Yes, We are Still Here (and No, We're Not There Anymore)!

Hi, friends! Happy New Year! I (Kristie) have been making a concerted effort to spend less time on the internet, in an attempt to devote more time to the needs of my immediate family--and to "put down some roots" here in Northern Kentucky. Nonetheless, THREE WHOLE MONTHS is a long time to go without a blog post of any sort. I can't really use the excuse that there's been nothing to blog about--there's been PLENTY! I'll try to catch you up here:

About a week after our previous blog post (courtesy of Mary Beth), my "much-taller-but-younger" brother Clint and his wife Tara welcomed their firstborn, Brynnan Grace, into the world, down in Thomasville! We rejoiced with them, but we were a bit sad that our rejoicing was from afar, and we were bummed that we wouldn't get to see her in person until our January trip to Thomasville.

BUT--very shortly after that, God changed our plan. At the end of October, my precious dad suffered a stroke, just before his 60th birthday. God has GREATLY restored almost all of what was damaged at this point, and the stroke itself blessed Daddy with a reminder about some healthy lifestyle habits (and helped wean him off his boiled peanut addiction :)...). In the days immediately following the stroke, the recovery and adaptation needed was extremely stressful for my parents. My heart broke as I attempted a Skype conversation with him on his birthday (Nov. 5) as I listened to him struggle. My birthday is November 7, just two days after his, and my mom's birthday is the 14th. With all that was going on down in Thomasville, Chad knew it would do my heart good to be there with my family, so my sweet man took us down to Georgia for nearly a week between my birthday and Mom's, so we could help my parents adjust to their "new normal."

We enjoyed seeing a few friends during that trip, but we spent most of the time with my family, including sweet little Brynnan.



I was particularly grateful for the evening of November 12, when Believers from all over Thomasville were gathering together for a city-wide time of coporate worship, known as BecomeOne. A friend of mine from high school, who is now a youth pastor there, shared his testimony and a wonderful sermon on forgiveness and on trusting God's "big picture" for our lives. Some of my favorite local worship leaders were on stage, and I was blessed to at least give quick hugs to MANY of the Thomasvillians in the congretation, whom I otherwise would not have seen on this trip. When I arrived back at my parents' house after BecomeOne, we laid down for about 4 hours of sleep, and then we made our way North on I75 once again.

When we arrived back in Hebron, we spend a few weeks finishing out our fall semester of homeschooling. We celebrated Thanksgiving with one of Chad's co-workers and his wife. We thought we'd come out cheaper (and without tempting leftovers) if we celebrated Thanksgiving at the local Craker Barrell, but when we arrived and found a 2-hour wait, we decided to move on to try one of the other FEW local restaurants that were open. We landed, at 1:15, at Frisch's Big Boy, which had a sign on the door stating that they'd be closing at 2p.m. It was a comically AWFUL Thanksgiving meal, but the company we were with made it tons of fun, nonetheless.

After Thanksgiving, we jumped right into our Christmas-related activities. We bought and decorated our very first (in a decade of marriage) full-sized tree with ornaments that were ALL ours! The kids had a great time decorating the house. Mary Beth sang in a childrens' choir as part of 7Hills' Christmas celebration, and Chad and I got to help out with an intro skit one Sunday morning, as well. I don't think we realized just HOW MUCH time we'd need to be spending in rehearsals when we initially committed, but we were glad for an opportunity to serve, and Mary Beth had a ball! After MB's choir presentation on the 7Hills Newport campus, we drove over to the Ohio River so we could take a few photos to finish out our family Christmas postcard. If you've not seen it already, enjoy! :)



It's all pretty much a blur now, date-wise, but right around Christmas, both of the guys in Chad's office took time off, so we were able to go into work with Chad for half a day and hang out in his high-rise office suite. It was really SO COOL to get to watch the sun rising over Cincinnati from 23 stories up! After he finished work, he took us out for lunch, and then also to the Cincinnati Zoo's Festival of Lights.

Christmas day WAS a bit awkward without any extended family around. The hardest part was hearing a voicemail from my grandfather: "Merry Christmas! This is Pops! We miss you and can't wait to see you! Love you, baby!" We'd hoped for a snowy day, but it honestly just felt like a cold day in Thomasville. We opened gifts, had a big breakfast, shared the Christmas story, and also went to see a movie at the "RAVE" theater (this is the one that DOESN'T have $3 admission prices, so it was a rare treat.)!!! The day after Christmas (since we'd been so busy with 7Hills activities previously), we visited a "Bethlehem Town" live nativity of sorts, at Ken Ham's Creation Museum, which is one exit down from ours. To me, this was the most moving part of our entire December. It was neat to walk through and get a feel for what Bethlehem would've really been like around the time when Jesus was born. I left thanking God for the gift of His Son.

