Jake and Kristin

Well that was a dumb idea...

2008-07-05T05:56:00.000-07:00

So for the past week we've been in Vermont on vacation during my favorite time of the year in vermont, summer! We've spent lots of time on the lake and we've done a lot of fun things plus a lot of nothing. All good things. On Sunday we had a family bbq at my mom's house, a perfect way to see everyone at one time.

On Monday we went to the Colchester Causeway. The causeway goes several miles out into Lake Champlain. It was originally built as train tracks that went all the way to Montreal. Now it is just a biking/walking dirt path. It ends now just before South Hero, Vermont and there is a break for the boats to get thru. So you can only go just so far but at the end there are docks and after a good bike ride we were hot and jumped in. We were trying to jump and get a good picture. Here they are. I think I'm a better photographer than jake...or he's a better jumper one or the other.

Later on that night we went with our good friends Tyler and Nicole to the lake house. My mom and dad were there too and we were going to jet ski and have a bbq. Jake and Tyler decided to go jump off of Barn Rock. A well known place to cliff jump on the NY side of Lake Champlain. I've seen people jump but have never jumped myself. So off they went on the jet ski just the two of them. They came back an hour later and Tyler said Jake wasn't feeling so good and that he didn't remember jumping. Tyler said they had jumped from the top which is about 80 feet! Here is a picture of the famous rock.

Jake got off the jet ski with the blankest look on his face. He stood on the stairs and asked my dad and Nicole, " This might be a really dumb question considering I'm standing here with you, but am I in Vermont?" This made us all panic a little bit but he had this smirck on his face like he was joking around. Then he asked again...and then he asked again...

He kept saying, "Tyler, did we just do something we shouldn't have done?" and he had this smirck that I wish I had captured on camera because his question combined with the smirck was hilarious. But then we kept asking him questions and he kept answering wrong. What year is it? 2009 What did we do this morning (the causeway was the right answer)? He didn't remember. Didn't know when we got to Vermont or who the president was. SCARY. I called my nurse friend, Maura, told her his symptoms and what she had done and she said take him to the ER. So off we went. Tyler and Nicole came with me, which I am so thankful for because Jake got sick on the way to the Hospital and we had to stop on the side of the road. Not to mention the moral support.

We got to the hospital and the nurse started asking him questions to which he answered with a blank look. I started answering for him and she picked up on the amnesia side of things. I swear she thought he was just being rude though because he looked fine. Wasn't bleeding or having problems doing anything. He was walking and could talk fine, he just had no idea what had happened.

They did a cat scan pretty soon after we got there and then when that came back clean they sent us home. The doctor said the amnesia could last 10 minutes or hours but to wake him up once or twice in the night to make sure he was rousable. This was the fastests ER trip ever. Thank goodness we were in Middlebury Vermont on a Monday night. It was pretty quiet. We were there for an hour and half.

So anyway the ride home was so funny. I'll try and insert a video of Jake being sarcastic. We knew he was going to be okay when his sarcasm came back! He kept saying to me "Long day, huh?" and I would say Yep babe you were a handful. Minutes later he would ask again and kept saying the same exact answer. After 3 or 4 times i could hardly get the phrase out correctly because Tyler and Nicole were busting out laughing in the back seat. This cycle of asking and forgetting and asking again and forgetting and asking again when on the whole ride home and then for a full 2 hours in the middle of the night.

The middle of the night was a little scary because I woke him up at 2:30am and he had NO CLUE what had happened to him. I had to tell him the whole story...cliff, 80 ft, concussion, hospital, etc. So for the next 2 hours he would ask me the same 15 questions and then he would forget which was followed by panicking which was followed by asking the same 15 questions again. I was definitely praying through all of this because I was starting to get scared that this might be long term. That every time he slept I would have to tell him what had happened the next day. Just like 50 first dates?!?! ahhh. Funny part of all that though...He would say, "I jumped off a cliff?" Yeah babe you jumped off of an 80 foot cliff...then he would say, "Well that was a dumb idea"...Yeah babe it was a dumb idea. too funny. At least he realized in his amnesia that jumping off a cliff was a really bad idea.

Finally he fell asleep and when we woke up at 8am the next morning he remembered that he had jumped off of a cliff and had a concussion. THANK YOU JESUS.

He is feeling a lot better now but still has about a 48hr time period missing from his life which is very surreal for him. He didn't recall seeing tyler and nicole at all. So when we saw them a few days later for him it was like seeing them for the first time in a year and a half. We had lots of good laughs about that.

