Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! May you be blessed as spend time with your family and friends. Remember the reason for the season: Jesus came to earth as a baby, so that He could save the world from sin when He died on the cross. May you know Him that has set you free! God Bless you! 

Happy Birthday Hayden

I want to wish my wonderful nephew, Hayden, a happy birthday! He turns 1 year old today! He and his mommy and daddy live in Oregon and so we won't get to celebrate with him. We certainly wish we could be there to celebrate with him!

 

Hayden, you are such a joy to have in our family. I know that you are a wonderful joy and miracle to your mommy and daddy. I hope that you have a wonderful birthday and a Merry Christmas. We love you very much and hope we get to see you again very soon! We love you!!!!

Love, Auntie and Uncle :)

Double-Tagged

Well, my friend Becky from college double-tagged me. Since she was nice enough to oblige both Kristin and I, I decided I better do the same. This is my 12th photo from my 1

2th folder. It's a little blurry but I think you will be able to tell what it is!

This is obviously Mount Rushmore at night. It is really interesting that both of my posts are from our Oregon Trip. We drove out to Oregon and did some sight-seeing along the way while camping at different locations. This was our first "touristy" thing. I had never been to Mount Rushmore before so since it was on our way, we stopped. We stayed at a KOA near there so we were able to go to the park right after we set up camp. It was really neat to see them light it up. My husband managed a better shot with his film camera than I did with our old digital. This still does it justice. 

I also thought it would be nice to put a day picture of Mount Rushmore as well. This was taken the next day. The park itself is free but you have to pay for parking. The pass is good for the whole year, so that is why we went back. At one of the exhibits it stated that there are many "faces" to Rushmore depending on the weather and time of day. So, we figured we would check that out. We also got a coupon to use the audio tour and didn't have time to use it the day before. It was a really neat spot. It was very hot out that day, thankfully though, it was dry heat so not at all the "hot" we know here! :)

 

I got tagged!

There is this game going around that you have pick the sixth picture in your sixth folder. I had to go back to our old computer because we haven't organized our photos quite yet. Here it is!

This was a fun one! Last year in August, we went out to Oregon for my brother's wedding. We had a blast! This is a picture of my brother, Dan, and new sister-in-law, TeriAnna, saying their vows. They had a Hawaiian themed, outdoor wedding. It was rather cold out but we still had fun! 

Okay, so now I have to tag 6 people, I will try not to double up but beware I may not remember who has gotten tagged and who hasn't. Here are the rules:

*Pick your 6th picture in your 6th folder.

*Pray you remember what it is about.

*Blog about it.

*Tag 6 people to do the same.

I tag Jeannie, Ruth, Becky, Jen N, and Scott. Good Luck and have fun!

Beavers Sweep the Chargers

It was a great weekend! Brad and I were very busy doing the light shows at the Beaver games. Like I said in the previous post, Brad runs the computer that runs the show. I get to run the spotlight that shines the players during the introductions and I shine on the flag during the anthem. It is a lot of fun and I enjoy using my cheerleading skills! :) The Beavers went on to win both games, Friday 3-1 and Saturday 4-2. They made it a very exciting series by not scoring until the 3rd period on Friday and coming from behind to win on Saturday. It was a great weekend and now we have to wait until January to see them take on the North Dakota Fighting Sioux! Here are some pictures and a video from the weekend! 

One of the faceoffs

Crazy sled races during the intermission

Bucky the Beaver during intermission

During a timeout

Thanking the crowd 

after the Saturday win

This is a video from Saturday, 

it is tradition after a win,

 the team salutes the crowd 

with a stick salute. 

Sorry about the jerkiness at the end, 

it is a new camera and I am still getting used to it! 

Enjoy! 

Beaver Hockey!

I am really excited for tonight. The BSU Beavers are playing against the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers! This is a big rivalry and it is also the first home conference game! Hopefully the Beavers win. Brad and I help with the light show. He runs the computer and I run a spot light. It is a lot of fun! :) 

I became a huge hockey fan when Brad and I started dating. I have always loved sports, at least watching them but never had an outlet. It is so fun to go and cheer on your favorite team. I also became a Beaver fan because some of the guys on the team a couple of years ago were in my speech class and so I had someone to cheer for. It is so much easier to cheer for a team when you know some the people on the team. 

Anyway, this is some more rambling but at least I am posting. Hope you have a great weekend! 

GO BEAVERS!!!!!! :)

Long Time!

