I Do Like Pictures, But Not All Pictures

A few weeks ago we traveled to Wishek, North Dakota for Ross' Gramma's funeral. We drove and it was a pretty easy, uneventful trip. We didn't get into any accidents and didn't get pulled over by any policeman, either. Ross and I took turns driving, although he did drive about 21 of the 26 total driving hours. :)

Both of us are pretty good at following the posted speed limit. We do go a few mph over the speed limit, but are quick to slow down (haha, that sounds kind of funny...QUICK to SLOW down!) when the speed limit decreases. Well, last weekend, two weeks after our trip, we learned though a letter sent in the mail that I'm just not quick enough. Here's what the letter said:

I don't know how well you can make out the picture above, but it's a speeding ticket that was mailed to us. Yes, you are remembering correctly:  we had an uneventful trip with no accidents and we didn't get pulled over at all. No, this speeding ticket was not the result of being pulled over by a policeman. Instead it was the result of being captured on film by a speed camera. Ugh! I was clocked going 70mph in a 55mph, which apparently is equivalent to $168 in Sioux City, Iowa.

I think it took Ross and I a few minutes to figure out what this letter was about. We have never seen anything like this before, so it was quite a shock. The ticket is very descriptive, with clear pictures of our car, license plate, car information, date, and time the infraction occurred. We realized there would be no refuting it. It was definitely our Ford Fusion. We were caught speeding at 9:44am on January 16, 2012. Or, I guess I should say I was caught speeding at 9:44am on January 16, 2012. Double ugh!

I vaguely remember that section of road and seeing warning signs about being monitored by speed cameras. Like I said, we're both good about slowing down when the speed limit changes, so I have a feeling that I just didn't see the 55mph speed limit sign and didn't know I needed to slow down.

So Sioux City, I hope you make good use out of the $168 I dropped in the mail to you today. Maybe you could use it to clean up your city. It seemed a bit dirty and dumpy.

Weddings

Over the weekend we went to the wedding of a good friend. It was a very nice wedding and fun reception. It got me thinking about my wedding and how absolutely, wonderfuly perfect that day was! I've often said, if I could bottle that day up and live in it, I would! You can read a little about our wedding here.

The wedding was nice, but I was kind of a little let down. I guess in a way I expect every wedding I go to now to give me the same feelings as my wedding day. Now I know that's silly, but it's how I feel! Seriously, I loved everything about my wedding day! I don't think any other wedding, even the Royal Wedding, could compare! And I'm sure every married couple feels the same way and I'm glad about that. That's how it should be!

Tonight Ross and I watched the video we put together for our wedding and then the recording of our wedding. It was so much fun! Here's the video we put together. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Ross & Libby Wiseman - Your Local Firemen!

Ross and I had a very nice, uneventful and relaxing weekend, until Sunday night at 10pm. I was getting ready for bed and noticed a smoke smell in our bathroom. At first, I thought maybe I'd left my flat iron on all day and it was burning. I checked and found that it was cold and turned off. I put the smell out of my mind until Ross came in the bathroom and asked if I could smelled something. We looked around in our bathroom some more, wondering if it was maybe the lights. Everything looked fine, so we went into our bedroom and really started to smell smoke. We didn't find anything burning in our room so went to the hallway and guest bedroom where we noticed the smell got a little stronger.

At this point we were both beginning to get worried. My first thought was that I needed to get dressed and what did I want to wear that would last me forever...thinking my house was going to burn down and I'd have nothing to wear but the clothes on my back. It really hit home when Ross said "okay, I'm really starting to worry about this now." Ugh.....

Ross thought that maybe our furnace had caught fire. We have two furnaces--one in the basement and one in the attic, which is accessed through the guest bedroom closet, so Ross got out a ladder to look up in the attic. While he was doing this I ran outside to see if I could see flames or smoke. I smelled smoke the minute I walked outside, but didn't see anything coming from our roof. I did, however, notice flames coming from our neighbor's backyard. I didn't know what was going on...if they were having a bonfire, if they were burning something on purpose, or if their house was on fire. Everything was happening so fast and my mind was racing! I do remember thinking that it was odd that they would be having a bonfire at 10pm on a Sunday night. It was extremely windy that night, probably 30+ mph winds, and I thought how dumb of them to be burning in winds like this!

I went back inside and told Ross to come outside and look. He came out and ran over to the fence to see the flames coming from their backyard. He yelled to see if anyone was out there and I ran over to the neighbors to tell them what was going on. I rang the doorbell and it took a few minutes for someone to come to the door. I know they were wondering why someone would be ringing their doorbell this late at night. Mike came to the door and I told him something was on fire in his backyard.

