Enjoying Fall

We're loving fall.
Announcing our NEW addition: the little brown couch!!!
Grandma's couch is so comfortable.

The tree outside our apartment is so pretty.
The picture doesn't do the tree justice.

Here is the lamp we bought in Lincoln!

- My kitchen -

Laughter a good medicine...

This past visit to Lincoln was full of laughter...!

It's been 2 1/2 weeks since we've seen Rachel

so we were amazed at her progress.

Praise God!

Rachel busted up laughing when she saw the veggie...pureed broccoli!

Rachel's two sister and Allyn hang out in the dinning room w/Ryan and Rachel

Rachel with Maddonna staff

Rachel's right hand doesn't move much...

but she can sure punch out words with her left hand.

My 1st Hyllningsfest

The Weddle families congregate in Lindsborg, KS to celebrate their Swedish Heritage.

It was a beautiful day to spend with a great family.

Hyllningsfest - Weddle cousin's lined up along the parade route in age order...!

Ok, so it took a little while to get used to the guys Swedish costumes

...you gotta love the pom poms!!!

The parade + CANDY made a great start to the day!

Anna W. and Emily

I have fantastic sister-in-laws.

Watching all the Swedish dances in the middle of main street Lindsborg.

All the siblings in front of G-Grm's house

(minus Liz who was visiting her sister in Witchita)

Half the fun of the weekend was seeing the three boys together again...

It's been a year!

1 year later! It's kinda hard to believe it's one year ago from when this picture was taken - we got married.

Yesterday afternoon, at 4:03 we began watching our wedding DVD. That was alot of fun. Wow. There was alot of special people at our wedding! We had a great time remembering back to ....how God answered our prayers in even finding the Sabetha church, how He prepared us for that day, the rehearsal dinner & my dad crying the whole way through the testimony time, the guys quartet ~ "Go'n to the Chapel", Caleb and Jackie's smiles through out the day, our attendants, our family! , our friends, how calm we both felt as I walked down the isle, having both our pastor's, the fantastic Wissmann/Ulmer serving crew, our great photographer, our nervous & fast first kiss (LOL), the car that was decorated so nice. We also had a good laugh counting the people that came to our wedding that we hadn't invited....! To funny. It was great to see them though!

So, after all this reminiscing...we went out to a NEW resturant in town. It was a nice place. The waitress eventually came out and informed us they'd ran out of my meal selection. We had a great time visiting until our meals finally arrived. We were impressed when later the manager came out, apoligized for the long wait and informed us the meal was on him. That was a pleasent surprise to our day!

Ahhh....A dozen roses! Thanks Allyn!

Anyone for a piece of cake?!? It's only 1 year old...??

Remember this...

October 7, 2006!!!

What Dad and I faced right before I walked down the isle....
LOL! My brothers are great!

Ready to head down the isle....come on guys - open the doors!

Amazingly...

We weren't nervous.
We weren't tired of smiling.
We still remember what the Pastor Steve said to us.
We felt truly blessed.

Our prayer is still that "We might exalt His name together" Ps. 34

Oh, and yes there is still 1 bird seed in our house.

I clean around it....just because!

Let rehab begin...!

Fun at the Fair

So...what did I do this fall? Pictured above is a volunteer presenting the gospel to one of the children at the Kansas State Fair. http://www.cefofkansas.blogspot.com/

Allyn, I and Tim coordinated the Gospel Handpainting Tent for CEF of KS. There were around 1,660 + kids that came through the tent and heard the Word. We are so grateful to the over 140 volunteers that gave of their time and energy.

While it was so fun to coordinate...I was also happy to get the mound of handpainting supplies out of our bedroom. I'm ready to get into a Fall routine.

Did I ever mention to any of you that I love fall?!?! The weather. The colors. The holiday of Thanksgiving. Ah. So refreshing.

Pray for Rachel ...

http://www.healrachel.com/

So, Sept. 6th ended on alot different note than anticipated. I was down in Hutchinson, KS that evening preparing for the final CEF Handpainting Training. Tim and I had set up the State Fair booth. Last I had talked to mom, everything was laid out and ready to be packed for the rehearsal dinner the next day....

The training went great. It wasn't till afterwards that Allyn told me that my sister-in-law to be had been....life flighted. (gulp)

The next morning we learned specific details of what happened. Rachel suffered an injury at the chiropracter that lacerated the verteberal artery (it's a major artery located in the spinal column). She was life-flighted into the University of Iowa Hospital. After 2 strokes and a seizure, she underwent an emergency operation to remove the VERY LARGE clot in her brain stem.

The first few hours after the surgery were very intense. The news that day was sobering. We wept. We prayed. The last 4 hours of our trip to Iowa City were some of the longest in our life. Immediate family and close friends arrived to the hospital throughout that day (mainly those who would have arrived for rehearsal). Dad had visibly the hardest time. His eyes were always moist.

