John Deere Tour

Husband was recently blessed with a new job welding on combines at John Deere. God has been SO good to us! He was actually trained to weld by John Deere! This is a HUGE deal because not only did it save us about $2500 on welding courses at a community college, but he was getting paid as he was learning. He is now a certified welder! This job has already been such a blessing to our family, and the benefits are just beginning!! We continue to praise God daily for this job!

On December first, we were able to tour the facility. This was a pretty big deal because there hasn't been a tour like this since the early 90's. It was so interesting to see combines in all stages of development. I couldn't do justice to it if I tried to explain it all, but I highly recommend touring a facility like this if you ever get the chance! It was mind-boggling! The only downer of the day was that we were having a pretty significant ice storm!! The hour drive wasn't much fun!! After we left, we had to buy a new scraper because as Husband was scraping the ice off the car when it was time to go, the scraper snapped in half!

This is a picture of a wall of windows inside the visitor's center. Along the bottom, you can see that the ice had accumulated on the glass. Theses huge sheets of ice slid down the length of these windows (about 3 stories) and it looked like an ice fountain. I wish I could've gotten a video of it. It was really spectacular!

Always thinking about fodder for the blog, I took this picture hoping to show the horrible weather conditions. You can't really see the freezing rain and ice falling from the sky, but this gives you an idea of how windy it was on top of everything else!

Despite the weather, we had a good time touring the plant!

Shopping Craziness

Husband and I thought it would be a good idea to get some shopping done the day after Thanksgiving. We were going to take advantage of eager-to-babysit grandparents, and enjoy the benefits of Minnesota's no tax on clothing, not to mention all the great day after Thanksgiving deals!!! Well, the outlet mall not to far from Husband's parents' house opened at 12:01 AM. Thinking it would be much easier to stay up and go shop than to get up at 3:30 AM, we ventured out at 11:15 PM and headed to the outlets. Little did we know we would literally shop till we dropped, and not return back home until 3:30 PM the next day. Yes, you're right, we shopped ALL NIGHT LONG AND A GOOD PORTION OF THE NEXT DAY!!!!!!!! Yes, you're right, we ARE certified CRAZY!!! We did get some good deals, but no, we didn't get all of our shopping done. We didn't end up going to bed until after 9:00 PM that night. We were up a record-setting 40 hours. I forgot to mention in the previous post that due to hazardous weather we weren't able to drive to MN Wednesday night. We had gotten up at 4:45 AM Thanksgiving day, and gotten on the road by 6:20 AM to arrive in time for Thanksgiving dinner! Believe it or not, we didn't even nap before our shopping extravaganza. I can't say that we'd do it again, but it was definitely a memory-making experience! Here we are past comatose. Lookin' good, huh?

Playing Catch-Up

Since I have been absolutely HORRIBLE at updating lately, I thought I would go through month by month and give some highlights. I am a bit anal, and can't seem to move on to what's happening now without 'tying up loose ends' so to speak. Even though there are a few entries from September I think that's where I'll start with the updating. I don't typically make New Year's Resolutions because they are so hard to keep, then I just feel depressed that I didn't stick to them, but this year I think I'll make an exception and resolve to do a better job on my blog. :) OK, it's in writing now, so I'm a little more accountable, right?!


SEPTEMBER

Husband and I attended a Joyce Meyer conference in St. Paul, MN. It was WONDERFUL!! Husband made fun of me, calling me a Joyce Meyer groupie since I insisted on getting to each meeting at least an hour before the doors opened. It was well worth it, since we were able to get floor seats for each of the four sessions, and the farthest back we sat was 10 rows from the front!! The closest we sat was 5 rows from the front, and the first three rows are reserved. You see, the conference was free and there was no saving seats between sessions. If you ever get the chance to her, I HIGHLY recommend it. She is so practical and down to earth. She speaks in everyday language that's easy to understand. She's been through a lot of junk in her life, so she preaches about things that she's experienced herself. I just love her.

While we were in MN, we were able to squeeze in a little bit of time with family. On the way to St. Paul we stopped in to see Husband's aunt at her elementary school. It was fun for me to see her classroom, as we both teach first grade. We stayed with my cousin, who I haven't been able to spend much time with in recent years. We had a good time catching up, and enjoyed some of his "famous" french toast. We also went to Matt's on 35th and Cedar for a Juicy Lucy.....YUM!! If you ever get to the Minneapolis area, you've got to go have a Juicy Lucy! We were also able to have a short visit with husband's mom and dad. A little too short, but nice all the same. Mostly, husband and I were mostly able to have some much needed us time. In between sessions on Friday we walked around downtown St. Paul. It's a beautiful city and the weather was picture perfect.

OCTOBER
October was a busier month than it should have been! I teach in a school on a balanced calendar, which means that I start earlier and end later than traditional calendar schools, but I get a couple two-week breaks during the year. One of those breaks comes in October. Instead of taking both weeks off that were offered, I opted to teach an intersession class the first week. The pay was too good to pass up, but it sure did make break fly by! The weekend of the first week off, Husband and I went to visit some old friends at a church retreat a couple of hours from where we live. We saw some friends from when we were young and going to church camp! It was a lot of fun.
The second week of break I was off, but it seemed like every day was filled with things to do. Some were fun like going to Galena with my mom and celebrating my birthday with my family at my favorite restaurant. Others were not so fun like chiropractor appointments. Still others were things that we mom's just do like going to middle school basketball games to watch your daughter cheer. Before I knew it, October was gone and November had come.

Almost Famous

A friend of ours, Coz, (rhymes with doze) is seriously pursuing his music career. He has put together a CD and is starting to film some videos. A few Saturdays ago, he invited us to take part in his very first one. The song is called, "Maple Lake." Here's the video. It's hard to spot me and Husband, and The Girl was at her dad's, but The Boy is in it about 4 times! Enjoy!