Back in KC!

We have made it back! We returned after 12 days away! Wow. The trip was so wonderful though. We couldn't have had a better Christmas with family. We did end up going down to the Big Dam Bridge on Sunday afternoon...but we didn't wear quite enough warm clothes and almost froze to death. Here we are on the bridge.





Pinnacle Mountain...



On Monday David and Ben and Mike went down to the farm to get some work done. Deuce went along and ran his little heart out all day. I'm just glad he didn't get run over by a tractor or killed by Kip (an actual farm dog). I think they had a great time though. I got to stay in Little Rock and spend some time with Mom. We went and ate lunch at YaYa's with Dad and made some good returns. She even washed and folded our laundry so we could take clean clothes home instead of 100 pounds of dirties. The best Mom ever. Here is David and Deuce on the farm.



Introducing....Shepherd Michael Rainwater! John and Sarah had a 3-D ultrasound down right before Christmas and we all got to really see him! We are so excited about our nephew! Isn't he cute?!



We stayed extra on Wednesday so that we could attend Anthony Riggan's memorial service. It was an amazing service and there wasn't a dry eye in the church. He was a fantastic person that truly honored Christ with his entire life. Even in his memorial service he was a witness. He was in the Air Force and flew the elite B1 Bombers. His life verse was, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." He wrote his thoughts on this verse often and we were all therefore blessed to hear words from Anthony about death at the service. It's hard to sum up the events of such a great life in a paragraph, especially when that life contained more action for Christ in 25 years than some accomplish in a life-time. He was a leader is everything that he did and lived a life that was a continual witness to all he came in contact with.

Christmas in Little Rock

We made it back to Little Rock on Christmas Eve after a slight plane delay in Atlanta! We were really looking forward to the Christmas Eve candlelight service. It was great and we had a nice relaxing Christmas Eve night, even though David and I were super tired from getting up so early in Charlotte to fly home.

Christmas day was absolutely successful. We got up and enjoyed breakfast and then spent the morning opening presents. Here are some pictures from being in Little Rock so far. I took them all with my new camera. Thanks Mom and Dad!

We gave Sarah, Kathy, and Mom an address stamp. They were a big hit.

Kathy started me off on my silver collection! My pattern is Tara (yes, like the Gone with the Wind "Tara") by Lennox. It's also Mom's pattern, which is one of the reasons I chose it! Me and Mom will be able to begin to share silver as I collect it (I'll be most definitely more on the borrowing end of the deal though). :)

On Christmas night we went to the Rainwater family Christmas in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. All the cousins were there and Grandma provided a massive spread of food that included five pies! While we were there I went out with Mike to check out the new calves. I think they're really cute.

Mom and Dad are driving home from Charlotte today and Tripp is flying back to Fayetteville. However, they are all semi trapped because of snow! Who would have thought it! This afternoon we are trying to get ourselves re-organized, doing some laundry (we are starting to run out of clothes), and taking Deuce to either the Big Dam Bridge or Pinnacle Mountain. Should be a fun afternoon. More pictures to come!

Fish Fry

The annual fish fry at Granny and Grandad's was last night. Granny and Grandad always deep fry home-made french fries, catfish, oysters, and hush puppies. Uncle Frank, Aunt Lisa, Seth, Braelyn and Sarah came over too. While Grandad cooks we usually hang out outside. Just a side-note...it was like 60 degrees in the day here yesterday.













The fish was delicious! You can actually feel your arteries clogging as you eat. We were all really excited for after dinner because the triplets were getting a puppy for Christmas and Frank and Lisa were giving it to them last night. Lisa left early and went to pick up the puppy and then we all went over to their house to watch them be given the puppy. They loved it. Sarah said, "Somebody pinch me," and Braelyn said, "This is the best Christmas ever!"



We are praying for the Riggan family...Anthony Riggan and his wife were killed yesterday in a plane crash. Anthony was an example to all his peers and a graduate of the Air Force Academy. Anthony graduated from PA, like me, and was truly "the salt of the earth." Pray for his parents, his wife's parents, and Maggie, his younger sister.

Christmas vacation is here!

We/I apologize for the lack of blogging over the last week. It got so busy last week trying to get ready to leave town and finish up finals/school stuff that we just didn't have time. However, we are now officially on Christmas vacation and loving every minute of it! The Christmas party at school went great and we got tons of Starbucks gift cards this time. The staff party was also great and we all were treated to lunch at the Blue Moose. On Friday night we began to get ready to leave town for 10 days! Sooie could sense her impending trip to the kitty hotel. :)



On Friday night we went to our Sunday School class party at Todd and Alicia's house. It was so much fun! Alicia is a great host and we even sat around and played some charades.



David, with Chris and Jonathan.



We stayed up until 1:00 in the morning on Friday night trying to get all of our stuff packed and then got up Saturday morning and hit the road. We left the house under the watchful eyes of Larry and Joann. :) We stopped in Rogers and had lunch with some great friends...Nick and Caroline Rhoads. David lived with Nick and it has always seemed like all the wives have really clicked. We took Deuce to their house to meet their dog Mallie Mae and watched as they went absolutely crazy playing. Mallie is an 8 month old lab, so her and Deuce were like exactly the same size. They wrestled until we made them stop. Then we all hopped over to Market Place Express for some lunch. It was wonderful catching up and talking about the future together. Thanks for having lunch with us guys.





We spent one night (Saturday) at David's parent's house. On Sunday we were able to go to church and see everyone. Then we packed bags from our bags to make the trip to Charlotte with Mom and Dad yesterday. We took Deuce to board at a Little Rock vet for the FIRST time Monday morning and I was so upset. I even cried a little when we left because Deuce seemed so scared. I also called to check on him yesterday afternoon...over-protective mother already? :) Tripp flew and met us in Charlotte. The car ride was long, as usual, but now we are here and relaxing. I am going to try and blog as the trip goes on, so that i don't have 10,000 pictures to blog when we get back to Kansas City. I was also thinking having our parents' houses and our church in LIttle Rock make an appearance on the blog. We'll see if it happens. More on the ten day family marathon coming soon!

