Milk promo

This is Ethan and I on a milk promo - every weekend there are milk or cheese promos in grocery stores in the surrounding area. This picture was actually taken several months ago. But you get the idea.

Obed filming the tractor show in October

I really like this picture of Obed - I was standing up on the hill with him and it just turned out so well ... ok, it looks better full screen - those little dots along the road are the tractors.

James filming the tractors - I snapped a shot of him as we drove by.

Obed and James - on the job

Some pictures of James and Obed on the job from a tractor show they recorded in October. They did interviews with the tractor drivers and recorded them all driving through the country side. It was beautiful - we had a great time driving on 4-wheelers and a mule (kinda like a 4-wheel drive golf cart). I've got a couple more.

Ethan after sledding down the hill ... James after sledding down the hill ... =)

Snow is for Sledding

The Christmas Tree Hunt

Obed, James and I went Christmas tree hunting last week on Tuesday. We borrowed dad's truck then headed out to the Christmas tree farm - it was already dark and we weren't exactly sure if we'd be able to find it. We stopped at a gas station to get better directions - just in case we had missed it. But it was ok, we hadn't missed it .. . it was further . . . We were almost lost in middle of somewhere . . . on a gravel road several miles from the nearest highway . . . we'd almost given up hope . . . but then as we were about to turn around . . . "Christmas Tree Farm . . . " we'd found it! " . . . open Sat. and Sun." . . . it was Tuesday . . . So we drove further into the next town, because it was dinner time. We found a store that had live trees already cut! Sweet! James was being the usual goof ball . . . it was freezing cold! But we got a real tree, which smells really good! The scent of pine brings back happy memories of childhood Christmas' . . . real trees are a great Christmas tradition.

Thanksgiving Day Pics

It started snowing on Thanksgiving Day so it was a bit cold, but we had a lot of fun. The whole family went out for a walk and tried catching snowflakes in our mouths as we walked.

A little more sugar in your life . . .

Our furry little sugar babies . . . Obed can write the story to this one . . . I was just a witness.

And thank you to Becky for helping us get a photo of Ethan . . . he's a little camera shy, unless he's the one taking the photos!

Meet the rest of the family . . .

Dad Mum (yes, that's how it's supposed to be spelled =) James Cathy with her hubby, Josh, hiding behind her

Guitar playing

Obed playing his electric guitar. He's been practicing and is sounding really good. No, I'm not just being biased . . . =)

There's more! She's so cute!

I can only fit 5 pics on a post? ok . . . Well, here's Michael with Klarissa.

Our beautiful new niece, Klarissa Elyana!

November has just flown by . . . and I realized I hadn't put up any photos yet. So let me do that now and get caught up a bit. First, let me introduce our new niece, Klarissa Elyana . . . she's so adorable. Congratulations to her Mom and Dad and big brothers from your proud auntie and uncle in MO!!! Mommy with Klarissa Daddy with Klarissa Little Princess Jonathan - look how dark she is . . . she's gonna be beautiful! Good thing she's got brothers to watch out for her. Peter with his new baby sister

Steph's Birthday

Well, time flies . . . my birthday was actually on the 19th - Obed and I were going out to dinner at a restaurant 40miles away. They had a live Jazz band and really good food - my sister wanted to take us there, but her plans changed. So we thought we'd try to find it anyway. . . . All was going well until we were about just a couple of miles away, when we heard a strange noise from under the hood of the car . . . and then the engine idled down . . . we were cruising to stop . . . "What was that?" We had been hearing some kind of noises earlier, but had just taken the car to shop to get it checked out and we replaced a bunch of belts, pulleys, etc. Obed called our friend who had worked on the car, "What did you do to our car?" he joked. We found out later that it was the water pump that had burst (or whatever waterpumps do when they break), which in turn had hit the timing belt which threw that off and now needed replacing also . . . a friend of ours happened to be driving by and stopped to pick us up - we were going to the same place to eat, so we had a good evening (except that they had canceled the Jazz). Since I was going to go shopping with my birthday $$ the next day and couldn't because of the car . . . I went shopping online at Old Navy! They had some cute clothes. I'm kinda glad the car broke down the day before - or I would have been out on the side of the road without Obed . . . he's good at fixing problems, calling people to fix problems, etc. so he took care of us. Obed's taking a nap right now - he was working long hours all week to get all the video stuff done for Open House, TV show, dance trailer, testimonies, etc. . . he's tired. Until next time . . .

