It has been a while

Sorry it has been so long, but like everyone else, we have been rather busy.

Brian has been at his job for over 2 months now, and we all love it. He is home almost every night for supper, has only worked one Saturday for 4 hours, and in general is very relaxed.

Jackson turned 4 about a month ago (I feel bad for not getting it in here sooner) and we just can't believe it! Where has the time gone? We are thankful every day for our boys, especially since we had several doctors tell us point blank that it would be impossible for us to have one child, let alone two. Thank God for miracles!

I taught the 2 & 3 year olds in VBS at the end of July, which was a lot of fun.

Of course, the biggest news was on August 1, when the 35W bridge collapsed. It was hard to see all that destruction, but it was also hard for Brian, as one of the ladies that was pronounced dead on the first day was the wife of a man that Brian had just recently worked with. It just provides us with a great reminder that we can't take anything for granted.

Other than that, we are just trying to keep up with life. I trust this post finds all who read it well. We will follow up with more pictures of the boys soon.

Nine Amazing Years

Well, it seems more and more lately like I am the one that is posting here, so I would just like to take a moment to tell everyone just how lucky and blessed I really am. Yesterday Jody and I celebrated our 9th Anniversary, and I can honestly say that the time has just flown by, and that each day gets better and better. I really do love my wife, and thank God every day that he placed her into my life.

Also, in case we don't get to it on time, we also want to wish Paul and Jill Ice a happy 9th Anniversary on the 25th. That was a very busy summer here at Woodcrest. Happy Anniversary you two.

--Brian

Happy Birthday America

Well, according to our calendars, today is America's 231st birthday. Happy Birthday to the greatest country on earth!

This past week has been quite an interesting on here in the Minneapolis area. Just last weekend we lost a true "American Hero" - Charles Lindberg. No, not the guy that is famous for the plane, the kidnapped baby, etc., but the "other" Charles Lindberg. You see, this Charles is actually a well-known hero throughout the ranks of the Marines, and many of their recruits are educated about him.

Charles was the last, living survivor of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. But don't look at the famous picture and try to figure out which one is him - you won't. Contrary to very popular belief, the picture that we all know so well is actually the "second" flag raising. The first raising happened when Charles and a few other Marines raised the flag to let the troops down below know that they had captured that fateful hill and it was safe to proceed. Charles was interviewed by several of the tv stations around here during the Memorial Weekend, and he said it sounded like a "growing wave of shouting" when the troops saw the flag.

Those four men the took their flag down and as they were, the four other Marines started to raise a much bigger flag - and that is the picture we are most familiar with. Another interesting note, the second flag raising almost never was. A photographer just happened to be swinging his camera around and this picture was actually an "accident" as he hit the shutter. He wasn't even looking through it! Yet through all of that, we have some of our preserved history.

Today is a celebration: of life, of freedom, and many other things. But I would encourage any of you who read this, please take a moment and thank our troops. If you see someone in uniform, make an effort to go out of your way to say "Thank you". It doesn't cost you a dime, and you never know, you may actually be coming in contact with the next "Charles Lindberg".

--Brian

Just an update

It's amazing how so much can happen in a short amount of time, and yet keeping up with the blog seems to get missed.

There has been so much that has happened since the last post, but I will just update you on a few things.

May was a very busy month for us. As mentioned in the last post, we spent pretty much the first week of May in Florida. Then it was my mom's birthday, the high school graduation, open houses, helping with the planning of a baby shower and a wedding, and along the way, being a wife and a mommy.

I get the opportunity to help out with a wedding of one of our teens that graduated from the academy here and then graduated from bible college. It will be a lot of fun. She is a very sweet girl, and we are very happy for her.

I am also helping to plan a baby shower for one of my friends from the church. This is actually their third child (all boys), but the first one she has had while a member of the church. We are also sad as they will be moving out east in July. Her husband does the same kind of accounting work that Brian does, and he accepted a position with a company out east, as he will also be starting some seminary classwork as well. We will miss them, but we are glad to see how the Lord has worked in their family.

On our front, Brian will be starting a new job later in June. It is really neat to see how the Lord has provided different opportunities for Brian's career over the years and how his path has grown, and we are excited about this opportunity. Brian has had the opportunity to do what he does at a couple of companies, but this position will allow him to really tie in all his experiences into one chair. It is a smaller, newer company, and Brian is really excited. He will not only be doing his reporting duties, but he will also be able to help with establishing policies, creating procedures, and getting to play an integral part of a growing organization.

