Bad Connections, Busses, and "Unanswered" Prayers

Here is a rare one from the other half of this blog...

A few weeks ago, I took Jocelyn to her physical therapy down at the University of Cincinnati. I drove down to the loading docks by the football field and sat in the car while she went in. Needing desperately to get work some done, I pulled out my laptop and tried to connect to UC’s Internet.

No luck.

I tried again. Still no luck. I restarted my computer hoping that would resolve the issue. No luck. I did everything I knew how to and still had no luck. I was able to get the Internet just fine on our iPod, but had no luck on my laptop. I said a quick prayer asking Heavenly Father to help me connect to the Internet so I could get the work done that I needed. After the prayer, full of faith, I tried to connect to the Internet one more time. And you know what happened?

No luck.

Dejected, I figured this was just one prayer that wasn’t going to be answered. About that time, I heard a beeping noise behind me in the distance. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a large tour bus backing up into the loading docks. I could see where it was headed, and I didn’t like it. The bus kept backing up closer and closer until it had the car completely blocked. The driver must have seen our car and backed up a little farther until we could get out. I looked back to make sure we had enough space to back out and noticed, right at eye level just outside our window, a sign on the side of the bus that said, “Free Wifi Hotspot”. I checked my computer and, sure enough, I was in luck.

Those who say that God doesn’t answer prayers aren’t looking hard enough or don’t give Him enough credit. It could have been easy to write that off as a nice coincidence, but I don’t choose to look at it that way. God does hear and answer prayers. He cares about us and the things that are important to us. If we but ask, He will listen and answer. Now, the answers certainly don’t always come in the way we expect. I thought that after I prayed, my computer would suddenly connect to UC’s Internet. He didn’t answer me that way. Instead He answered by sending me a bus. I didn’t recognize it as His answer at first. In fact, I first viewed it as a great inconvenience and even wished it would go away. I was frustrated and upset by its presence there. However, the very thing that was so inconvenient for me ended up being a perfect answer to my plea. How often do we push away people, things, or circumstances that we find unpleasant, inconvenient, or annoying when in fact it is the very answer we have been praying for? God usually doesn’t answer in the way we expect, I believe, to test how much we really want the answer. If we give up too early, we push away that person, thing, or circumstance and thus the answer to our prayers then turn and blame God for not answering us. His answers come in His time and His way, even if it takes the form of a bus.

The rest of it

Here is a little more of an update in picture form...

This is Christmas morning! I was fun to have the time with just Scott and me. We got up and took some friends to the airport then opened our stockings. We waited for the presents till after church and even then we opened presents from other people and then opened them from each other.

Gingerbread house! Danielle Dean made it for us because we were going to decorate with them.
I got Scott a charger for his Xbox controler, NCAA football 12, normal stocking stuff which always includes zingers, shoe glue, a relaxation basket, and such. He got me Aero bars (bike stuff), mountain biking shoes and cleats, hangers, and other normal stocking stuff.
This year we named our tree squishy, hence the picture below. We some how fit this MASIVE tree inside our car with Scott and me. This year we are starting a new tradition; we cut a circle off the end of the tree and we are going to make a Christmas tree out of it. Every year we will add a new christmas tree ornament for each tree!
Squishy while he was still alive!
When we went to the temple in Louisville we made it into a whole trip. After a session we went to get frozen yogurt and then to the louisville slugger museum.
These pictures are backwards in time but I really don't feel like switching them around. Meredith, my sister, came for Thanksgiving this year. On Friday we went ice skating around.
I had to go into work on Friday so I am all decked out in my work clothes here.
For some CRAZY reason we decided to brave black friday (really thursday late night). This is our booty from it.
Pretending that we were having a good time counting the number of people with a missing front tooth (at least 6). We were there from 7-1ish. Thank goodness we were about 4th in line to check out! It still took an hour to check out because people had so much stuff.
It was ridiculous the mass amounts of people. We waited in the hunting department for our xbox and connect and in between the frozen foods and the deli for our TV.
Are we sure we want to do this? Especially at the most getto Walmart in Cincinnati?
Thanksgiving FEAST! Sweet potatoes, apple pomegranate salad, green been casserole, potatoes, cranberry sauce, spinach artichoke dip and TURKEY!
Our beautiful turkey when it came out of the oven. It was delicious in flavor but it cooked a little too long.
Meredith and I perfected the salt encrusted turkey this time! Next time we will just cook it a little shorter and we will have concurred the perfect turkey.
Just like 2 years ago, we had to use power tools to open our turkey up! Scott wants a salt encrusted turkey every year.

