Being Home

Okay, we've been home for a week and two days and blogging has been the last thing on my mind!

While we were away, I found out that my dog Lady passed away. I was shocked and hurt and cried for several days before letting it go. She was 16 years old and the best dog I've ever had. In less than a year we had two dogs and lost both of them...

Here's what we've up to :)

Sunday (29th): My brother Jodie picked us up from the airport and took us to our house. We crashed and went to bed. It was fairly easy for me to fall asleep and wake up to Kansas time even though our normal time was seven hours ahead of Kansas when we were on our trip. Jere however had some issues. The night we got back, he finally fell asleep at 1am and then woke up at 4am! It's taken him a little longer to get used to our schedule again.

On the way home, my brother informs us that two tires on our Jeep had been slashed. Although this happened about 1-2 weeks before we came home, they wanted to wait to tell us and let us fix it. My brother had put two old tires on it to drive it to our house but it was just something we had to deal with. We weren't the only ones hit with the tire slashing, there were about 3 other cars that Jodie noticed in the neighborhood with slashed tires. It's just strange because my dad lives in a nice neighborhood.

Monday (30): Jere took the Jeep to get new tires. When he got there he found out that the back right wheel was stuck permanently. Another store in the same chain of the tire stores we use had cross threaded the bolts into the wheel with a mechanical screw gun. Thankfully, the store we visited gave us a free wheel and had to use a torch to cut the bolts and wheel off the Jeep. SOO we didn't have a car, but our siblings came and picked us up to hang out. Jere picked the Jeep up around 3pm and after paying $631, drove away.

I saw all my siblings that day and it was so nice. We hung around my sister Rachel's house and played ping pong. Later in the evening Jere and I went to dinner with my two sister's Ruth and Rachel, as well as Rachel's husband Brent and Ruth's boyfriend Caleb. After dinner we went to see "Wall-E" where Jere and I proceeded to fall asleep. The movie was showing at 9:15pm and to us that was 5am. We slept through the WHOLE movie. That was an expensive nap!

Tuesday (1): Back to work for us. We had dinner with some friends who kindly invited us over and moved our stuff over to Scott and Lynn's where we are staying till August or September.

I ran for the first time in years on this night and just about died. After running with my friend, we jumped in her pool and cooled off...it was soo nice!

Wednesday (2): Back to work again. Man, that was really weird just getting back into the swing of things. We went to prayer meeting in the evening and afterwards, Jere went to play tennis with some guys from the chapel. I went grocery shopping and bought an Ipod shuffle. I love using it at work and while running.

Thursday (3): I woke up at 6am and went running. Work. After work we went to dinner FOR THE SECOND TIME that week. Let me tell you that I know from experience how nice it is when you have hospitable friends. We laid around at their house for a few hours and then left to "get stuff done". Instead we went home and laid on the couch. I proceeded to fall asleep. It was 9pm. We woke at 12:37am and got into our bed. We chalk it up to just getting back from another country after a month of being gone.

Friday (4): It's the fourth of July! I ran/walked 2.5 miles with a friend in the morning and started the day off right.

That day was probably one of the best July 4th holidays I've ever had. I made the same cake I made last year (thanks to pdub) and met family and friends at my sister Rachel's house for a lunch get together. It was a great way to see everyone after getting home. My brother Jodie unveiled presents from his tour in Afghanistan and it was pretty hilarious. He brought his sisters and mom burka's. It was fun trying them on and laughing but I was loving the shoes he brought back for my step-mom. They were gold with curled toes. It was pretty funny. He brought my dad a hat that just sits on the top of his head and had rolled sides. It's brown. My brother Jamie got a little hat that sits on his head and it has sequins all over the place. Friday was kind of a last chance to see Jodie for a while party too...He lives in North Carolina right now on the Fort Bragg Army base.

After lunch, we watched my dad whup everyone in ping pong and that was an awesome sight. He is seriously SO good and we had no idea. By the time we left Rach's it was time to go to the next party :)

Our chapel always has fireworks, food and fellowship on the fourth of July. That night was just an amazing time of fellowship. I showed people pictures that are still on our camera and also the journal that I made while on our trip.

