The Rest of December

Hey.....Sorry about not posting for about 3 weeks.  I just haven't had a whole lot to say or the motivation to write it all out.  But now I have lots of pictures for you!

A couple of weeks ago, Caleb surprised me after dinner one night with some chocolate covered strawberries filled with nutella.  He. Is. The. Best.

On the Friday before Christmas, I gave Caleb his Christmas present. 

Look at that fast action tearing into that beautiful wrapping.

It's a Batman jacket, just like the one I made a few weeks ago for our nephew.  Funny story about this, a couple of days before I had brought home a jacket from work that had the Seinfeld logo on it.  He told me I could make it into a batman jacket.  I asked him if he really wanted me to and he said that he didn't want a Batman jacket.  I tried to keep a disappointed look off of my face and then started to doubt on whether or not it was a good idea.

His batman look.

But he liked it!  I asked him about him not wanting one, and he said he didn't want me to feel obligated to make him one but secretly he still wanted one.  :-)  Score!

Caleb told me that he wasn't going to get me a Christmas present because he was going to save up more money for my birthday/Valentines day.  After I gave Caleb his present, he surprised me with  his wall hanging with a poem he wrote for me.  (He always makes my gifts to him seem lame).

Here's what the poem says: (oh, just so you know, he calls me his Honeybee because that's what Melissa means and my maiden name means Hayfield)

I found my love in a Hayfield when the sun was falling down;

The grasses kept her concealed where she was lying on the ground.

But a glow still gleamed about her like the glory of a star,

Unlike my lightless void without her, that left me only scars.

 

I found my love in a Hayfield where a Honeybee halfheartedly hovered.

I found her simply laying there with silk, not armor, covered.

She was not captive in a dragon’s lair; no scoundrels sought to surround her;

I had not trekked where few would dare. She was in a Hayfield, and I found her.

 

In a Hayfield did I find my love as the Honeybee floated about;

No mystic sign fell from above I heard no angelic shout.

I had no dream nor premonition nor book of spells to lead the way;

I merely maintained my forward motion, and I found her in a farmer’s field of hay.

 

There was no uncommon circumstance, no tragic twist of fate,

I was not led by some great cosmic dance; I had but to walk and wait.

There was no fiend to overthrow. I used neither sword nor shield.

I only went as I had to go, to a Honeybee and a Hayfield.

 

So, the tale of how my love was found is not a heroic one, nor grand:

She was lying, waiting on the ground, and I reached and took her hand.

The story may not make a book; were it a song, perhaps none would hear;

Were it a painting, perhaps few would look; but in my heart it has no peer.

 

For grace offered up its evidence when I received her so serenely and so free

I know no power but Providence could pilot me to my Hayfield and my Honeybee

Thus I know my love to me was given. Therefore I know my love is mine.

I had thought she was a dream from heaven; but dreams, it seems, are truth sometimes.

 

Seriously.  He's good at that stuff. And all I gave him was a jacket with a batman logo and ears sewn on?  Sigh.

 

On the Saturday before Christmas we travelled to Missouri to spend the weekend with Caleb's family.  We were planning on leaving around 5 a.m. (ish) once Caleb got off of work.  He ended up working until 7:30 and didn't get home until 8:30 so we got a bit of a slow start.  I didn't get many pictures of the entire weekend. 

 

Monday while we were at Caleb's grandma's, we went over to the antique mall next door that his family runs, and I found a ring that fits my tiny fingers!  It's really cute too.  I'm not sure what it is made out of, but so far it hasn't turned my finger green.  :-)

 

 

 

I got a new camera from Caleb's parents for Christmas!  Hopefully I will be able to figure out how to take better pics on it, but from here on out on this post if the pics seems blurry, it's because I'm still trying to figure out how to take good pictures.  It takes good pictures of Oscar under water (well when he is underwater, not the camera)! 

 

 

 

Caleb got a Lego Batman game from his sister for Christmas.  I told him it looked a lot like his lego Starwars game and his response was "But I'm Batman!!" (with his jacket on, of course).  He's cute.

