My First Blue Box

Simone and Blaire with Emrie

My Best Friends

Here is a picture from this weekend.

Very Blessed

I am still very close to my college girlfriends, and this weekend they made the trek to Abilene to celebrate my 30th birthday... I even feigned surprise to see one friend all the way from Chicago (although, I had already figured out she was coming. I would have been really disappointed if she didn't show up!) What a great weekend, and I have to tell you that I felt completely blessed to be so loved and have such great people in my life. We went to a great little burger joint (Lucy's) that my friend Kara reccomended out in Tuscola (home of Colt McCoy). I had the best mushroom and swiss burger and then some amazing homemade ice cream. After that some of us went for a pedicure while the rest stayed at the house and then that evening we had The Beehive, which is one of my favorite steakhouses in Abilene.
On Sunday morning, the girls got up and made a delicious breakfast before they prepared to leave, but before they left they asked if they could pray for DJ and I. Wow, what a blessing! DJ and I sat there as we were showered in prayer. In the end, I think most everyone teared up. What an amazing culimination to a very difficult month when I miscarried our first baby. However, in spite of the challenges, I am clinging to the fact that God has a plan for us and we are incredibly blessed in so many ways. I know that even as trials come, it is then I draw even more near to Him, which is exactly where I want to be.

Even as our one-year-old golden retriever has surgery to remove a tumor tomorrow.

The hits just keep on coming

God has a funny way of making me ready to leave my 20's. I will turn 30 next week, and I have to say I am ready to leave this decade behind because the last few weeks have been super challenging, to say the least. I will spare you the dramatic details, but let's just say we have had some heartbreaking and devastating momments, and then last night I almost cost us at least $1000!
We were working in the garage last night and I left a lawn chair a smidge under the door when it got closed, but instead of going back up that dinky little chair knocked the garage door off its frame and BENT the frame! The door was completely off kilter and wouldn't even close. We really thought we were going to have to get a new garage door, but Russ and DJ worked on it for a while and I think it might be ok! Thankful for guys that know how to fix things and for a husband that didn't even get mad at me!:)

Even when life gets challenging, I am thankful for the promise that God will never leave me or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5). When all else feels lost, I can cling to this.

Lamentations 3:22-28
Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him

This has been my favorite verse for years, but in the past week it has been so applicable. We are not consumed, we are trusting the Lord fully regardless of the outcome, knowing His will is best. After more than 2 years of trying to have a baby, we found out on Good Friday that we were expecting! What a blessing! The following Monday we went to the doctor for a blood pregnancy test and Tuesday we found out that I was miscarrying. We were devastated, to say the least, but I can truly say that we have been truly encouraged to keep hope knowing that the Lord has an amazing plan.

Littleton School Shooting

If you heard about the shooting at the middle school in Littleton, Colorado, my cousin was the teacher who stopped it.
Here are some neat articles about it and about him:
San Antonio article
Denver article

My aunt just sent me an update on the situation. Here is what she said:

"There are four stories I am now aware of about this very sad incident through my daughter.

Story number 1: The shooter did attend school there, but that was in the early 1990's. He did try to gain access into the main part of the school where the class rooms are. He had gone to the main office and introduced himself in a very polite manner and said he had attended school there. He then asked for permission to go to the bathroom and he was given a pass. When he tried to gain access into the main part of the school where the class rooms are, a janitor stopped him would could not allow him access. After the shootings, they found a backpack full of ammo behind an exit door that he could have accessed had he been in the main school. This man had driven over an hour from where he lived to get to this school. This obviously was a very well planned "murder spree."

Story number 2: One of the teachers at the middle school is having a very hard time with this incident. She is pregnant, but in 1999 she was a senior at Columbine High School where 12 student were shoot. Please say a prayer for Jamie.

Story number 3: Matt has improved and will probably be released this Monday. He will probably be out of school for a month recovering.

Story number 4: Rachael the girl who was shot in the arm is a very lucky person. It has now been determined that there were three shoots fired and two of those shoots were aimed at Rachael. Her coat bears the evidence that the third shoot graced it at her stomach level.

Prayers are needed for all the people who were touched by this incident."

Rachel Ray and my nephew!

My sister and her family were able to go to a filming of the Rachel Ray show last week and my nephew got asked to ask a guest a question. He was chosen because he is the same age as the guest. Here is the link to the video segment. It is very short.
I can't believe that he is about to graduate from high school. He has been accepted to Auburn, University of South Carolina, and University of Central Florida. We are still waiting to hear from a few other schools, including A&M. It would be nice to get him back in Texas because they are living in the New York area right now.

