Half Way Done!

As of this past Thursday, I am half way done with my doctor of Physical Therapy degree!!! 5 semesters down and 5 to go. It was a crazy semester. We had some pretty tough classes to get through this semester but I think everyone made it through. My grandad passed away in September from a blood disorder. Link and I were able to visit with him the weekend before he died and spend some time with him. We didn't expect him to be gone the next week but we knew that our time left with him was short. That was very hard to deal with but at the same time we were able to see our family which was a blessing during a sad time. At the end of November my uncle passed away of a heartattack. It was my mom's older brother and she was actually flying back home from visiting them when he'd had the heart attack. He had just thrown a big birthday party for his wife the night before in Pheonix and all the siblings had flown down for it. I was glad that my mom had gone to the party and had just spent time with him. Link's been soooo busy working with both the junior high and high school youth groups. It slowed down in October with the last of our 2 big retreats (which I might say he did a wonderful job with them both) and is now gearing up again with all of our holiday parties and service projects. The high school students went to the Children's Hospital and handed out presents and sang carols for the kids. It was really good to watch them step out of their comfort zone and serve (and see how lucky they are to be healthy). I've babbled on enough now. That's what's been going on.

Good News

Hello all! I just wanted to let you know that the young man that I talked about in my previous blog found out that the tumor is a pediatric tumor and is not cancer! He was finally able to come back to Lubbock from Dallas yesterday! God is good. As far as life for Link and Monica, it is good. Link's ministry is going well. Things have finally slowed down and he only has a few day things throughout the month. My school is going well but I'm looking forward to Christmas break and to finish this semester. At the end of September we picked our locations for our 8 week clinicals that begin in the March. I'll be going to Amarillo to live our friends Jay and Kami and work in one of the hospitals there. That's about all that I have for now. :)

Prayer

I've had a lot of things going on in my life that I can hopefully post about this weekend but I wanted to right a quick posting about a prayer request that I have. There is a young man named Jerrod who is in surgery right now getting a tumor removed from his brain stem. He is a freshman at LCU and grew up in Lubbock. Link had the fortune of meeting him last year as Jerrod was serving as Student Body President at our local Christian high school. He is an amazing young man. Even though we don't know him very well, Link always enjoys being around him and talking to him and I have always been impressed whenever I had interacted with him. He has been in surgery since 3:30 pm and it is now 10:45 pm. It takes about 11 hours and I wish I would have thought to post this earlier. Regardless, he is going to need prayers with whatever they find out tonight, whether it be with recovery or what ever treatment he may have to have. They made a website for him with pictures, his dad's emails and updates on his condition. http://www.jerrodshelton.com/news.html Please put him in your prayers and pass this on. Thank you!

Long Summer

Link and I have had a crazy summer. Sorry I haven't updated since June. June 4 I left for Lovington, NM to live with the in-laws for 8 weeks for my school clinical. We have to do 4 clinicals throughout our 3 years of school for 8 weeks each. My in-laws are very good to me and it was a fun time. Link has had a summer filled with camps and mission trips. It has been a full summer because Link had planned things while he was the junior high minister and then when he took over both junior high and high school ministries he got everything that was planned for both. We just got back from Pine Springs Camp last night and finally things are going to slow down for a little bit. I start back to school the 27th and then we have our fall retreat Labor Day weekend.

In July my sister and her family came up from Mexico so we got to spend the 4th of July with them and my other sister and her family. July 9th my sister Jessica and her family moved from Lubbock to Tulsa, OK. Now we're the only ones left in TX :(. It's been a hard adjustment with our closes friends moving to Amarillo in May and then my sisters both being gone. We're slowly adjusting. Then my whole family was able to get together in Oklahoma the second weekend in July. It was the first time we've all been together at Grandma and Grandpa's so it was fun. I'll try and post some pictures later of the few adventures Link and I have had this summer.

It's been a while. . .

So my school semester ended well. I passed all my classes (that's always good 'cause you get kicked out for a year if you don't) and have been out since May 8th and haven't done much since then. I planned all this cleaning I was going to get done and I maybe got half the list done. We went to Dallas/Fort Worth and saw Body Worlds (which was very interesting) and then went to a Rangers vs Twins game. Being a northern girl transplanted in west Texas, I was going for the Twangers. My first professional baseball game ever was the Twins so I couldn't cheer against them. The next day I met some of Link's friends from a church that he interned at a few years ago and then we went to the Container Store and the Cheesecake Factory. I don't like cheesecake but I LOVE the Cheesecake Factory's strawberry shortcake dessert. It is the best. We met Link's college roommate and his new girl friend for supper and had a lot of fun. We got home of Wednesday afternoon and then left again Thursday afternoon for five days at the lake with Link's family. We got back Tuesday night and have been running around getting things done. I leave on Sunday for Lovington, NM where I will spend 8 weeks for my clinical for school. I get to live with the in-laws for free so that will be nice and since it's the summer Link will be gone a lot anyway for different trips and camps so I won't be home alone. Here is a picture from this past weekend. The golf cart that is down at the lake overheated and quit working so Link's cousins (they're 9, 7, 4 years old) pushed his mom back to the trailer. We all thought it was pretty funny!

NCYM and life

Yeah, it's been a long time since I've posted. I'm not sure if anyone will read this since it's been so long. Life's been moving fast and I just spend the last hour catching up on everyone's blogs. So here's a quick catch up. In October I got to go to Mexico for my birthday and visit my new neice and see my family. It was a fun trip. My last semester finished well and then my sister and her family came from Mexico to visit for about a month. Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa came down for Christmas too. Link and I got a chance to go to CO for almost a week for NCYM and got to hang out with some friends that we hadn't seen in a while. The picture is from the deck of the resort that they had the conference at. I also got to see my friends Anne and Rob from high school that I hadn't seen in about 4 years. We then went to Winter Park and skiied (is that how you spell it?) for a day with Link's old roommate Tanner that had also gone to the conference with us. We missed the avalanche that hit by about oh, an hour and a half. And it was sooooooooo cold.... I had to stop a few times to warm up in the lodge. That's just a quick update. Sorry I haven't been good at posting. Now I have to get to the school work that I've been ignoring.