Open House

This weekend we had our annual Open House - lots of busy-ness all week long, but everything seemed to run fairly smoothly. I believe we had a little over 1200 people come visit. There are booths set up in the school classrooms, tours available in the afternoon, then a free steak dinner with local entertainment from the church. This year the 4-5 year old little girls in dance class did a performance for part of the show - they were so adorable! There will be a dance recital coming up (Nov. 17th). Obed made a trailer to advertise for them. He was working on formatting it to upload to the blog. My sister and her boss have been working on some fudge recipes - they're going to open a little fudge shop and call it "Charlie's Chocolate Factory". It's awesome! They sold their fudge for the first time during the Open House and it was a huge success—they got their first wholesale offer. We had two baby goats in the 4H room and Mark told me to put some pampers on them so they could run around the room without soiling on the carpet—everyone enjoyed seeing them in diapers! They had to have their diapers changed a couple of times, but they didn't seem to mind. =) It was fun, but boy was everyone tired when the night was over.

Sugar Gliders..the Movie

HCA Devotions

Obed spoke at the Heartland Christian Academy devotions on Thursday. We found this picture of him (Junior year in high school) behind a baby picture that his mom had given me when we visited them. It was really good to hear him speak again. This is the first time he's ever spoken since he moved up here 2 years ago. I was sitting next to my mum during the devotions and at the end she leaned over and told me "He should speak more often." Then later on that afternoon, I had a meeting and Laurie Sharpe mentioned to me that she didn't know he was 34yrs old . . . and that he did a very good job speaking in devotions. I'm so proud of him!

Milk Promo Adventures

I went on another milk promo last weekend to fill in for my sister. There were 4 of us that went to Peoria, IL. Two girls were dropped off in Pekin just south of Peoria and Casey and I drove another 40min to Eureka . . . Every milk promo has an adventure - Pekin has one way roads everywhere - it's crazy trying to find the store sometimes. I ended up accidentally driving the wrong way down a one way road - only for a block, but . . . talk about freaking out! I was trying to find my way back to the store to pick up the other girls at the end of the day and not only did we have to deal with all the one way roads, but they had the main road blocked off for a concert + carnival! I turned down this road, then asked Casey, "Was this a one way road?" she said, "I don't know, I didn't see a sign" . . . then I saw two cars turn toward us - one in each lane . .. so we cut across the road into a parking lot . . . what a rush! Then we got lost trying to find the hotel . . . but that was more because you had to go into the mall around the back and down a side road that had a tiny sign to the hotel that was surrounded by highways and only accessible through the little road at the back of the mall - and there was a tree growing in front of the sign telling you to go through the mall . . . so we drove on each of the highways around the mall before spotting the road and trying the mall. You can read the sign "Use Mall Entrance" when you're already at the hotel, but that's just not very helpful when trying to find it. But we had a great time - definitely an adventure on this one! While driving around, we also found a Target with a Starbucks inside - so we stopped by in the morning for a cup of Go Juice!

