Happy Thanksgiving!

Steve and I have a lot to be thankful for this year!  From a new house to new friends, and even a couple trips to Europe.  But, we are mostly thankful for a loving God and Christ's pure sacrifice.  God has been good to us!

Things have been a little crazy in our household, hence the long blog hiatus.  I was sick and out of commission for a couple of weeks and have finally bounced back and pulled the house back together (for some reason the status of the house is directly correlated with my status).

My mom even came for a few days to be with me after being down.  I'm extremely blessed with an awesome mother who drops everything to spend time with her kids (and grandkids!).  Thanks mom!  While she was here, she helped me get up all our Christmas decorations -- yeah that's right, our Christmas decorations were up 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving.  That's how we roll!

Thanksgiving crept up on us quickly!  We had a total of 4 thanksgivings this year -- whew!  My tummy is a pretty happy camper right now.  We celebrated Thanksgiving at a church dinner, friend (Steve's coworkers) dinner, and 2 dinners with my family.  This year, we changed things up and spent our break visiting my family. Usually, we spend the holiday in CO with Steve's family and celebrate with my family on a different weekend.  We spent Thursday at an aunt's thanksgiving (just Steve & I, my parents, & 1 sister) and Saturday my mom hosted a Thanksgiving with the rest of my siblings and family.

We returned from our long weekend listening to Christmas music to a house decked out with Christmas (see now why I decorated so early??)!    We are so ready for Christmas, even though we haven't finalized all our Christmas plans yet.  Now to finalize our Christmas lists, purchase gifts, and enjoy the Christmas season!

Birdies

Who knew that Steve was so into birds?  We live in a perfect area for him, as there are all sorts of little birds flying around.  Over the summer, he put out a suet block, but the squirrels ate it right away.  After some research, he bought a window bird feeder that squirrels are unable to reach.

All summer long, we were convinced that the birds were too scared to eat out of it because of the reflection in the window.  Steve switched out the food a couple times, but we never saw any birds.  In early fall, I was sitting in the living room and heard a noise and discovered a little bird in it!  I tried to take a picture, but I had to move to get the camera, which scared the bird and resulted in a very fuzzy picture.  Steve just had to take my word that there was a bird in the feeder.

Since then, Steve has seen birds in it, but we've never been able to take a picture.  As soon as we move in the house, the bird jumps ship and doesn't return.  Until yesterday --- I caught a bird in the act!

(Not the best picture, but you can totally see the bird in the feeder!  I watched either the same bird, or multiple birds, come in and out of the feeder for awhile.  Steve claims that the feeder being at an angle has intrigued the birds to come into it -- sure dear!)

Ever since we've lived here, we've heard owls hoot randomly.  We've talked to the neighbors and were told that a big owl lives in one of our trees, but we've never been able to see him.  I've even had the neighbor came over and tell me that we missed it!  

Last Friday night, we were headed to meet friends at the movies.  We had just gotten out of the driveway when Steve parks the car in the road and jumps out of the car saying "THE OWL!".  Ha ha, he had seen it swoop across the street and land in the tree across the street from our house.  It was too dark to take a picture but it was neat to finally see an owl!

Yesterday, when Steve came home, he came straight in and said -- "The Owl's outside!  I have to take a picture!!"  He ran out and soon brought back some pretty neat shots of the owl in our tree.  I don't understand his fascination with all birds, but I definitely understand his fascination with owls!

(There's something about the eyes that just fascinate me.)

(Steve's doing research to see if we can figure out what kind of owl this is.  So if you know -- let us know!)

(So pretty!)

We're not sure if the owl we saw Friday night is the same as the one we got the pictures.  We'll have to keep our eyes and ears open and see if we can find another and document it.

Refrigerator Repairman

I have now added a new skill onto my resume -- refrigerator repairman.

We've been noticing some temperature issues in our fridge over the past week.  At first I was just noticing that items in the drawers were freezing -- like the carrots and lunch meat.  So at first we thought the fridge temperature control was up to high, so we turned it down.  Stuff in the drawer was still frozen while items on the shelves were warmer than they should be.  So we turned the temperature back up and discovered there's a control knob for just the drawers.  We put it on the warmer setting, but didn't notice any change.