 

 

 

I was originally going to get Caleb a Mandolin for his AnniBirthEntinesMas present but then my computer died.  He told me I should get a computer instead of getting him a mandolin.  He knew about me getting him one because I wanted him to pick it out. Once he told me how much they actually cost, which was a lot less than I thought they cost, I let him have some of my Christmas money to add with his so he could go pick one out.  We found one at a store but he decided to think about it.  We did some other shopping and on our way back home he pulled into the parking lot of the same music store and thought about it some more.

 

 

 

And some more.

 

 

 

And then decided to buy it! 

 

Caleb got new jeans from my mom for Christmas.

 

We made a trip to Missouri again the weekend before New Years to spend the weekend with my family.  Friday night it started snowing. 

 

I told Caleb when he got home from work to let me know if he wanted to leave or wait until after the snow stopped.  When he got home he told me the roads weren't too bad and we were going to go ahead and leave.  For the most part, the roads through Indiana were pretty clear and there weren't many people out on the road.  We came up on a semi and it was splashing slush and nastiness all over so Caleb went to try to pass him.  It was still dark out and he didn't notice that we were about to go over a bridge.  There was a slick spot on the bridge and we started sliding and spun around backwards and slid down an embankment.  Caleb got out to see if we could get out but there was no way we were getting out on our own.  I found an old Triple A card in my wallet and called the emergency number.  The lady was super nice and gave me some numbers of towing companies close by.  The first number I called the guy said he would be on his way to come get us.  We had to end up waiting about an hour total until the tow truck came.  Caleb had to go up by the road to meet him because we weren't visible from the road.

 

View from the car

 

 

He got us pulled out without much trouble.  And since Christmas was a couple of days before, I had enough cash in my wallet to pay for the tow truck, plus four dollars.  I hate carrying much cash in my wallet but had a feeling a couple of days before that I should just leave the money in my wallet until we got home this weekend. 

It's coming!

Watching the car come up. Caleb let me borrow his other hat.

 

 We had to get turned around because we were facing the wrong way on the interstate.  Once we got driving again, the car wasn't driving right.  It felt like there were hydraulics on the car.  We couldn't drive much faster than 35 mph without feeling like we were on an old wooden roller coaster.  Caleb thought the tired alignment may have gotten messed up when we slid down.  We pulled off on the next exit and found a Denny's.  I went in because my bladder was about to explode.  The little old ladies in there were so nice and gave us the phone number of a mechanic in the tiny little town.  When we got to the mechanic, they pulled in Caleb's car right away.  They said there was just a lot of snow and ice stuck around the tires and they cleaned all of that out free of charge. 

 

God was definitely watching out for us that day.  There were so many kind people that helped us out and we were very thankful that we didn't hit any cars or trees or anything else when we slid off.  And we managed to not have any car damage!  Lots of miracles and in turn lots of praising God!

The rest of the drive was pretty!  But I felt so bad for the 6 other cars we saw that also slid off the road.

 

 

Well that's about all for now.  I hope you all have a happy and safe new year!

 

 

Week of December 1

Hi friends!

I hope you are getting into the Christmas spirit!  I know we are over here.  Sigh, what a wonderful time of year.

Here's a peek at our week:

Monday:

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but I found it slightly amusing.  If you get tired of turtle pictures, then just scroll down to the next one.  We all had salad for dinner.  All of us.

Tuesday:

Caleb made Chex mix, and boy howdy is it delicious.  I've never really been a big fan of Chex mix, but for some reason this year I can't get enough of it.  Caleb made a big bowl of it and filled up two peanut containers.

It's the biggest bowl that we have, and its almost all gone after only 5 days.  He's asked me tonight (Sunday) if I wanted him to make more or to make some similar stuff but cover it in almond bark instead.  I chose more chex mix. And I will rarely turn down anything covered in chocolate (or fake chocolate). Mmmm

Wednesday

I went out to dinner with the ladies from my small group.  After dinner we went to the hospital to visit a couple from our church who had a baby on Tuesday morning.  We got to visit with them and pass around the snuggly little girl.  She is so cute and has three big sisters who are going to spoil her!