Hi Everyone, 

I'm sure some of you have thought that I have dropped off the face of the earth! :) 

I really haven't. I got disenchanted with blogging when I couldn't post pictures with my blog posts. Our old computer had pretty much no memory on it and would not let me post pictures let alone download photos. But, we were very grateful when my wonderful in-laws said they would pay for a new computer for us! This will encompass our birthdays, Christmas and anniversary for the next year but it was still a wonderful gift! Thank you Mark and Lanee. So, I now hopefully will post some more. I really enjoy doing it, but I like posting pictures with it. So, I am going to warn you that we my go back a couple of months and I will share what we have done this year! 

I also should probably tell you how my f-i-l, Mark is doing! He is doing awesome! He has only had two minor complications from surgery. He had a fever shortly after we got him home which was treated with antibiotics. He also had a liter of fluid taken off his lungs about a month after his surgery. They drained it and it has not returned! We are so thankful to God for how well he has done and so thankful for all of your prayers. 

He's Home!!!!

Yep, you read right! My father-in-law, Mark is home, actually we came home yesterday. He had surgery on Friday and is came home on Monday. It is definitely amazing! He looks very good. So far the only set back is a fever that is being taken care of by antibiotics. We are definitely giving God the glory on this quick recovery! Brad and I are staying a couple of nights with Mark and Lanee, helping get situated. Thank you so much for praying! I'll keep you updated!

Update!

Hi everyone, Well we are in Fargo. God is so good! Mark looks great. He has wonderful color and is up walking. Pain is under control and he is starting to eat solid foods. We are doing well. We will be staying one more night to be with him and Lanee. It has been so good to see him doing so well! Keep praying for a good recovery, they are thinking Tuesday or Wednesday for discharge, so that is what we are hoping for! Thank you again for praying!

Praise the LORD!!!

Hi Everyone, Just wanted to update you on my father-in-law, Mark. He is out of surgery and in recovery and doing well!!!!! He ended up with a double bypass instead of a triple and had the valve replacement too! We will be heading over tomorrow to see him. So, keep praying for a swift recovery! Thank you for being our prayer warriors! 

More Prayer

I am coming to you again for a prayer. My husband just found out that his dad, Mark, will be needing a triple bypass, as well as an aortic valve replacement. This will be happening on 

Friday, Sept. 12 at 5:30 AM. We know that God is in control and is here with us but it is still a very sudden and scary thing. Please be praying for Mark and Lanee for peace, as well as my husband. Also that the doctors will know what to do! I thank you for joining me in this and will let you know how things are going. 

A Double at Work

So, I am still trying to decide wether I made a good decision or not. I worked last evening from 3-11 but then I think out of the goodness of my heart, I said I would work from 11-7 this morning. I think the other motive is that I got out of tonight's shift from 3-11. So, yes, for those that are quick I just worked from 3 pm to 7 am which is 16 hours. 

Wow, I managed to survive and am actually up and feeling groggy but okay. The shift actually went pretty well, I had 3 pediatric patients until 5 am when I received an admission but I was in and out of the room in 20 minutes, which is fast for an admit. I was also able to help one of my coworkers get used to our EMAR (electronic Medication Record) system which "Go's Live" on Sept. 16. She is from the generation of no computers at home so it was taking her longer to figure things out. By morning she was doing things all by herself!  :) So, I must have done something right! 

I was very sleepy this morning when I got home but I managed to get home safely and have now slept for a little while and now I get to spend time with my hubby tonight! :) Hope you guys have a wonderful Labor Day weekend! 

Update!

Hey there, so I am not being as good at blogging as I had hoped to be but I kind of figured that would be the case. Journaling was not for me either. :) 

Anyway, we did have a great weekend camping with my family. It was great to spend time with them. We had fun camping and went swimming. Mostly, we just hung out and enjoyed the beautiful weather we had. We had fun going to the Lamson 1oo year anniversary too. It was great seeing my family who live in the area, as well as people that were a big part of my relationship with God. I am very blessed with having a family that has a rich Christian heritage! :) 

This week, we had fun with Brad's family! His big brother, Brian came up from North Carolina. He brought his girlfriend, Sarah, to visit for the first time. We enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know her, too. We only get to see Brian a couple of times a year, because his job requires him to travel a lot. So, we spent a lot of time with them this week, unfortunately they headed back today. :( We had fun going to Itasca State Park, seeing the Headwaters of course. We mostly hung out, they did join us at a JV soccer game that Brad refereed and then went to a church and listened to some music. We also enjoyed some electric donuts at Brad's parents house. Those were yummy! :) Some good times! We look forward to Christmas, when they will join us again! 

