is to ask the girls to tell me their highs and lows from the week. Now, because they are junior high girls, I always have to set time limits, like one high and one low in 30 seconds! Otherwise we'll never get to anything spiritual in the 45 minutes we have together!

So, in an effort to catch you up to where we are and what we're doing, I thought I'd share my highs and lows today (and from the last few days). I'll try to practice what I preach and be brief!!

LOWS

-I'm home today, without my car, because my husband's plan to ride his bike to work today, didn't work.

-After a fun night last night with our youth staff, we accidentally switched our wii remotes at Jason and Greta's house, bringing home the wrong ones and leaving me unable to play this morning. Not at all a big deal, but a slight bummer.

-We found out last week that our health insurance at Church is changing...while it couldn't be helped and the new plan does have some new benefits, it is not great news for us, on the brink of wanting to do some very expensive infertility tests. The financial gal from my clinic called this morning to tell me, "Good news, Blue Cross approved you and you're ready to move ahead." I had to tell her, "Bad news, we only have Blue Cross for one more week, then we switch to the new plan." I knew it wasn't good when she replied, "Ohhh...well, that is going to be a little more challenging for you. That means that you'll now have to pay in full as you go, which is going to require lots of money out of pocket." To which I said, "I know, and that's a bummer."

-I woke up this morning to a very disturbing dream, which took me awhile to shake. I don't know what my deal is, but I dream very intensely and very specifically. I often wake up in that state unfortunately.

-While we were at my parents house this past weekend, their basement flooded and we spent lots of time trying to help clean up the mess and doing serious damage control. Today we are very tired and my poor parents now have a basement problem to deal with, 7 weeks before my sister's wedding. Last year, they faced a similar last minute crisis when the air conditioner and furnace all of the sudden stopped working and had to be replaced...again, just weeks before the wedding.

HIGHS

-It's a GORGEOUS day today and Ryley and I spent some time this morning on a beautiful walk around our lake and on some trails...I love this time of year in Minnesota!

-As mentioned before, we played wii last night with our youth staff friends and had lots of fun. For Travis' birthday, I suprised him and bought him a hard-to-find wii. That was a significant surprise because he had absolutely no idea I would do something like that. Usually I rationalize why we don't need a game system and I come up with a million other things we should or could spend our money on. But, I knew he would love it, I knew I would love it and I rarely get to surprise him so I went for it! He was of course shocked and thrilled! Our friends Jason and Greta actually found it for me while we were on vacation, so I got to tell him poolside on Sunday afternoon after Jason sent me a text, telling me that they found one...of course I took a picture of his reaction after I teased him all week and made him guess what I bought him! He was way off...he guessed a skydiving package, which I would NEVER, EVER do!! But I scored major points with that gift and we've been having tons of fun playing it ever since. I know you must find that hard to believe...after all, we're not at all competitive or anything...yeah right!! I wanted to play this morning because I took a wii fitness challenge last night and I was insulted by how it rated my skills. It bothered me all night and I couldn't wait to get up and prove it wrong this morning! I know, that's sad...don't judge me for my incredibly competitive nature...God made me this way!!

-I had a really fun time seeing both of my sisters and my parents this weekend. Stacie flew home for a few days and because my Mom's friends threw Jennie a shower on Saturday, we came home too. Despite the flooding, it was lots of fun. I'm excited for the wedding week now, because we'll all be home and we'll have lots of laughs and good times amidst the stress! These are fun days in my family, we're all in a fun stage of life and I'm very grateful for the opportunities like this to get together. And on top of all that, I love my parents, I love my sisters, I love my brother-in-law and I love my new brother-in-law-to-be. I know that's a real blessing from the Lord and I try to remind myself not to take it for granted.

-Ryley is finally home again!! He was in Iowa for the last 3.5 weeks and we missed him terribly! Although I know he has tons of fun at my parents house and he gets lots of love from them while we're gone, we have hated how quiet our house has been without him and the companionship he provides us. He is just the best dog ever and we are so happy to have him home.

-Yesterday, because of the amazing weather, I cleaned off our patio furniture and put our cushions out and got our patio cleaned up as well. I sat out there and read a great book, we ate dinner out there, and I drank my coffee out there this morning. Once again, I LOVE, this weather and this time of year in Minnesota!! We grilled out for the first time of the year last night and today all my windows are open...thank you Jesus for sunshine and a gentle breeze!! How can you have a bad day when you walk outside into this??

-And finally, because I'm home today without my car, I've decided to declare this a scrapbooking day! I have been wanting to scrapbook for awhile, but I never take time to do it. So this morning, when I mentioned it to Travis, he said "I think that's a great idea and you should totally do it!" So, I did and I am!

Happy Monday to me and to you! Hope it's filled with lots of highs and very few lows!