Moral of this Story....listen to your wife! ;

Even with a brain injury he beat us at quiddler...he gets no sympathy from us anymore!

Give me a 10 for Sean Kingston's Best Couple

2008-05-28T06:45:00.001-07:00

Give me a 10 for Sean Kingston's Best Couple

Planned Parenthood is ridiculous....

2008-03-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.voicescarryblog.com/planned-parenthood-accepts-money-earmarked-to-kill-black-babies/

Wow is all I have to say...this Autumn girl might be dumber than the chick from the Miss America Pageant.

Derek said it would be like this.....

2008-03-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

On one of the local channels here the weather man's name is Derek Beasley and there are these commercials with a jingle that says "Derek said it would be like this". Well Derek is always wrong. But it seems this time we misjudged Derek. We did get a dumping of snow between yesterday and today. There is a foot of snow outside of our apartment complexes with some areas around Cincinnati getting more more and some getting less.

The dogs are loving it...Jack needs a snow suit because the snow gets clumped in his hair, poor guy.

I'll try and get some pictures of them playing later....

Friday Night Excitement

2008-03-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

While our husbands enjoyed hours of xbox Ashley and I did some organizing.

I am new to this whole coupon thing but...yesterday at Kroger I saved almost 25 dollars. INCREDIBLE. I got 2 boxes of cereal completely free. That's what happens when cereal is on sale for 1.99 and you have a 2 dollars off coupon. Who knew that even happened. They only had two boxes and I had 9 coupons for 2 dollars off, you had better bet I'm going back.

I have to give credit to http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ for filling me in on these deals and where to print the coupons off of (and to ashley for finding that website). But I also clip coupons every sunday now....

I think I have nearly 50 categories in my coupon box. Which seems ridiculous but now I won't be as slowed down when I'm shopping because I won't be searching through a vague category that has 50 different clipped coupons.

So yes that was exciting...I had no idea just how excited i was until i started putting my coupons in their categories...wow.

If this interests you in the least bit check out that website.

Imperial Shih-tzu is equal to half cat.

2008-02-23T07:52:00.000-08:00

Part cat...he's part cat...

They spilled his mocha...

2008-02-23T07:09:00.000-08:00

Well the Believe conference was awesome. I took this picture right after the middle school boys spilled his coffee. I think jake was actually instigating a little bit of the ruckus. But it stopped after his coffee was spilled. The ladies at the starbucks were gracious enough to make him another one. Despite them being middle school boys, we really had a great time with them and the 2 girls who came with.

The boys stayed the night on Friday night at the Westendorf's house and Jake stayed with them. 6 middle school boys at 11:30 were intensely playing video games and then at midnight God showed up and turned off the electricity! For 4 hours they had no power! haha. Jake was pleased of course....they all went to bed semi-willingly after that. With the help of a squirt bottle ( a method we use on our dogs) he got them to all shut up and go to sleep. He's cruel...and for some reason the kids still love him.

This is sarah and I...she was sleepy. The picture of Jordan and I (the other girl who went) is not a good picture so I will refrain from putting that one up for both of our sakes. Cutest middle school girls in the world though, so mature for their age, i love'em. They spent the night at our apartment and were in bed by 11:30. yay for me!

It's been a while....

2008-02-15T06:38:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time since I've posted, mostly because we've gotten back into a crazy busy cycle. But are having lots of fun and doing lots of good things.

My job....

I'm anticipating my largest event ever on April 1st (no joke...it's really on April fools day). It's a fun event. Jake and I just recently got to enjoy our first "tasting" at the Hyatt in downtown Cincinnati. It's the coolest thing, the first thing they do is put 3 salads in front of us to try....we chose the leafiest one with roasted red peppers...YUM. THEN they put 4 main courses in front of us. All chicken of course because that's what goes over the best with 5oo+ people. We ended up choosing this herb crusted chicken with mushroom bread pudding and asphargus. It was very vey good...especially the bread pudding stuff. THEN, the best part is last of course, they put 3 different kinds of dessert in front of us (definitely two S's...because dessert makes you fatter....just like my 1st grade teacher taught me haha)...Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding with a warm sweet sauce on top...Orange Creamsicle Cheesecake....Tiramasu. I didn't even need to try all of them because as soon as he said Tiramasu I knew which one we were going to have at the banquet. But of course i ate most of the desserts that they put in front of me...the creamsicle cheese cake was weird....the bread pudding was awesome...but too heavy for a banquet dinner...i don't want ppl falling asleep before we can ask them for boat loads of money. :) So the tiramasu won out ultimately...which like i said...i knew from the beginning. :) fun stuff...

