Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!!!

So, It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Spokane! I seriously can't even believe how much snow we have gotten over the last five days. I haven't seen this much in a very long time. It's kind of crazy too, because now we have a house to take care of. I do think that Jesse is actually enjoying doing the shoveling, even though there has been about 25+ inches of it. I am gladly letting him handle most of it. It is definitely harder too because we are trying to potty train a puppy in the midst of subzero temperatures and over two feet of snow. He hasn't been the happiest about going outside most of the time, but he's handling it. I must say that we are kind of spoiling him because of it too.

Lots of snow!!

My dad saved the day! He came over with his heavy duty snow blower and cleared a path down our whole street so I could get my car out. I was stuck at home for four days. We still haven't been snow plowed. I don't know if they think we need more snow before they plow or what??!!

I actually did a snow angel in 2+feet of snow!! It was tons of fun! It was slightly difficult to get up after I was down.

This is the newest addition to our family!!

So, on November 23rd we were given the opportunity to take home this adorable little boxer puppy whom we named Harley. He is now 9 weeks old and 13 pounds already. My brother and sister-in-law have one of his litter mates and they named her Madelaine, or Mady for short. They are the two most adorable little puppies ever. Harley is such a little love. He has to be around people at all times or he whines like a baby. Most of the time though he just wants to play or sit on your lap. That first week was definitely a tough one, but we are making it. It has definitely been a big change for us. Jesse and I were used to staying up late and sleeping in. We are now living a very different lifestyle. He is starting to get the hang of the whole potty training thing, but I think it is going to take him a little while. I think this is good practice for us for when we have kids, he is a lot like one!!

This is our happy little family!!

This is Harley and Mady

He enjoys sleeping on his back like this

You gotta admit he's pretty cute!!

Oklahoma!!!

So I recently took a trip back to Oklahoma to visit some friends. These are some of the girls that I was with when I went down to Texas after high school graduation. They both went through the YWAM training with me and we developed a very strong friendship. Dawn was my roomie in the dorm and we went to Madagascar together, and Meghan was in the same dorm as us. I hadn't seen either of them in four years when I went down south for Dawn's wedding. She has had two precious little boys since then, so I figured it was time for a visit. Jesse was unable to take the time off of work, so I had to go alone. It was fun being with the girls, but this was the first time that Jesse and I had been apart since we got married so it was a little difficult. I just wanted to share some pictures of my wonderful trip.

Dawn is on the left with 4mo. old Grady and Meghan is on the right

We dressed Grady up in a ninja outfit for a harvest party at the church.

He was an adorable ninja!!

This is 2 1/2 yr. old Riley as a fireman and his friend

The church had a little room all decorated so you could go in and take family photos.

It was such a great idea, and sooo cute!

Riley had his first piece of sour candy! Couldn't resist the photo-op!


Grady was a perfect angel the whole night.

Grady was cutting his first tooth and he wouldn't let go of my finger!

How can you not love that adorable blond curly hair!!

I never posted any pictures of my brother and new sister-in-laws wedding, so I thought I would put a few up. It was on the fourth of July this last summer, for those of you that didn't know. They had the wedding up in Winthrop, WA, which is where they live. It is a tiny little town about 4 hours to the north and west of here. My little brother builds houses up there. He is actually in the process of finishing their house. This is his third house in the last four years. This first one was right after they saw each other for the first time. Jesse took the picture, and I think he captured it very well!!

Aren't they cute??!!

Her wedding dress was actually her mom's. She had a seamstress take off the top part b/c it was a high collar and long sleeves made entirely of lace. I think she did a great job of making it look modern!!

My mom and dad with Kevin and Chelea

Their first dance. This was at about 11:00pm under the stars. It was gorgeous!

We had a crazy fun weekend!! Our friends Joe and Amber were getting married on Saturday. Jesse was in the wedding, so we arrived early so that we could help set up, and be there for pictures. The ceremony was at the Manito Park Rose Gardens. It was really pretty with all the flowers in bloom.

The pastor was kind of interesting. I guess in practice he had Joe and Amber repeat their vows, but in the actual wedding he just had them say their name, and then he read the vows. It was kind of odd, but oh well. They said they only paid him $50, so they didn't really care.
This is Amber with Cassidy the flower girl. They were so cute, I couldn't pass up the photo opportunity!
This was all the bridal party attendants. From left to right; Dana, Steve, Tiffany, Jesse, Jamie, Jimmy, Tasheira, and Scott. I loved the girls dresses, and the guys didn't really even mind wearing the pink!!!

Steve and Jesse having tons of fun at the reception! Always good for a laugh!!

