WOW!

Sorry it's been so long since an update! Things have been crazy here in Hoosick. Here's a quick rundown:

We visited CBC in Williamstown last Sunday, and it was a lot of fun to see so many old friends. We enjoyed the Youth Sunday service - I can't believe how grown up all the "little kids" are now!

I officially started work this past Monday, although we had been around the farm all weekend. Some of the things I've done this week include: cleaning and organizing the office and tack room, creating new turnout and feed boards, revising the employee handbook, hiring and training a new worker, riding several horses and working with several young ones in the round pen, helping out with chores, taking a couple of horses home and picking up a couple loads of hay on the way back, showing visitors around the farm, correcting employee mistakes, bathing a couple of horses in preparation for shows and demos, and going with Jamie to her demonstration at Dressage at Saratoga yesterday. It's been a busy week!

Luke worked on finishing up the tack room at the end of last week. Unfortunately, he was sick most of this week with some sort of flu we think. He had a very high fever accompanied by achiness and lack of appetite for three days, and stomach pain for three days after that! He is feeling much better now, although he gets tired quickly, has lost a lot of weight (he's bony!) and feels pretty weak. So please pray that he returns to full health soon and is able to start working again.

Please also pray for our friend Jamie. She's going through some stressful health issues right now - please pray for her health and peace of mind, and pray for us as we seek to pour God's love into her life.

Well, it's time to go up and do night check at the barn, so I better close. Tomorrow starts another busy yet exciting week. While the past two weeks have been exhausting in many ways, I also feel so blessed to have a job that I absolutely love. It truly doesn't feel like I'm going to work every day - more like I get to do things I enjoy and spend time with people I love, and by God's amazing grace I get paid to do it! He's so good to me, it is truly overwhelming. I am blessed beyond measure.

Let us know also how we can be praying for you and what's going on in your lives! Although we may be hard to get ahold of right now, we still want to stay connected and look forward to hearing how y'all are doing.

Hugs,
Erin

We're Here!

Well, it was a wonderful, although incredibly wet weekend. Between Friday night and noon on Sunday, 6.5 inches of rain fell, and it was still raining when we left. A disaster has been declared in the area. My parents were staying with friends in our church, and their basement flooded - Mommy stepped down into water when she got out of bed Sunday morning. Jonathan worked an eleven and a half hour shift, and at the end a guy fainted and he had to call an ambulance. When we were coming home from church, two roads were flooded. Just as we were getting ready to leave, Luke realized he had a flat tire.

But, WE MADE IT! We're here, all our stuff is here, I graduated, am all done, and am so excited to be here. I'll try to keep updating as we figure out more of what we'll be doing, where we'll be living, etc. Take care.

ALL DONE

Yay! I finished my paper this morning, so now I'm completely done with college! I'm excited, but that excitement is tempered by the fact that the weather prediction for Saturday has gotten much worse since yesterday. Now there's a 60% chance of rain all day. NO! Not good. Ugh. Usually I love rain, but now is just not the time for it.

Tonight Luke and I are going to a goodbye party that his company is throwing for him, so that should be fun. Since I finished my paper this morning, I've been packing all day. I got all the dishes packed (and that box is heavy!), and now I'm going to go do glasses and mugs, and maybe pictures (in frames) if I have time before Luke picks me up.

It's only two days until my family gets here! We haven't seen them since Christmas, so that will be a treat.

I'm really, really hoping it doesn't rain!

MY LAST FINAL

I'm DONE with college exams! WOOHOO!!! I had my last final at 2 this afternoon, it was tough but it's done! I have one research paper to polish tonight and tomorrow morning, and then I'll be completely done with college. I can't wait! I'm going to go work on it now so I can be completely, totally, one-hundred-percent no-one-can-say-otherwise DONE!

Oh, and it's pouring buckets out right now but there's only a 20% chance of rain on Sat. (and only 10% on Sun., when we have to move all our stuff!) Yay God! Praying that the rain stays away...

Finals Time!

The NAMI walk on Sat. was great!

I'm now in the middle of studying for finals. Both of mine are tomorrow (Tues.) - one at 10:30 and one at 2. I'd appreciate prayer today and tomorrow as I'm studying and taking them... although I feel prepared and relatively confident, my body is doing it's lovely nervous-upset-stomach routine. :-P So peace and calm for both body and mind would be great!

The chance of precipitation for Sat. is down to 40%, so that's good but I'm praying it goes down even farther! Kelly, it's only supposed to be 58 degrees so I don't think we'll have to worry about folks passing out (at least not from the heat...).

Okay, back to studying, I just wanted to give a quick update. 4 days until my family arrives (Yay!), 5 days until graduation, and 6 days until we move! Whew!

Barbecue Night

This was posted by a friend of mine and it's pretty funny. Not that Luke would ever come to the conclusion at the end, but it's still a pretty good laugh. :)

Barbecue Season Is Coming!

After the long months of cold and winter, we will soon be coming up to summer and BBQ season. Therefore it is important to refresh your memory on the etiquette of this sublime outdoor cooking as it's the only type of cooking a real man will do, probably because there is an element of danger involved.

When a husband volunteers to do the BBQ the following chain of events are put into motion:

Routine...

1) The wife buys the food.
2) The wife makes the salad, prepares the vegetables, and makes dessert.
3) The wife prepares the meat for cooking, places it on a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils and sauces,

and takes it to the DH who is lounging beside the grill - drink in hand.

