therobynsnest.org - January 2011 Family Update

Family Updates

January 2011 Family Update

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April 2008 Family Update

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February 2008 Family Update

January 2011 Family Update

Hello everyone! Did you give up on ever getting an update from me again? Well, I'm finally back and I plan to update this site every month in 2011. We just watched Julie/Julia the other day - if she could prepare over 500 recipes in 365 days, surely I can write twelve updates in a year. :-) It's January 31 so I'm just barely getting January's update in. :-) This major procrastinator is going to try once again to do a better job and get things done in a timely fashion. Pray for me...it's a big deal! I'm tired of living from deadline to deadline and making cards the morning of a funeral or birthday party.

It's been quite a while since we talked last, but I'm just going to give you a short and sweet update for now. Maybe next month I'll start earlier in the month and give you a few more details.

Gary is still enjoying his job as Pastor at Trinity Reformed Church here in Allison, Iowa. We love our congregation and pray that we'll be able to keep helping them grow in their faith. We have had three funerals this month - it's sad to say goodbye to some of our older members. Gary and I are one of three couples leading our Senior High Youth Group this year and we love getting to know that great group of kids! It's stretching us as we try to figure out games for them to play and relevant topics for them to learn about at our meetings. Gary will celebrate his next birthday in Guatemala this year! We are going on a mission trip in a week (yes, as usual, I feel the need to update when I have plenty of other things to do :-) More on that later...

I am doing quite well, in spite of a problem with my thyroid that I found out about a couple of months ago. I was having some heart palpitations for a few days and finally decided to go in and get it checked out. The EKG was fine but the blood work showed that I have hyperthyroidism. Actually, it was a relief to find out that it was something medical - I was afraid that it was just stress or something (even though I didn't feel terribly stressed about anything in particular) So, I've been on a medicine that slows my heart down for the last couple of months and my heart has been behaving. I'm supposed to see a specialist tomorrow in Waterloo and hopefully I'll get my thyroid problem fixed soon. I'm anxious to see how much better I feel after dealing with this problem - I have felt especially tired the last few months and I've been blaming lots of other things on my thyroid, too: forgetfulness, irritability, bad eyesight, etc. :-)

Erin (18) got to spend the day at Northwestern College in Orange City this past Saturday. She competed for more scholarship money - essay and interview. She was a little nervous before we got there, but the faculty and staff made her feel very welcome and at ease and she had a great day. I came away even more appreciative of the education I received at Northwestern. I'm so excited for Erin as she graduates this year and goes off to college next year!

Allison (16) continues to write and write and write. She nabs Gary's laptop whenever he isn't using it and works on various novels. In November we had our usual challenge: a huge Hershey bar for the first one to reach 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. Last year wasn't challenging enough so she decided to try for TWO 50,000 word novels this year....and she did it! She amazes me with her talent. She did all that and still got awesome grades at high school. I also won NaNoWriMo this year - I wrote over 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November. Some of it was good, most was pretty awful. I doubt it will actually become a novel anytime soon, but it did boost my confidence a bit as I came up with lots of ideas and characters.

Blake (13) decided to come home for school after the first quarter of this year. We did lots of talking and praying before making that decision. He's doing good work at home...we'll see how it goes and decide this summer if we continue with that or get him back into public school. He is a great kid and it's been nice to spend more time with him over the last few months. He's almost taller than me! (He claims he's taller than I am, but I refuse to admit that yet)

Dylan (10) loves the Wii and the computer...but he also likes to read and spend time with friends. He's still a picky eater - peanut butter and jelly, Lucky Charms and chocolate milk are his favorites - and not much else! Hopefully he'll add some more foods to his list as he gets older. He's in 5th grade this year.

Well, better finish this up and update the site before midnight...God bless you and I'll talk to you next month!

~Robyn