Okay, I am done rambling. Hope everybody is doing well!

A Smattering of Things

Hey there! Just a quick note! Not too much happening here. I was lucky enough to have the week off from work. I unfortunately did not get as much done as I would have liked. I have a really big problem with procrastination. Anybody else? :) 

I am really excited, this weekend we are going camping with  my family. We have spent a lot of time with my family this summer and it has been great. As you get older, you realize how important they are! We are also going to a 100 year celebration of the church where my parents were married and I grew up in. My dad built the church and both my mom and my dad were confirmed there. I am really excited to see people I haven't seen in a while. I will take pics and if our computer is cooperating, I will post them. (crossing fingers :)) 

On another note, we were able to enjoy some more things from our garden. We have had an abundant crop of lettuce this year. Probably way more than we will use. Our peas are doing really well too. We had them with steak the other night. I sauteed them with butter, salt and pepper. I was hoping to have onions with them but the onions we had, had gone bad. :( Oh, well I tried. We have also been having fresh corn on the cob, not from our garden though. We have tried grilling them this year, and it works really well! I love living in this state where we can fresh produce from our garden and from farmers in the area too. I feel very fortunate! 

Well, so much for a quick note! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! 

Busy Week

Hey there! It's been a busy week partly because I worked a couple of days but also because we have been doing some things. We got back on Sunday from our bittersweet weekend at my parents. Bittersweet because we said goodbye (someday hello!) on Friday to my sweet little nephew, Jeramiah James, 13 oz, 10 1/2 inches long and celebrated my great Aunt's 80th birthday on Saturday. I am comforted in not understanding totally how God is working through that odd weekend by the fact that HE is in control of EVERYTHING though we do not understand. Overall it was a good weekend. It was definitely fun to see family and friends! (once we figure out where our memory has gone on our CPU, I will have pics of the birthday party).

This week has also been filled with softball and a Indian taco fundraiser for our hospital. My hubby plays church softball, obviously for our church, :) and they had their playoffs this week. I was only able to go to the Monday games because of being on call for the hospital. They were exciting as always. Unfortunately, I had to work on Tuesday and miss them getting to the championship game and come away with second place (bummer). I am still very proud of our guys! Go E Free! 

On Thursday we went to the lake front and enjoyed Indian tacos. It was a fundraiser to buy some equipment for the FCC, which is where I work. So that was fun. We also enjoyed some drummers and dancers from one of the neighboring Indian reservations. We then stopped at DQ for a blizzard, also a fundraiser for the same equipment! Overall, a busy week. Now I have to go to work! Have a great weekend!

Pretty flowers!

Hi Everyone, after my last post was so sad I thought that I would show you some of my flowers from my flower beds. I am very fortunate that my mother-in-law is very good at flowers and so when I moved in the flower garden, which is all perennials, was ready to go. Last fall, Lanee and I dug up the whole bed to thin it out. It was a very big job and I don't know what I would have done without her! Anyway, I was able to give away a lot of the bulbs and planted some of course back into the bed. 

I was a little disappointed to find that only my tiger lilies bloomed, as you can see in the pictures. I should have had irises and day lilies, hopefully next year! I was surprised to see that where we had thrown all of the "waste " last year, I did have irises. It was quite funny, though frustrating. I should have taken a picture but I didn't think of it at the time. 

Sadness and Prayers

Hi everyone, I come to you all in hopes that you will help me lift my sister, Ruth, and her fiance up in prayers. I found out this afternoon that my sister miscarried this morning. She was 21 1/2 weeks along. They unfortunately found out that it was a boy at this time. They named him Jeremiah James. I talked to my sister today and she is doing okay physically, but as you can imagine she is heartbroken. Please keep Ruth and Dan in your prayers as they go through the motions of grieving for this little one that is now enjoying God's arms. They are planning on having a funeral service in the next week or so. If you could add in your prayers that Brad and I will be able to get off work and travel plans will work, so we can go and support my sister, I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks!