Obed's Birthday

I know it's been a while . . . again . . . but Obed's birthday party on Sept. 3rd was great - lots of people came over . . . sorry, no photos b/c we really need to get a camera. We didn't have all the screws to put together the BBQ - so the guys were hanging out downstairs in my sisters apartment using her husbands grill. Mum, dad, James, Cathy, Josh, and I put together some money to buy Obed an ipod - but I didn't get it b/c the store was out of stock and I was going to have to order it online . . . we ended up just giving him the money and it was a good thing! Two days later the 80G was $100 less and they came out with the itouch. Which Obed says that now he would prefer waiting for the second generation itouch - b/c it's way cooler! Everyone had a great time - we had grilled chicken, rice, beans, hummus + pita bread, deviled eggs, hot dogs on hoagies, nachos and cheese dip, BBQ baby hot dogs, and bread rolls. Thanks to my mum and sisters who helped with the food. Darin and Christy's girls, Taya and Emily, played with their Dora dolls under the table - it was their little hide out . . . we have a counter height square table. They were so cute! I wanted to get an ice cream cake for desert - TCBY was the only ice cream that I could figure he might like - he's an ice cream connoisseur of sorts. But the day I planned to go to town (45min - 1hr drive) without him (we always go together) . . . didn't work out. So since he was right there with me and there was no way I was going to keep this a secret to surprise him with this cake . . . I decided to just let him pick it out . . . then we came to the conclusion that if we bought a couple of boxes of fudge cake and a bucket of ice cream . . . there would be more cake and ice cream to go around . . . and possible some left over. =) So I made him a fudge cake - it turned out really good! There were no left overs. My brother James brought over his Wii, which kept the guys occupied for the rest of the night. If you've never played - you ought to try it. James likes to play video games, etc. so we all tried to convince to him to wait and not buy it for a while - see if he really wants it or if it's just a spur of the moment purchase . . . he got it a couple weeks later and now we all enjoy playing it. We even got mum to race cows with us! I don't usually like gaming b/c all the buttons you have to push. The controllers on Wii are so much easier to understand - some games don't even use buttons, you just tilt the remote - that's how you race cows, tilt forward, left or right, to slow down you just tilt back (kinda like pulling the reigns on a horse) ... so that was really fun!

So, I didn't realize people were actually reading this blog . . . so, we've been busy lately. Last weekend Obed and I went on a milk promo for the Heartland creamery. We drove to Muscatine, Iowa and sampled milk at Hyvee on Friday and Saturday. It was fun b/c the promo only goes till 5 or 6 in the envening, then we went to the movies and saw "the Bourne Ultimatum" . . . and our hotel was paid for! On our way home we stopped by a pet store . . . we stop by pet stores a lot, just to look around. Speaking of pet stores, there's a pet store in Quincy that we like to visit when we go drop off tapes - they have 4-5 large pens that puppies play in and we can go in and pick them up and play with them . . . that's where we'll probably get a boxer from when we get a house. Yesterday, we went shopping for curtain rods b/c we had bought some light curtains to block the light coming in the windows a little while ago . . . and I hung them on rolls of Christmas wrapping paper . . . hey, it worked! So, we found some real curtain rods and hung them up last night . . . Christmas is coming up shortly and we may need that wrapping paper. =) At Biglots we got Obed a grill - it was $130 and we got it on sale for $75. Next to it on the clearance rack was a wooden rocking chair - it was considered a "porch swing" and all the patio stuff was 75% off . . . so we got the chair for $12 - that was such a cool deal!!! I can put a seat cusion on that and stick it in the baby room.

Sample Testimony - David S.

We put short testimonies of people like David on our weekly show. I thought I'd put something on this blog so you could get an idea of the work I do. Enjoy!