We didn't think much of it until a few days later when I went to get chocolate chips out of the freezer door.  Everything in the door had thawed!!  I immediately checked the meat on the shelves, but they were still frozen.  Weird.  I decided there was just an issue in the door and though I'd deal with it later.  That night, I went to get ice cream from out of the freezer, and the ice cream was all soft!  Ahhhhh!

So obviously, there were major issues going on.  I called up my parents -- I remember them having issues with their fridge before.  My dad gave me some advice and said I'd need to take the back panel off the inside of the freezer and see what was going on with the coils & fan.

I put all my freezer items into cooler bags, turned the freezer on the warmest setting, and started to dissassemble the freezer.  There was a layer of frost on the panel that I had to get rid of first.  Then once the panel was off, i discovered that the entire coil system was frozen over -- yikes!

(The entire coil system frozen over -- not a good sign!)

With hair dryer in hand, I began to melt all the ice.  I'd take breaks and just let the ice melt on its own.  After a couple of hours, all the ice was melted and I got the freezer all dried up.  My next task was to locate the fan and make sure it was working.  My dad said that generally, just taking off the one panel would reveal the coils and fan; however, that's not how our model worked.  After looking up the model number online (thanks dad!), I found a diagram and figured out I had to take out the ice bucket motor and another panel.  Eventually we found the fan (Steve jumped in and helped), and discovered it was working fan.  It's possible that it was frozen up too, but I don't know.  It was fine when we got to it.  

With the freezer all defrosted and dried, I began to put it back together.  I got all the screws and bolts in the right place and was almost done when I realized I had a random plastic piece left over.  I remember taking it out of the freezer, because it was just taped in, but I couldn't remember where it went.  So we made up a spot for it (the diagram I found online didn't explain its location well).  I put the ice maker back in and turned it on, then all this water started pouring through the system and got the freezer all wet.  Ugh.  This happened a few times until I gave up and turned the ice maker off. I cleaned up all the water, again.  

I got the freezer all assembled and turned back on.  Within an hour, it was back in business and cold again.  I restocked the freezer and made sure to not block the fan vent (highly likely that this was the issue).  I put a towel in the ice maker and turned it on.  If it overfilled with water as I thought it was doing, I would notice it frozen on the towel in the morning.  When I got up the next day, the towel was just cold and there was ice int he machine.  I'm guessing the system was too warm when I first turned it on.  Whew!

Now we just have to monitor the temperature and make sure it doesn't happen again!  It should also be noticed the the temperature in the fridge seems to be correct -- the stuff in the drawers are no longer frozen! Oh, and I left this out.  When we first moved in, we could get water out of the door, but recently it hasn't been working.  We've also had issues with the ice options not working in the door, but that fixed itself a few months back.  Well now, the water flows through the door again!  We have a fully functioning freezer and fridge -- yay!!  Thanks again dad for talking me through the problem!

Never-ending Leaf Raking

Steve and I spent our entire weekend working in the yard raking leaves.  Our city does a leaf collection starting this week.  They will come around to different areas and collect any piles of leaves at the edge of your yard.  Word on the street is that they come around 2x's, but we're not positive.  So we wanted to at least take advantage of the collection this week by putting as many leaves at the edge as we could.

We had a pretty good system -- I used the leaf blower in the front while Steve raked piles in the back and side yards.  The blower is easy to use and makes it nice that you don't have to bend over to pick the leaves up; however, when you get a lot of leaves blown together, moving them is a long and tedious process.  The verdict is still out on whether it is more efficient to just rake into piles or blow to the edge.

The next day, Steve worked on blowing leaves in our neighbor's yard to help them out while I went around and picked up the piles he had raked.  I have a very secret system of pickup up leaves involving a snow shovel -- so secret that no pictures are allowed.  Only a select few have witnessed the pick-up system.  I put the piles of leaves into our big rolling trash bin.  Once the bin was full, I'd wheel it to the front yard and dump it into piles on the edge.  Steve just wanted me to put it into a bag, but with my pick-up system, it was easier to dump the leaves into the bin. The extra work of dumping the bin was worth it.

We don't know when the city will pick up the leaves, we just know they started in our district today.  As I type up this blog, it seems that our trees have decided to drop the rest of their leaves. At times, it looks like its snowing leaves through the windows.  It looks like Steve and I have a lot more leaf raking to do.  Why can't the trees all decide to dump the leaves at once?!  At least this year, we're being proactive on picking them up; unlike last year where we were raking up soaking wet leaves in the middle of December because the previous owners didn't do it.