We got to the Rose Gardens about 3:30 and then we were supposed to head to the Davenport but my car died. The battery just went kapoot. The lights didn't even work. So, we hung out in the 100 degree heat until they all came up for pictures at 5:00. As long as we sat in the shade and didn't move, we at least stopped sweating. Not for long though. Then all the guys had to put on their long sleeved shirts, vests, ties, and jackets. Boy did I feel sorry for them. At least I got to wear a dress that was little bit cooler. The wedding was short and sweet, and that was a good thing. Standing out in the sun just for the 15 minutes for the wedding was long enough. We were all dripping sweat just from that little bit of time. After the ceremony they did a bunch more pictures before heading down to the Davenport for the reception. We ended up having to jump my car because it wouldn't start. After the reception my car wouldn't start again, so we jumped it again. This time it was midnight in downtown Spokane. Needless to say, we did finally get a new battery in it on Sunday.

Finally an update!!

Well, we have now been in our new house for about a month! We absolutely love it!! We haven't really done any decorating yet, but soon. At least we are all unpacked and settled in for the most part. I finally got around to taking pictures and posting them. So here they are for those who haven't seen our home yet! This is our living room, where we spend all of our time. It feels so open with the cathedral ceilings and all the windows, which we love!


I definitely want to do some painting some time in the near future. I don't like all the beige walls, but they are ok for now. I also need to find all those fun little wall things that really make a house a home. I know all that will come in time though. One thing that has been really nice is our dining room. We really enjoy actually eating dinner at our dining table. We have had it since we got married, but it was stuck in a corner at our apartment so we never used it.

WE LOVE OUR KITCHEN!!!

This is our master bedroom. We also have cathedral ceilings with a fan in our room. It is wonderful!! We have a king size be and we still have plenty of room. It is soooo much better than our apartment!

So, other than that here is a synopsis of everything else going on. Life has been a little crazy in our life lately. You could just say that the last three months have definitely been tough on me physically. I am finally starting to get better after the strep throat, a back injection that didn't work, emergency surgery, another back injection that did work, then a car accident, and finally a sinus cold combined with some nasty allergies.... But hey, thank goodness none of it was too serious and I am finally on the mend!

We get the keys to our house on Thursday!!

So, today we went and signed all the papers for our new house! I definitely feel like we were signing our lives away. I was kind of nervous going into the meeting, and didn't really know what to expect. Well, now that we are officially almost broke, and have promised the world to everyone else, I am actually doing ok. We will be getting our keys tomorrow, so we get to move anytime after that. I am actually really excited to move! I think it helps that we know we will be here for quite a few years, so we can actually settle down somewhat. I feel like I have been on the move for about 7 straight years. Constantly moving from place to place gets kind of old. So, this is a nice change in pace for us! Hopefully in the next month or so we will have some kind of open house or get together so everyone can come on over and check out our new place. We haven't entertained at our own place AT ALL since we got married cause we've been in an apartment, and I feel bad. Well now we will hopefully be entertaining a lot more.

Just recouping!!!

Thanks guys for all your comments and thoughts and prayers!! I am doing much better today. I am still very sore and crampy, but alive and well. They pump your body cavity full of air when they go in to do these surgeries, so it just kind of makes you really achy and sore all over. Your body has to try and push it out, which takes a little while. So, on top of the surgery, you have really bad "gas" cramps. My lower abdominals are really sore and pretty bruised where they were poking around, but they should be quite a bit better in a few days. I did have a few weird side effects of the anesthesia, but hopefully when it wears off over the next few days those will go away. I am not supposed to lift anything over 20 pounds for 2-3 weeks, so I can't really help do the moving. I am also having a different kind of injection into my back a few days before we move, so I'm kind of out for the count for a little while. It's really hard for me not to do much, but I find that if I try, I'm definitely in more pain. So, I figured I should listen to the doctor and lay low. Thanks again for all your prayers! Jesse and I really coveted them over the last few days!!

How quickly life changes!!

So, I just spent the last two days in the hospital after having emergency surgery... Yuck! That is all I have to say about it. Apparently I had a cyst on my right ovary that had burst, and it happened to be filled with blood. It wasn't just a tiny little cyst either. It was about the size of a tennis ball!! So, when it burst it sent about 200cc of blood into my pelvic cavity. Very painful by the way. So this all happened early Tuesday morning at about 4:00 am. I had been cramping all night, but didn't really pay much attention to it. Then about 3:30 in the morning it woke me up and was really strong. At that point I almost passed out the pain was so intense. So, we went to Valley Hospital and the did an ultrasound and blood counts right away. They could tell exactly what it was from the ultrasound so they decided to surgery as soon as they could get an OR. I went in for surgery about 12:00pm on Tuesday. The rest is all history!! I got home from the hospital at about 10:30 today. So, I just thought I would update everyone in case you hadn't heard.

