So - fall is undoubtedly my favorite time of year...(Dare I say I enjoy fall even more than Christmas? It's definitely a toss up.) Here's a bit about what we've been doing.

The second weekend in October we went with our church on the Mid-High (aka Jr. High) retreat. Jon was so excited to go (which is good, since it will soon be his job to go), I was a little nervous, but it ended up to be a good time. I will not lie though, I'm not as young as I used to be...I went to bed at 7:45pm the night we got home and slept all night long! A cumulative 8 hours over the weekend just wasn't enough for this 26-year-old. We went to Quapaw, OK for the retreat. I've never been to OK before, and it was quite lovely. The weather was absolutely perfect! Here are a couple of pictures from the retreat:

Jon facing off some of the students at foosball

The yellow is Jon's "wound" from paintball

This is us on the bus...proof that I was there (in the back on the left)

Last weekend my good friend had some of us girls out for some fall fun. We started off the morning with pumpkin pancakes, then proceeded to the Red Barn Farm and the Vaughn Apple Orchard. We went back to her place for chili afterwards. It was a perfect day. Here's some pictures:

A display of the minis at the Red Barn Farm There's nothing cuter than a mini pumpkin!
The Red Barn Farm at the...well...Red Barn Farm

Right now we are hosting a party for our 9th grade Sunday School class. Lest you think I'm being antisocial by posting right now, we only had three guys show up, and they are to my left playing Halo 2 (XBox game, for those unfamiliar) with Jon, so I'm left to my own devices :-)

We will hopefully post more after our vacation!

Mystery Solved - Hopefully

Just a quick update for those of you who have been aware of my ongoing stomach issues this summer. Today I had an EGD (which stands for something really long that I can't pronounce or spell, but it means they stuck a camera down my throat). The doctor found that the pain and problems I've been experiencing are a result of having my gall bladder out, 5 years ago. It's called bile gastric reflux, and means that instead of my bile being stored until I need it in my gall bladder (which doesn't exist) I have a constant drip of it going into my stomach, which can cause irritation and inflammation of the stomach lining (gastritis) and some other things. So - no ulcers, no cancer, no mystery of science. Just a little too much bile for this one. The good news is, I've been taking a different prescription strength medicine for two weeks, and the last week I've been much better. I trust that it will only get better from here. Thank you to all my friends and family who have been praying for me and put up with me talking about this...all...summer...long. :-) You are all gems! Oh - I usually like to include a picture with my posts, and I have some lovely shots of the inside of my stomach sitting on the chair next to me, but I thought that might be a bit much.

We Need a Break

The weekend after our trip to Rock Island we decided that we needed to get away for a couple of days. We hadn't been on a trip together that didn't involve friends or family since our honeymoon. So I (Jon again) booked us a room at the Marriott (LONG LIVE PRICELINE.COM) in Omaha.

We checked in on Friday night and the next day we went to the Henry-Doorly Zoo. That is one of the best zoos in the country. It was huge, fairly priced, and packed with fun exhibits. If you are ever in Omaha, I highly recommend it.

They had an indoor rain forest with this really hot guy in it....

....and an indoor desert complete with an exotic desert princess.

Family Fun

It's us again! Long time no see. A few weeks ago in late August we journeyed to the old Barriger home place in Rock Island. Amber's brother Andy and his wife Amie and their daughter Jordan were there on vacation. The highlight of my weekend (this is Jon by the way, if you haven't figured that out by now you probably don't know us well enough to be looking at our blog...who are you anyway?) was when the men of the Rock Island church went golfing early (very early) Saturday morning. It was a strange feeling, I was terrible, but I had to have more. Golf may be one of the most addicting substances on the planet. Anyway, the rest of the weekend was made up of the sport of Jordan watching for the reasons listed below.

All of the constant fawning and cheese-saying wore down her ability to smile after a week, and she was forced to use her fingers as a smile-brace.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

In honor of our third anniversary...we've chosen to each share three things we've learned since we've gotten married.

From Amber -

1. Jon doesn't need a closet, just the end of the bed to hang his clothes on.

2. There aren't many things that Jon wouldn't do for me - eating green beans is one of them. But I must say, he's opened his horizons to many a new vegetable since our marriage. Just not green beans.

3. Love is....delivering your wife's "lab samples" (don't ask) to the doctor's office on a regular basis. It doesn't get more selfless than that.

