February 22, 2013 - Jordan's College News

As you all know, Jordan has applied to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs this June. It's been a very difficult process and she has diligently completed all the necessary tasks over the last year and a half.  She has chosen her classes in school in order to steer herself in that direction; she has studied and studied; taken test after test; she has served on student council; served on the Habitat for Humanity club board; earned a 4.0 GPA in her first year of school; and received TWO congressional nominations to attend the academy among other things.  But this past semester we rode the emotional roller coaster... she had some difficult classes.  It's so difficult when you believe with everything in you that your child can do something, but they face failure head on.

Jordan never stopped working hard to do well in those classes, but there were times last semester when we feared her final grades in several classes.  She worked with a math tutor weekly and struggled to receive adequate teaching; met with her teachers and counselor frequently.  Then, when Jordan got her semester grades, we felt the final blow--she was satisfied with all but one grade--Honors Pre-Calculus.  She had given it her all... to a teacher that wouldn't help; and received a poor grade.  You might think that one poor grade is not a big deal, but math being such an important subject to the Air Force, we just didn't know if this had crushed all of her efforts.  We made one last final ditch effort as she forced herself to take the SAT for the fifth time to improve her math score; but we received that score last week and sadly, she did not improve her score at all.  She has great SAT scores, don't get me wrong; but it was our last hope to show that her pre-calculus grade was not due to her inability to understand math... our plan failed.

We were all discouraged and depressed.  We prayed and gave it to God.  We knew that all we could do now was to wait... this was in God's hands and only He could do the miraculous.  We asked our small group fellowship to pray for us, and left, trusting it in God's hands.  I felt that God just wanted us to trust him.  Jordan has done everything within her power, and Bruce has spent so many hours researching each step for her; but I felt the Lord just telling us to wait and see what He would do in His power.  And of course, we accepted the fact that if she didn't get into the AFA, then God would provide another path for her, whatever his plan is for her.  Bruce checked the Air Force Academy's website and found that they will not be notifying applicants until April.  We braced ourselves for a long March!

Jordan just got back from Ghana, Africa this afternoon with her Habitat for Humanity group and when she checked her e-mail, she found a full four-year scholarship for ROTC from the Air Force!  I want to Praise God so much for answering our prayers so quickly!!  We should have had to wait until April for some news... but our sweet Lord loves us so much.  He didn't even make us wait.  I always love to picture our God as a loving father now that I understand being a parent.  Sometimes when I have good news for the girls, I just can't wait to tell them and give them the good things I have for them... and that's what God did for us.  We now know that Jordan will have a paid college education from the Air Force next year... we just don't know where.  We still have to wait until April to find out if she has been accepted to attend the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs; but one thing we know for sure--God sure loves us!

I'll be posting again in April after I get my camera back -- and whatever news we have about Jordan's education, it'll be good!  Because God is good!

- Pattie -

December 15-24, 2012 - Preparing for Christmas in Georgia

When we arrived in Georgia, it wasn't as cold as we had feared... the weather was actually fairly warm for December.  It was nice to be home again.  But it's especially nice to open up the house and give it a lived-in feeling again.  It was also nice coming in from Manchester because we arrived in the afternoon instead of at night.  As soon as I got home, I ran out to buy a Christmas tree.  And the girls did their parts.  They dug the decorations out of the basement and had the tree and the house decorated in no time!

We were eagerly expecting guests for Christmas: my mom and her older sister, Aunt Janie, and Bruce's mom and her younger sister, Aunt Marie.  So we did our grocery shopping and Christmas shopping and enjoyed going to some of our favorite places for lunch: Panda Express, Shane's Rib Shack, Wendy's, and of course, Chick-fil-A!

A few days later, my mom flew in from Arkansas.

I didn't have a lot of time to see friends while I was in town, but I've known Megan since I moved to Georgia, and we both raised 3 kids the same ages.  Here we squeezed in a lunch together while my mom rested at home.

We had some beautiful sunsets.

I didn't get to see my friend, Denise, last time I was in town, so we met for a Mexican dinner and my mom joined us.

The girls settled in to home very quickly.

I volunteered to foster some animals during the holidays and ended up with four kittens!  These kittens came from a wild mother and three of them never really got comfortable with us.  Here they are all crowded as far into this box as they can possible get.  This box was the length of a bed!

Bruce's mom and aunt drove from Nashville and St. Louis and arrived a few days later.  We anxiously checked the Delta flights every day to see if my Aunt Janie would get a seat with her buddy pass, but she drove the 2-hour drive round-trip to the airport twice only to find that the planes were all full.  It was very disappointing not to be able to spend Christmas with her as well.

Once Aunt Marie and the two Grandmothers arrived, the tree was FILLED with presents!  And every year, Grammy bakes all kinds of Christmas cookies.  I'll have to get a picture of that next year!

We enjoyed playing Mexican Train and Rummikub.

And Sequence.

The girls and I visited our church on Sunday.  Going to our church always makes it sink in that we're really home.

And Grammy baked gingerbread houses for the girls to put together and decorate!  Here she's mixing the icing while the girls construct their houses.

The houses have been constructed and will dry overnight.  The girls will cover their houses with candy tomorrow on Christmas Eve!

It's Christmas Eve and Bruce will be joining all of us women tonight -- we're hoping he doesn't have any trouble with his flights to and from Amsterdam today.