Jake's job...
He's just been given boat loads more responsibility and not any more pay...which is fine. He's up for the challenge and if I know him at all....he'll do a great job. His strength is "Woo" on the Strengths Finder Test by Gallup. Woo stands for Winning Others Over. He's really great at training up volunteers to lead in different areas of the church. They gave him our churches children's ministry which is missing key leadership in lots of areas. I think it will take time to build up those great leaders. But it will be a wonderful investment of his time for the life of the church.
The youth group is going fine...we are in conference season right now. Tonight the Believe conference for middle schoolers starts...jake LOVES middle schooler's. Okay not really...but hopefully he won't want to poke his eyes out by the end of the weekend. He's staying at a host parent's house with 7 middle school boys overnight tonight. I have 2 girls staying at our apartment. He definitely got the raw end of the deal.

Next month we have Superstart for 4-6th graders (our tween class) and Acquire the Fire for highschoolers, which of course is what we are looking forward to the most. IT's at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana and we are staying at a hotel with whatever high schoolers decide to go. I've heard GREAT things about this conference so I'm definitely pumped.

In April we are supposed to go to the final Passion Conference in the USA in Atlanta Georgia with the college/young adults from our church, not sure if that is going to happen though. I'll be bummed if we don't go but we have been to 2 Passion conferences in the past year and half so...we'll get by.

Jack and Ava are doing okay....
Jack spent the night with a family from our church because we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast for Valentine's day and I'm actually writing this from the comforts of this 108 year old house. It's beautiful. They have treated us like royalty and it's so much cozier than staying at a hotel!
Ava had 3 teeth pulled and her teeth cleaned last week...that cost just short of an arm and a leg but she is still cheaper than having a kid so I won't complain. I felt terrible her teeth were so bad but it didn't stop her at all from eating so how was i to know??

I'm REALLY sick of living in an apartment at this point...we are waiting another 6 months though to really decide if we are meant to stay in Cincinnati and then we may or may not buy a house or may or may not be moving which means we may or may not be looking for new jobs. Crazy. I'm BEYOND ready to know whether or not Cincinnati is our long term home. Cincinnati was finally growing on me until last night when we got lost trying to find this B&B because the street signs are LAME. We've lived her for almost a year and I work in the same area of town at the B&B you'd think I could find my way around. Thank the Lord for my Blackberry (or crackberry as jake and tim call it) it got us where we needed to go so you should just be thankful i always have that thing with me!! :)

Tim and his wifey Ashley...are great friends of ours. We would definitely not be as happy as we are in Cincinnati without them. Tim is the pastor of The Bridge (www.thebridgecincy.com) and he also works part time at PregnancyCare and that is where i met him. We spend lots of time with them and their amazing 8 month old Noah. He's pretty awesome.

Well that is enough for now i think...time to wake jake up and go home.

Jake and Jack....the one eyed shih-tzu

2007-12-08T11:33:00.000-08:00

We just adopted Jack, he's an imperial shih-tzu which means he will only weigh about 5 or 6lbs at full grown. He's great. Ava is adjusting...she warns him when she's getting annoyed. He only has one eye because when he was little his littermates or crate must have scratched his eye and they had to remove it. I'll get some more pictures soon. This video isn't great, don't get motion sick trying to watch it.

Love to all! Merry Christmas!

Kristin, Jake, Ava and Jack

3 Months in Cincinnati

2007-07-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

Well it's been 3 months now since we moved to Cincinnati. Youth group is going well. We recently renamed the youth group Stenos, (sten as in stencil, os and in sauce). It is the greek translation of the word narrow in Matthew 7:13 and 14 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. " In verse 14 narrow literally means "a groaning" or "a struggle". Which we think perfectly depicts how difficult it is to be passionate about your faith in high school, it's difficult, it's hard, it's a struggle, you are going to groan and moan through difficult decisions. We had the best graphic artist in the world do some logos for us but I can't seem to attach the one we chose at the moment...in another blog....

I got a job at PregnancyCare of Cincinnati. I am planning their Walk for Life, Spring Banquet and Baby Bottle drive. Basically the job of my dreams...:) If you'd like to donate... :) just kidding, all of you guys already got my email asking for money....

