April

We've had lots of rain here in NC. It's good because ever since we moved here we've been constantly in drought but I've been horribly sick with allergies. Apparently, the rain stirs up all the pollen. I think I've narrowed it down to pine trees. Unfortunately, we were in between health insurances so I technically had no insurance. When I started sounding like I had pneumonia, I decided to bite the bullet and go. Thanks to a giant bag of samples of Musinex, Allegra-D and Nasenex, I'm feeling much better. On April 4th, we had our Easter egg hunt at work. We were blessed with beautiful weather and all of the kids had a blast. Of course, it took 2 hrs to "hide" the eggs, and only 10 minutes to find them all!

The Egg Hunt


The next weekend was Easter. Arthur and I both went to help set up for Easter service. We had a sunrise service at 6:30 am and then a 10:00 am service followed by a cookout. This was the first sunrise service that I have ever attended. I always say that Sunrise service would be wonderful if it was later!

It was a bit chilly

but beautiful!

Note the lovely flower arrangements - I helped with those! lol! Well, I put them where Susie told me to anyway.

The Praise and Worship Team

Praise and Worship



Lunch!



The hunt is on!


The feeding of the 5000

The cooks!

Rachel

There was a slight misadventure with my Coconut Cake. Arthur saved it! It's amazing what one can do with lots of coconut and frosting - sort of like Spackle. Obviously it still tasted good!

March

March seemed to fly by! I had a birthday this month. I turned 45! AAAAHHHHHH! We've been busy at our church Calvary Chapel Clayton - well technically it's still a fellowship. But we had our 1st Sunday service on March 22nd. It was so exciting. Although we know that there were a lot of people were there to support the church and were visiting and I know numbers don't matter, it was cool that we had 168 people at our first service! We've been able to be more involved at the church since Arthur got laid off two weeks ago. We didn't expect that but it's in God's plans for us. I had been worried about him with the number of hours he was working and the stress level. I know God has something much better for him out there. In the meantime, maybe we can get some projects done around the house.

This is something you probably never thought you'd see Arthur doing again. This was actually another little snow storm in March in NC! Now I don't ever do this - my car goes in the garage!

March 22nd - Calvary Chapel Clayton's new pulpit





Arthur plays bass in the praise and worship band




Our first Sunday Service!

Pastor Kevin


Our church is held in a preschool building. It's ideal in that there are plenty of rooms for all the children's classes, a kitchen, and a large area for service. However, it does require that we set up and break down each time. So Arthur has been helping to get everything ready on Saturday's. Our home fellowship meets every other Saturday so we are finally able to join that as well. I always knew that Arthur's work was an interruption in the important stuff!

Hmmm... this was on my camera. I wonder how it got there?

February

February is a short month but it's always the month when we all get sick! Lol! Everyone I know has come down with one thing or another. Also February is Daniel's Birthday. Daniel, AKA the Cruise Director, invited his friends to a Merry Daniel Birthday Party at The Golden Corral.

The only gift required was a balloon. Some of them were rather interesting.

The Happy 19 year old.

Some of the people in our room, others were busy getting food!

We also have a family dinner. No, Dan didn't turn 127. I couldn't find the right candles but I figured 1 + 2 + 7 is 19 right?

The other excitement is that Gracie went to the groomer and looks so much nicer. So far all of our cars are running! Yeah! Dan left Costco (there was an incident involving chickens) and is starting work at Modus Link in the shipping department on Monday. That's about it this month!

More January

So when it snows in North Carolina, everything shuts down. On Inauguration day we had about 3 - 5 inches of snow fell. I, of course, didn't go to work. Arthur TRIED to go to work but after sliding into a ditch and getting pushed out by a state trooper came home. So instead we stayed home and played with the dogs in the snow.

The view out our back door

Sammy and Grace having a great time

Gracie

Sam seems to remember this stuff

Checking it out

Since we couldn't go anywhere, we had a Snow Day/Inauguration luncheon at Rose's house

Just look at all that snow! Lol! I have to admit that it was gone within 2 days when it almost his 60.

