I'm thankful to have been blessed by their presence

Tonight I had to say goodbye to two wonderful people. I have went to church with Jim and Kathy Billings for close to 10 years. They have meant the world to me. It has been a dream of theirs to move back to North Carolina, and they thought they had better do it now, rather than wait until it was too late.

They have been there for the important days in my life... my high school graduation, our wedding, and my college graduation. I can always count on Jim for a hug or a word of encouragement. I have seen them go through life's ups and downs. Kathy had a lung transplant many years ago, and has had various health difficulties as a result. She has also been in and out of the hospital several times with broken bones. Jim is like the energizer bunny, he keeps going and going and going. He cleaned the church with my grandma. He whistles as he vacuums, and puts more effort into the cleaning jobs than he should, all the while, one of the happiest people I know.

It's amazing that Pastor Mark's message today was on being thankful because that is exactly what I am. I feel so blessed to have been part of Jim and Kathy's lives. They will truely be missed in Topeka, but they are already planning their trip back in May. We may have to plan a trip to North Carolina someday in the future.

Fall Vacation in Cassville, MO

On Wednesday evening we left for our annual trip to Cassville, Missouri. Usually there are 30+ people along for the trip, this year the number was down to 15 due to various reasons. Even though the numbers were down, we had a great time. The weather was beautiful and the trees really started changing colors while we were down there. We also were able to get a lot of jeeping done because there were only 7 jeeps to get over the tough stuff rather than 11.

There were lots of trees blocking trails, showing that not very many people had been fourwheeling over the last several months. The guys used a variety of resources and plans to take care of the trees. These included using a small battery-powered chain saw, a machete(spelling?), tow straps, a bow saw, and the most clever, a handyman jack. When one plan failed, they used another. Once they saw that we couldn't get around a tree any other way, the downed tree was not going to stop them. THEY WOULD FIGURE IT OUT! I'll post some pictures of a couple of these instances.

After the first day, I decided it was best for Alan not to lead the way. I was only kidding of course, but within 10 minutes he had gotten stuck between two trees and stuck in a washout. The jeep got a few ouchies in these situations. The one with the washout was pretty funny in my opinion. We got out to assess the situation before attempting to cross the washout, but my brother said, "Oh yeah, I think you can make it." Well, I decided that if he was going to try it, I needed to be taking pictures of it. He put one wheel on the trail and one in the washout. The pictures really don't show how tipsy the jeep was. One by one, the guys climbed on the back to help put weight on the back of the jeep so he wouldn't slide into the washout completely, and so the jeep wouldn't tip. I thought they looked like a bunch of monkeys. He ended up having to be pulled out backward and tore up the front finder as a result. We backed up and went through the creek to continue on the trail.

It was weird having only one kid around. My neice was the only one. Usually there are 11 kids that scramble the minute the jeep stops. It was pretty quiet with Emily being the only one. She had fun and even went to our motel rooms to trick-or-treat, however she wouldn't share her candy stash with me!

Well, here are some pics from the trip. Enjoy!