Friday, April 17, 2009
Isaiah's 1st Video Blog
This is our first attempt at posting a video. Isaiah just loves to interact with people. Smile, laugh, cuing, giggle, make faces, stick out his tongue. Pretty sure we have a social little dude on our hands. This video is just a test, so if it works and is well-received we'll try to keep posting them. It might be a little long, and not too exciting but we thought family would just appreciate the cute faces and giggles that He makes. And if you haven't seen them yet, there are pictures from Easter in a slide show below. Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!
First and foremost, a happy and blessed Easter to you all. May the joy and new-life of this holiday season fill you with hope for today and excitement for what is yet to come. Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Despite the fact that it really snuck up on us this year in light of all the weather and flooding issues we’ve been dealing with out here, we had a very nice Easter! Church services kept us busy from Wednesday evening into Sunday morning. But each of the services were really nice and helped to meaningfully move us through the real reason for this time of the year. Grandpa Dave and Grandma Sue came down on Saturday afternoon to spend the holiday with us. We had a really nice time with them and I’m pretty sure Isaiah was a bit spoiled by the time they left early Sunday evening. Nothing like some new toys, an Easter basket and hugs from the grandparents! Isaiah got his fair share of Easter gifts this year. We tried to take a few pictures; they are posted below. Lots of baskets, cards, and gifts…thank you to all who sent them!
Second, I am writing this blog update from the “recupe” or post-op room in the hospital. Since it had been over three months since we were here giving birth, Calie really began to miss the friendly confines of the Merit Care hospital here in Fargo. So earlier this morning she decided to go back and have her gall-bladder taken out. The surgery went well and we will just be waiting around for about another hour or so before we go home. She is now sleeping and will take a few days to get back to normal. Actually, it is kind of a funny story out it all happened. The night she first went to the ER was the same night they were evacuating every hospital in Fargo-Moorhead because of the flood. So she waded her way through ambulances and patients waiting to be transferred to be diagnosed at about 1:00AM. A week later, after meeting with the doctor they decided to just take the darn thing out. So here we sit, the surgery successful and completed, waiting for our nurse to return with the discharge papers.
Luckily that will be a bit easier for her because Calie is no longer working! She is now a stay-at-home mom. Easter Monday was her last day working at the childcare center. She will now be staying home to give Isaiah all the one-on-one attention he deserves, and then some! She is beyond thrilled and super excited for this. Thankfully we are blessed by our vicarage congregation and so Calie will spend the last three months in Moorhead at home with no worries of money or insurance. And she’ll have to enjoy it while she can—because unfortunately, this won’t be an option once we get back to St. Louis.
Beyond that, not much new to report. It is very hard to believe that we have just over three months left here on vicarage. We will truly miss the people of our congregation; they have become family to us. Though we will NOT miss the weather. We are still waiting to even begin practice for our church softball team. Blah! At least the Twins are finally on TV again. It has been a long and wet winter/spring. Now we just have to hope the river and second crest are held at bay and this warm weather remains. In fact, last weekend I put away all my winter clothes and jackets. For the second time, I put my ice scraper in the trunk of my car. Finally, I shoveled out the mini-grill from about 4 feet of snow and set up the folding chairs on our patio. Yes indeed, I have officially kissed this cold, wet, nasty weather good-bye!
Time to go home. Easter pictures are above, enjoy!
Despite the fact that it really snuck up on us this year in light of all the weather and flooding issues we’ve been dealing with out here, we had a very nice Easter! Church services kept us busy from Wednesday evening into Sunday morning. But each of the services were really nice and helped to meaningfully move us through the real reason for this time of the year. Grandpa Dave and Grandma Sue came down on Saturday afternoon to spend the holiday with us. We had a really nice time with them and I’m pretty sure Isaiah was a bit spoiled by the time they left early Sunday evening. Nothing like some new toys, an Easter basket and hugs from the grandparents! Isaiah got his fair share of Easter gifts this year. We tried to take a few pictures; they are posted below. Lots of baskets, cards, and gifts…thank you to all who sent them!