Thursday:
It's a blur. Nothing in my memory rings a bell about this day.

Friday:

We'll get back to Friday.

Saturday:

A family from our church was giving away a futon, and we gladly accepted it.  (Thanks Youngs!) We had been talking about getting some more comfortable seating for our second bedroom to go along with our big bean bag chair.  This futon is awesome so now we have a place for people to sleep on when they come to visit without having to lug out our big air mattress (especially the one with the leak in it.). The plan is to eventually get the sun room where Caleb does all of his wood working cleaned up, then move his desk out into that room and then rearrange our second bedroom to make it more usable for reading and homework.  We started to work on the sun room on Friday afternoon and we were taking a bunch of trash out to our trash can and realized that we have a lot more trash than space in our trash can.  We have a lot of old newspapers and boxes that we used when we moved but don't need anymore and boxes that have been used for spray painting and stuff like that.  (We aren't hoarders, I promise.)  So it was kind of a bust.  We will have to wait at least another week until we are able to get rid of everything we would like to before we get started.  Otherwise, it's going to be a nightmare trying to clean out there.  Caleb will still be able to work on wood and widdle, but we are going to try to block off half of that room with some plastic or something so he only gets half of the room messy and not the whole thing.

Here's our new futon!  It is super comfy.  Caleb asked if we could move our tv into that room so we can lay on that while we watch tv, especially on Sunday afternoons. I'm going to say probably not...but we'll see.  :-)

Saturday night we had my work Christmas party.  It was just for our department so it wasn't a huge gathering.  It was a nice evening and fun to hang out with people outside of our normal work setting.  There was an ugly Christmas sweater contest....  when I found out about this contest I texted my mom and asked if she had any ugly sweaters I could borrow.  Here response back was "that's a matter of opinion".  That meant yes. She brought me several to choose from when they were here over Thanksgiving.  I picked the one that her, my sister, and I all had matching ones of for our first Christmas living in our new house that my grandma bought for us.  That was twenty years ago.  And she still has it.  Anyway, my choice and my mother's inability to get rid of said sweatshirt paid off because I tied for ugliest sweater, then won the rock paper scissors game to be the leading victor.  I got a gold Christmas tree for winning.  The lady who was in charge of the contest said that I won an ugly Christmas ornament for having the ugliest sweater.  It turns out that another lady in our department just bought one of these to use in decorating her house.  HA!  That made for some good laughs.  Here's my ugly sweater and the prize (it even lights up!)

Friday revisited:

Friday evening we skyped with some of Caleb's family.  After we got done and closed out Skype, his computer still had his web cam pulled up.  Soo....we had a little bit of fun with it.  I was in tears over how funny these were.  Even as I post these tonight, I still can't stop laughing.  I'm sorry if this gets a little out of hand with the amount of pictures, but I promise that I narrowed it down quite a bit.

Now I'm off to go work on some laundry and Christmas presents!  :-) I hope you all have a great week!

Week of November 25

Happy December!!

Here's a brief update of our week.  And I do mean brief.

Caleb had finals this week so we didn't do a whole lot of exciting stuff since he had a 25 page paper and 3 tests.  BUT...he is now half way done with seminary!  Here's his "I'm half way done with seminary!" face.

Also, I got my new computer this week!  And the screen works!  I ordered it on cyber Monday so I got a pretty good deal on it.



Also, on Saturday during a conversation where Caleb was estimating how many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I have eaten since we got married (it has to be a lot), he counted that we had been married for 700 days...except with the leap year it was 701. Anyway, we figured this called for some celebrating! (We're always up for something to celebrate)  We went to Taco Bell and ate for a whopping $3, then we headed to Orange Leaf and got some free frozen yogurt!  The girl tried running our card but something went wrong and didn't charge us.  She congratulated us on some free frozen yogurt.  We are certainly not going to argue with that!  Then we went to Walmart and rented Brave from Redbox with a free rental code.  It was a good movie but I wouldn't say it was super awesome. So, an entire date night for $3!   That's my kind of date!