Prayer Requests

Thank you all for checking in with us and praying for our families. We've been incredibly blessed to have not lost anyone in this horrible disaster. However, there are a lot of hurting people back home right now and they need continued prayers. Here's an update from the Geiser's, some of our friends who lost their home:

Hello to all our friends and family!

We wanted to take a minute and update you on our first day of beginning this journey of rebuilding life after the tornado. First of all, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Your prayers, messages, offers of help and gif...ts have already left us completely humbled and speechless with gratitude. In many ways we are still in shock- just doing the next thing to try and sort through the mess- but knowing we aren't walking through this alone has brought so much encouragement in dealing with all this. We truly feel held up by you all right now.

Today we were able to go to the house, in between a lot of rain, and look for whatever could be salvaged. There were several ways that God showed His grace to us, and I want to share them with you. First of all, we found our school room mostly in tact (it was part of our garage). This meant that most of our books for school were still undamaged. On top of that, we stored some of our pictures out there- including all the negatives of our wedding photos- and they were all fine!! Our second story was pretty much gone except for part of Anthony's and my bedroom. In this part of the room was our fire safe, which has all our birth certificates, marriage license, insurance info.... It was all there in the midst of the rubble! Also, Anthony has journals with our girls (he started them once they turned 8 yrs old- so Tatum has been doing this for 3 years now). They take turns writing letters back and forth to each other in them. Well, somehow we found BOTH of them- something so irreplaceable- and they barely had any water damage! Each of the kids' baby books were also there- just wet. All of these things were just above and beyond what we could have hoped to find. We were amazed at God's mercy to give us, not only our lives, but then these precious mementos on top of that- we are so grateful!

Many have asked what we need right now, and that is a hard question to answer. We need everything at this point! In the next few weeks we will know more of what that means exactly.

For now, we are focusing on these few things:

-A car fund. We lost both our vehicles in the storm which were only covered by liability insurance. In the near future, we are going to have to replace them so we can start getting around again. For now, Anthony's parents are letting us use their van, so that is working as a temporary solution until we can get the money together to buy new -used :) vehicles.

-Sorting through what we have left. We have been able to find some of the kids special stuffed animals and a few clothes. They are wet and filthy, but we think we can clean them up. All the cleaning is going to take time.

-Our kids. Yesterday was a terrifying experience for us all, but the kids especially have a lot to process. They have lost all of their 'treasures' and their home. They have seen our walls and roof disappear. AJ (who is 3) doesn't understand why we can't go home. He keeps asking why the bad bad storm came. We want to help them process this whole ordeal, but we are also busy trying to get as much accomplished as we can before rain destroys anything else. Pray for them. Pray for us to take the time during all this to help them. Pray for peace in their hearts and minds.

-A few things that come to mind that we will be needing- a high chair, a stroller, a crib, a twin bed, bunk beds, bath towels, dressers...I won't go on. We are at his parent's house, so we don't have unlimited storage, but in the next few weeks these things will be needed.

We have been so humbled and blessed by all of you. Thank you so much for praying, weeping, checking in on us, bringing by clothes, giving and giving and giving. We are overwhelmed. We are full of thankfulness. We love you all!

Also, we had two different groups of friends/family who brought the girls and Josiah clothing today. We also had a second-hand store give us a car seat and booster for the boys for FREE today. Several in our family have given sacrificially to us to help with our immediate needs as well. Family and friends have offered to come and help with chainsaws and trailers- again, THANK YOU! We will be in touch with you when the area clears enough that cleanup is possible without getting in the way of emergency service workers. Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts. We are overcome!

All is grace~Christy & Anthony

Also, please pray for a classmate of mine, Paul. His parents were at a Pizza Hut in town when the tornado hit and people were told to go to the freezer for safety. Now rescue workers can't find the freezer. His mom was pulled out of the rubble, but his dad is still missing. Additionally, another guy we went to school with, Don, was killed while trying to protect his wife. There are still people trapped under the rubble. Pray for stamina for the emergency workers, hope for those who have family members still missing, and peace for those who have lost loved ones. Pray for the community as they pick up the pieces of the town they love and begin to rebuild. 

Heavy Heart

Almost three years after a tornado swept through my old neighborhood and killed people from my church and friends' family members, another twister wiped out large portions of my hometown tonight.

Pray for Joplin.

I should really just rename this blog I Love Animals

I should have known better...

...than to trust a bald man with shears.

I wanted Ben to make our two butterfly bushes look similar because I'm a big fan of balance. The world has enough chaos as it is; my yard doesn't need to add to it, thank you very much. However, instead of two bushes that look like this:

I have one that looks like that and one that looks like this:

I just wanted him to trim a little more off the top!

It's a good thing that he's otherwise handy to have around. We had some plumbing work done a few weeks ago and this was the patch up job that was done afterward:  

 

How is this considered a completed job?! Luckily, Ben was able to finish it up and I painted it today, so it's pretty much back to normal. But we're still filing a complaint with our warranty company.

We're also in the midst of installing new windows and repainting the trim on the exterior of the house (pictures coming soon!). As I was standing on the ladder in my painting clothes (a pair of Ben's old shorts and my high school project graduation t-shirt, three sizes too big) yesterday, it occurred to me that it was the one year anniversary of when we closed on the house. How appropriate that we spent it slaving away on the thing. 

How on earth did I spend my weekends before this? :)

A Wrinkle in Time

Recently I bought some makeup that I haven't worn since I was in high school. I was so excited when I went to the department store, because I typically don't splurge on makeup, and this was a high(er) ticket item for me. Case in point, I've been needing powder since about this time last year, but missed the gift-with-purchase sale, so I made myself wait. Why buy something when you can just wait and buy something PLUS get something for free? Even if that means you wait a WHOLE YEAR and make do with Covergirl.

Anyway, my sense of delayed gratification prevailed, and I couldn't wait to finally wear the makeup. At this point I'm realizing I clearly thought this powder would be life changing. It wasn't. At least not the way I anticipated. Because after looking upon my reflection with my new fancy makeup on, I thought, "Huh. When did they start adding wrinkles to this powder?"

This is just the beginning, isn't it?

Also...

...I can't wait for this one, either. Brilliant book. Brilliant actress. Check her out here:

Another One!

The movie gods are being very generous lately - turning all of my favorite books into movies and all. Look for this one this summer.




I recently read Emily Griffin's latest book, Heart of the Matter. Chic-lit that makes you think. At least a little. I just saw her book tour schedule and was excited to see that she was going to be at Vroman's in Pasadena in June. Then I realized that would be June, 2010. Lame.