Obed and the "common" yet rare and endangered barn owl So, the story goes that a storm came through our area a few nights ago with winds in the 60 mph range, and though it hadn't come through on our walk to Steph's parent's home, boy did that wind pick up when we decided to walk home later that evening. As you can see by my hair, the wind was pretty strong....I'm suprised that at my age I still had some left after that walk. So....we're walking down the street, dust flying all around, beating against our skin....so what do we do? WE RUN! And what's faster than running? FLYING! And by the picture above, can you tell who was doing what that night? You guessed it....the owl was running, and my hair was flying! My hair was flying 'cause I haven't had a haircut in almost a month, and the owl was running because it couldn't handle the strong wind and ended up hitting a stop sign pole at the corner of the street. Then, when I approached the owl to catch it, it starting running away. I decided I'd walk behind it so it couldn't see me, and wrap my hands around it's wings. Little did I know that, according to many websites we looked at to find information on what type of owl this was, I did exactly what you're suppose to do when trying to catch one of these rare birds! After catching the owl, we walked back to our apartment and found a box to put him in. Unfortunately, I let the owl get too close to Steph and when it felt Steph's arm with it's tallons, it grabbed her arm leaving Steph with a couple of small scratches and some tiny but deep holes from it's claws. Steph is okay, but her arm was sore for a few days and is still healing. Like I said before, we looked on the web for information on what to do with such a bird. We were able to get a hold of the Wildlife Conservation Dept. of Missouri and we met someone from there at a nearby town. They were able to take the bird and have it shipped to Columbia, Missourri....which is about 2 hrs. away. I'm sure the Owl is okay.....but my hair isn't. I still haven't got my hair cut. Looking back.....I kinda wish I had that owl's hair (yes, I know....they are feathers)....it sure did look beautiful.

Garage Sales

Last week on Saturday there was a community wide garage sale at Heartland from 8am-1pm. My mum was out early that morning before 8! So when Obed and I left the house at 8 right across the street from us two ladies told us "Hey your mom was buying baby clothes this morning - that could start some rumors you know!" I bought some baby clothes too, b/c they were so cute . . . then I saw my sister, Cathy, and her husband and teased her that I was going to buy her some baby clothes too. She said, "What? I was gonna buy some for you!" She keeps saying she doesn't want to have kids, but just a year ago she said she'd never get married, but she just got married May 5th! In the afternoon, mum and I went to Kirksville to pick up Ethan and saw lots of signs for more garage sales. So of course, we ended up stopping at some more. And we found some more baby stuff . . .

Sunday Lunch

Today we're having the Powell clan over for lunch - I tried a new recipe, we'll see how it turns out. Hoki (fish) wrapped in bacon and baked in the oven, Obed's going to make home made french fries to go with it. He's such a good husband -he helps me cook and clean!

Moving

Yesterday the sugar gliders moved to my parents house. We had a misunderstanding when we moved into our apartment (in March). So . . . we found out that we weren't supposed to have them in the apartment at all. My little brother is going to take care of them for us until we get a house. Hopefully sooner than later! In the mean time we're going to decorate our spare room and make it a baby room . . . there's no baby yet, but there may be one coming soon. =)

Obed and Steph

I was finally able to figure out how to put a photo of us on here . . . Obed helped . . . ok, so he told me how to do it! He's just so smart like that. So I went back and added a few photos of our trip to Mexico.

Sugar Gliders

We haven't written anything about our sugar gliders yet. Obed and I have 3 sugar gliders - Eshton, Fletcher, and Abi. Eshton and Fletcher are twins. We were originally only going to get Eshton, but his brother didn't have a home and after meeting him we just couldn't separate the brothers. We picked them up on Oct.19th which was my birthhday. Abi we couldn't pick up till a week later because she was younger and from a different breeder. We don't have many photos of them because we don't have a camera, but perhaps we'll find a way to get some photos on here sooner or later.

Spring cleaning?

I know it's not exactly spring anymore, but the spring cleaning bug bit me yesterday. After lunch, I went through all the extra boxes we had in the storage closet. . . eliminating several. It's so nice to know that everything is all organized in there now. A friend of ours gave us a beautiful hutch with glass covers on top and cabinets down the bottom. So while I was cleaning yesterday I discovered a few treasures hidden in newspaper that I'd quite forgotten. So the hutch is now full of interesting things from China, Japan, Israel, New Zealand . . . little things I had collected over the years. It was quite fun.

Shopping at Target....for baby stuff!!!