Jackson will be four years old in less than six weeks! I have a very hard time believing that! It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital, and now he is all grown up, trying to sound like an adult, and providing much entertainment in our house. His favorite thing in the world right now is baseball. He could play it for hours. Brian already doesn't like pitching to him, as he has been beaned several times by Jackson's hits. Yes, he is not even 4 and hits live pitching! Brian even started to pitch to him overhand last week (soft pitching of course) and Jackson hits the pitching pretty much the length of our backyard. Pretty soon he will not be able to play back there.

Jefferson is 19 months old now, and is really going to be the one to keep us on our toes! He gets into everything, has very little fear, and just keeps going back for more. He is also starting to say words. He talks up a storm, but as Brian says, most of his talking sounds like Klingon (which is an odd statement, since neither of us watch Star Trek at all), but he can say mommy, dada, hot dog, puppy, etc. He is so much fun to watch as he tries to keep up with his big brother. He is JT's shadow. If Jackson does it, Jefferson does not want to be left out. We are so glad for both of our boys health.

Well, no pictures or anything, but I just wanted to give you a brief recap of our lives.

Vacation is so WONDERFUL!

Sorry that it has been so long since the last post, but we have been rather busy. We went on a family vacation with Grandpa and Grandma Meier from Saturday, April 28, through Saturday, May 5. We rented a house just outside of Orlando, and it was absolutely wonderful. We had a five bedroom house with an enclosed swimming pool and spa, with a private dock to the lake in the back. With the exception of Friday, every day was mid-90's with not a cloud in the sky! A far cry from Minnesota.

The flight was Jefferson's first, and he did tremendous! The only time he fussed was the last 20 minutes, and on a 3 hour flight, that is fair. JT is the seasoned traveller, and he enjoyed it, as usual.

Once we got to the house, the rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful.

Early Sunday morning grandpa and JT went out for JT's first attempt at fishing. We were lounging around when all of a sudden grandpa and JT started to get extremely animated. Brian went out there to see that grandpa had caught a baby alligator (the one in the picture). Brian got out there and was looking at it while grandpa started to tease the baby with the fish he caught. Brian looked up and saw the 8 foot mama (also in pictures) swimming in hard and fast. At that point all lines came out of the water and the cameras came out! The alligators never tried to come up the bank, but when you are on a dock five feet above the water looking straight down at the alligators, it is rather impressive.

On Monday we met up with the Schaffers, friends of ours from Northland who were also in our wedding, up in St. Augustine. It was a beautiful day. We toured an old fort, the historic part of town, and then had a great seafood supper.

On Tuesday evening we took the boys to their first baseball game ever. It figures that we have to go to Florida to take the boys to a Twins' game (it was great timing though). Brian tried to get JT down to get an autograph, but we just missed it. It would have been neat too, because the last player there was Torii Hunter. Now, for all you that have attended baseball games in the past, here is your chance to get jealous. In the first baseball game he ever attended, JT got an actual foul ball game ball! Actually, a guy a couple rows in front of us caught it, but he gave it to Jackson. All in all a fun time.

On Wednesday we went back to the beach. The boys absolutely loved the Gulf of Mexico! We had no sooner got there and Jefferson tried to eat as much of the beach as he could. JT loved digging in the sand and looking for shells.

Thursday was a different day as grandpa and grandma went out for the whole day with friends of theirs, so we had a day to just the four of us. It really was a great, relaxing time.

On Friday we all just relaxed and enjoyed the pool again. It really is nice to be able to swim every day and not worry about having a bunch of people jumping all around you. The boys were relaxed, so they really had fun in the pool.

As with anything else, all good things must come to an end. On Saturday we flew back home, but we did not want to. When we took off, it was 95 degrees in Orlando. When we landed in Minneapolis it was 57 degrees! Enough said there.

Enjoy the pictures of the trip.

It has been a while...

I apologize that I haven't posted for a while, but those of you out there with young children can relate. Of course, who isn't busy anymore, right? Life has been pretty hectic here since the end of basketball season. My husband thought that once his season was over that life would be a little more regulated, but boy was he wrong! We have been running pretty crazy right now. In March, Brian was very busy with his job and the SEC filing that he does for his company. The first full weekend of April was Easter, the second weekend of April Woodcrest (my church) hosted a Deaf Retreat, in which I was in charge of the kids program and also helped in the music. Then the next weekend we went to Brian's parents for the weekend.

The boys are growing like weeds and are more and more fun each day. Of course, two "very busy" boys can create all kinds of not fun situations too, but I just love the two little guys to pieces.

Anyway, I really did not have much to say at this point. I just wanted to get a new post out to let people know we are still alive, and that things are going well for us.

Just the boys

Sorry it has been a while since I have put up any pictures of the boys, so here are some pictures to enjoy.