To top it off, we had a birthday party. Miles had been born a year before and although he didn't like the idea of eating his cake in front of everyone, he enjoyed a slice when everyone stopped looking at him :)

Saturday (5): I stayed in my pj's all day. We hung out with various people who came by to visit a guy named Jay who was visiting the Degroff's. Since we live with them right now, we get to enjoy all the company they always have around them :)

Jere and I went to my dad's house in the afternoon to say goodbye to my brother who was planning to drive through the night to make it back to the army base on Sunday.

Jere went to play tennis with friends again in the evening and I stayed home and vegged! Lynn and I decided to go pick up Rachelle (who's hubby Brian was playing with my hubby). So we went back to Lynn's and looked through over 1,000 wedding pictures of Brian & Rachelle's wedding. It was so much fun. I like weddings. Once Jere and Brian got back to the house, the four of us went to sonic and got ice cream. I got a caramel Java chiller and if you haven't tried that, you need to. It's amazing. After staying at sonic for an hour, we went home and fell into bed around 12:30am.

Sunday (6): We went to chapel and it was like a breath of fresh air :) After chapel, we went to Brian and Rachelle's for lunch (which is actually our house) and they had lunch ready for us! Our friend Todd came over too and we enjoyed fajitas and chips. It was SO good. I need to make fajitas with fresh peppers, onions and chicken! Apparently the secret to it all is the packet of powder mixed into it all...it was delicious.

We talked about meeting back up around dinner time to play cards and then Jere and I went next door to our neighbors house to have him look at our scooter. The scooter has been on the out for a little bit and we really want to drive it to save gas! Jere ended up dropping it off and we went back into the house with Brian & Rachelle. Around 4pm we decided it wouldn't be wise to leave AND THEN come back, so we stayed and played cards instead. Joe & Jessie came over after a bit and brought Papa Murphy's pizza. Oh it was so good! After dinner we headed back to Joe & Jessie's so their boys could sleep and we played cards. It was a good time.

Jere and I drove our scooter over to their house because earlier in the day, our neighbor came over and had fixed it! It was driving so well.

After playing cards and having a blast, we left around 11pm. We got out to the scooter and it wouldn't start. We're hoping it's just a new spark plug. It seems that we've had a lot of trouble with it lately! Brian & Rachelle gave us a ride back to our Jeep and it was fine, we just want to be driving our scooter.

Monday (7): This week is going to be hard because we have a full week of work! A random thought I had was that a lot of babies had birthday's yesterday since last year was 7/7/07. I wonder how many there were...I stayed home all night last night. It was so nice. We ate dinner and then Jere went to a men's meeting at our chapel. I read and then went running. I ran TWO MILES STRAIGHT. I felt so good and just kept trying to push myself to finish. I did it. We hung out with Scott & Lynn and played cards before heading to bed. I love living with them.

Tuesday (8): It's another work day. Tonight we're heading to Jere's mom's house for dinner. It'll be nice seeing them! Our hope is to also get the scooter running so we can use it this week still.

It's really nice to be back, but we love to travel and would have loved to be gone a longer amount of time too. My new mindset is to take things slowly and one at a time. Our trip was just kind of "fly by the seat of our pants" so to speak and while there are things to get done around the house like laundry and meals, my goal is not to sweat the small stuff anymore. That was what I loved about our trip...not stressing.

Note: Brian and Rachelle are living in our house. They lived there while Jere and I were on our trip to Europe. They lived there for a month and were going to live with the people we are currently living with but it worked out that Jere and I were invited and wanted to stay with them instead. Jere and I like doing this kind of thing and since we can do it easily. (because we have no kids) We are taking advantage of being flexible. We were blessed by Scott & Lynn's hospitality last summer while we gutted our house and were hoping to help Brian and Rachelle this summer. We enjoy living with our friends and we feel like we're still on vacation. Most people don't understand why this is the situation and I hope this gives a good explanation. It's not stupid, it might be a little strange but we have a chance to help friends and we're taking it.