Long time no blog!

I know it has been a while and if you check out blog often I am sure you are quite tired of seeing the same post and pictures! Things are great here in Clarksville and we are anxiously anticipating more Fall-like weather. I absolutely LOVE Fall and I am just so ready for temperatures NOT in the 80's. It probably will not exactly be pretty here this year. We have not had much rain at all and a lot of the trees are already brown. But, I have seen a few colorful trees so hopefully it won't be a total wash out.

Today is just another Saturday. Nothing exciting going on. Joe is working in the ER today so I am home alone (with the exception of two snuggly cats!). So far I have slept late, watched some shows on the DVR I had recorded, showered picked up the house and now blogging. It has been a nice day but I am looking forward to Joe coming home! We have a big night planned- Mizzou football and pizza! We are hoping for another big win. Oh yeah, and we have to fit in a run too.

We are approaching the end of Joe's program and of course this means difficult decisions are being made. We have been so stressed over the past two months. I know Joe is ten times more stressed than I am. He has been looking for jobs in many places and right now I can't think of one place we haven't thought about moving to. I hate this. It is really hard to decide what is the best decision for our future. When we first began this journey we thought Joe would be able to find the perfect job in St. Louis and we would end up there. Then we hoped for even a good job in another Missouri city. Well, we have decided that MO stinks for PA's! He has had a phone interview with a practice in Herman, MO that might work out. He has also interviewed in Wichita, KS (thanks Mae & Ian!) and he thinks he might really enjoy a position there. The down side to this one is that if he is interested he could come and work with all the docs for a month (with no pay) and then they would decide if they wanted to hire him. Umm...kind of scary and not exactly an offer. He has also been in touch with HR people in Springfield, MO as well, but has not really heard anything back from them in the past couple of weeks. A lot of places he talks to are very inquisitive about him being in the National Guard (we don't blame them) and ask if he will be deployable. This stinks too. A lot of the MO jobs want Nurse Practitioners instead (they are huge in MO), or the pay is crazy low. Some people do not want new grads, etc. So as you can see it is exhausting. After much prayer, this week we actually made a decision that has always been in the back of our minds and neither of us saw it as a reality until now.

We decided Wednesday night that Joe would go active duty and we would stay here at Ft. Campbell. There were many factors influencing this decision- pay, stability, benefits, not moving further away from any family, great experience, and 3 years until done with the ARMY for ever if we want. We also believe in the providence of God and a lot of things were pointing us in this direction. The only negative is a possible deployment which we are facing with the Guard as well. We both felt relieved. We had made a decision. When Joe called to speak with the MO Guard folks on Thurs. - they were not pleased at all and are prepared to fight us pretty hard. Luckily one of Joe's old guard friends is his "commander" right now and he is looking for options for us and is prepared to write Joe his letter of release that he needs if those options don't pan out. So now poor Joe is still stressed and continues to look for jobs and the best opportunities for us. We will not cease to pray that we make the right decision whether it be civilian job or active duty Army life. No option has been ruled out at this point! Keep us in your prayers! We know God will take care of us no matter what and this is of comfort to us.

So things are still up in the air for us with almost 2 months left until graduation. I am confident however that all in all things will work out for the best and we have much in our lives to celebrate! We traveled to Wichita in September so that I along with my awesome sister-in-laws Mandy and Cortney could throw Joe's sister Mae a baby shower. It was the cutest shower if I don't say so myself and I think Cortney is right- we could do this for a living. Mae was originally due November 9th, but after her doctor visit this week we can probably expect her here before that. We can't wait to see her and finally learn her full name! They have been giving us a letter per week and we have to try and unscramble and guess. I think I have some good guesses.

We are also excited as we anticipate the birth of Kevin & Mandy's second daughter, who we now know will be Hannah Sue, in early February. While in Wichita Emma celebrated her 1st birthday as well. That girl loved her cake and presents. She is the sweetest thing! We enjoy our family so much and we have a blast when we are all together. Any long road trip is worth that much fun! Here is a picture of Emma with her Uncle Joe. She loves him as well as all her uncles, but she decided he would make a good pillow for her. She layed here just like this looking at him for quite a while. It was so sweet!