2 weeks of pure entertainment

Sara and Chris came home for Thanksgiving from Jacksonville FL to spend a couple of weeks in Indiana before they take off for their month's missionary work in Africa in January. We really enjoyed having them at home...we were so busy. Chris left after 3-4 days, but Sara and the boys stayed for 2 weeks. Which was good because I will be watching them for the month of January, and they do not know me very well.

We sure did alot of fun things while they were here... We went to the zoo, to a gymnastic club, we played on a zip line and played in the leaves... My yard has so many leaves... it takes forever to rake them but the kids thought raking leaves was a real treat, so one day we raked the entire yard and jumped in them for 2 hours... Kids make work so much fun!

It was rather sad to see them leave for Florida again, but it won't be long and I will go down to Jacksonville for 2 weeks to watch the boys while Sara and Chris will be on a month long medical mission trip.

Our entire family came to our home for Thanksgiving. I was so excited to use my brand new Dining room table and chairs.

When Stef and Dan moved back to Indiana, they needed a dining room table and chairs. We had been using Jayna's great-great grandmother's Dining room table and chairs for 33 years . I was afraid if Stef purchased a table/chairs, then in a few years when we are ready to scale down our posessions, no one would want this family heirloom, so we gave it to her now.

I pulled out my china and I had a wonderful time getting ready for our party.

This will be the only time this holiday season that we will have all our children and grandchildren together since Sara and Chris will be going to serve as Missionaries in Africa over Christmas.

This year is supposed to be getting better...

The week after the birthday party, I was running between the church and the office complex, tripped over a post and landed on my chin... Off to the emergency room for a few stitches and then many trips to the dentist as I had sprained my jaw and my teeth were out of alignment. Talk about alot of pain! Ibuprofen was my best friend for a couple of weeks. A piece was fit for my mouth...the whole while I am still teaching 2 bible studies, and doing special music for the United Methodist Women's conference meeting the day after my fall.

A week goes by and I thought I had a sore throat, but it kept getting worse. I started running a high fever. Could it be the swine flu? Oh, no a trip to the doctor said I was fine, so a couple more days of misery that would not end, I made my way to the dentist's office and wouldn't you know it...I had developed an infection that caused me to have to have a wisdom tooth extracted the day before Sara and Chris came for Thanksgiving (which was Nov 20th). By the time I finally got around to going to the doctor the infection was pretty advanced. I was taking 2 different anti biotics - which we all know causes other problems intestinally... How in the world am I going to be able to host Thanksgiving dinner for my family of 14 while on pain killers and strong anti biotics -- Man do I feel old...

Nov 6th

In the midst of getting the animated light show up and running, I planned my step-father's 80th birthday party! I asked what kind of party Daren would enjoy...Mom said "let's have soup beans and corn bread". Oh, my. I have never made soup beans...and how do you have a beautiful birthday party while serving soup beans? Yes, it was a challenge...but we managed to pull the party off beautifully!

Wow, it's been a long time

Woah - it has been a long time since I've written in the blog. Life has been so busy - hardly time to breathe. Life should not be like that... we need to slow down...

In 2007 Steve had the brainy idea that Grace UMC needed to begin an animated Christmas light show on the outside of the church building. Everyone said that "It can't be done"..."we are an older congregation"...."there isn't anyone who can do this kind of thing"...well, don't say it can't be done to us... Jayna began researching the programs, did a lot of calling around, visited other animated light shows in the area and ...last year (right after Steve's heart attack) we strung, hung, and lit over 30,000 lights on the side of the church building. So, once again, come November, the process began. You cannot imagine all of the hours it takes to produce something of this magnitude. Not only did it take a cherry picker, professional "hangers" and expert electrical engineers, we utilize computer guru's and sound techincians...all overseen by "yours truly". I never imagined that when I became a pastor's wife that I would be going to town hall meetings to get streets closed and learn computer software, but here I am today - stretched beyond my capacity and loving every moment - okay I didn't love it when I had to call support to get the thing up and running again, but other than that, once the lights began dancing...it made it all worth while.

Right after Christmas we are going to begin the process of programming an animated portrayal of the birth of Christ..I'm very excited about trying to do this. It's going to be great! Okay I think it's going to be great ...if we can figure it all out. This year we tried to figure out how to put our list of songs in groupings and we fried the monster brain and had to order a new one..ugh!

