Welcome to STS: Day 3 in Ireland (Friday)

Welcome to STS: Day Three/Friday
Howdy family and friends! This was the first official day with STS so we had our annual meeting in the morning and we learned some really interesting things with the new paperwork that the government is requiring and the expectations of the students as well as families! Dave snuck away saying he needed to go to the bathroom and found himself at a bike shop a couple blocks away! Go figure.
After the meeting we had the afternoon to be tourists.

We found two leprechauns—one that was authentic and one in costume! We went to Trinity College and the Book of Kells--a very interesting place to say the least. A lot of history there. Following those tours we went to the National Museum followed by a trip to the local McDonald’s! We tried their ice cream—I must admit that it is much better than the American ice cream. We had a McFlake—this would be similar to the McFlurry in the States. While we were there we also saw a group of students from the school. They are required to wear uniforms to school every day!
That night the STS Rep group went to a local pub called Arlington’s that featured traditional Irish music and dancing. On our walk there we crossed the Ha’Penny Bridge where there is some beautiful ironwork on the bridge. Attached to the ironwork are several locks. When a loved one passes away you are to write or engrave their name on the lock, clamp it on the bridge and throw the key in the river.
To get down to the music, we went down a side staircase to a basement and were treated to some traditional Irish entertainment. The music was grand, the Irish dancers were fantastic with the outfits and the tap shoes, but tonight we figured out that we really miss Nebraska beef. Irish beef is good, but what they call a steak in Dublin is not a steak. We also tried traditional Irish Coffee. I had Bailey’s Irish Coffee and Dave tried a French Coffee. Once again, very strong. I didn’t even drink ¼ of mine!

As we finished up the meal and the entertainment we slowly made our way back to the motel. Tonight the town was full as there was a huge soccer match between Ireland and Germany and the Germans had won 6 – 1. Every place was full of people and the town was buzzing with excitement. German excitement that is. They sang and chanted long into the night. It was just like Lincoln after the Huskers play. People were talking about the match and even the next morning, analyzing the game play. We felt right at home.

Just Another Ordinary Day: Day Two in Ireland

Just Another Ordinary Day: Day Two/Thursday
Howdy Family and Friends: We wanted to see ordinary life so Katy took us to a hardware store for light bulbs and a power bar. Nothing like what we have in the USA—it reminded us of just a little hole in the wall hardware store with everything you can imagine stacked on the walls. We had sandwiches at a cafe and did some shopping in some department stores then we headed back to the apt. to pack our stuff to walk to the Brooks Hotel.
In the city center everybody walks. The distance isn't figured in blocks or miles it is figured in how long it takes to walk there. While we were walking there we saw that during the night somebody was worried about the statues getting cold and put stocking caps on several of the them.
We finally found our Hotel and were greeted by the door man, Conner. The interesting thing about him is that every time we saw him during the duration of our stay, he called us by my first name. That was impressive! We checked into our room and the took off to explore and hopefully not get too lost. There were a lot of neat shops really close to the hotel. One little mall had a little coffee stand. Since it was cooler out we stopped for something sweet to eat and warm to drink. Dave learned one very important lesson that day: Coffee here is not the same at home! At home, Dave usually orders a Carmel Macchiato in the States, but here they had a double Macchiato. Dave thought that sounded pretty good. The standard is a double shot so this would have been a quad shot. His opinion was “Bring it on!!!” The difference he found out is that the coffee in Ireland is much stronger and no where as sweet. He successfully stripped my taste buds and was frantically looking for the sugar. Newsflash – Carmel Macchiato and Macchiato are not the same!! It was very strong, but the cakes were awesome.

I played it safe with a mocha which was good but still very strong and not as sweet. After coffee, we went back to go shopping in the tourist area. We found the Hard Rock Cafe in Dublin and some Irish yarn for Joyce and the cutest Doll House shop with a life size teddy bear! We also found an eco cab. Now Dave has the brilliant idea that he and one of his bike riding buddies are going to build.

For the evening, we met up with another rep we met last year and ate at a classy restaurant called Bewleys. After a short walk back to the room, it was off to the room and to bed, except for me--the coffee was kicking in and I was still up at 3 saying “no more coffee in the afternoon!!! What was I thinking?”
From my coffee picture window to yours, have a great week!

"We are flying as fast as we can..."

