What else could go wrong?

That has been the phrase this past week as things have been really rough here. If you have seen national news, you know that we got slammed with ice here. I am going to try to post the picts of our back yard. We saved a baby bird in the process. his tail feathers were frozen in a block of ice. we thawed him and set him free.

But lets go back to when I last wrote. My parents came and we had a great time at the train show. it was cold, but taking my dad and nathan was like going to a chocolate shop for chocolate lovers. They had so much fun. We all did. there were 2 pink trains, so Hannah thought that was awesome. She also loved the magic show they had. Nathan loves seeing all the displays and the lego train set. he also loves shopping with papa and grandma.

Mom had a little bit of pnemonia, so i felt bad that she had to cough so much. We even celebrated my dad's birthday and watched ou beat my tigers. It was a nice weekend.

The rest of the week, Tuesday I began a volunteer opportunity at the local nursing home. I went in and played bingo with a bunch of the ladies and colored with them as well. it was a lot of fun. they are a neat group. i am looking forward to getting to know them. I decided to do that beacuse I figured at this time of year, they are as lonely as I am. I can reach out and share myself to them and accept them where they are and maybe they can do the same for me.

Wednesday Nathan came home with bruises on his face and his shin. When asking him what was going on, he said he had slipped that the playground. thought nothing of it until he was up at 4am complaining his leg hurt. I thought maybve growing pain so we sent him to school the following day with that. he complained when we got home that it still hurt, so I called the doctor we have yet to see and they said as long as he had no fever and his leg wasn't hot, he could wait until Monday for our appointment.

He was up Thursday night too with pain and friday morning was sobbing about how much it hurt. Chris and I thought maybe a pulled muscle and heated it and iced it and sent him to school again, not being able to find a reason to keep him home. when I picked him up, he collapsed into my arms crying about the pain. When we got home he fell asleep and so I thought maybe it was the combination of lack of sleep and the muscle and so I let him sleep. Saturday it was worse so we went into the ER. Upon 2 x-rays, they determined he did not have a broken bone but he had what is called hip pointer. pretty much it is a deep bruise to his hip bone at the place where it connects to his leg. Usually found in football players who get hit direct with a helmet. It can alsom come form a hard fall. they put him on some codene for the pain. Well, Sunday it began to ice here. Really bad. And nathan began to break out in a rash on his leg, so we quit giving him the codene and waited to see if the power would go out. Sunday came and went and we were good. Lots of thunder, rain, ice and sleet. Everything got covered in about 1 1/2 inches of ice. by monday the doctor called to cancel the appointment. no power to the east side of norman. more thunder and heavy rain to fall on the already burden power lines and trees. By now, nathan's leg is covered in a wierd rash and he is sobbing of the pain, so chris and i decided to give him a half dose of the codene just for pain. surely the rash will go away. then the power goes out. We try to find out where to go and my mom called Chris with a shelter to go to.

Of course, all this time Chris is at work becaues everyone needs salt and sand and generators and heaters, so we are doing all this via the phone. We go to the shelter at a local church and they feed us and put us up for a while.

By 9:30, Chris calls to say we have power back on at the house and to head home. He will be there about 11. We go back after being grateful for the kindness of strangers.

In all of this, I am going on small amounts of sleep and am just wishing we were back in st. joe, where it is home. Friday after sending nathan back to school hurting, Chris was crying about how he wondered if moving to norman wasn't the biggest mistake we had ever made. he is working all the time for the same pay. our cost of living is incredible and mostly it is utility bills. And on top of all that. with all the rain and ice, we have discovered that our roof has a huge leak in it. we have trash cans in closets and doorways and stuff catching water that is pouring into our home. the wall behind the kitchen that the back side of it is the garage, the ceiling in the garage is falling down and the wall is beginning to buckle. I am trying to keep strong, but am wondering myself what God is doing.

not much has seemed to go right. we rarely see Chris, Hannah isn't doing so well at school, the apartment is crumbling and we can't find a doctor we can trust. we had all those things going for us in st joe. we knew doug evans well and trusted him with our lives and knew that if we had an emergency he would be there. And our aparment we could count on joann to have an answering service and cell phone incase of emergency. Mrs. Kingery was the best teacher ever, there was much adult supervision at coleman recess where as here it seems to lack. I just miss missouri so much it makes me sick. and the most horrible thing is that we can't go back. we feel so stuck. we want to see God in this like we did before but with everythign crumbling around us and all, it is so hard to see Him right now.

Please be praying for us. we are really struggling right now. I am just looking towards Christmas, but am dreading the possiblity that with all that is going on with the roof and stuff that we may have to move out of our apartment and go somewhere else. I am looking forward to the coming weekend with my siblings and hope that the getaway will be good for us all. maybe it will get me to quit eating to comfort my lack of securty and maybe i can get some focus.

we love you all and hope you are warm and dry. will post again later with more updates. looking to the skies to see a savior,

Angel