From Jon -

1. Cereal-milk stains on the coffeetable make a woman's face change colors.

2. Hanging clothes on the end of the bed's footboard doesn't count as putting them away.

3. When a woman goes out of her way to let you know she's upset with you, she will also go out of her way to tell you that nothing is wrong. In reality, you either said something wrong, didn't say something right, did something wrong, or didn't do something right. And its up to you to figure out what it was.....fast.

Here's to another year!

Summertime

Is it possible that it's already July? I'm not sure where the time has gone lately, but it sure goes fast...here's a little update about the last few weeks...

Over Memorial Day, Jon and I went to Nashville to visit Andrew, Amie, and Jordan. We had a great time there! It was nice to be with family, and good to see the little one who's grown by leaps and bounds since the last time we saw her!

I got to do Jordan's hair...(it's harder than it looks to do a 2-yr old's hair!)

...and Uncle Jon pushed her on the swings...

...and Daddy pushed her on the swings....

...and we had a little photo shoot...

....and here she is in her "Pooh night-night dress"....so cute.

In early June, Jon left me in Kansas City and headed up to Ohio for his brother, Tim's graduation. We can now refer to he and his new bride as Drs. Livengood. Congratulations to you both!!

Jon has started helping out with the youth group at our church this month. He's currently teaching the 8th and 9th grade boys Sunday School class, and helping out downstairs on Wednesday nights. Soon, he's going to be giving a lesson on Sunday nights, and eventually Wednesday night. He's doing great and excited to begin doing what God has called him to do.

I've started singing on the worship team this month, and I'm really enjoying it as well. There are three teams, and so I only sing every three weeks. Tomorrow will be my second time. I'm filling in for someone who is gone for the summer, so I'm not sure what will happen when she returns, but it's nice to be involved in this way while I can.

We also experienced the drive-in here in Kansas City for the first time this month! And last night we went to Shakespeare in the Park down at the Plaza. We saw Romeo and Juliet! Jon and I went to Shakespeare in the Park four years ago when we first started dating and he came to see me in Kansas City. So, it was a bit nostalgic for us. Only, I wasn't nearly as nervous... :-)

My mom and dad will be here next weekend (woo hoo!!) so we've been getting the place ready for them to come today. Can't wait!

Well, there's a little update. Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, and I'm glad. Maybe time will stop going by so fast :-)

Lazy Saturday...

Hello to one and all. The title of this post is a little deceiving, considering we got up at 6:15 this morning to do a "Micro Mission" with our church. However, at this moment, it feels like a lazy Saturday. The Micro Mission was held at the Kansas City Rescue Mission in downtown KC. We got there at 8:00 to pick up trash with the other 198 people there. We spread out over 110 blocks around the rescue mission! I hope we were able to make a difference. After that, we picked up some lunch, and now, as you may have guessed, we are relaxing. It is such a beautiful day here, that if I hadn't spent all morning outside, I'd feel guilty for sitting at my computer right now.

Jon's almost done with his first semester at seminary! His last lecture will be Monday, and then he has finals next week. He's done really well with his classes, but I'm sure he's looking forward to the summer break! Now we can have lunch together again! That's what I'm looking forward to.

While he's been in school, I've picked up a hobby of sorts. I'm starting my own business! It's nothing original, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say what exactly it is online...or if that breaks the advertising rules. I will put a link to my business' website as soon as I figure out how. Then, you can know...until then, it's a secret. Are you curious???

Two weeks ago we attended Jon's brother's (Tim's) wedding in Cleveland, OH. It was a good time! We had fun being with the family, and we stayed at a really cool hotel. That's always fun. The wedding was beautiful. Anyway - here are a few pictures from the wedding:

The Completed Livengood Family

The wedding singer (one of them) and the smokin' hot Best Man

(we also answer to Amber and Jon)

The newest Livengood family unit! (Tim & Andreea)

Where we have been...

I'm sure most of you are wondering what's taken us (well, me) so long to update our blog...Well, let me tell you about the last 4 weeks...


Feb. 16 - 24 Jon's mom and dad arrived to visit us and attend the M7 conference (it's a Nazarene thing) in KC. We tried to spend the weekend showing them around the city. On Saturday we went to the World War I museum and Jack Stack barbeque on the plaza. Jon took them to a few other sites while I was working later in the week (see below). It was fun to have them here!


Feb. 19 - 27 I started working at our "satellite office" that was set up at the Downtown Marriott for the yearly General Board meetings for the Church of the Nazarene. Our office plans this event every year. For those who don't know, it is a board made up of 44 people from around the world, and all the officers and directors of the church. They get together every year to handle business that won't wait until General Assembly (which is every four years, with tons of people from around the world) I worked downtown during the day, and came home at night for 3 days, and then spent 5 days spending the night at the hotel and working there during the day. It's always a busy but fun time. I had three steaks that week, had to pray aloud in a group of three which included a General Superintendent, saw a lot of people I knew, and thoroughly enjoyed the bed at the Marriott. I was a little sad to go home because of that...