We decided we start to buy baby stuff so we went to Target...'cause that's where the crib we want is suppose to be sold at (according to the website). Well, we found out that Target stores are separate identities from the online store. So, it appears that just because it's online doesn't mean that a particular store will have what you are looking for. Now....to many of you this might already be common knowledge..but to new target shoppers like us, that is not the case. So we decided to take a 2 hr. trip to the nearest Target...and guess what. THEY DIDN'T HAVE WHAT WE WANTED! So we kept calm and collected and decided to ask where we could find another Target store. We were told there was another store about a 1/2 hr. trip away. So off on another trip we went. Different Target store....same story.....but a little more deceptive. This store did have a floor model of the crib we were looking for, and they even had those little papers that say..."give this to a "someone" and they will get you one from the back...'cause that is where we keep them...IF WE HAVE ONE. And......they didn't have one. Geees...how far do we have to travel to buy a simple crib? We ask the question again...."where is the nearest Target store?' It turns out that the next store was 45 minutes away. NAH......we're not going there. A 2 hr. trip was starting to turn into a 5 hr trip....and don't you just hate it when that happens? Well, we didn't want to waste a day by not getting anything for the baby so we put our heads together (not literally) and decided to buy something else....AND WE DID! What did we buy you ask? We bought a swing and a mobile and a mattress and I think that is it. Oh no...we also bought a couple of outfits that were on clearance (LOVE THOSE SIGNS). We don't know if we'll have twins...but if we do...we'll have something to put on them. If we do have twins, they'll need to be different genders 'cause we got one outfit for a boy and one for a girl( it would be really awkward if we dressed one of them wrong 'cause the twins were the smae gender). I'm really just rambling on....so I'll quit now. But I hope you enjoyed the story.

Mexico, Aramberri, El Salto

Obed's dad (Jose) droving us to Aramberri - you can see how big the mountains look already they were several miles away! A view of the valley from the road side - there is a park below the large rock with a very steep coblestone entrance which was all done by hand. Obed's uncle helped with the road and building the park. This is where the goats were kept. Obed's cousin took care of them. My younger brother took care of goats for 4-H so we thought this might be interesting for him to see. One of the many gorgeous falls at El Salto. We hiked all the way to the top where the water comes out from under the rocks! It starts out so small and yet makes all these waterfalls. Farmers take turns down stream watering their fields with this same river. Recently went on vacation to visit some relatives in Mexico. Obed's Dad's family live up in the mountains in a place called Aramberri. There was a little river that Obed used to play in when he was a kid. His aunt cooked some really good food - all home made of course. We have some photos of making corn tortillas and how to make a great taco. One night we stayed in El Salto. There are huge waterfalls and absolutely gorgeous scenery. So we took lots of photos of the waterfalls and scenery! While we were at the cabin in El Salto I had told Obed a joke about a guy that had gas (farting) . . . later we translated it and wrote it down (becuase I couldn't remember all of it in Spanish) and then the next night when everyone was sitting around talking after dinner, Obed told his dad that I had a joke to tell. I was kind of embarrassed because I thought I was going to mis-pronounce something and then at the end of the joke no one would laugh (awkward!) . . . but I put all fears aside and read the joke! . . . everyone laughed, they thought it was hilarious. So, I'll write it here just so you don't feel left our (whoever you are reading this page) Once there was a man who had A LOT of gas. But, you couldn't hear them and they had no smell. The man thought he should go see the doctor, just in case it was something serious. So he goes and tells the doctor "I have a lot of gas! you can't hear them and they don't smell . . . but I thought I should come get it checked out just in case it was something serious" The doctor writes him a prescription and says take this once a day for one week and come back to see me to tell how effective the medicine is. So the man takes the medicine for a week and comes back to see the doctor. The doctor asks, "How effective was the prescription I gave you?" "Doctor, I don't know what the medicine was . . . but I still have A LOT of gas! You can't hear them, but now they smell REALLY NASTY!" The doctor looked at him calmly and replied, "Good! We've taken care of your nose problem. Now let's work on your ears." Later when we went to Monterrey to visit Obed's cousin we told the joke again and his cousin was laughing so hard her face turned red!

July 8, 2007

Testing, testing, testing . . . just checking out this blogging thing. We'll see how well this turns out.