On the work days immediately after Christmas, Chad's co-workers were still gone, so MB and Noah each got to pack a sack of snacks, drawing stuff, books, small toys, and a DVD player, and they each got to enjoy a half-day alone with Chad at work, followed by some time "out on the town". They each loved their special day!

Two nights before New Year's Eve, we loaded up Chad's truck and took THE TRIP to Thomasville (the only one we'd actually planned to take back when we moved up here in July, even though we'd actually already managed to return for three visits home).

On Dec. 30, we celebrated a very special birthday (I won't tell you which one, since she still looks 30) for our friend, Vicky. I first got to know Vicky as "Mrs. Vicky." She's the wife of our pastor in Thomasville, and I babysat their kids when I was in college (now THEIR youngest is in college!). Our friendship grew, and she soon became the leader of a small discipleship group for some young women (including me) in our church. Before I knew it, I was getting married, and I asked her to be my matron of honor...she threw an amazing lingerie shower...and very much proved that godly women don't have to be prudish women! She was there for the births of both my children, and for the miscarriage in-between! When that little girl I used to babysit grew up, she married my baby brother, so now Vicky is also family--though I guess she really always has been like family! A dear, dear friend she is!

Chad and I spent New Year's Eve afternoon taking my grandparents down near the Florida line to buy a new rocker-recliner for my grandma. Pops was very feeble (he'd been hospitalized for 10 days earlier in December, and he still had very little strength), and he had a hard time maneuvering through the store, but Chad was able to help him navigate using Grandma's rolling walker. It was a difficult trip, but little did we know then what a special trip it was.

We spent the evening enjoying some time with friends at Sonny's BBQ, and then on New Year's Day, Chad's dad joined us for a service at Celebration and baptized Noah, who had become a Christian back in October. That afternoon, we had a picnic lunch with several friends at one of our favorite local playgrounds, and then we went out to Chad's late grandfather's farm with all those friends to let the kids see the cows, climb the hay bales in the barn, and stomp in the muddy creek.

That evening, my extended family gathered with us at my parents' house in Pavo for a late Christmas celebration with us! Here's a picture of the general ruckus we enjoy when we're all together:



We had a great time, and pigged out, of course! I made some stevia-sweetened strawberry ice-cream for the health nuts in the room, and everyone else enjoyed some delicious-looking chocolate chip cheesecake my sister had made. The kids ran all around, enjoying their gifts, but mostly enjoying being with their little cousin Ethan, who had a constant mantra of "Bebbie-Noah-Bebbie-Noah" all night long. My brothers amazed Pops by finding a youtube version, of a song they've heard him sing for years, on their high-tech phones: "My girl's a corker. She's a New Yorker...She has two hips like two battleships...that's where my money goes!" (Yeah, definitely a tune that'll make you raise an eyebrow, but it was just one of MANY crazy things Pops is famous for saying/singing.) I mostly sat on the couch and held Baby Brynnan...oh, how that child gives me baby fever!

We spent much of the following days visiting precious family and friends. We went nonstop pretty much for a week, enjoying lunch dates, park dates, shopping dates. We went out to another BBQ restaurant with Chad's dad and siblings, and we folllowed up with a trip to the cemetary to see Chad's grandfather's gravestone, which had been installed since our last trip to town.

Mary Beth's 9th birthday was on Thursday, so we had a small family birthday gathering for Mary Beth at her favorite local buffet, Seminole Wind. Lest Johnny Barnes see this blog and faint, MY favorite IS Crawdaddy's, but MB is addicted to those cinnamon rolls at Seminole Wind! My parents gave her a pretty heart-shaped locket there, and then Chad used the box and some ketchup to present MB with a special part of him.



Aunt Sarah brought Ethan to the party, too, so Mary Beth and Noah spent a good bit of time doing their usual "silly faces" routine with him.