Here comes the important part:

4) THE HUSBAND PLACES THE MEAT ON THE GRILL.

More routine....

5) The wife goes inside to organize the plates and cutlery.
6) The wife comes out to tell the husband that the meat is burning.. He thanks her and asks if she will bring another drink while he deals with the situation.


Important again:

7) THE HUSBAND TAKES THE MEAT OFF THE GRILL AND HANDS IT TO THE WIFE.


More routine.....

8) The wife prepares the plates, salad, bread, utensils, napkins,
sauces and brings them to the table.
9) After eating, the wife clears the table and does the dishes.

And most important of all:

10) Everyone PRAISES the HUSBAND and THANKS HIM for his cooking efforts.

11) The husband then asks the wife how she enjoyed "her night off." And, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that

there's just no pleasing some women....?

;)

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

So, today is the first day that weather.com has had a forecast for next Sat., May 13th, graduation day (see, I haven't totally forgotten about it! ;)). And the forecast says 60% chance of showers! No, no, no, this is very bad. If it's sunny, they hold graduation outside on the beautiful quad and there's plenty of room for everyone to attend. If it rains, they have to hold it in the gym, and each senior only gets a few tickets because there's limited seating. I was able to get a few extras, but I still only have six tickets. So, please pray that it's sunny everyone, so that Luke, my whole family, and my grandparents who are driving up will be able to attend.

NAMI Walks for the Mind of America

This Saturday, May 5th, rain or shine, Luke and I are participating in the annual NAMIWalks Boston, a 5k (3 mile) walk set up by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an organization which advocates for the mentally ill and sponsors programs for the mentally ill around the US. We will be going as part of a team from a nearby clubhouse (day program) for folks with mental illness, where I did a project last fall. We'd love to have some sponsors! Money raised will go to support programs for the mentally ill around MA, like Pioneer House, the group we're going with. These programs are incredibly important, as they provide support for folks with a mental illness who are seeking to find gainful employment and integrate into the community. If any of you are interested in sponsoring us, there's an easy way to do so! Simply go to: www.nami.org/namiwalks, scroll down to the US map and click on MA, then scroll down and you'll see a box on the right side that says "Support Our Walk!" - click on "Sponsor a Walker." You can then scroll down, find our names, click on them, and choose how much to donate.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support!

Grand Opening!

Well, once again we're back from a crazy weekend in NY! We arrived at 8:30 on Thurs. night and unloaded all of our stuff that I had packed the week before. We didn't stay up super late Thurs. night, but we were up bright and early Friday morning and up to the barn by 7. Luke worked on trim in the tack room while I helped get horses outside and strip all the stalls of their bedding. Then several of us started scrubbing the stalls boards to get them clean. We started at about 10:30, and didn't finish until 5pm. Yep, that's 6 1/2 hours bent over, scrubbing. I'm still sore. Luke came out about 4 and helped finish the last few stalls, while some of the other girls and I started putting clean bedding in the stalls that were done and bringing horses in. After feeding the horses we started cleaning the tack room, which was full of stain, varnish, wood scraps, sawdust, horse tack, garbage, you name it. About 9:30pm Jamie's friend Kate and I headed down to the house to start working on flyers for the Grand Opening, giving info about the farm, upcoming events (the schedule I posted last week), and a timeline of the day. We also started working on small signs with names and info to go on the stalls of the horses that were going to stay in because they are for sale or were going to be used in a demo during the day. Jamie came down about 11:00, and we wrestled with the printer for awhile. Kate left and Luke went to bed about 12:30, and Jamie and I finally headed to bed at 2am. We were up at 5:15 taking showers, went up to the barn to feed and make sure everyone had arrived there to get chores done, and then Jamie and I drove around putting directional signs up at some of the tricky intersections while Luke and Eric finished up a few pieces of trim in the tack room and everyone else got the horses out and the stalls cleaned. By the time we got back, tables had been set up in the tack room, and we all ran around putting up parking signs, grooming demo horses, assigning tasks, handing out shirts to the employees... basically whatever needed to be done. The first visitors started arriving about 10:15, and by the time Jamie's first demo rolled around at noon, there were over 85 people there watching. Throughout the day we had around 250 visitors stop by, and some stayed for a good amount of time. Kate's husband James did all the food for lunch and afternoon snacks, and it was amazing! The Grand Opening officially ended at 5, and most everyone was gone by 5:30. Then the employees and close friends all gathered for a champagne toast and celebration with more food in the tack room. It was a great evening, and the day as a whole was a huge success.

We all crashed in bed by 9:15, and Luke and I slept for 11 hours! We left around 10, got home at 1:30, I sang in a concert at 3, got home at 5:30 and went to bed, woke up for an hour at 8:30 for some dinner and got a little work done, then went back to bed and slept until 7:30 this morning! Now it's 10pm and I've been fading fast for the past hour, so I'm headed to bed, still sore and tired from the weekend, but very happy, pleased with how things went, and even more excited about working at HGF this coming year.

Oh, and we met a really nice Christian family and have two new leads on potential living places, so we're praising God and looking forward to seeing how He will provide for us in this new venture. There were some other exciting things that happened today, but I just don't have the energy to write about them now. Sometime soon...