Through Every Season

Tag: Happily Married to Mike (Page 3 of 4)

Juneau, Alaska

 Beautiful mountains in every view from the ship.
 Day before getting on the boat, I thought, 
“Holy beans! What was I thinking when I told Mike to sign us up for the zip line excursion?”

It’s easy to sign up for stuff when it’s a year away.. 
 amazing how different you feel when it’s actually around the corner.   
 After learning how to fly straight and how to hold on 
while swaying 80′ up in the tree it was fun.
Sun was up 4:30 am – 10:30 pm.

Seattle Highlights

Can you see the Space Needle?  It’s down the street right between our heads.  😀
Way up in the top of this tower (The Smith Tower) taking in the sights.
  
This is the only day that it rained on us our whole trip.
What’s Seattle without rain?  It normally only gets 35 inches a year.
Some places in AK get 200 inches a year.. but had sun just for us.
Miraculous!  Thank You, Jesus! 
See the round, white ball?  It’s a radar.  Mike has something to do with it’s existence.  🙂 
 They have grass and trees growing on some of the roofs!
We learned that their average tempreture in 
the Summer is 70 and around 40 in the Winter.  Not bad right?  
Also they only have 50% humity and the bugs don’t like the dry salty air. 
We were surprised by how much we liked Seattle. 
On the cruise ship, ready to sail away….
Seattle Part Two (Land Ho!) Cruise photos coming in next post.
We walked 3 miles to see the Space Needle up close this time.
Several glass rain covers around town.
Such a pretty city.
Our hotel room was huge.
View from our room
Sight seeing again.  Don’t we look like we had a great cruise?
Surprising Seattle
So impressed by the Chittenden Locks.
Need a ride down to the sea?
This toll lives under the Fremont bridge.
  He’s holding a real VW Bug.
Loved our time away!

Fly Away With Me

 Our first day, I realized that this was the first time that 
the two of us have flown away together since our honeymoon.
 Pacific Beach was pretty cool.  You can walk, bike or skate for miles.
The weather is perfect here.
La Jolla Beach  
We saw baby and mama seals on the rocks. 
 Old Town has a ton of open air mexican food restaurants.
Everything was so fresh. 
 Birds hanging around for left overs.
 On the beach at sun set.
 Nice waves
 Love how the sun melts into the ocean.
 Beach performer.
 Balboa Park Museums
 Giant Turtles at the San Diego Zoo
 Komodo Dragon
 Elephants
 Love the trees.
 Saw many animals we’d never seen before.
 Beautiful Cat.
 So nice to see Savannah and spend the day with her at the Zoo.
 Koalas were so cute.
 Another Perfect Day.
 A baby Giraffe.
 It’s warming up a bit.
 Hanging out in the sun.
Ryan and Savannah were so much fun to hang out with.
 A Life Guard Friend for Judi
A cool animal from China.. I’ll have to look him up later.. 
should have taken a picture of his sign.
Time to catch another plane.
Hope all is well..
Loving our time away,
Jenny

Back at Home and to Birmingham

We packed up camp fast as we could Sunday morning.  A storm was blowing in and we didn’t want to take home wet tents.  Arrived home safe and took a nap.

After lunch, we took Holden home and went shopping again.  Lucked out and found an ice truck at Publix shortly after it pulled up.  Ice, propane, batteries and generators were still going fast.

3% of Huntsville now had power.  We saw a couple of lights 3-5 miles from our house that gave us some hope, and Publix now had generators for running their freezers. 

Mike and I went to bed shortly after dark.  Joel fell asleep on the couch in the living room with the dogs and they were all three awakened around midnight by a looter on our back porch.  The dogs earned their keep by barking up a storm and Joel by screaming.. the looter ran away and jumped in his get-away car.  So glad we were there that night and I am hoping that we can find a solar motion sensor light for our back porch today. 

I woke up two hours later being bit by a big tick.  Boy, can they bite.  I ran to Judi’s room because she had a candle lit.  She couldn’t sleep after the looter incident.  She tried pull off the tick with tweezers.. he was stuck on tight.. then to burn the tick with her candle lighter – I suggested we find some matches and get Mike to help.  He burned it with a lit match (not much better) and was finally able to get him off.  I should really look up symptoms for lyme disease.

Next morning I was about to enter an ice cold shower when I had an idea.. we could spend the night in Birmingham that night, take a hot shower, and not wake up as early for my appointments the next morning.  Didn’t take much to convince Mike; he’d already been thinking about it.  We went to a near by store and used their internet to find and book a hotel, bought the kids a few groceries then ran off to civilization.  Almost felt like a date instead of a doctor’s visit.

We had two hot showers, ate at Jim and Nick’s (one of our favorite bbq places) and slept in maybe the nicest hotel we’ve ever stayed at.  Appointments went well.  I didn’t have an allergic reaction to the CAT scan die (yay!) but did have a reaction to the rubbing alcohol the lab prepped me with.   It was probably a good thing.. it was my first time to have an immediate reaction.. and now I can just tell them I had a reaction and request they use something else in the future. 

It’s nice to be home again and now that the power is back on, I can get some laundry done.  We have a lot to do before Judi goes to TX on Saturday, and even more to do before Mike and I leave for Alaska.