That evening, we gathered with some of Mary Beth's Thomasville friends at the local coffee shop, Grassroots Coffee. Mary Beth had asked her Uncle Clint, who lives about a mile from Grassroots, to give her a ride there in style. He gladly obliged:

Motorcycle

Once there, we enjoyed coffees, frappes, smoothies, and all sorts of concoctions. We served MB's cake, which she had helped Grammy bake and decorate:

Cake

For party entertainment, we brought out a large sack of random accessories we'd gathered from Grammy's house, along with a black foamboard picture frame and a camera. The girls had a ball designing their wardrobes and then posing for the camera. The adults even got in on the fun. Here is Noah, posing with my friend Stacey, whom he affectionately refers to as "Mama Monster."



Here are the Owens girls, posing with Mary Beth.

Owens

After a late night at the coffee shop, we enjoyed a fairly laid-back Friday, as we packed up to head home. Chad and I did run back to Thomasville on Friday evening to spend a little more time with my grandparents. Pops had been feeling so badly all week, and I wasn't sure he'd still be around to visit with by the time of our next planned trip. They gave us some pieces they'd found in their cabinets that go with the Magic Bullet they'd given us years ago. We sat around and talked about healthy food, TastyCakes, where interstate highways run in the northeast, and then about Pops's recent non-cancerous colonoscopy results (fun stuff, huh?). Before we left, I asked, "So, Pops, do you think you try to hang around so I can see you again on my next trip home?" He laughed that squeally laugh of his and said, "Kris, only the Lord knows--only the Lord knows!" Shortly after that, I hugged Grandma, then I kissed his baldy forehead as we got up to leave and said, "Bye." I've never said, "bye," before, but this time, it was like the Lord wouldn't let me say anymore. Pops followed us to the door and shut it behind us. As we backed out of the driveway, I looked through the windshield, up into the garage, and I saw his eyeball poking through between the slats in the blinds on the door, and I saw his pointer finger waving goodbye to us. I thanked Chad profusely for coming back to Thomasville with me, and I started sobbing in the truck as I realized that I really wasn't going to see Pops again. I really didn't think he'd still be around in the Spring.

Saturday morning, Chad was just putting the last of the luggage on the truck, when my grandmother called to say that she'd just found Pops unresponsive on the bedroom floor. I really hadn't expected Pops to last three more months, but I also hadn't expected him to get to heaven before I got back to Kentucky. But, that's just what he did. We wound up taking that luggage off the truck and staying four more days as we celebrated the life of the late great George Herbert Rennard.

My mom's extended family came pouring in, and many of Grandma's church friends, who had been such dear influences for me during my childhood, all spent the next few days at Grandma's house, celebrating all that was Pops. As was shared at the funeral, Pops lived to honor God first and his family a close second. He was like a spur in a cowboy boot, always pushing us on to do our best. He had a spunky streak fueled by chocolate. Even though he often had a hard time remembering just what your name was (and therefore called you by a made-up name or a combination of the names of several different family members-just to try to be at least party right), you always knew he loved you and believed in you. He loved to laugh, and he loved his Florida State Seminoles! Here's the last picture we have of him. It's from New Year's Day, when he tried on the FSU Everfan cape my sister had given Noah as a Christmas gift. That, folks, is his final tomahawk chop.

Pops

Pops loved "sound doctrine and the Blood," and he had no greater desire in life than the salvation of his family members and those he loved. Three generations after him, Mary Beth was moved to write this essay about him on the day he met Jesus face-to-face:

"Why I am Blessed to Be a Christian," by Mary Beth Wooten

Jesus is the key to life. He died on the cross to take away our sins. That's why we have communion-to remind us that He died on the cross. Christians have a chance to go to the best place on earth. I feel so, sooo bad for people that are not Christians. They're going to hell, and that's not near as good as going to heaven.

My Pops is going to heaven now. I'll see him again someday. Sometimes, when I look up in the sky, I see his face, telling me not to cry. I tell him I can't help but cry.

I'm glad I get to see him again someday. It'll be great! This is why I am blessed to be a Christian.

***********************************

When we arrived back in Hebron, we pretty much hit the ground running with our second semester of homeschooling. The kids are learning about great American artists during their fine arts time, and they have produced some really nice paintings. I'll try to figure out how to scan their artwork onto my computer so I can share it with you sometime.

So, for a chick who's tried to stay off the computer, I've now spent two solid hours working on this blog post. Hopefully, it won't take you as long to read it! :) I'd LOVE to hear all that's going on in your life! I pray your family is enjoying a blessed and happy 2012 thus far!

--Kristie