Chicago+Yoop

Hey Everyone!

Sorry I'm so late sending out pictures of our trip! Grad school doesn't seem to care about things like free time and picture downloading. :)

Here we go!

Finally arriving in Chicago after 12 hours in the car!

Downtown in the Windy City!

:)

Buckingham Fountain with the Chicago Skyline behind us.

60 degrees and sunny when we finally arrived in the yoop. So happy to finally be here!

The annual snow meter.  Last year they got over 38 feet (all year, not at one time).  Just for reference, Michael is 6 feet tall.... that's a LOT of snow.

Eagle River Falls

Taking some pictures before going up to "The Lodge" for lunch.

So happy to be in the U.P.

Beautiful Lake Superior

A picture in front of the only bar in Gay, MI.

Coming home with some goods from Nan and Pops garden.  We really miss all the fresh raspberries Poppy picked for us!

Enjoying a little sun on the back deck... Poppy was brave enough to wear short sleeves.

So beautiful!

love,
Michael and Jaclyn

Dining Room Finally Finished!

Since we've moved into the house, we've been quite busy! We've been working on lots of DIY projects and quickly forgetting what life was like before we knew everyone at Lowes by name. I've added some pics so you can see how the dining room project went:

The popcorn ceilings half-scraped.  Watch as our dining room magically gets taller, brighter, and transports to 2014.

Looking fly in his gear...

Fully scraped...

And painted while hubs recovered from poison ivy.

The first wainscoting panel went up, after a lot of math and cutting with the new miter saw. I left that part up to the mathematically inclined (Michael).

Then a lot of liquid nails, caulking, and painting... This is the point that I began to lose faith that the project would ever end.

All panels up!

 Then came the painting... and more painting... and then more. Not pictured: a red-headed sister who did the first coat.

Josie barked at people outside helped supervise.

and FINALLY it was done! We've got to do some decorating, pictures on the back wall, perhaps a rug to keep it from echoing like a cave... but we are SO happy with the results.

Also, doesn't the wall color look different in every single picture?

Yay! We're taking a one week break from doing any work on the house because next weekend is The Popcorn-Scraping Bonanza Part II (The Kitchen)... wish us luck!

i'm a lazy blogger so this post is just pictures

yes, we made a blanket fort for the sole purpose of eating chocolate cake and listening to jim gaffigan standup.

be jealous.

p.s. kitchen roselli in east bend. do it.

the worst decision i ever made

Last night Lacey, Jaws, and I decided to go to Chili’s.  I’m not sure why we picked Chili’s…maybe it’s because the restaurant served us well during the high school years, maybe we really thought getting margaritas, appetizers, entrees, and a dessert for $35 dollars was a great deal, I don’t know. We just did.

The second mistake of the night was ordering cheese fries as an appetizer and BACON CHEDDAR quesadillas for my entrée. I didn’t  stop to think that the two were basically the same ingredients in different shapes. I also didn’t think that the quantity of cheese involved, mixed with the sugar and tequila in the blackberry margarita would tear my poor stomach to pieces.

But I soon realized.  Ohhhhhh, I realized.  I knew that something really bad was going down in my stomachular region.  That cheese was ripping down the lining of my stomach like it was a bad wallpaper.  I even went to the bathroom and considered forcing myself to throw up.

Listen.  Until you’ve stood for 10 minutes in the dirty bathroom of a chain restaurant where you just inhaled 6,000 calories of cheddar and bacon and considered sticking your finger down your own throat to end your agony, you have not reached rock bottom. 

In the end, Jaws took me home and walked around the neighborhood with me until that glob of death moved out of my stomach and into my small intestine.

Ladies: if you find a man who will shuffle around your neighborhood with you because you ate your way into a cheese-induced bout of heartburn, hold on to him.  He’s a keeper.

In the end, the three of us vowed never to eat at Chili’s again.  It’s nothing against the restaurant; I just think we’ve outgrown the days of eating solid cheese and animal fat for dinner and are moving on to better days of fresh vegetables and well-cooked steaks.

i hate running

not really, but i'm feeling quite dramatic right now.

today i tried out my 4 mile run that jaws & i neglected during our vaca last weekend. it started out fantastically. the route was (relatively) flat, i had been hydrating all day, it was the perfect amount of time between meals that i felt energized but not full...it seemed that the stars had aligned.

then i hit some major hills, nearly got run over by a car, and then got lost!

by the time i realized that i had missed my turn, i was waaaay out of the way and ended up adding an extra 2 mile loop to the run.  needless to say that i walked it.

so, i'm feeling discouraged. i thought i was gonna have a great 4 mile run to brag about, but instead i got sore legs and major thirstyness.

if this is how dramatic i feel after 4 miles (or 6), i'm gonna be a MAJOR diva after 13.1

sigh.

update: to the person who got to my blog by googling the phrase "do real runners laugh at 13.1 stickers?":
i would say no, no they don't.

on a lighter note...

i'm going to the beach!

tonight i'm having an early memorial day cookout with momma

then it's off to the beach with jaws & his fam.

see y'all next week! happy memorial day!

p.s. can you tell i'm excited to eat that watermelon?

this post is long overdue

she's going to kill me for posting this...

 i don't want to exaggerate, because then A MILLION people will be all worried, but last week was really one of the worst weeks i've ever experienced.

cliff notes version, my sis was in the hospital for some of last week with kidney stone number 3.  every time it would seem like she was getting better, that gosh darn stone would start moving again.  it felt like the nightmare that would never end.


anyhows, during this week, i kept praying and praying, but seemingly NOTHING changed. i mean, clearly, she got better since she's back to work and stuff, but it didn't feel like my prayers were heard or acknowledged at all.

i don't believe we should be whiny toddlers when God doesn't answer prayers they way we wanted him to; HOWEVER, i feel frustrated that we're supposed to come to him with our troubles and he didn't seem to be listening to mine.  what's the point in praying then?

so i got to this point in writing the post and couldn't think of anything else to say.  i really wanted to come up with some neat conclusion, something that would keep this post from sounding like I was saying that prayer is pointless (which is NOT what i'm saying), but I couldn't come up with anything.  so i let it sit till i found this...

But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

2 Conrinthians 12:9

i was reminded of why i write about spiritual things on this blog.  it's not so that i can share some sort of deep wisdom or theology with you, cause we all know i'm not qualified to do that.  it's because i want this to be a real blog.  i want other believers to know that it's okay to struggle and i want my friends who aren't to know that the Christian life isn't about being perfect.

so i'm boasting in my weakness. i don't have an answer to this insecurity (yet!), but in my weakness, His power is all the more evident.