Winter Wonderland

The result of cold weather and winter boredom:

Finally Joe and Ellie have enough bravery to face the winter cold (ok you can tell by Joe's lack of coat that it's not THAT cold! haha):

The finished product (actually they did add arms and a hat, but I went inside and therefore, no pictures!):

New Mission

We will NOT be moving to China next year after all as we did not get the one possible job available to us in Shanghai! :( We had made it through the first interview but they decided to go with a teaching couple instead! They suggested, to make Joey more hirable, that I become a teacher....HAHA! I believe that would only keep us here longer as no school would want to hire ME as a teacher! But possibly the teacher-school nurse combo may come in handy some day, Lord willing.

Anyway, we are thankful God slammed the door in our face as this was the only way we would hear him saying, "NO CHINA!" We had our hearts set on moving there but it has become clear that is not what we should do (nor are actually capable of doing), for now anyway. We don't believe in anyway this means, never China. Simply not now. So as we praise God (in a weird way) and we are now on the lookout for houses in the St. Louis area. Staying put state-side means it's time to buckle down and earn some equity, if that door should open for us. This is scary for us because we still want so much to be available to jump up and go as soon as China is ready for us but we know we don't want to keep pouring into rent our whole lives. Owning a house is another deep desire for both of us, we just thought it would come AFTER China.

Anyway, please pray for us now that we will be able to save like crazy and then find a perfect house all by this summer when our lease on this apartment ends in July!

New computer

It's been a little while since my last post, but I have an excuse! Our hard drive on our mac crashed and we have been computer-less for the last week or two. But alas, we have a computer once more! Instead of fixing our old one we were able to purchase a NEW one with the help of my mom and dad (early birthday presents). :) So I am now typing to you all via this all-in-one iMac desktop! YAY!

It took a lot of convincing to not buy a laptop but we came to the conclusion that we just don't head out to a coffee shop with our laptops in our spare time anymore! Joey has his laptop for school purposes and the ONLY other reason we have used our laptop in it's true form is for DVD watching for the girls on long trips. So we concluded that for the same amount of money we could get:

1. MUCH larger screen

2. WAY more memory

3. Better proccessor

4. more ram

All for the SAME price as a laptop! So that is just what we did and so far so good! We are hoping this will last us a little longer as we will not be trudging it around with us everywhere we go and it is out of the reach of two little hooligans (a portable DVD player is next on our list of technology-based things to buy)! :) I have come to LOVE macs so much (I can't really explain it) and I LOVE this computer! Anyway, it also makes our Netflix watching a little more fun! (Our TV is in the basement and so we've become accustomed to watching most of our movies on our laptop--now iMac.)

Shunting Trucks and Hauling Freight

Here's Ellie's rendition of the Thomas and Friends theme song:

They're two they're four they're six they're eight

Shunting trucks and hauling freight

red and green and brown and blue

they're a really useful crew

All with different roles to play

'Round Tidmouth sheds or far away,

Down the hills and round the bends

Thomas and his friends

Hair Cut!

Aside from a mini-bang-cut a few months ago, Siri had her first official hair cut on December 30th, 2010. :)

She definitely needed a cut...

She was a little feisty, but Joey did a great job!

You can't really see the results very well in these pics as her hair is still wet, but you get the idea

Oh and by the way, Ellie's a monster!