Jaybins 4th birthday

Thursday night we celebrated the fact that Stephen's heart attack was one year ago and Praise the Lord... this year is over! We went to eat at Half Moon Restaurant. They serve VERY good hamburgers there and we ordered one to celebrate that Stephen has gone an entire year eating healthy and watching fats...but not tonight! We ate a hamburger and french fries! We were good...we split one meal! Actually the hamburgers are so large there, that half a hamburger was more than enough for both of us. Stephanie made dessert - so we then ate pumpkin cake.

Friday we went to Indy to go to the Children's museum for the King Tut exhibition. Wouldn't you know it...Friday the kids were out of school and there was no place to park and there were kids everywhere, so we opted to go to circle center mall downtown Indy. It had been years since we have been to the circle center, so that sounded like fun...well, until we realized that the FFA convention was going on and there were 40,000 high school kids running around the mall and over the streets. They were all dressed in blue pants and blue "FFA" jackets. We spent about 30 minutes in the mall and decided to get out of that chaos. So, then we decided that we would go Christmas shopping for the grandkids at Toys R Us. That didn't work out either. A semi truck had crashed into the bridge on the corner of Highway 69 and 465, so all traffic was re-routed past the mall. We turned onto 86th street and soon discovered that the traffic was so congested that it would take hours to get to our destination, so we left town and came home!

Saturday we went back to Indy to celebrate Jaybin's 4th birthday! We went bowling! Yes, Stephen bowled for the first time since the heart attack. He was pretty slow at first, but the second game he got his "mo jo" back...he beat everyone that game. Jaybin and Kinsen used bumpers and Grandma got to bowl on that lane! (I'm embarassed to say that even with the bumpers Grandma only bowled 78 pins!) We did have a fun day bowling and watching the Notre Dame game. Then Jaybin got to open his presents and we all got to play with them!

Let's Celebrate

On Thursday of this week, Stephen will be celebrating the fact that one year ago he suffered the massive heart attack - AND, blessing upon blessing, he is still with us. Mom and Dad Beutler, Jason, Kendra, Kinsen, Jaybin, Stephanie and Daniel are coming over to Kokomo and we are going out to eat to celebrate!

I would have to say that 2009 was the most difficult year of our life - if I think about it very long, I get overwhelmed. October 22, he suffered the heart attack. Because the heart attack was so massive, we waited 10 days before the doctors thought he was strong enough to endure surgery. Nov 1, 2008 Steve was recuperating from open heart surgery. Amazingly, one month later Steve preached at the Christmas services. That's about all he could do, but he got up there and proclaimed the message of Christ once again. That was a milestone for us and we celebrated big time by taking a 4 hour nap that afternoon!

The first of January Jayna's father was diagnosed with Alzheimers. February Jayna's mother had surgery which resulted in blindness for 7 months, so Jayna was traveling back and forth to Plymouth IN to take care of her parents.

February and into April, Steve was going to therapy and getting stronger every day. Except for the great pain in his left arm, he was doing well. The doctors thought that perhaps the muscle tissue was damaged during the heart attack, so we treated him with therapy for months. In May we went to Disneyworld and Stephen did very well. He couldn't hold the grandkids because of the pain in his arm that was creeping into his jaw by this point, but Steve did love being with the family. After Disneyworld, things began to fall apart. The pain became greater...his arm, his jaw, and now the chest hurt him so badly. We kept going to the doctor, and finally in August after Steve did not pass the echo stress test, Dr Ritchie did another heart catheter and discovered that two of his bypasses had failed and Steve had 2 more aterial blockages that needed opened. We also learned at that time that the lower portion of his heart was completely dead heart muscle tissue that will never regenerate itself. He will forever function on 30% heart function.

In July Stephen's mother had a total knee replacement, so our life consisted of traveling back and forth to South Bend. No sooner was Mom beginning to recover from her knee surgery, Jayna falls off of the front step and breaks her foot in three places and is on crutches for 12 long weeks. You can only imagine the total frustration for both Stephen and I as we struggled once again to survive. We thank the Lord for our church family and good friends that helped us once again through this time.

As soon as Jayna gets the cast off, 10 days later (obviously not walking very strongly yet) she trips and falls on her chin - creating the need for 4 stitches in the chin and treating the sprained jaw with heat/ice and a mouthpiece to keep the jaw in place at night. (of which she is still wearing and has a doctor's appointment next week to see how the jaw is doing)

Can you believe such a year? It's been crazy and we certainly are celebrating the fact that this year is almost over! Surely we will not have to endure two such chaotic years in a row.