January

Yes, I'm cheating a little by just entitling this post " January". Unfortunately my camera cable isn't working so Arthur has to download the pix onto his laptop, send them to me and then I have to save each one individually; a much more tedious process. It's easier doing a batch at once. January has been a good month so far. We got our car back (again!) and we are hoping that's it for car troubles. Arthur and I are trying a new budget for 2009 to pay off all our debts and get control of our cash. It seems to be working well so far - we are cash only, no debit cards!It's amazing how much money we actually have when we stopped using the debit cards! We started attending a new Calvary Chapel on Sundays. We had been going to a Calvary church plant in Clayton on Thursday nights but had continued to go to Raleigh CC on Sundays. We felt that it was time to make the break and focus on Clayton. Most of the other families at Clayton are attending the Apex Calvary for Sunday services until Clayton begins having Sunday services so we have gone there the last couple Sundays. It's a big adjustment to go to a church with 2000 people but so far we are learning a lot. We get the fellowship more on Thursday nights.

Rachel has had a positive start to her new year. She did get approved for SSI although we don't know how much at this time. The best part of that is that she gets medical assistance. Right now she has no health coverage so that's terrific. She also has gotten approved to work with Vocational Rehabilitation which will help her find a job and provide her with a job coach. Keep praying that God is preparing a new job for her.

Dan is enjoying a semester off college while he decides what he wants to do - Air Force or full time college. He's meeting Pastor Mike at the gym and for discipleship. He's looking to perhaps get involved with a College and Career Group at a local church since RCC doesn't have that but feels he belongs still working at RCC.


Sierra is still in her apartment and working at Applebee's. She's taking the final classes she needs to be promoted to key hourly at her store so she's pretty excited about that.

The older boys are fine but too far away! Andy turned 23 on January 12th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!) He and Christine are shivering in RI and Ben and Natalie are shivering in Kansas! So that's for now. Here are some random pictures that I've taken.

We gave Rachel this 1500 piece puzzle for Christmas. Here it is all put together.

This is a recipe from the Providence Journal 2004! Plaza Grill Pasta.

After church one Sunday, Arthur and I visited with Melody and Brian. This is one of her birds. He's quite a character.

Sky pictures from one of the cold days we had.

More sky pictures

JANUARY 1ST, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We had a wonderful relaxing New Year's Day. Southern tradition is to have collard greens and black eyed peas on New Years. I made collard greens, black eyed peas and ham biscuits. Yum! Hopefully, 2009 will be much better than 2008!

December 31st

The past 3 years, we have gone out for Chinese food with a couple of our neighbors. This year, One of our neighbors had just gotten out of the hospital so we decided to have take out. We ate a lot of Chinese food and then played Taboo most of the night.

I didn't get any more pictures because Dan came by on the way to his New Years Eve party at one of the girl's from youth group house. I let him take my camera (and it made it back!).

This is a very bad shot of Matt and Dan

A shot of some of the gang

December 28th

My mom flew back to RI Saturday. Today, it was 72 degrees. After church, I sat outside and read in the screen porch for awhile. Arthur went down to watch football with Joe and then they towed back Arthur's car (yes, again!), while Rose, Lisa and I watched a movie.

December 26th

My mom and I went to A Southern Season in Chapel Hill. It is one of those stores with all the gourmet food and odd kitchen things. We had a good time browsing and then split a salad at the coffee bar.

December 25th

Merry Christmas!

This year was much quieter. My Mom was here but the Andy was with his soon to be in-laws and Ben and Natalie were in Kansas. My pictures are out of order again though. My mom arrived Tuesday night. Christmas Eve we went to Christmas Eve service at Calvary. I enjoyed going to a Christmas Eve service again! Then we went to Rose & Joe's for our neighborhood Christmas Eve party. Christmas Day, Sierra came over and we opened presents and had dinner. That night, we went to see Marley and Me while Daniel picked up his friend, Matt who flew in from RI. Here are some pictures from that day.

My Mom

Great minds think alike! Both Dan and Arthur gave me small coffee makers!

Don't we look attractive first thing in the morning?

Unwrapping presents

Dan playing Santa

Arthur and Sierra relaxing with intellectual reading

I think Gracie needs a haircut!

Twice baked potatoes

Dan making salad

Flipper - also known as Sierra. She cut her hand at work.