(Steve preferred to use the bamboo rake that his parents bought for us.  Unfortunately, Steve's raking is a little more intense than the rake was prepared for, and some of the tines came out.  It should be salvageable, though.)

(Me and my awesome leaf blowing skills.)

(Our pile along the edge of the yard.  I'm pretty sure we could double this pile just be raking the yard again.  Oh the joys of having trees!)

Sandy in Ohio

Who would have thought that a hurricane on the East Coast would affect us here in Ohio?  Well, it happened.  While the Jersey Shore and other east coast areas were being slammed with water & wind, we experienced our first snow of the year!

It was a shock to wake up Oct 30th with huge snow flakes falling from the sky.  We probably got around a 1/2 inch of standing snow after about 3 hours, but the snow soon turned to a winter mix to rain.  By the end of the day, almost all of the snow was melted :(.

Steve and I are so ready for Christmas.  We had a pact to not listen to Christmas music or watch movies until November, but with the snow on Oct 30th, I caved.  I figured that the first snowfall should count as the beginning of winter!  So as the snow fell, I watched my all time FAVORITE Christmas movie -- White Christmas.  I have the ENTIRE movie memorized and even know random facts like the girl (Vera Ellen) who plays Judy struggled with anorexia and she always wears a turtle neck in the movie to hide her neck.  So I should say, I didn't really watch the movie, more like listened to and sang along as I put plastic up on the windows (which honestly probably does nothing for our house since there's no insulation in the walls).

(This was taking around 8:30 in the morning.  At first it was just a light snow with some rain mixed in.)

(About an hour later the flakes were becoming bigger and everything was getting a nice covering of snow.  It was hard to try to take a picture of the actual flakes, so you will just have to take my word that they were big and beautiful!)

(We had one little fatality -- the tree in the middle of the rose bushes bit the dust.  In the previous picture, you can see it leaning a lot, and finally it snapped -- I heard it from inside!  This tree has always struggled with staying upright in the wind.  We had just finished staking it 2 days before it snapped.  Oh well --- 2 little shoots are intact.  We'll see how it fares through the winter and decide what to do next spring.)

Check it Out!

Go to Trisha's (Steve's mom) blog to see more pictures and a different perspective on their visit!

Around Lima

Steve and I have really gotten involved with our new home city.  We've found a church that we are planning on joining and have already begun to make deep relationships with people in our Sunday school class and plan on attending a Bible study in the next couple of weeks.  I am also joining a woman's Bible study through a friend from the class.

We've also been a kick learning about Lima and its history.  Earlier in the year, we visited the Lima City Museum and got to see key pieces from Lima's history (like a locomotive and the jail cell Dillinger broke out of).  Just a few weeks ago, we went on a "Spooky Lantern Tour" and got to walk around downtown Lima with a tour guide that shared a lot of history from the city (most of the stories tended to focus on mysterious deaths and supposed hauntings -- hence the "spooky").

While on the tour, we got to go into some old buildings in the downtown area and here about their history.  One building used to be an old bowling alley and now has legal offices.  Our favorite building was the Lima Trust building.  It was built back in the 20s and used to be a busy bank.  Now, the building is pretty much condemned and undergoing slow reconstruction.

(Inside the Lima Trust building. You can see all the teller windows around the room.  The stain glass in the background shows the foundations of lima -- agriculture, oil, ect.)

(Here's a close up of the teller window, above each one had specific titles, like this one says "Per Loans".  And through the teller window you can see the old bank vault.  We actually got to walk around and go inside it -- kind of creepy!)

It was pretty cold when we went on the tour.  We knew it would be and I had even brought hot apple cider and coca with us!  It was neat to get to hear the stories and try to imagine downtown Lima back during its bustling days.  

Halloween in Lima was quite different than what I am used to.  The NW Ohio area had structured days when trick-or-treating was allowed.  So we had the pleasure of passing out candy to trick-or-treaters the Thursday before Halloween -- kind of bizarre.  And the week before that, we went to a Halloween party!

(Can you guess who we are???  There was some confusion on Steve's character which became very comical.  People would sing the theme song for the character he was mistaken for.  At the end of the night, when we left Steve went on a rant about how he in no way looked like the other character -- it was funny!)