More Pictures!!

Here's a few more pictures of our new house for those of you that don't check my myspace or facebook!!! There's another lot next to us that is still available if anyone wants to live near us!!

We got it!!

We got the house!!! We are sooooo excited!! We will hopefully be closing in less than a month, but for sure on April 17th. It so scary to buy house, but also so exciting. I can't wait to have projects to do and things to look forward to doing. I haven't done anything to our apartment because it's just that, an apartment. I can't wait to decorate, and do landscaping, and plan the basement, and all kinds of other stuff. Anyway, we will be moving in right across the street from Katie and Jared and I can't wait for that. It will so much fun to have barbeques, and wine parties and all kinds of great get togethers. We also celebrated our 1st Anniversary tonight and we had a wonderful time. We went to the Melting Pot downtown and had a wonderful relaxing dinner. After the craziness of this last week, it was much needed. We will definitely have a house warming after we are all moved in, so we will keep everyone updated!!

PRAY!!!

So, we put in an offer on a house this morning at nine o'clock!!! We will possibly hear back from them today, but at the latest on Monday. I am so excited and nervous I can hardly stand it. Yes, we might possibly be neighbors of Katie and Jared's very soon. If we get the house, we will close on April 17th. So that means major packing and insanity for about a month. So everyone pray really hard if you think about it over the next two days. We would really appreciate it. We would love to get the house and I really think that God has led us here. I will keep you updated!

The House Hunt!!

I love looking for houses! I am soooo excited to find just the right house as our first house, that I can't help but keep looking, and looking, and looking, and looking... I have looked at hundreds, if not thousands of houses online over the last few months. It's definitely gotten to be an almost nightly event at our place. I think I am kind of obsessed. Obviously looking at them online is nothing like actually looking at them in real life. It has sufficed for me though. I am pretty picky about a lot of things, so I can tell by the pictures if it's even a remote possibility for us. Jesse has enjoyed looking over my shoulder as I critique houses for the ugly orange cabinets, or the green carpet, and even the pink walls. You would not believe what some people do to these houses!! Thankfully many of those things are easily changeable. I keep coming back to this ONE house though. It is my favorite house by far that we have found. We have actually been able to walk through it as well, and I LOVE IT!! We are just waiting to hear from our mortgage lady and then we can get the ball rolling. Hopefully in the next two months we will be able to get into a house. I will definitely keep up with the updates and let everyone know as soon as we do!!!

Just an update on my back!!!

So, I spoke with the neurosurgeon a couple of weeks ago. He suggested that I try an epidural injection to relieve some of the pain. I decided to go ahead and do it. I went in yesterday for the procedure. The doctor yesterday wanted to do a slightly different injection, but he did have his reasoning for it. So, they knocked me out and then did four injections in my low back. Let me tell you something. When that anesthetic wore off I was in a world of hurt. They told me I would be a little sore, but I wasn't expecting that. So, anyway I'm still hurting but I am optimistic that it will get better over the next couple of weeks. My husband has been wonderful and very compassionate through the whole thing. He is so patient with me! So, if this does work than I just have to get a couple injections every year. I think I would much rather do this than surgery that's for sure. So, since we have been able to put off the surgery, at least for a while, we have come up with a new plan. We are looking into buying a house and we are so excited about it!! I am getting really sick of living in an apartment and I want more space for us. So, we have found some houses that we really like, but we will just have to wait and see. That's about all the updates from the Hemphill's!!!

Life is always changing!!!

So, my husband and I have a very big decision to make. I didn't think this was something that I would have to be dealing with at such a young age, but I am. I have finally gone to a neurosurgeon for the back problems that I have been dealing with over the last few years. It has finally gotten to the point that I dread work every day, because it is so difficult to do physically. So, my back issues started out with a hereditary problem that I have known about for over ten years. Unfortunately it has compounded and gotten a lot worse. I am now to the point that the neurosurgeon has said that he suggests a back fusion. I just worry about doing this at such a young age. It just means that I will still have stuff to deal with as my back ages over the years. I am not very happy about this, but I am hopeful. I can only hope that this surgery will at least help with the day to day pain. I can handle the pain every once in a while, but it's hard when it's all the time. I have actually been a little depressed lately because of it. It gets so hard to even function, that I don't even want to. I know God has led me to this point in my life. He never fails us, I know this! I just keep praying and continue to lean on Him for my support. My husband has been so amazing through this whole situation so far. He is soooo compassionate and loving towards me. It definitely helps me get through the day. More updates later when I know more!!

I'm Here!!!

So, I finally decided to join blogger in hopes that I could try to keep in touch with some people better! I will try and keep up with this, in some manner of speaking. I am not very good about just writing down what's going on in my life, but this is to hopefully better that.