Rachel began to stablize over that weekend. She has overcome alot of hurdles. She is not out of ICU yet. There are some big mountains ahead. PLEASE continue to pray! Be specific and be bold. http://www.healrachel.com/ will give you current information and prayer requests for Rachel. Ryan has faithfully stayed by her. He's going to make a great husband.

Two Brother's Engaged!

This weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Rachel Garrison. YEAH! I enjoyed her company so much. She's alot of fun. Ryan and Rachel G. have been dating for about two months!

Ryan and Rachel G. next to the plants we were putting in tubs. A classic moment.

Our cousin Heidi Baltensperger was married to Ben the first weekend of June. It was a beautiful outdoor wedding in the grooms parent's backyard.
Mom was a powerhouse. She came back from cooking a full week of CYIA to serve the food for Heidi's wedding. Together there were 7 of us that served food. We watched the ceremony from the patio with pepsi's in hand (!) Marrianne came back from Chicago for the wedding. It was a wonderful evening. We're excited for Ben and Heidi!

Summer

Hope your having a great summer!
Here are some pictures from our summer.


The end of May:

The Hayden's came to visit. We had a fun 2 days. Even though the pool was still too cold to swim in - we did anyhow!


Here is the TCE group from CEF of KS. I co-taught this week long course in Newton, KS with Mr. Brown (far left) and Tammy Sellin (front of me). We had a great time.


There were several storms that kept the guys really busy this year. Here is a picture of the large branch that skimmed the side of my folk's house.

Family Reunion: Allyn and I enjoyed a road trip to NE for his side's family reunion. The Frantz family gathered in Nebraska City for 3 days(!) We stayed with our friends, Alan and Melissa just down the road from the lodge. It was great to see everyone. Eric and Liz were even able to make it back from Chicago!

Alpha: Both Allyn and I are serving with Alpha this course on Sunday evenings. Allyn does sound and I do hospitality. It's a great group of people.

Cleaning Party 'n Pizza

This past semester, I've enjoyed being involved with a young ladies Bible study. We used the Inductive Bible Study method - focused on the book of Jonah.

Our service project for the final night was cleaning the house of a family with three small children ages 3, 1, and 6 weeks. The mother's Birthday was Saturday - we sent them out on a

date. Between the 7 girls we watched the kids and cleaned for 2 hours.

Adam (3 yrs old) enjoyed vaccuming himself. Erin enjoyed holding baby Issac.

We found a large spider while cleaning that we killed with a video case (JFYI - that picture was NOT posed of Bethany freaking out!)

Pictured to the right is the Bible study leader of the group....Ok, let me explain! Her job was to knock down the cobwebs (!) and she took it seriously.

Below: We had a Pizza party after wards! Yum!!! The girls are incredible and it was tons of fun to get to know them and study together.

Just the girls

Yesterday morning, my sister Anna drove down from NE. Most of the day we babysat 4 little girls (Condra family). We had a blast. As seen in the picture, they tested out my brand NEW sidewalk chalk on our patio. We read books, had a picnic, braided hair, etc.

He is RISEN!

Happy Easter!
We spent the day in Lindsborg, KS with extended family and friends. After lunch and the Easter Egg Candy hunt (a tradition that Aunt Shirley ensures will happen each year) for the kids we attended the Messiah put on by Bethany College. We had plenty of time for fun and games and visiting.

Also, pictured below are the snow covered tulips at Grma Frantz' house. The storm that came through just prior to Easter left 5 inches of snow atop the flowers.

Allyn playing Skittles with Noah and Lanie.

Emily helping Riley pick up her candy after the Candy Hunt.

Scrapbook'n

Last week, while on the final leg of recovering from a bad cold (that was the kind that lasted 4 weeks!) I enjoyed scrapbooking NCHEA 06. It was a ton of fun. A couple weeks ago, I had met with a Creative Memory Consultant and asked her a bunch of questions - how to's. etc. Anna Weddle got me onto power layouts (shown in the picture - LOL - it covered our living room for 2 days!!!). After picking up stuff at Hobby Lobby during the 1/2 price Scrapbooking sale - I was anxious to start. Next, I'd like to do our dating/engagement album and then our wedding. I enjoy not only the memories, but also it really has makes me stop in awe at God's faithfulness through every season of life.

March Visit to NE

We had an eventful visit to NE.
Jacob was home from TN - so the guys kicked into gear. They took down a ton of cedars in the pasture and hauled off 5 huges loads of scrap metal.

While this was going on, Mom, Anna and I gave the first floor a scrub down. We were preping for hosting the Baltensperger side in a get-to-gather. The evening was a delight. Below you will see a picture of Aunt Connie with our cousin's child - Brayden - having fun with the farm animal set.