Greetings, from just North of the Arctic Circle

It is SO stinkin' cold here!On Friday it was like 50 degrees and this morning when we left for church it was 8 degrees! To say the least, we are cold. It was a good week though. However, our dog pulled a kamikaze move on Tuesday. David was on his way to deliver our ladder to Jay and Katherine to put up their Christmas lights when Deuce JUMPED out of the back of the truck while it was moving! We rushed him to the nearest vet and I was completely freaking out. Deuce wouldn't let his back right leg touch the ground. The vet said that somehow he didn't break his leg and that is was going to be something he just had to "walk off." We gave him pain pills and now he's back to his happy, go-lucky self. He's even in the Christmas spirit. Sort-of...



On Friday night David had choir practice for the Christmas concert at LBC and then we just hung around the house. Saturday night was the concert. David is in the middle in a red sweater. :)



Did we mention that it's cold? Yeah, like so cold. This afternoon (Sunday) I got together with a couple friends from church to make some Christmas goodies. We ate and cooked all afternoon!

Here is Dianna pretending to help Mandy clean her kitchen. :)



The group of bakers. I made peanut butter cookies and we also had chocolate covered pretzels, oreo balls, puppy chow, sugar cookies that we decorated, carrot cake cupcakes and cider!



This is our last week of work/school until Christmas break! David is done with finals on Wednesday, but will see patients through Friday and I have a half day on Friday. Before we head home on Saturday I'll do my staff Christmas party, we'll go to our Sunday School class party Friday night and we'll hopefully have some time to finish up our Christmas shopping!

California Pizza Kitchen and Starbucks

Pictures from our great night out of Saturday with some friends!







Just as a side-note...it is FREEZING in Kansas City. The only redeeming quality of the extreme cold is a nice fire in our fireplace, which we have done every day since like Thursday.

Geoge Washington's Teeth

We have been pretty tired this week after Thanksgiving. In fact, I even managed to get sick again. Yipee. Anyway, the clinic was closed on Friday, so David came up to school to read a book that I had picked out for him. We were planning on him being my "mystery reader" on the last day of the nine weeks, but this worked out better for both of us. He read a book called George Washington's teeth that is a rhyming book about all his teeth falling out.



Then he showed them a set of real dentures and answered teeth questions...



He came bearing gifts and you would have thought it was Christmas day. He brought them each a toothbrush, two tubes of toothpaste, and floss. The girls got a princess toothbrush and the boys got a "Cars" one. They all watched David show them how to floss and then did it on their own.



So cute. It was great to have him there and for the kids to meet him. One boy asked me how old David was. When I told him, he asked if David was tall for his age...I had no idea how to respond. The same boy pointed to a tooth he had coming in and asked David if it was ok that it was so far back. Another girl told David that she has gum disease and that it must have happened because she doesn floss. Such a fun afternoon. The only bad news...more lice at school! I don't think I blogged about it when it happened before Thanksgiving, but it's back. The new safety measure is to have kids bag all their belongings when they come to school...



Tonight we're headed down to the Plaza to do some Christmas shopping and then meet some friends at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. If we take any pictures I'll post!

Pour some sugar on me...

I'm not trying to be weird with the title of this post. This is the song that was played over the loud speakers after Arkansas beat LSU on Saturday. I'll come back to that though.

We had a great time in Little Rock for Thanksgiving. Somehow, with how all of the events fell, we ended up doing quite a bit of house hopping. In fact, of the four nights we were away, we stayed at my parent's house and David's parent's house every other night! We started our trip home with a great trip to the club's pasta bar. Then we ate Thanksgiving lunch at Mom and Dad's (House #1). Here is Mom's beautiful table.



Dad and Tripp and David checking out the black Friday deals.





Mom and Dad pulling they pullly bone...Dad won.



On Thursday night we went to Mike and Kathy's for Thanksgiving dinner (house #2). We ate ourselves sick that day. We also had Deuce with us. It was raining all day Thursday, which made it a bit challenging with him.



On Friday morning we left at 6:00 a.m. for Ruston, LA to spend time with David's grandmother (maternal side). Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures there somehow. That's terrible of me. Luckily, David took a lot of pictures with his Mom's camera, which she emailed to me. We ate on David's grandmother's china and ate with her beautiful silver and crystal...so special. John and Sarah also joined us in Ruston.







We made a quick stop in Arkadelphia to see David's other grandmother before heading back to Little Rock for my extended family's, family Christmas (house switch number 3). Here is David with Carly...our 5 year old cousin.



Carly and Ellen insisted on putting on my old highschool cheer uniforms and doing the Hog Call.



THE GAME! AHHH! Kick-off was at 2:30 and we were tailgating by 10:00 a.m. SOOOOO many people came by the tailgate and it was tons of fun. A packed house. We were already tired by the time we got into the game. However, we perked up when the Hogs beat LSU! Woohoo! In the battle for the boot, the hogs were victorious. And even better than winning the boot, Arkansas is now ranked 7th in the BCS and hopefully headed to the Sugar Bowl...hence the title of this post. As soon as the game ended, this song started playing over all the speakers and all fans, young and old started singing along. Best game of the year. Then we went back to the Rainwater's for the night (house switch #4).





Our Christmas decor is up! We can't believe it's our third married Christmas and third year in Kansas City.







Make-shift hog tree-topper.



The biggest addition to the house is the lights!



Christmas is coming! Three weeks until Christmas break!