Howdy Friends and Family! These two days run together because we left Nebraska on Tuesday morning, the USA on Tuesday night and landed Wednesday morning. This year we promised ourselves that we wouldn't make the mistake we made last year. We would go to bed the night before. Of course, that didn't happen. We were so excited and of course hadn’t even thought of packing yet. We packed and

stayed up and left for grand Island at 330 in the morning! A quick stop at McDonald's for breakfast and we left for another once in a lifetime opportunity! Grand Island to Dallas and then off to Chicago. Our plane out of Grand Island was delayed. So once we got up in the air the pilot said we have reached our cruising altitude and we are flying as fast as we can to make sure you make your connection.
Dallas to Chicago was uneventful. After a 4 hour layover in Chicago we border out plane to Dublin. Thinking of Dave’s legs in the seats, I tried to be helpful and got us exit row seats which were great but for some reason sitting by that door was so cold! We both had on summer type of clothes so when the plane landed, we were ever so happy to get off. After making our way through Customs, we met our missionary hosts Blake and Katy Edgmon. We went out and did a little exploring including eating at Gourmet Burger

Kitchen. Dave’s lunch was humongous. So big that he ended up eating it with a fork! It included a burger, egg, lettuce, mushroom, tomatoes, onions, and cheese. Quite delicious though!
Blake and Katy took us all around the area and stopped at the fist Assembly of God church in Ireland. We stopped at a coffee shop with some very unique furniture and ordered some lattes. Back home and a spaghetti supper and relaxation—and early to bed at 8 p.m. From our very tired, yet very excited picture window to yours, have a great day!

Howdy Family and Friends! It’s day 3—yippee! For me (Jen) this day was spent on the road to South Dakota to visit two of my foreign exchange students that I have placed there! 127 miles one way! Luckily, Jalise slept the entire trip both going and coming home! Unfortunately, coming home, my body was ready for a nap too! Little sleep last night and an early morning don’t make for an awake Jen! But, we made it home—before the boys got home from church and enjoyed a quiet evening!

From Dave: This was day three of the ride. We started in Bingham and were en-route to Thedford. The conditions were much more favorable. It was 54 degrees this morning and this afternoon it reached around the mid 80's. Overall it was a pleasant ride with no major mishaps. I took the morning easy and was just seeing if my episode yesterday was just a fluke or was I really in trouble. We had some big hills and even bigger downhills which was nice. The downside is that there was a lot of road construction that wasn't there when we drove out. The decided to surface 7 miles of road and there was no smooth spot to ride. Either you road a shoulder that had a lot of loose rock and was rough or ride the new gravel and hope you didn't crash. What a choice.

After the construction I came up on a van that had pulled over with a flat tire. I asked him if he needed help and he responded, "I think that would be a good idea." He was a senior from Ord and it was fun to be able to help him. I needed something to put under the jack because it was sinking in the sand and he brought me his English Literature book. I opted not to use his book and used a mat from the back of his van. We stopped for lunch in Mullen and I made my mind up that I wanted to be the first rider in to Thedford and nobody was going beat me. When we left Mullen I kicked it into high gear! Side note: this is my nickname too, and I didn't look back. 10 miles in I stopped at the trailer, grabbed a snack, and took off. I was going fast enough that I beat the bus to the next stop. I arrived in Thedford 10 minutes before any other riders. I achieved my goal of leading an entire section and it felt great. At the end of the day I road 84 miles and averaged 17.8 miles an hour. Thanks for all your prayers. Tomorrow we have a short day and we ride 67 miles to Broken Bow and I get to sleep in a real bed at my inlaws home instead of a motel. Wahoo!!!

From our speedy (both driving and riding) picture window to yours, have a great night!

Day Two, What Shall I do?

Howdy Family and Friends! Day 2, what to do? For me (Jen) today was exactly that…where oh where do I start…laundry, dishes, floors, oh wait! I know! How about Happy 13 Anniversary to my husband! To celebrate, I went out for coffee with the ladies from the church! Dave gave me a gift certificate to the Hub (for coffee) an Angry birds stress ball, and a sling shot from the Angry Birds game…not exactly romantic you say!? I agree, but it was from him!

From Dave: Today was the first full day of the ride. What a day! We rode 40 miles before lunch and it was an interesting ride. It was 42 degrees when we left. If only it would have stayed cool all day. That first section had a lot of down hills, but there were three major uphills that challenged us right away. Over all it was an uneventful day. There was one flat tire, but everybody seemed to be doing well.

As we pulled into Alliance for lunch, the wind shifted to the west and we were very excited to have a major tail wind for the last half of the ride. I choose to start in the back today and took my time riding to the front so I could visit with all the riders along the way. After 14 miles, I had had enough and it was time to go. The wind was picking up and we motored. We ended riding an extra 18 miles more than we had planned because the wind was so favorable. All together we road 83 miles and stopped in Bingham. I was totally wasted the last two miles. I didn't have anything left in the tank. The front group got there really early so after resting for a while waiting for the bus I decided to ride down into Bigham and take the royal tour of the town. There isn't much there, but I have to say the streets are very well marked. Every street had a sign. It was a fun adventure. When I returned to the highway everybody else had arrived and the bus was almost there. Wahoo!

Remember I said we wished it stayed cool. It was 105 along side the road. Not fun. Tonight I was given the "forget me not" award. Before I left Burwell I was fixing some seams on top of the bus to stop some leaks and I thought I had taken care of everything. At Arby’s today I was looking at the bus and I couldn't figure out what was laying on top of the bus. I thought I might have damaged something with a low tree branch or something. So I walked out and look and found the caulking gun that I had used the other day. It rode all the way to Chadron and back to Alliance without falling off. Pretty impressive! Summary of the day I rode 84 miles and averaged 19.2 miles an hour. Good day over all!