Second, I am writing this blog update from the “recupe” or post-op room in the hospital. Since it had been over three months since we were here giving birth, Calie really began to miss the friendly confines of the Merit Care hospital here in Fargo. So earlier this morning she decided to go back and have her gall-bladder taken out. The surgery went well and we will just be waiting around for about another hour or so before we go home. She is now sleeping and will take a few days to get back to normal. Actually, it is kind of a funny story out it all happened. The night she first went to the ER was the same night they were evacuating every hospital in Fargo-Moorhead because of the flood. So she waded her way through ambulances and patients waiting to be transferred to be diagnosed at about 1:00AM. A week later, after meeting with the doctor they decided to just take the darn thing out. So here we sit, the surgery successful and completed, waiting for our nurse to return with the discharge papers.
Luckily that will be a bit easier for her because Calie is no longer working! She is now a stay-at-home mom. Easter Monday was her last day working at the childcare center. She will now be staying home to give Isaiah all the one-on-one attention he deserves, and then some! She is beyond thrilled and super excited for this. Thankfully we are blessed by our vicarage congregation and so Calie will spend the last three months in Moorhead at home with no worries of money or insurance. And she’ll have to enjoy it while she can—because unfortunately, this won’t be an option once we get back to St. Louis.
Beyond that, not much new to report. It is very hard to believe that we have just over three months left here on vicarage. We will truly miss the people of our congregation; they have become family to us. Though we will NOT miss the weather. We are still waiting to even begin practice for our church softball team. Blah! At least the Twins are finally on TV again. It has been a long and wet winter/spring. Now we just have to hope the river and second crest are held at bay and this warm weather remains. In fact, last weekend I put away all my winter clothes and jackets. For the second time, I put my ice scraper in the trunk of my car. Finally, I shoveled out the mini-grill from about 4 feet of snow and set up the folding chairs on our patio. Yes indeed, I have officially kissed this cold, wet, nasty weather good-bye!
Time to go home. Easter pictures are above, enjoy!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Score
"We're gonna win Twins, we're gonna score. We're gonna win Twins watch that baseball soar!"
It is a song that you can hear at any MN Twins game. I am teaching Isaiah this song, and hoping he catches on. We were all three decked out in our Twins gear. We only got a picture of one though.... It was a dissappointing home opening loss, but there is a whole season of cheering ahead. CHARGE!!!!!!!!!!
We also took an infant massage class last night. It was interesting and fun! I tried it on him tonight, and I think that he liked it better than last night. Maybe it was the calming bath and large bowel movement that he had right before, but it was fun listening to him talk and smile.
He is the greatest thing in the whole world!!!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Lion or Lamb
The scene outside our window seems to suggest that March came in like a lamb and is going out like a lion. The scene would be beautiful for any December day. There are huge wet flakes coming down and will not stop until they have accumulated to about 10-16 inches. IN MARCH!?!?!?! Yes, March. Along with the wonderful flood, we now have another blizzard to worry about. The good news is that the cold weather slowed the river rise....the bad news, this new snow will make the river crest again sometime in April. It could be weeks.
Onto non-flood related news, we have returned home and are going to "hunker down" as a radio DJ put it and wait out the storm. The weekend brought us some fun and challenges.
We were able to celebrate our nieces 4th birthday with her. It was a lot of fun.
We also learned that our great car rider, got pretty tired of riding in the car. He seemed to scream just about every time that we put him in the car seat. We are just hoping that it is his cold that made him upset, or it is a phase. All in all it was a great weekend!
Onto non-flood related news, we have returned home and are going to "hunker down" as a radio DJ put it and wait out the storm. The weekend brought us some fun and challenges.
We were able to celebrate our nieces 4th birthday with her. It was a lot of fun.
We also learned that our great car rider, got pretty tired of riding in the car. He seemed to scream just about every time that we put him in the car seat. We are just hoping that it is his cold that made him upset, or it is a phase. All in all it was a great weekend!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Flood Fight 2009
Who knew our vicarage would consist of sandbagging, dike building, and flood fighting? It’s unbelievable; you wouldn’t believe it!
The waiting game has begun. The front line of defense has been built up to 43-44 feet. With the crest expecting to be somewhere between 41-42 feet. And they are still not ruling out the very real possibility of a 43 foot crest. The good news is that because the weather has been so cold, it has really slowed down the rising of the mighty Red River. Ice and snow is not able to melt so that has given more time to ensure dikes are standing strong and backup bags are being made and stored. At last projection, they now think the crest will not be seen until Sunday. Once the river crests it will lay that height for about 3-7 days before it begins to go down. It’s going to be close and the hardest part is now just sitting back, keeping an eye on the dikes, and waiting for the water to rise. Water has poured into backyards and streets are flooded from melting snow and clogged drains. The regular shoreline of the river is now being held at least 200 yards beyond normal. Again, the water is about 30 feet higher in the river right now. For the most part the levees are up and the dikes have been built. The bulk of most volunteer sandbagging has completed. Well over 3 million sandbags are estimated to have been made over the past 5 days. Last I heard over 30,000 volunteers have been here from all over the nation. Fire departments from all over Minnesota and at least 1,800 National Guard members are on the frontline, walking the dikes 24/7 to make sure no leaks or breaches occur.