The Best Cheesecake Ever

My sweet husband LOVES cheesecake, and when I say LOVES I mean LOVES! But I never make it (or hardly ever) because I don't have a recipe as good as my friend Carolyn's secret recipe (maybe oneday I will make the "good" friend list and score the recipe). So tonight, I believe I will try this recipe for "The Best Cheesecake." I believe that it has all the ingredients that she says are crucial, but I know she uses some fancy pan that is NOT a springform (imagine that), so we shall see if it turns out. I'll let you know!
Cake:

6 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar
2 lbs. (four 8 ounce packages) cream cheese, preferably Kraft's Philadelphia brand
1/2 pint sour cream
1/2 pint heavy cream
juice of one lemon
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 heaping Tablespoons flour

Crust:

1 1/2 C crushed vanilla wafers (you can also use crushed graham crackers, or digestive biscuits)
6 Tablespoons melted butter
1/2 C sugar

Preheat oven to to 425°.

Add eggs, sugar, cream cheese, sour cream, heavy cream, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour to mixer. Beat (on low to to low-medium speed) thoroughly, until completely smooth.

While cake mixture is beating, make the crust.

Mix crust ingredients together in small mixing bowl. Pour into 9" spring form pan, pressing into place with your fingers or the back of a spoon. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

When crust is cool, and cake is thoroughly mixed, pour batter into the pan over the back of a big spoon, so the batter does not disturb the crust. Let it rest for 5 or 10 minutes.

Bake in 425° oven for 15 minutes. Then turn oven down to 275° and bake for 1 hour. Turn off oven. Do not open the oven door for 2 hours! After the 2 hours are up, remove cake and refrigerate.
Source: http://www.squidoo.com/bestcheesecakerecipe


Ok... so I thought it was really good, but DJ says Carolyn's still takes the cake. Boo! I thought I was on to something! Anyone have any suggestions?

Update on DJ's Dad

We found out tonight that DJ's dad does NOT have to have chemotherapy! The pathology report came back and they were able to remove all the cancer. It had not traveled to his lymph-nodes, but they are encouraging him to have follow-up appointments in the near future to check for polyps, just to be sure. Overall, what a huge blessing! They are home tonight and all is well! Although, he did ask DJ's mom if they needed to start looking into nursing homes. She said of course not! This just broke my heart, because he feels like he is such a burden and does not quite understand how much easier life will be now with the colostomy bag. This will make clean-up SOOO mush easier. She tried to explain this to him, but he still feels like he is a burden.
Praying for him as he continues to battle MS. After this hospital trip, he has now almost completely lost use of his left arm, but overall we are so thankful for good news!
Thanks for praying!!!!

2000 miles in 9 days

Wow! I've been doing some driving lately, mostly by myself, which isn't too much fun! Last weekend I headed to Houston for a good friend's bridal showers. Kirk and Korie met in med school in San Antonio while I was still teaching there. They were good friends and then dated for most of their 4 years there. Then they went to Vanderbilt for the residency where he is doing Emergency Medicine and she is an Anesthesiologist. We are so excited that they are finally getting married and can't wait until the big day in March!

While I was in Houston we found out that DJ's dad has colon cancer so we I got home from Houston Sunday night and we headed to Amarillo on Monday. The surgery went well and we are still waiting to see if he will need chemotherapy. We headed home Wednesday night to beat the blizzard that occurred a few hours after we left.

Then Friday my sister called me in my classroom and said that she was in San Antonio unexpectedly (from the New York area) and wanted to know if she could come see us for the weekend. Of course, I hit the road Friday after school and drove to SA to pick her up. We turned around and headed back to Abilene that night. On Saturday we enjoyed some HSU basketball and a fabulous dinner at the Beehive, where we saw almost everyone we know! On Sunday we had the opportunity to hear a great message a church and then take my sister to our favorite Abilene pizza place (Brick Oven) before we hit the road for our long drive back to SA. We arrived in San Antonio with my golden retriever in tow, ate dinner, and then Rollie and I headed back to Abilene to begin another week! What a busy week, I am ready to be on solid ground for a while!

(The top picture is my sister and her family, The second picture is our friends Kirk and Korie.)