From our loving, speedy anniversary window to yours, have a great night!

Day 1, the fun has just begun!

Day 1--The fun has just begun!
Howdy friends and family! As you can tell by the title, today is the first day of the Missions Bike ride for Dave and being a bachelorette/single Mom for the week!
We stayed the night in Broken Bow until Dave and Jon met up with the rest of the crew to head west! Pretty uneventful on our end! Dave on the other hand had a great day! The riders saw the destruction from the fires and the smoke in the air was there, but luckily not too heavy. The group also started riding tonight.
Dave and his riding partner Dale Ackermann, beat their personal record for going 20 miles! They accomplished this goal in 53 minutes.

On the way home, Cecilie gave me a note from Dave telling me to look in the visor of the pickup. There I found his old IPod. Cecilie loaded a message from Dave! It was rather cute and I will try to include it on here. The message was a song titled, “Call Me Maybe!” and while it was rather cute, he holds up a sign with a number…which was supposed to be his—well, it wasn’t. It was a land line in Burwell. OOPS! Still cute and rather funny!

From our smoky and speedy wrong number picture window to yours, have a great night!

What Faith Can Do...

Howdy friends and family. The lyrics to the song "What Faith Can Do" are so fitting for the blog I am writing tonight. The song says,

"Anyone can feel the ache
You think it's more than you can take..."

That has been my day in a nutshell. To start from the beginning, last Wed. morning I woke up very dizzy. It was so bad that I couldn't get out of the bed without falling down. I was extremely nauseous and burning up! My first thought was, "Oh no, I slept wrong and a nerve in my neck is getting pinched!"

I tried to make my way to the bathroom--but without much success. Jacob caught me in the hallway. He asked if I was ok and of course Mom mode kicked in and I said yes-- just a little dizzy. In his 11 year old most compassionate voice he said, "Uh Mom, I don't think so." I told him that I thought he better get on his bike and go get Dad from work. He was gone before I could even make it to the couch.

Dave came home and helped finish getting the boys off to school and then stayed with me. We were both not sure what was going on so we called our faithful chiropractor, and got in right away. The drive alone was enough to make me want to throw up.

Doc adjusted me but said, "I think you better make an appointment to see Hugh. (Hugh is our regular physician--Dr. Holmquist.) We did and I told him my symptoms. He took my Blood Pressure, checked my ears...everything was fine. He then suggested we do some blood work. No problem! The nurse came in and took some blood and we returned home to wait for results--which should have come in on Friday.

Well, Friday came and no phone call so I called in to see if they had anything. The answer--"No, sorry. Nothing yet." Saturday came and went, Sunday spun through...nothing, Monday whirled around me-still no phone call with results. Today, woke up at 5:50 burning up, head pounding, room spinning like I had just gotten off the merry go round and extremely nauseous. I immediately woke up Dave and he got me some Motrin and water and a cracker. The cracker still lays on the headboard. I couldn't chew it to save my life. I thought for sure that it must be a flu bug that is going around. I laid there for the next hour unable to get off the dizzy kick. As Dave was preparing to leave for work at 7, I told him he better stick around and make sure the kids got to school ok. He did and I stayed in bed. At 9:20 I got up to make my way to the kitchen to take more medicine and about 20 minutes later the dizziness subsided. I continued on with my day plans which included heading to Broken Bow to meet a prospective host family and have lunch with my Mom.

On the way there, Dave called me as I was about to drive out of service and told me the dr. office called and needed to speak with me. When I was finally able to get back into service, I immediately called them back. The nurse gave me the test results. Mono test came back negative, CBC was fine, some other test was fine, but there was one test that came back not so good...the Thyroid test. I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

"It doesn't matter what you've heard
Impossible is not a word
It's just a reason
For someone not to try

Everybody's scared to death..."

Ya, that's me. Scared to death. What did I do to cause this? How did it happen? Why me? Well, to answer one question: its hereditary. There is nothing I could have done to cause it.

To say the least, today was overwhelming...

"But you're stronger
Stronger than you know"

There were other factors that played into today--finding out that I was housing a family of mice in my dryer hose, Caleb's spacer cutting his tongue open because it broke off, remembering 12 years ago that today was the day I buried my daughter, but to say the least, I was heart broken--felt like the sky was falling down around me.

"Don't you give up now
The sun will soon be shining"

That's what I am holding on to. The sun will be shining tomorrow.

"I've seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn't ever end
Even when the sky is falling
And I've seen miracles just happen
Silent prayers get answered
Broken hearts become brand new
That's what faith can do
That's what faith can do"

I have had other serious conditions that were going to require major surgery happen to me and I have seen miracles just happen in my own life that doctors could not answer for. So for now, this mountain is hard to face. But I will climb this mountain. I will come out on top. Tomorrow will be better.

"You gotta face the clouds
To find the silver lining..

Even if you fall sometimes
You will have the strength to rise

I will get through this new journey that I am travelling down. But please, be in prayer for me. I am believing for a complete miracle. From my 'underactive' picture window to yours, have a great day.