Love,

J

Generous Wife (and Husband) Tips

I love receiving e-mails from The Generous Wife 
I try to read them everyday.
Her husband writes tips for the guys as well.
Today’s was about serving our husbands as 
Jesus did when He washed His disciples’ feet. 
She ended with a quote from Helen Keller. 
I’d really like a collection of Helen Keller quotes. 
She was such a great thinker.
“I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty 
to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. 
The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, 
but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.”   
Helen Keller
Love,
Jenny

Valentines

We had a great Valentine’s Day.
Mike got me this beautiful hydrangea plant.  
Did you know that you can take hydrangea as a supplement 
and it will dissolve kidney stones?  
I know from experience.  Most regular doctors don’t know.
I made Valentine bookmarks (above) for our homeschool bowling party.
The bowling party was all Judi’s idea.  She remembers going bowling (ages 5-9) 
on Valentine’s with our homeschool group in San Antonio.  
She made these beautiful cookies (from a roll).  
Everyone said they were delicious.



The radiologist that I had an appointment with today called yesterday to cancel my appointment.  She wants to move me to a different location. I was glad she cancled, because after all I’ve read about radiation I’ve decided not to do it.  
I am waiting now to hear from the breast center in Birmingham 
about new appointments with a surgeon and oncologist there.  
When I talked to UAB last week, I found out that the one allergist that worked at the hospital last day was in December. 🙂 At this point I am kinda hoping that UAB has more options than were offered here.  Ones that don’t include surgery would be nice.  
I’ve read that only 10-25% of people with DCIS ever develop an invasive breast cancer.  If I refuse to take the drug they want to give me (one of it’s side effects is uterine cancer), and refuse to do radiation, I am not sure how much surgery will decrease my chances.  
And the corn I am exposed to  during surgery could increase my chances of going into anaphylactic shock when exposed to corn in the future.
I’ve been reading about a supplement called Diindolylmethane (DIM) that helps fight hormone dependent cancers (which mine is).  Here is a link.
Still believing for healing and lots of wisdom.
Love,
Jenny

Funny Thing About Blogging

A lot of the stuff I’ve been blogging about I would never take the time to bore Mike with (sorry).  He’s just not that interested in what crafts I am working on or how I organize the house.  Maybe you aren’t either, but I need to tell someone.  Thanks for “listening.”

James has always been the “go to guy” when you need to know where something is in the house, but the last couple of moves he’s started loosing his touch.  A few weeks ago, he asked me where I keep the plastic shopping bags and before I could answer MIKE told him.

I was stunned.  I literally sat there with my mouth gaping trying to figure out what happened, because Mike, even after years of living in the same house, never knows where anything is.  He said, “I read it on your blog.”  Ha.

This morning I saw Mike in my closet (kinda strange now that we have separate closets) so I asked, “What are you doing in there??”

He was putting away toiletries from his trip to Orlando last week.  He learned where they were from my blog.  I guess before whenever he went on a trip, and I wasn’t packing for him, he would just take his full sized shampoo bottle.. but now he knows where I keep the little travel sized bottles.  Funny, right?

I wonder what else I could blog about that he might find useful.

Our 24th anniversary is tomorrow.  He’s wonderful.  I am so blessed… beyond what I could ever have imagined.

My top marriage tips:

1 Stay committed.  God will bring you through.

2 Don’t try to change your man.. Pray.  God is the only one that can change anyone.  It’s easier for God to do His job when you aren’t in the way.

3 Think on good things… about your man, your kids, your house… whatever your circumstances.  If you are always focused on the negative, you’ll be miserable and you’ll make things worse.  If you focus on the positive and trust God for the rest, you’ll be happier and God will work wonders.

4 Take time out to have fun together.  Life is too short not to.

Love,

J

Love Jenny Quilt

The very first thing I learned to sew in homemaking class was this quilt.
It’s made with two sheets, batting for the middle, and yarn to tie it together.
I embroidered “Love Jenny” on the corner and gave it to Mike 
to remember me by before he left for CFNI.
After just one year at CFNI, the quilt had worked its magic; 
Mike came home to court me, and we married the following June.
The quilt is now over 26 years old and has lived a very full life of miracle making.  
It kept us warm in our first apartment, through four babies,
many camping trips, and has now made it to our newest and hopefully last house.
When I was unpacking this time, I noticed that when you hold it up to the light
you can see right through it and decided that it’s time for it to be put to rest.  
Good bye, old quilt.  Thanks for catching me such a wonderful man
and for the many years of love and warmth.
J

Morning Trip

Our debit card photos are over 10 years old,
and we have been getting some funny looks lately when trying to use them
for purchases, so we decided this morning that it was time to up date them.
The only catch was that the closest branch is in Tennessee.
We discovered that the border is only about half an hour away.

The fall colors are gorgeous. I love fall.
I took a photo of this Methodis church for Mom.

Davy Crockett was born not too far from here.
He has a state park near by. We’ll have to check it out next time.

We stopped at this store on the way back.

It had some awesome black bear quilts and beautiful antiques.

Our house has an address stone now. Yay!
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