Mike immediately ran out of the house, with no shoes on, and went straight to the backyard. When he got around the corner he found flames flying up into the air from his backyard and Ross, standing on the fence that separates our backyards, spraying water on the flames. Mike immediately got his garden hose out and started doing the same. His wife and son came out to help, too.

It turns out that earlier in the evening, Mike dumped his week-old fireplace ashes in the compost/small brush pile that was by the side of the house. He thought that since the ashes were one week old that they had had plenty of time to burn out, but that was not the case. The ashes were still smoldering and the combination of the dry ground, leaves, brush, and extremely high winds that night, started the fire. The fire was small, but it was enough to melt the siding on their house. Mike pulled off about six rows of siding that had melted and then sprayed the side of the house to cool it off some more. Thankfully, nothing else was damaged and everyone was okay.

We are so thankful that we smelled the smoke and acted as quickly as we did! With the winds that night, it would have taken no time at all for the fire to become one that a simple garden hose could not snuff out. And our houses are so close together...it could have very easily spread to our house. Mike and Cindy could not thank us enough, too. They were in their bedroom, which is on the other side of their house, and didn't smell anything at all. It is very scary to think about what could have happened, but we are so thankful for how it turned out.

Cheddar Baked Chicken

I found a recipe on Pinterest.com for Cheddar Baked Chicken. This has become one of my favorite recipes so I had to share it with you! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! 


Ingredients:
    •    1/4 cup butter, melted
    •    1/2 cup flour
    •    1 tsp salt
    •    1 tsp pepper
    •    1 tsp garlic powder
    •    1 egg
    •    1 tbsp milk
    •    1 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
    •    1 pouch Shake n Bake Extra Crispy
    •    1 cup Rice Krispies
    •    2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half

Directions:
    1.    Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Pour your melted butter to coat the baking dish.
    2.    Mix the flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a bowl.
    3.    In another bowl, whisk together the  egg and milk.
    4.    In a third bowl, combine the cheese, bread crumbs, and cereal.
    5.    Keep your bowls in that order and work down the line.  First, dredge your chicken in the flour mixture, dip in the eggs, then press it in the bread crumb mixture to coat.  Really push the chicken down in the bread crumbs.  Transfer to your baking dish.
    6.    Bake for 35 minutes or until coating is golden brown and chicken is done.  (35 minutes was just a tidge too long in my oven, so keep an eye on it)

A New (to me) Book Series

Last fall I discovered a book series that has been around for quite a while. It's the Love Comes Softly series by Janette Oke. From Janette Oke's website:

"Love Comes Softly, the first series from the pen of Janette Oke, follows the lives of one family through three generations—beginning with a hated "marriage of convenience," through hardships common to life on the prairie in an earlier time, leading at last to an abiding love. These eight stories reflect the enduring hope of Christian love and faith despite adversity and hardship. More than 6.5 million copies of the books in this series have been sold."

The book series is set back in the 1800s, or the "Little House on the Prairie" era. It has been really interesting reading these books and thinking about how different their lives were during those times. I wonder what it would be like to live back then....having to take a horse and buggy to get anywhere, not having a heater in my house to simply flip a switch when I want it on, not having running water, having to heat water for a bath, and probably take a bath only a coupe of times a week, or maybe even once a week, having to sew all of my clothes, oh and the list can go on and on and on! 

Today I will begin reading the eighth and final book in this series. I'm excited to read it and see what's going on in the Davis family, but I will certainly miss them! If you're looking for a good, easy book to read, please check out the first book, Love Comes Softly!

How Great Thou Art

We were in Wishek, North Dakota, this past week for Ross' Gramma's funeral. She was 96 years old! She lived in Wishek all her life and was laid to rest there next to her husband who died quite a few years ago.

One of the songs we sang during the funeral was the old hymn, "How Great Thou Art." Now I have sung this song many times before, and have played it on the piano many times before, too, but, the words have never stood out to me before like they did during the funeral, particiuarly the second verse:

"When through the woods and forest glades I wander, I hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze"

Maybe it was the setting we were in, or maybe it was that I have never really sung the second verse before, but something about these words just hit me. I pictured everything this verse describes and thought about the contrast of the lofty mountain grandeur to the gentle breeze and realized that God created it all. And that God cares about everything, and E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G we see was created by God! The words in this song are so true and certainly do stand the test of time.

I have the lyrics to the song below, and here's a link to a beautiful version of this song performed by Carrie Underwood and Vince Gill.

O Lord my God,when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy Hand hath made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,Thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed;

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander, I hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing; sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in; that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

When Christ shall come, with shouts of acclamation, and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart! Then I shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim,"My God, how great Thou art!"