Currently they are evacuating; about 1/3 of Moorhead people have been strongly encouraged to evacuate. Not sure about the numbers of Fargo but they do are asking certain residents to evacuate. Most of this is done as precautionary and to limit people/traffic in the area. The hope is still that all of dikes will hold back the water. All patients from area hospitals have been evacuated and sent to hospitals throughout the state. Nursing homes and senior communities have also been closed and their residents dispersed to families or other places statewide. Any business that does not aide in flood relief has been asked to close until further notice. Streets are closed and arrests are being made without hesitation if you are somewhere where you should not or do not need to be. (Even a CNN reporter was arrested for being too near a dike.) All colleges are closed until further notice and public schools in the Fargo-Moorhead area have already cancelled school for all of next week. In fact, the college campuses have been evacuated to help prevent sewage backup. Everyone has been told to plug all their basement drains. People throughout the two cities have been asked to limit their water use to aid with this help.
It should be noted that the area did know this was coming, so we were prepared. However, it is much worse than expected! As the mayor of Fargo said, this is unchartered territory. A number of factors combined to make this flooding the worst in the Fargo-Moorhead area, in all of recorded history. The fall of 2008 was extremely wet and saturated the ground. That ground has since frozen and not thawed out so there is no where for melting snow and ice to go. In addition, over the past week over 2 inches of rain and 8 inches of snow have fallen.
So we’re not out of the woods yet! Not at all, phase one has been completed and phase two is underway as we wait on the river. Smaller towns north and south of Fargo-Moorhead have not been so lucky, those without the resources and manpower found in FM. These cities have been turned into lakes. One day this past week I was going to go out to a city called Oakport, and they redirected us saying there was nothing more that could be done for this area. Another small town, Georgetown, is completely submerged with most sandbagging efforts now rendered useless.
We ourselves have evacuated—sort of. We were supposed to be in the Twin Cities this weekend for our niece’s birthday party anyway. We had originally decided not to go so we could continue to help with volunteers and be around for any church members who were in need. Our apartment building is in no real flood danger, perhaps just sewage backup. And since we are on the third floor we will definitely remain out of the waters. But now the city is slowly starting to shut off water, and since we did not want be in a situation where we could not wash Isaiah’s bottles we thought it would be smart for us to journey on south. Plus, I did not want Calie driving down south alone so now we are all in St. Peter at Calie’s parents. We may still go back to the FM area tonight or perhaps stay until Monday or so.
This certainly all sounds grim. There are many frustrations, anger, and broken hearts. People are facing the very really responsibility of losing their homes. There is a silver lining! Not a single person has fallen victim to this flood so far, no deaths! And the optimistic attitude is still our battle cry. “We’re going to beat this!” “We’re not giving up!” “We are not going down with a fight!” But it has been awesome to see the community come together. People from all backgrounds, all denominations, many faiths, many states, and all ages—coming together for the good of people in need. Working their butts off to protect people from losing their homes. It has been awesome. College and high school students have been doing so much hard labor. Businesses have been donating food, resources, and their employees. Volunteers who can not to the hard labor have been making sandwiches, providing childcare, baking cookies, and offering massages. Chiropractors and doctors are even giving free services to those serving. People really come together in times such as this, just too bad it often takes a disaster to unite us. There is still a long way to go, much to be done. Please continue to pray for this area. That is perhaps the greatest need, that in all of this people will turn to God and put their faith/trust in Him.
By the way, a good website to keep posted of Red River flooding is www.valleyfloodwatch.com.