Feb. 27 - March 2 - Prepared to go to France!



March 3 - 10 - France! My friend Lisa and I left on March 3 for France. It was Lisa's first time. The highlights of the trip were: Eden, my new niece, a "baby shower in a suitcase", touring the Palace of Versailles, shopping in Paris, shopping in downtown Versailles, taking the train on our own into Paris, Musee D'Orsay (Van Gogh, Renoir), L'Ouvre, Place de la Concorde, Sainte Chappelle, Notre Dame, crepes, cafes, Marie Antoinette's village, I think that about covers it. The down side to the trip was in some airport somewhere I got some sort of food virus...which decided to linger the entire trip. I wasn't bedridden or anything...but it did put a damper on things. Of all times! I've decided to be a vegetarian when eating out from now on...so far, I'm doing pretty good. It was great to see Allison, Benoit, and the baby of course!

March 10 - 25 Returned home to my darling husband! Last weekend we took a quick trip to Peoria/Rock Island for a wedding that I was in. My friend from grade school got married. It was a good time. And this weekend...I haven't done anything of note. Which is good...I needed a weekend full of naps, movies, and just hanging out with Jon.

And now, to choir practice...until next time!

Awww Yeah

For those that thought the Bears couldn't score on offense....you were wrong

See you in Miami

Can I Brag a Little?

This post is purely to show off my two adorable little nieces. As most of you know, my brother and his wife, Andrew and Amie, have a little girl named Jordan. She will be two in March. I can't believe it! As some of you may not know, my sister and her husband, Allison and Benoit, just had a baby on December 30th. Her name is Eden Elizabeth, and though she came earlier than we expected, she is doing great! I will get to meet her in March! My sister cleverly pointed out that now we have "The River Jordan" and the "Garden of Eden" in our family. My dad is under the impression that we should name our first child Israel. All I can say is, sorry to disappoint you dad, not on the list of names. And I do have a list :-) Although it's dwindling. Seems like people keep having the same bright ideas for names that I've had.

Our Iowan Adventure

That's Iowan as in Iowa. The state. I wish it was just a gross misspelling of the word "Hawaiian". That would mean we'd been to Hawaii, not Iowa. Well, anyway...

As most of you know we visited our family in the great state of Illinois between Christmas and New Year's (which isn't much more exciting than Iowa). We had a great time with Jon's family and with my Mom and Dad. On New Year's Day we started on our six-hour drive home at about two o'clock that afternoon, as both of us had work the next day. Two hours into our trip, the car got really loud, so we tried to change lanes to see if it was just a "loud road". When Jon started seeing smoke in the rear-view mirror, we decided that it was not in fact the road, and that perhaps we should make our way to the side of the highway. Much to our dismay, a blown out, smoking tire was there to greet us as we exited the car. So, we dug out the spare from the trunk (naturally, I overpacked, so getting to the tire wasn't exactly an easy feat). As Jon changed the tire, I stood by our belongings and tried to keep my new fluffy blue robe from blowing into traffic. I thought it was a good idea to document the situation while I was just standing there...

What a man!

Our sad busted tire...

Things don't look so good...(neither do I, come to think of it...)

I was taking things in stride and just thought we were making life a little more interesting. We get off at the next exit to find the nearest Wal-Mart, only to learn that it's about 30 miles away. So, we putter down I-80 at 50 miles an hour with our hazard lights on until we reach Wal-Mart. It was like an oasis! You can always count on Wal-Mart to be open, even on New Year's Day! We went in and laughed with the mechanics about how glad we were that they were working, blah blah blah. Then things started to go downhill. It's not a good sign when you tell the mechanic what size your tire is and he curses. An hour and many phone calls later, we still had no tire. In one hour I went from laughing and documenting to tears. It's all in good fun until no one has your tire. Little did we know when we bought our "economical" Nissan Sentra last August that it was such a rare gem that only ONE company makes ONE tire that ONLY goes on our car. Ridiculous. To make this long story shorter, we spent the night in Des Moines, got up early, got our gold-plated, diamond encrusted tire and headed back to KC. On a good note, however, a very generous man from our church in East Peoria had given us an unexpected Christmas gift that made this little unexpected adventure (ahem, expense) a whole lot easier. We thank the Lord for that and for him!