Jordan finished her gingerbread house first.

This is Reese's house.

And here is Brooke's.

Thank you, Grammy, for baking those houses!  This is Aunt Marie and Grammy (Effie) -- two sisters that have the most beautiful relationship.  I hope my girls become as good of friends as these two sweet ladies have been over the years.

We spent the rest of the day playing games and checking the Delta website to see if Bruce would make it home for Christmas.  We almost thought he wasn't going to make it because when he arrived in Detroit, all the flights to Atlanta were full!  I quickly searched the computer and we found another route for him through Cincinnati, arriving in Atlanta just after 6pm.  So we all dressed up and piled in the van.  We picked him up and went directly to church for the Christmas Eve service.  We were all starving and enjoyed some Domino's Pizza afterwards.

This is the last of my blogs until I go back to the U.S. in April because I left my camera there with all of my pictures from Christmas :(

Except I have some special news that I'm going to put in a separate blog next.  So stay tuned!

- Pattie -

December 14-15, 2012 - Manchester, England

On our way to Atlanta, we found a route with seats for us poor standby passengers that stopped in England, so we jumped at the chance when we found out there would be a Christmas market there in Manchester!

Here we are at the Manchester train station in the airport.  This is the girls' first time in England and they are excited.  Boy, was it cold!  We checked the weather before we left and came prepared (except Jordan's shoes... she forgot to change into her boots on the train and was very sorry later!)

Riding the train to the City Centre.

These are some blurry shots of Manchester from the train.

When we arrived in the City Centre, the weather was atrocious.  People's umbrellas were blowing backwards, and we were dragging our suitcases through the rain.

We wandered back and forth down the same street several times in the rain until we finally found our hotel.  We were tired, and wet, and cold, an hour later; and soooo happy to be in the warm hotel lobby.

We were excited to visit the Christmas markets, but Reese was exhausted now not only with jetlag, but from following me up and down the same streets; so she begged to be left sleeping in the hotel room while the rest of us walked to the Christmas markets.  Here is the view from our hotel room.

Jordan finally got her boots on and warmed up her wet toes.

Everything in our suitcases was wet or damp, so we had to lay everything around the heater before we changed clothes and left.  Reese slept the rest of the day in her warm bed.

We were excited about this shop after coming from Saudi because they were selling sausages and meat pies.  Jordan had to try a meat pie, and loved it.

There were so many delicious chocolates!

Baklava...

More chocolates!

By the time we made it down two aisles of the market, we were drenched.  Every time I would look at something under a canopy, it would drip rain on my arm in the same place.  My jacket was soaked and we were tired and hungry, and I was miserable.  We decided to find a restaurant to sit in to get warm and dry to eat dinner even though it was only 3pm.

Brooke wanted her picture in an English phone booth.

We found this quaint little restaurant across the street.

Brooke had eaten a sandwich in the market, so she just ate my roll.

Jordan ordered this wonderful pulled pork sandwich.  She couldn't finish it, and took the rest to Reese in the hotel room.

I got this wonderful warm stew with dumplings.

While we were eating, Jordan witnessed an accident from our table!  A fire engine was speeding through an intersection when Jordan says they hydroplaned and hit a car waiting to cross the intersection!  We couldn't believe it!  You can see the fire engine parked to the left of the intersection, and car they hit sitting on the right, with their bumper in the street in to their right.

 It was dusk, so their reflective sides made for poor pictures, but this is the fire engine pulled over.

This is the car that got hit.  It's bumper was laying in the middle of the intersection and 30 minutes later, the people were still sitting in the car, so I figured they must have been hit pretty hard!  I couldn't tell if these were police or EMT's, but they're attending to the passenger.

After drying out a bit, we walked back across the street to the Christmas market.

Here are all kinds of Christmas plants for sale.

These are tiny pancakes.

And this is mulled wine with a souvenir mug.  I was quickly cold and wet again, so the gluhwein was warm and delicious.  Bruce will be happy to have another souvenir mug.  The mugs have the year on them and the last time we got mugs was when we were in Dresden, Germany when I was pregnant with Jordan.

Doesn't that just look like England?  Brooke took this picture.

There's no shortage of pork here!

We enjoyed tasting various things and visiting all the stands, but it was still raining and constantly dripping on us; so we gave up and headed back to the hotel room around 6:00 for some sleep after picking up a few things for Reese.

We all woke up in the middle of the night and watched a movie from our beds.  It was still dark when we finally had to get up and head to the train station.  Here we are the entrance to our hotel.  It's still drizzling.

We had no problems finding the closer train station and taking the train to the airport.

While we waited for our flight, the girls had cups of hot chocolate and muffins.  The cashier was so sweet here when I didn't have enough British pounds to buy all of the girls' muffins.  I asked her to tell me how much everything was and then I would use my credit card for the rest, but she told me to put my credit card away and paid a couple pounds for us out of her tips!  What English hospitality!

We almost had to spend another night here because there were only 4 seats in business class, but an employee listed at the last minute and bumped us so that there were only 3.  I thought coach was full, but some seats must have opened up at the last minute and we were asked if we wanted to split up with one person in the back.  Jordan offered to sit in the back so that we could get home.  Sweet Jordan!

So, that was our one-day trip to England--we loved it!

- Pattie -