Jake has been mountain biking every chance he gets. We just bought a new bike for him, this is a painful story. He hadn't even gone out riding yet and we were driving back from Indianapolis at midnight saturday night, ava and i were dead asleep when he slams on the breaks and yells "OH MY GOSH THE BIKE FELL OFF!!". He jumped out of the car and in a couple minutes i see him through the headlights of another car coming down the side of the highway riding the bike. Sigh of relief that he even found the stupid thing, thankfully he heard it fall off and stopped right away. Unfortunately it got ALL banged up, the seat is tore up, it's all scratched and the pedal reflector fell off. Then the back tire popped. So his brand new bike is looking pretty used already and he hasn't even been out on it yet! talk about depressing...it's at the bike shop now getting repaired...uggg... didn't we just pay an arm and a leg for that thing?! alright I'm done ranting about that...

all for now...

Resting in Him

Kristin

Family portraits...or something

2007-03-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

WE tried desperately to get a good picture of both of us with her in it...i love the ones with her looking up at jake....she SO STINKIN CUTE....

soooo sleepy....

Ava's first bath...she must have rolled in the mud in the

backyard or something!

bad hair day... ava sleeps like a baby...

jake was about done with

picture time.

Ava gives good kisses "Ava, shake!"

"Ava, Sleep!" "Ava, Sit!"

now if she could only learn to not run out our front door....she's fast and sneaky....

A new Job and a new Dog...

2007-03-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Family and friends-

Meet Ava Scott, a beautiful little cocker spaniel who I don't know how I ever lived without! She's my baby girl...5 yrs old, 18 lbs...full of love...for those of you confused because you thought we just got a black pug a month ago...we had a serious case of an indian giver...her old owner called after 5 days and wanted her back...so we gave her back...ava's way better anyway!

I'm excited to tell you that Jake got a job offer on Monday for a youth pastor job at a church in Cincinatti, Ohio and we accepted today. It's called New Hope Community Church. So we will be moving in the next month, Lord willing our house will sell quickly. CRAZY!!

We are so excited and i know so many of you were praying for us over the past 4 months...thank you for your prayers...

updates to come I'm sure....

The Newest Member of Our Familia

2007-02-09T05:47:00.000-08:00

Introducing Fergie! She's a 3 year old pure bred Pug. She was free to a good home...we aren't quite sure if we are that home yet but we'll find out soon! She's fully housetrained and just a really good dog. She's been kinda crazy though the last 12 hours we've had her at home. Hopefully she will settle down a bit. We got her from a woman who has two kids and just didn't have the time for her anymore. I think it was a lame excuse for the fact that once some people have kids they just don't love their dogs anymore. Well we won't have to worry about the kid thing for a while so she's fun. But anyway, she's on a trial run until monday when we decide for sure if we want her. If we don't I hear she might be moving to Vermont to live with Russ and Shel...not sure if shel ran that past russ yet. :) love to all...

She has the curliest little piglet tail I've ever seen....

OH here are some pictures of our bedroom, pretty much completed after we drywalled, built a walkin closet, trim, new windows and new carpet...oh and painted...

GO COLTS!

2007-02-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl Sunday....don't we look pretty in colts blue?!

jake and I excited that we (the colts) are winning!

Peyton excited because he'll get an even fatter check now and a cadillac escalade and a big PHAT ring to match.

Tony Dungy- is the man. Humblest guy around... He's very open with his faith in God. Which I think is cool....

Alissa banging on her pots and pans after the game!

In Holiday Aftershock

2007-01-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well folks! The holidays are gone so I guess it's time to get back to normal. I took down our lovely Christmas tree the other day. Jake swears again that we will never get a real tree again, but we'll see about that :)

We left Vermont on Saturday the 30th, got home around 4:30 after some ridiculous flight issues! We unpacked, washed our clothes and then repacked and left for Atlanta at noon on Sunday for a conference called Passion 2007! (and no, it's not about reconnecting sexually with your spouse!) These are pictures from that trip, some good, some bad...I thought I'd just send all of them. It was an amazing conference where 750,000 dollars was raised among 24,000 people ages 18-25.

