Looking Ahead

Wow! Things have been SOOOO busy around here!

We were in MN/WI the last weekend of September for Todd's grandma's 90th birthday party. It was so fun to see everyone from the McLeod/Johnson side of the family and spend a few days with them. Unfortunately, Kathleen had hand, foot and mouth disease (a virus) so she was pretty miserable and, of course, spread it to the other little 'cousins' there too! ARGH. It was a HORRIBLE flight back home for the last 45 minutes with BOTH of us in tears... but once we got in the CRV and drove back from Salt Lake City (about 3 hours away) she finally slept and life was a little better. She did miss most of daycare last week, which meant I had to juggle a lot of things at work. THANK THE LORD that we have a sub list and so many great people who are willing to sub!

I can barely believe that the end of the 1st quarter is on October 24th! We have parent-teacher conferences 10/30 and 31st so no school those days! I'm hoping that I can get some office work done those days.

Our church is in the midst of finding an Intentional Interim Pastor. Someone to help lead the church while we actually take a look at ourselves and our vision for the future and THEN find a pastor to match those things. In the past they've been in such a hurry to FIND SOMEONE that they've ended up with good pastors who just weren't the right fit for the congregation... so we're hoping to avoid that by taking 6-12 months and THEN looking for a new pastor. Yeah. Pray for us!

The weather is getting cooler. Can you believe that last week it was in the 80s all week long?! Just sunny and beautiful! Last year on Oct 1 they had snow here, this year it was 80! A cold front moved in over the weekend and although they promised some rain, we didn't get any. Oh well. They are saying it will snow and have a high of 47 on Friday. I'll believe it when I see it at this point...

...and did I mention that my winter coat and boots are somewhere in storage?! ACK. I will be ordering a new one from Lands End as soon as I get paid on the 15th! K's snow pants and jacket from last year still fit her, so she just needs new mittens and boots this year. That's easy enough.

I wrote an email to my school board to let them know that I would like to go home for Christmas. One person gave me the OK to borrow the money from our moving allowance so that we wouldn't have to come up with that money right now while we're trying to pay for 2 households and daycare, etc. Then the chairperson of board said that the church will donate the ticket to me since "it's not good for man - or woman - to be alone" and they realize the sacrifices that Todd & I have made to make it possible for me to be here. So right now I believe I'll have 15 days at home -- not sure how much will be in MN and how much in WI... but I'll let you know when we figure out those details.

That's all that is new around here. We're anxiously waiting for Todd's sister Sara to have her baby sometime in the next couple of weeks! I'm already thinking of all the cute pictures of K and Sophie that we'll be able to take over Christmas. (Hopefully K doesn't try to poke baby Sophie's eyes out... we'll have to practice with her dolls...)

Peace!

- Tanya