'Tis the season!

Wow! This fall has flown by and Andrew and I have been very busy! He started a new job with a company called Ricoh at the end of October. He is still doing copy repair technician jobs but is just with a company that has more growth opportunity, options for career advancement and options for transferring nationwide. This has been a blessing to us, as I sometimes get to see him fixing a copier at the hospital!

My job is always interesting and the longer I do it, the more sin I see in myself. I love people, don't get me wrong, but we are a bunch of wackadoodles sometimes! Things are busy, patients are needy, staff is temperamental, and docs are too busy!! I enjoy learning about the different cases in the medical field, but sometimes I wonder if I wasn't made to work with healthy people :) At any rate, I am enjoying the challenges of everyday at the office and learning so much!

We are slowly getting on a schedule with visiting Noah, but he's a typical teenager and would rather go play video games with his friends all night. The good thing is that he opens up about school things and relationship things to us, so we feel like we are developing some kind of bond with him. We pray for him to know Jesus and to want more out of life than what he sees his mom doing. They aren't bad people, they just have no motivation to do better for themselves and it is affecting Noah's ability to learn life skills. We love him dearly and are so thankful that God put him in our life to be our son. We pray that we raise him up to be a god-fearing, people-loving man.  

My parents and Emily came to Casper to visit for my birthday and it was such a blast! I cried like a baby when the party-weekend was over and they had to leave. No matter how old I get, or how often I do it, it never gets easier to part with my family. We are hoping to visit Colorado for our holiday celebration the weekend between Christmas and New Years!

Seven is getting along at my in-laws house and remembering how pleasant life is without Jetta, the queen, around! He loves playing with everyone at Tim and Dee's house and even gets spoiled with different things like Dee will put a chair up against the door for him to sit on each morning, Sarah bought grass to grow inside so he could chew on it since he can't go outside and he has gotten catnip a few times...they don't love him at all! ;)

Jetta is adjusting alright here. She had an ear infection about two months ago which the vet said may have been from the wind or from all of the sage in the air here. She is a little lonely without her grandpa (my dad) and Rori or Seven during the day. I also think her hearing is going because she doesn't run to the door when we arrive at home until we say "Hello!" She also hears things sometimes that we don't notice and will start barking like crazy. It saddens me to think that she is getting old enough to lose her hearing and vision, but I guess she has lived a wonderful 12 years! I am so thankful that god blessed me with her as my snuggle bug doggy!

I hope you all are well and that winter is treating you kindly, thus far! A little dust of snow is always nice and I pray that you all enjoy the beauty of winters' arrival!

Camping fun!

Over the Labor Day weekend we had a family camping trip with the Thoma's, The Hardy's, and our friend Jon Matz. This was Hannah and Samantha's first ever camping trip and they were in heaven!

We hiked on a trail called the Braille Trail that was originally created for blind people. There is a picture of Hannah with the glasses on that they give you so that you can also get the "blind experience". I walked the entire trail "blind"! I would like to go back and do the trail without the glasses sometime also...

 Our family :)

Hannah...ready to hike the braille trail!

Look close enough (at the top-ish right of the pic) and you can see the twins sitting on the bench at the bottom of the mountain we hiked!

 Samantha, our self-declared camp teacher! :)

 Jon had us over to his camp site for a wonderful dinner. Jetta is looking for dropped crumbs, of course.

 Hannah being a silly goose!

 Andrew, Noah, Dusty and Ryan...doing what men do best - eating! :)

 Jetta waiting for Sarah to drop her some goods!

 Tim stoking a fire!

 My pretty lady J sitting next to me by the campfire 

and laying on her mattress snuggled up in the tent!

Seven...our gentle giant

So Seven has been bunking with Andrew's parents for the last few days since our landlord won't let us have him here. We miss him so much, even Jetta misses him, so we try to go see him everyday. Today we took him to get shaved and the groomer, Felicia, fell in love with him too!
God has truly blessed us by bringing Felicia into our lives. She adores Seven and was able to embrace what a loving, gentle, and loyal kitty he is. She did some research and was able to determine that his breed is called a Maine Coon...this sparked my interest, so I looked up a few facts about them!

Maine Coons:
*trainable, described as “dog like”
*devoted, playful, and loving to their chosen humans
*fascinated by water, perhaps because their thick coats are water-repellent and won't become annoyingly soaked
*The heavy all-weather coat, shorter on the shoulders and longer on the stomach and britches, makes the cat appear larger than he really is.
*The Maine Coon of today is known for a sturdy, rugged appearance, which includes an uneven, shaggy coat of three distinct lengths and a long, well furnished tail. They carry that tail proudly and use it to surround themselves for warmth and protection.
* has large, well tufted paws to allow ability to walk on top of snow despite size and weight
* ears are large and well tufted for protection and warmth
*known for their intelligence, kindly disposition, friendliness towards just about anything and are especially good with children and other pets...for these reasons, they have been dubbed the “Gentle Giant” of the cat fancy and are commonly sought after as family pets, companions, and therapy cats.

Felicia loves Seven so much and has such a heart for our situation that she agreed to shave him for free every two months if it meant that we could keep him. She has also been looking into places that she knows of who would allow us to have both of the pets. Will you pray with us that somehow, we are able to keep our family together?

Much love,
Andrew, Heather, Jetta and Seven!