While we were there jake had a phone interview with Memorial Bible Church in Yakima Washington. I know I know washington is FARRRRRRRRRR. But it went really well and he has a second interview this Sunday the 14th. Please be in prayer that they will hire the right person even if it's not Jake. Secondly, 2 positions have opened up at a school where our friends teach english and are missionaries in China. I know I know it's really farrrrrrrr. But if it's not supposed to be then God will shut doors. We have limited time to get passports and visa's and sell our house. So only God at this point could ordain that. This is all pending that things do not work out with the church in Washington. But we do have to get the passport and visa process started. All we ask for is your prayers at this point that we will see things fall into place if it is God's Will. Selling our house is a huge factor! love to all

Resting in Him,

Jake and Kristin

John Piper, pastor and author of over 30 books. www.desiringgod.org I highly recommend Don't Waste Your Life

the screen from one night for the outdoor concert/worship time.

The Stadium where the sessions were held. This didn't even hold everyone, they simulcasted from another building for the other 5000 people and we all rotated thru the buildings. 14 staff at Passion put this conference on with over 1000 volunteers.

Jake looking wise and deep in thought...

again....

Louie Giglio the brains behind Passion....and an amazing speaker.

Just a portion of the towels donated from each attendee to be dispersed thru-out atlanta to the many shelters. This was called "Do Something Now" We all brought socks and towels so Atlanta could feel the love of Jesus Christ.

Dow and Rachel, Jake and I. Dow and Rachel asked us to drive one of the vans and in return we got to stay at the hotel for free. Saved us about 500 dollars. God is so awesome this trip was completely free for us! (my best friend sarah bought us the tickets for a wedding gift)

Jake and Nate Kresge...walking around atlanta

matt decided he wanted a lift as well

This is where the conference was held.

Sitting around waiting for the conference to start. This is the group of college kids we drove down. 19 total with us....

This is a hair salon in downtown atlanta. If you can't read it, it says "oh! my nappy hair" hahahahaha

Nate's behind...

2006-12-19T12:49:00.000-08:00

Christmas Tree Shopping!
We found the perfect tree!
Jake almost died when we paid $53 dollars for it!
But it's only once a year!

The boys at the tree place tied it to our car and we drove back home! By the way, we bought our tree from the people in the Greenwood City Mall parking lot which is probably why it cost so much but it's only 3 minutes from our house!

All decorated!!

To update you all!

Jake is applying for youth pastor positions at churches all over the United States! He wants with all his heart to be in youth ministry we just need to find the right church! We've had a few bites but nothing serious yet.

I'm working at a lawyer's office as a legal secretary for 2 lawyers. It's close to home and really laid back. I get to wear jeans and read a book when it's slow! Gotta love that.... it's a great job to get us thru until Jake finds something permanent!

Love to all, See you for Christmas!

Jake and Kristin

2006-10-30T07:16:00.000-08:00

Costume Coffeehouse 2006 X.change Youth Group
Jake is a member of the Blue Man Group and I am "Hugh"- hugh is a character thought up by Jake and Eddie and played by my brother-in-law joel on the videos they made for cell group. So it was kind of an inside cell group joke. But 90% of the teens go to cell group so they thought it was hilarious.

This is Britney Spears, pregnant and selling perfume...she won the costume contest! Mostly for her tagline... said with a twangy southern accent "Hi my name is Britney Spears, buy my perfume"

The kid to her left is Fidel Castro!!! HAHAHA.

This is Brooke and Justin...an Ipod and Rubix Cube

This is Steph's head on a silver platter...she sat by the food and FREAKED people out.

This is Mama Cox taking a bite out of stephs food....

We had an incredibly fun evening...

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 2006

2006-10-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Pretty dark still...

People waiting for the walk to start...
Unloading the Truck
5:30 am...Suzanne is forced to have her picture taken with me...you might call me a morning person... but we both look pretty sleepy...

2006-09-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

This is my cell group, a student led Bible study at the students home. The students invite their friends, we've had 4 students accept the Lord since school started back up!

Stephanie^

Tiffany^

This is our Living room fully painted and even a few things hung on the walls!

Pictures of Our House!

2006-09-18T10:23:00.000-07:00

Jake getting ready for the day. Thats our main bathroom- still has the pretty sunshine yellow walls and sea shell wall paper border from when we bought the house. 1 thing at a time right?
Here is our bedroom, Jake and his Dad built our closet tha tyou see at the end. The ironing board is almost always up. :)
Our living room- right after i bought my digital camera. I was playing around.
Our living room when we were painting back in August. It looks really good actually. Feels like a room now.... That's our front door on the left there.
The other half of our living room while we were paiting. The doorway to the kitchen is on the left in this picture.

More to come....

2006-09-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

awww.... deucer's is all gone to a new home....

2006-09-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hi Everybody-

This is our blog...we'll try and keep it updated with pictures and messages about life!

love you all