Baking woes

So, I am sitting minding my own business checking my blogs, when I hear this pop in the kitchen. I wonder, "Hmm...I wonder what that was?" I wander in the kitchen (actually I had a feeling I knew what it was) and looked, there was my amish bread starter all over the counter. Actually, it was only about an 1/8 of  the bag but you get the idea. I was able to get most of it back in the bag but that wasn't exactly what I wanted to see. It did prompt me to look at the extra starter I had in my lunch bag, that I have been trying to give to someone at work. Which, not only had my lunch bag fallen on the floor, but it, too, had popped open in my lunch bag. Thankfully, it had not spilled all over the floor or my lunch bag. The joys of yeast fermenting! :) Thanks Lindy, for that first starter, the bread has been really good.:) Maybe, the next loaf/loaves that I make, I'll place a picture up. Now that's an idea!

Thanks for listening to my ramblings! Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Tribute to my Great Grandfather

Sorry it has been a couple of days. I have been working nights this week and I haven't had a lot of time to work on my blog. Thank you to all who welcomed me to "Blogger World", it has been fun so far! 

Now to what I decided to post on today! I was thinking what we have been doing for the past month or so and realized it had been a month since we said goodbye to a very important part of my family and a good role model! 

The picture is of Brad and I and my Great Grandparents. Yes, my Great Grandparents. They are on my mom's side of the family. Unfortunately, on June 14, my Great grandpa went home to be with Jesus. We will definitely miss him but we all know that he is up in heaven, walking with Jesus (along with my mom and other family members) and he is probably gardening God's gardens as well. He was a fantastic gardener even to the point of buying seeds for this years plant, at 98 years old. Up until this point, both he and my Great Grandma were living still on the farm by themselves. 

The reason I say he was a great role model is two fold. He was an awesome man of God in everything he did. I have very fond memories of him reading the Christmas story every year. The second belongs to my Great Grandma too. I remember the first Christmas I brought Brad home to meet my extended family and my Great Grandparents were there. I introduced them to him and that's when I found out that they had been married for 67 years and still very happy. He said that marriage was a lot of work but well worth it. At this point Brad and I were still dating (though he proposed right after Christmas that year) but it was definitely encouragement. When he died he and my Great Grandma were married 71 years. That to me is an amazing testimony in itself. I know that whenever Brad and I think of them, we smile and say, "We hope we are that lucky!" 

Thanks for going down memory lane with me! Like I said, we miss him but we can't wait seeing him again in heaven, standing tall, with all fingers and gardening in the gardens of God! 

Over the Weekend, Part 2

As I said in the previous blog, it was such a busy weekend that it has to be told in 2 separate blogs! We also got to meet my nephew Hayden! He is 6 months old now and it was the first time we all got to meet him! I was a little afraid that he would be afraid of us or shy at first but he warmed up to his Minnesota relatives right away. It may have helped that Mama wasn't very far away too. Unfortunately, my brother, Dan, was unable to come with this trip but he and Hayden will be back in September. As you can see in the pictures, he is a cutee pie and very smilie. We were all really excited to see him! 

Proud Auntie Sarah and Hayden

Proud Mama (How Precious)

I made these for Hayden

I love my nephew!

Playing with Uncle Brad

Gramma & Hayden

Playing with Gramma's Toys

Playing with Auntie Molly

Holding Hayden for the first time!

Proud Grampa Holding Hayden for the first time!

Uncle Brad, Hayden, Auntie Sarah, Mama aka TeriAnna

Uncle Brad and Hayden (Cute smiles)

Auntie Ruthie playing with Hayden

Over the Weekend, Part 1

Wow, this was an extremely busy weekend for us! On Friday we headed down to my parents house for the weekend. When we got there we unloaded and then headed to church where there was a reunion. In 1998, my brother, Dan and I, went to Costa Rica on a missions trip. There were approx. 26 of us that went. We helped a church just outside of San Jose. We did a lot of work around the church plus we were able to do some evangelistic things as well. We each stayed with a national family for about 3 days and got the cultural experience. It was definitely a good experience and one that I will never forget. It had been 10 years since that trip and we got together to share memories. It was a lot of fun, and it was amazing the things we remembered! 

This is a picture of the group at the reunion

Meeting Hayden

 This weekend I get to meet this little guy for the first time! I am super excited! This my nephew Hayden. He is now 6 months old this is a picture from when he was born. I hope to have more pics from this weekend! As soon as I figure out how to download photos from our camera. I will have a few more pictures to share as well! 

WOW! I'm blogging!

I never expected to join the blogging world but here I am! I am very excited to share with you what is happening in our life! It has been a busy summer and that is why this hasn't gotten started yet but here we go! I can't promise that I will be blogging something everyday but I will try to do something at least once a week! So here goes! Welcome to the Paulson blog!