Prayer requests

Please PRAY for Amelia to receive scholarship money for school this year.
She is sending off applications today and next week... and constantly searching for more...
PRAY also that the LORD would lead and guide her
as she writes her thesis book on Permaculture Gardening.
It must be finished my March1!
THANK YOU

Tomatoes in January

The fondue party

New Year's Eve

Also our first... last year I was at a church youth group "lock-in party",(hey is that an oxymoron or what) and Frank was eating fondue at his parents. But this year I also got to dip my prong with the rest... my first fondue party at that. It was great fun... we dipped crab, steak, chicken, shrimp, veggies and all sorts of things unimaginable.... and for dessert we had homemade Dutch delectables; ollie bollen and apple flappen (I know I spelled those horribly wrong but I'm still only on disc one of my begginer Dutch lessons... I love the lessons Esther, thank you again!) After stuffing our faces, all of Frank's sibllings left for parties so we opened up a 1000 piece puzzle in front of the fireplace and worked until it was finished at 1am. Of course we stopped for a 2 minute countdown and a quick swig of apple cider at midnight. Happy New Year all!

Our First Christmas

We had a funny start to our Christmas this year but it was definately memorable... We had previously decided not to buy gifts for each other this Christmas because funds have been short. Besides, we were busy with fun family affairs and hardley noticed until the day of when our parents presented mushy gushy love letters to each other that brought tears to our eyes and reminded us that we hadn't even gotten each other a card!

So we, or should I say I, decided then and there that we were to celebrate Christmas late... of course I had to explain the whole illogical idea to Frank about how my feelings changed and how now I do want to celebrate with gifts, and that we could use the money that we recieved as gifts from our parents to purchase gifts for each other. Good ol Frank, he's so patient with me. And he got me the sweetest thing... a book on country living, self sustainably. It was perfect! I was not as creative; I got him two shirts, socks and boxers.

So to finish my story, the following weekend after Christmas we celebrated at home by getting all dolled up and I made enchiladas, spanish rice and beans for dinner. After opening our gifts we snuggled on the couch with a movie. It was so wonderful. Thank you Frank...

You know how it goes.....

You know how it goes.....

Right when you start putting money away in savings, things happen. Last friday I took my car in to get the transmission looked at, with much trepidation I might add. And yeah, it was going to be $2800!!! Can you believe that? So, I thought, bite the BIG OL' stinkin' bullet, and get it fixed. My car has at least 100K left in it. So I signed the thing so that they could order the rebuilt transmission.

But over the weekend I talked to my father-in-law, and he suggested I get another quote, that this sounded really expensive. I agreed, and went to aamco this morning. $40 to get a diagnostic ran on my tranny. So I did it. 2 hours later and $40 poorer, I found out what I already knew... that it's on its way out.

Aamco's quote was $1675 for labor and a new torque converter $325 for "Soft parts" and $250 to $800 for "Hard parts". ("Soft" parts being for gaskets and the like, and "Hard" parts being actual gears and such.) And not only that, but I called the first place to see if I could get out of that one, and they said only if I pay to ship the tranny and restock it (that being whatever shipping would cost, plus a "restocking" fee of 10% a total of about $300). So,... rather than paying the $300 shipping-restocking fee, plus whatever aamco would charge, which would end up being at least as expensive as the first place I went to, I casually went back into the aamco office, paid for the diagnostic, told them "No, thank you." and left.

So, now I'm going to go to the original place since I got them to take $100 dollars off the amount... Man have I never felt as stressed as now...

Frank