The waiting game has begun. The front line of defense has been built up to 43-44 feet. With the crest expecting to be somewhere between 41-42 feet. And they are still not ruling out the very real possibility of a 43 foot crest. The good news is that because the weather has been so cold, it has really slowed down the rising of the mighty Red River. Ice and snow is not able to melt so that has given more time to ensure dikes are standing strong and backup bags are being made and stored. At last projection, they now think the crest will not be seen until Sunday. Once the river crests it will lay that height for about 3-7 days before it begins to go down. It’s going to be close and the hardest part is now just sitting back, keeping an eye on the dikes, and waiting for the water to rise. Water has poured into backyards and streets are flooded from melting snow and clogged drains. The regular shoreline of the river is now being held at least 200 yards beyond normal. Again, the water is about 30 feet higher in the river right now. For the most part the levees are up and the dikes have been built. The bulk of most volunteer sandbagging has completed. Well over 3 million sandbags are estimated to have been made over the past 5 days. Last I heard over 30,000 volunteers have been here from all over the nation. Fire departments from all over Minnesota and at least 1,800 National Guard members are on the frontline, walking the dikes 24/7 to make sure no leaks or breaches occur.
Currently they are evacuating; about 1/3 of Moorhead people have been strongly encouraged to evacuate. Not sure about the numbers of Fargo but they do are asking certain residents to evacuate. Most of this is done as precautionary and to limit people/traffic in the area. The hope is still that all of dikes will hold back the water. All patients from area hospitals have been evacuated and sent to hospitals throughout the state. Nursing homes and senior communities have also been closed and their residents dispersed to families or other places statewide. Any business that does not aide in flood relief has been asked to close until further notice. Streets are closed and arrests are being made without hesitation if you are somewhere where you should not or do not need to be. (Even a CNN reporter was arrested for being too near a dike.) All colleges are closed until further notice and public schools in the Fargo-Moorhead area have already cancelled school for all of next week. In fact, the college campuses have been evacuated to help prevent sewage backup. Everyone has been told to plug all their basement drains. People throughout the two cities have been asked to limit their water use to aid with this help.
It should be noted that the area did know this was coming, so we were prepared. However, it is much worse than expected! As the mayor of Fargo said, this is unchartered territory. A number of factors combined to make this flooding the worst in the Fargo-Moorhead area, in all of recorded history. The fall of 2008 was extremely wet and saturated the ground. That ground has since frozen and not thawed out so there is no where for melting snow and ice to go. In addition, over the past week over 2 inches of rain and 8 inches of snow have fallen.
So we’re not out of the woods yet! Not at all, phase one has been completed and phase two is underway as we wait on the river. Smaller towns north and south of Fargo-Moorhead have not been so lucky, those without the resources and manpower found in FM. These cities have been turned into lakes. One day this past week I was going to go out to a city called Oakport, and they redirected us saying there was nothing more that could be done for this area. Another small town, Georgetown, is completely submerged with most sandbagging efforts now rendered useless.
We ourselves have evacuated—sort of. We were supposed to be in the Twin Cities this weekend for our niece’s birthday party anyway. We had originally decided not to go so we could continue to help with volunteers and be around for any church members who were in need. Our apartment building is in no real flood danger, perhaps just sewage backup. And since we are on the third floor we will definitely remain out of the waters. But now the city is slowly starting to shut off water, and since we did not want be in a situation where we could not wash Isaiah’s bottles we thought it would be smart for us to journey on south. Plus, I did not want Calie driving down south alone so now we are all in St. Peter at Calie’s parents. We may still go back to the FM area tonight or perhaps stay until Monday or so.
This certainly all sounds grim. There are many frustrations, anger, and broken hearts. People are facing the very really responsibility of losing their homes. There is a silver lining! Not a single person has fallen victim to this flood so far, no deaths! And the optimistic attitude is still our battle cry. “We’re going to beat this!” “We’re not giving up!” “We are not going down with a fight!” But it has been awesome to see the community come together. People from all backgrounds, all denominations, many faiths, many states, and all ages—coming together for the good of people in need. Working their butts off to protect people from losing their homes. It has been awesome. College and high school students have been doing so much hard labor. Businesses have been donating food, resources, and their employees. Volunteers who can not to the hard labor have been making sandwiches, providing childcare, baking cookies, and offering massages. Chiropractors and doctors are even giving free services to those serving. People really come together in times such as this, just too bad it often takes a disaster to unite us. There is still a long way to go, much to be done. Please continue to pray for this area. That is perhaps the greatest need, that in all of this people will turn to God and put their faith/trust in Him.
By the way, a good website to keep posted of Red River flooding is www.valleyfloodwatch.com.
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