2013!!

First of all, I am going to have to apologize for not posting in over a month!! I will set a time to do it, and something always seems to come up or take its place!:)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!!! I can't believe another year has completely flown by!! I am so thankful that I was able to spend the holidays with my family! I flew out Dec. 15th with Heather and Beth Newton.  My time home was packed during the almost three weeks home; I went to Iowa and Illinois (a entirely different story there.....), skiing, bowling, played basketball, hung out with the Schmidgall cousins, spent time with my family, and spent time in the cities and the MOA with the Round Robin group!! I really had a lot of fun being home....although I was sick pretty much the entire time I was home.:( 

As I am writing this, I am sitting in a hotel room in Miami.  I flew out of Minneapolis this morning and fly to Port tomorrow morning.  I am really excited to get back!!  It is an amazing feeling to be right where God wants you to be!  Even though I loved spending time with my family and friends, and even though I miss them and some things that you just don't get in Haiti.......I am so ready to be back where my calling and passion is!

I will try to post some pictures later.  Just thought I would let you all know that I am still alive and kicking!!:)

Oh....here is the story about traveling to IA/IL...... I left Mediapolis, IA during a blizzard on Thursday around 1:30.  Why? Because I didn't think it was that bad out and I knew that if you just keep your head and think smart, it is fine. Well around 3:30 there was a semi completely stopped in front of me....so I stopped. I didn't know why he was stopped, if it was just time, or alot of others. Well around 4:30, the semi driver parked behind me came up to my window and gave me a bottle of water, I asked what was going on and he said there was an accident ahead.  So I sat and waited and waited... and waited........and waited...............and waited.  I was able to talk to someone who lives in Monmouth (I was right outside of monmouth). I was planning on just spending the night with them when I got out...the problem was.....I WASN'T getting out....hmmm. He then informed me that Hwy 34 was closed.  I was like what??? and they just left all of us on??? So anyway.....I continued to sit there until midnight, when I was suddenly awakened by knocking on my window.  A couple guys said they were taking some people to a shelter. So I decided to go....I spent the night on the floor at a Senior Citizen's place. They served us breakfast the next morning and we waited to hear news about the road.  Well, they didn't even send out the state snow plows until around noon (even though it had stopped blowing at 10:30 the night before), they had one tow truck for all the semis/cars in the ditch, and then they decided that everything was going to be towed....whether in the ditch, stuck, or not.  (side blurp: my car was not stuck....it was just sitting on the road waiting for everyone else to become unstuck....) Noon came and went and still they were taking forever to get everything cleared.  Then the people started talking about making supper and even spending another night there.  At that point I was thinking... "just get me out of this place!!! This is soo stupid! If I were in Minnesota, none of this would be the way it is!!! Ridiculous!! Hmph....Illionisians don't know the first thing about snow.....!" Anyway, so they decided to tow all cars.....but they towed them different places and didn't know where all the cars went. Finally, one of the guys overheard us talking to someone about the types of cars a couple of us were driving and he said he saw my car headed toward Monmouth. So they drove me to Monmouth and I was able to pick up my car.  Let me tell you I have never been so happy to pay $150 and just get out of that madhouse!!! Yes.....they charged me even though I wasn't stuck...I was still towed.... But hey, I was not complaining. I was on my way to the Steffens by 4:30 Friday afternoon!!:)

Anyway....later!:)