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art! Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee, How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Christmas with the Wards & Herndons

After we left the Wiseman's on Christmas Eve day, we headed back to Springfield to stop off at our house for a few hours, and then off again to our church's Christmas Eve service. Ross has been going to our church, Christ Community Church, for about 13 years now and had never been to a Christmas Eve service there before. I hadn't been to a Christmas Eve service in probably 10 years, so both of us were very excited to go. I was even more excited when I found out my family (Mom, Dad, Stephanie, Nathan, Trevor, Cody) decided, last minute, to go, too.

After the service, we hit the road again and headed out to Ash Grove to spend the night and Christmas day celebrating Christmas with the Wards and Herndons. We opened a few presents on Christmas Eve night and then, of course, took pictures, and watched as Trevor and Cody set out milk and cookies for Santa!

Trevor age 9 and Cody age 7

Ross and Libby Wiseman, Stephanie and Nathan Herndon, Cody Herndon, Terry and Wanda Ward, Trevor Herndon.

The Herndons in their matching Grinch shirts!

Merry Christmas from us!

Milk and cookies for Santa. This year Santa got a special note from each boy!

Ross and I woke up Christmas morning to little voices saying "Get up!" "We want to see what Santa brought us!" It's tradition in the Ward house that you can't go out to the family room to see what Santa brought until everyone is up and the adults have had a chance to get coffee and get set up to take pictures of the "reveal." In fact, I remember a few Christmases where Stephanie and I had to drag Mom and Dad out of bed! I think they often did this on purpose! This killed us as kids, and kills Trevor and Cody today! But once we finally got to go out to the family room and see our presents, the awful waiting time was soon forgotten!

Opening Santa's gifts!

After looking at what Santa left, we had breakfast which consisted of coffee cake, bacon, and eggs...traditional Ward Christmas breakfast. Oh, and sparkling grape juice. Never, never, never forget the sparkling grape juice - in white and red, too!

When breakfast was over we went back to the family room to open presents. For as long as I can remember, we would each take turns opening our presents, instead of everyone opening at once. This worked just fine, at least until the kids got old enough to really "get" what opening presents was all about! We quickly learned to let the kids open all their presents and then send them to another room to play with their gifts while the adults opened their presents!

The picture below is kind of fuzzy, but notice the hat that Cody has on. I believe the official name of this hat is a "Newsboy Cap," but we refer to it as a "Poppy Hat."  For as long as I can remember, my Dad has been wearing hats like these and over the past few years, Cody has started doing the same. We gave Cody a Poppy Hat and he also got one from Stephanie and Nathan. He was stoked! Cody is quite the fashionista, and it was so cute when he opened a shirt/tie combo and then held it up to each of his hats showing how they'd go together so well! But, probably the funniest thing is that Trevor got the same shirt/tie combo and couldn't care less about it!

Last fall I became very interested in crafts, thanks to Pinterest. One night I had some girlfriends over and we made coasters using tiles, scrapbook paper, and ModPodge. At a garage sale last summer, my Mom found some Guinness boxers that she bought for Ross...more so as a joke. Ross liked them, but didn't want to wear another man's boxers, so put them in the giveaway pile. I recovered them, figuring I could repurpose them somehow. And I did. I repurposed them into a coaster for Ross' Man Cave! We had a good laugh about this, but he loved it! 

My mom got a Pandora bracelet for her 60th birthday so I got her an airplane charm to remember her solo flight out to Arizona last summer to visit me and my Great Aunt Blanche. She loved it!

Stephanie and Nathan gave Ross Beavis and Butthead boxers.....I'm not so much a fan of that show, but the three of them are.

GOOD gold hoop earrings! Hopefully the gold won't wear off of all of these like all my others.

We got my Dad a "Jerky Gun." I thought this was funny, but he loved it!

FINALLY!!! A GOOD garden hose. I was really excited to receive this!

Baby, Why Don't We Go...Jamaica

Remember the Beach Boys song, "Kokomo?" Here's the lyrics if you don't remember it:

Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take you
Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego baby why don't we go
Jamaica

Off the Florida Keys
There's a place called Kokomo
That's where you wanna go to get away from it all
Bodies in the sand
Tropical drink melting in your hand
We'll be falling in love
To the rhythm of a steel drum band
Down in Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take you
To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego baby why don't we go

Ooo I wanna take you down to Kokomo
We'll get there fast
And then we'll take it slow
That's where we wanna go
Way down to Kokomo
To Martinique, that Monserrat mystique

We'll put out to sea
And we'll perfect our chemistry
By and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity
Afternoon delight
Cocktails and moonlit nights
That dreamy look in your eye
Give me a tropical contact high
Way down in Kokomo

Aruba, Jamaica ooo I wanna take you
To Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego baby why don't we go

Ooo I wanna take you down to Kokomo
We'll get there fast
And then we'll take it slow
That's where we wanna go
Way down to Kokomo
Port Au Prince I wanna catch a glimpse

Everybody knows
A little place like Kokomo
Now if you wanna go
And get away from it all
Go down to Kokomo

This song has been on my mind recently because we are going to JAMAICA in April to celebrate our second anniversary!! After a lot of careful research by my wonderful husband who loves to do research to make sure we're getting the best deal possible (I hate to reasearch!), we finally booked our trip and are ready to go! 