Colon Cancer

This weekend we got the news that DJ's dad would need a blood transfusion because his red blood cells were very low. So they began to investigate the cause of the bleeding, telling us that they were looking for blood in either the stomach or the colon...if its the colon then it is cancer. DJ knew immediately that it was cancer. Over Christmas his family had come to visit us and he recalled how his dad "did not look good." Since his dad also suffers from MS I was still optimistic that maybe it was just the ulcer and not the colon. However, DJ's intuition was correct, his dad has colon cancer. The colonoscopy revealed that the probe could not even make it down due to a mass blocking the way. We currently sit in the surgery waiting room as they plan to remove the tumor. The doctors anticipate that he will be in ICU when he gets out of surgery and then there is the question of treatment. They have mentioned chemo, but his dad is already so weak from the MS that we are unsure how his body may handle this. We know that God has a perfect plan and will carry that out, so we sit here and wait for His plan to be revealed in perfect time. We appreciate everyone's prayers during this time. We will keep you posted.

Blessings,
Andrea

A few hours later...
The surgery went well. They are just waiting on the test results of the lymph-nodes to determine if he will need chemo. They removed 1/4 of his colon which means he will use a colostomy (which will make his general care much easier from now on).
Thanks for praying, I will keep yall posted!

Me: can we adopt a baby from Haiti?
DJ: I was wondering when you were gonna ask that, that's something we can pray about.
Me: :)

A mysterious package on the doorstep

Yesterday a mysterious package arrived on the doorstep addressed to me from an address that I did not recognize. I ripped into the package and found a letter from the new homeowners of the house we sold this summer. The letter said that they were enjoying the house very much and that they had poured a lot of money into fixing up the lake house. They sent us pictures of the things they had completed so far. The house looks great and I am so glad that they are enjoying it! On the front porch, they lovingly hung a sign with the name of their new lakehouse: "The Money Pit." :) That made us laugh because it is SO true!

The letter also said that while cleaning out the storage shed, they had stumbled upon a box of letters that they thought I might like to have. I sat down at our dining room table and began to rummage through the old letters. The letters were mostly dated in the 1950's and early 60's and were written from my mother to my great-grandmother. It was so neat to read, in my mother's handwriting and childish voice, letters she had written regularly as a girl to her grandmother. She often spoke of skirts that her grandmother would send her in the mail and she would give her current skirt length. She told of learning to drive their parents' Model T Ford and some of the final letters spoke of her new baby (my sister) and her life as a young married girl. What a treat to look into the past and gain some insight into my mother's childhood.

A Fantastic Celebration...

What a great week! I finished my graduate class with a bang and I am headed into an exciting weekend, then one last fun week of school, then CHRISTMAS!!!!

Tomorrow morning I am hosting a graduation dinner party for one of favorite people. It is really such a fun story how I came to know Dianne. A few years ago in one of my first few classes at HSU I met a lovely Canadian woman who had recently moved to Brownwood from my part of the world (the San Antonio area). She and her husband had spent a handful of years in Pleasanton, just south of SA. When I found this out, we began "the name game" to see if we knew any of the same people (because I have multiple relatives, as well as friends, in good ol' Pleasanton, TX). One of my mom's sisters, Aunt Janet (and Uncle John), had spent many years raising children, grandchildren and an engineering business in this quaint south Texas town. I soon found out that Dianne, in fact, knew my family quite well. Her husband, a pastor, had conducted the funeral service for my beloved aunt 5-6 years prior, and also performed the wedding for my uncle a few years later when he remarried. Dianne and her husband had become great friends with my family... we had an immediate connection.

Since Dianne lives in Brownwood, she commuted to Hardin-Simmons for her weekly graduate classes, but one semester she had a class both Monday and Tuesday evenings. It was that semester that Dianne stayed with us once a week. We enjoyed dinners, great conversations, and a deep friendship. Then this past summer, Dianne and I were asked to co-teach a kindergarten and first grade class for gifted learners on architecture. Needless to say, our bond continued to deepen through the struggles of writing curriculum, creating, and teaching together. So it is with great pleasure that I plan this celebration to honor an amazing woman and unbelievable teacher, my friend, my colleague, and my mentor, as she graduates with her Masters in Gifted Education.

Here is the menu for tomorrow's great celebration:

Spinach, Strawberry, and Hearts of Palm Salad

Honey Baked Ham

Roasted Red Potatoes with garlic and rosemary

Traditional Holiday Stuffing

Baby Pea Salad

Cream biscuits

Italian Creme Cake

Does it sound fabulous? I hope so! I can't wait for the celebration to begin! I will post pictures later...