Update on life:

I have a job that I started in August. I have about a 45-50 minute commute on way. The longest it's taken me was 1 hour and 45 minutes. I am a wellness specialist at a retirement home. I really do TONS of different things. I do employee wellness programing, competitions, answer member questions, do orientations, personal training, cooking classes, cycling class, etc... I really do love it and have enjoyed everything about it except for the commute. Scott is still working at the Nielsen company and enjoying that as well. He has become the face of a software tool called Spotfire. People inside the company now call it Scottfire. He has been asked to do trainings in several places.

We do only have one car so he takes the bus into down town and then on days that he is not onsite he has to walk 1.5 miles into work. It saves a ton of money so it is worth it!

Really there's not much to update about our lives besides boring work stuff and such.

Update in pictures

Here's a little update about the last 6 months of life...

So, yes, 4 days after surgery I went to girls camp. People think I'm crazy for doing it, but really it was just what I needed at that time. The first day was setting up tents, which I couldn't really do much about (dang it!). It rained as well that first day. That night I slept in the cabin with all the stake leaders on a 4 inch mattress laid on a wooden board. The next day I was in charge of check-in for all the YW coming to camp.

I gave up on the mattress on the wood after the first night. I went to the tent with the 4th years who I was supposed to be with. I slept on a cot with the same mattress on it. It was one of the most comfortable things ever! So, I slept in the tent the rest of my time there. I also wore dresses the entire time that I was there. I wasn't aloud to flex at my hip more that 90 degrees and I couldn't have any external rotation. Because of these stipulations I couldn't put on pants very easily.

I'm in the middle with a dress and t-shirt on top. A little weird but, given the circumstances...

Craig and Savanna Speil came up from Ohio University to visit us. We all went to the zoo together and had a blast.


They were walking out the door when we noticed they pretty much matched.



We drove down to watch BYU's first game! We were planning on making this sign, but then BYU wasn't doing so well. We were able to make it the last few minutes of the game and celebrate with all the BYU fans there (old mis).

The campus was actually very nice and there were SO many people tailgating. Apparently people camp out for their tailgating spot. My cousin Zoe and her family where there from Nashville, so we were able to see them for a little bit.

Scott and I catered a wedding in October. That week we made 80lbs of potatoes into fries. I was using the mandalin slicer on the first potato and slipped and cut my hand instead. The picture doesn't do it justice. We didn't have anything on hand to help so Scott ran down to the gas station while I kept my hand above my head on the wall with pressure to stop the bleeding. It didn't close for days. I really should have gone to get it stitched but I kept thinking about all the potatoes I had to deal with.

We also went to Idaho to welcome Jim and Arlene McCauley home from their 1.5 year mission in Russia.

This was what I came home to one day on our 4 year and 4month anniversary. Yes we are still the disgustingly sappy couple who celebrates month anniversary, I hope we always are.
My pumpkin I carved for Halloween.
Scott's pumpkin, which is way cuter than mine.
Scott thought of the amazing idea to have pie day the day before thanksgiving. We had pizza and then key lime, pumpkin, blueberry, and cheesecake pies. It was ingenious because we didn't have to worry about making them on Thanksgiving. More to come soon...