We'll be flying out of Springfield on Sunday, April 15, and flying back on Saturday, April 21, so will be there a full 6 nights. We are going to an all-inclusive resort called Couples San Souci, Jamaica. We went to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico for our honeymoon and loved it. All-inclusive is definitely the way to go! This resort has several activities included, like snorkeling, off-site shopping tour, glass bottom boat tours, waterskiing, golfing, and many other activities. The restaurants at this resort have received great reviews, too. 

It will be so fun to wake up on our anniversary, April 17, and take a walk on the beach together! Now if I could only speed time up....

Christmas with the Wisemans

We had a very nice time celebrating Christmas with the Wiseman family. Ross and I went up to Kansas City a few days before Christmas Eve and enjoyed some quality time with Wanda and Larry. We went to dinner, lunch, went to a movie, and even got to watch home movies of Ross when he was a little boy. Good times!

We woke up on Christmas Eve morning to find that Santa had made an early visit to fill our stockings at the Wiseman house! It was so nice of Santa to remember us early! :)

That morning Ross' brother and his family, Matt, Jennifer, Conner, and Tucker, came over for breakfast and we had a nice time catching up with each other.

We opened presents and then played a very fun game that Wanda came up with. She had LOTS of wrapped presents, maybe about 40 presents, to choose from. The presents were items Wanda had stashed on her "gift shelf" and were things like candy, puzzles, games, note pads, candles, beer, gift cards, even a roll of toilet paper! To play the game, Wanda dealt out a complete deck of cards to everyone playing and then had a second deck of cards for  herself. When she turned a card over from her deck, whoever had the matching card from the first deck in their hand got to choose a present. For example, if she turned over a queen of hearts and I had the queen of hearts in my hand, then I got to choose a present. We ran out of presents before we ran out of cards, so just started trading presents with each other. This was a very fun game that I hope becomes a tradition at the Wiseman Christmases.

Something funny about this game....it seemed as though every present Jennifer opened was a candle. Either a big candle or small votive candles, she got all the candles. I, on the other hand, got all the beer! This was so funny! What's even funnier is that it took quite a while, maybe even ten cards, before I finally got to open a present and the first present I opened was two bottles of beer! Then a few cards later, I chose a box that was yet another can of beer! This made for great laughs all the way around!

My first present of beer.

And my second present of beer!

Photobombed by Tucker!

The Wisemans:  Ross, Libby, Matt, Jennifer, Larry, Wanda, Tucker, Conner

Ross and Tucker having a wrestling match!

Conner had to get in on the action, too!

Happy Birthday Stephanie!

Happy Birthday to my sister who turns 37 today!!

Happy 2012!

Happy 2012! And Happy Birthday to my blog! I started it on January 1, 2010, and it's now two years old!

We had a nice, quiet new year celebration. Saturday night we went to dinner and a movie with a friend and then were home by 10pm. We watched the ball drop at 11pm and then again at midnight and celebrated with a kiss and sparkling grape juice. Sunday we went to church, took a nap, watched the Chiefs win their final game of the season, and then met up with some out-of-town friends for dinner. Today I am back to work (booh!) and Ross is at home. I guess I can't complain since I did just have all last week off from work!

I like to make goals for myself instead of resolutions, and I'm happy to report that last year I completed several of the goals I had set:

• Read the entire Bible this year - Ross and I both did this!
• Run 2 half marathons or 1 half and 1 full marathon - I ran 1 half and 1 full marathon!
• Complete scrapbooks for our wedding, our first year of marriage, our Hawaii trip, my marathons, my first house on Linwood street, and our first house on Westview street - I completed 4 of the 6 scrapbooks, not too bad!
• Knit a baby sweater (no, not for me, yet, just to have on hand!) - completed this in February!
• Sew a shirt or skirt, something more challenging than just sewing a hemline - sewed a shirt in August and love it!
• Read 12 books - way surpassed this with about 20 books read

I'm still thinking about my goals for this year. Don't worry, I'll share them when I have them!