Ah, I feel cleansed!

When Aaron and I got home from our Christmas road trip we did a few in-home projects. Our first one was Friday night. 2 years ago Aaron made an entertainment center with the help of his dad. This thing is pretty massive and heavy, as I'm sure many of you remember from the big move. Well, above our TV there was a big empty space and Aaron and I decided that it needed some shelves to not waste the space. So his dad kindly made a shelf with doors for us and we brought them home after Christmas. We did it after supper thinking it would be a quick job. Huh...turns out it took us 3 1/2 hours! We drilled a few wrong holes and had trouble with some worped boards. We finally finished and it looks great. It's a perfect place for all our games with room to spare!

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Our next big project was organizing our office which is also the storage room. After we moved we unpacked everything we needed and left the rest in the boxes. We also kept some empty boxes to use again the next time we move, assuming we wouldn't stay in this apartment for too long. The tower was growing in every direction and almost reached the ceiling! Looking at the craziness for too long we decided to do something about it. We shopped around for the best deals on plastic storage tubs but eventually came back to good ol' Wal-mart. I love that place! Saturday we tackled "the tower". Thinking that wouldn't take us too long either, we worked through the afternoon and into the evening. We went through every box deciding whether to keep it or put it in the garage sale. We now have two full boxes+ for the garage sale! I don't even know why all that stuff got moved here. Sorry to those of you who carried boxes that contained those items! We broke down all the boxes and took them out to the garbage bin. The trash guys will love us! We then filled the new tubs with the remaining things and labeled the tubs. We also made record of what is in every tub. I love that my husband is just as organized as me! Although I wish we didn't have to have any boxes in this room, it looks so much better. I feel so cleansed.

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Christmas Road Trip 2007

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We sure did. Aaron and I celebrated our own Christmas together. We were going to wait until the Wednesday before we left to go home but Monday rolled around and we didn't have anything to do. I got a little antsy and convinced Aaron that it would be a good idea to open them that night! We had a very enjoyable time and he did a great job this year. Thursday night before we left Aaron went to a Rams game in St. Louis with one of the guys in our youth group. He got back at 3:30 in the morning. 5 hours later we were packed up and headed for New Paris for Christmas Part 1. We surprised my mom and came early. I didn't tell her that I was taking off work on Friday so rather than leaving at 2:45, we showed up at 2:45! I must say she was quite surprised. That night we had a Christmas with my mom's side of the family. I'm so glad we left early because we actually got to spend time with everyone! Saturday morning we picked up my best friend Beth and went to visit our friends Brad and Kelsey Bullock. They had a baby girl(Brenna) a few months ago so of course we needed to go see them.
It was so good to spend time with them again. That afternoon/evening we had Christmas #2 with all my siblings. Again I say, it was so good to catch up with all of them. It's so hard living so far away and missing alot of the get-togethers. They are all very encouraging and supportive of our ministry here however. Sunday was a blessing to go to my home church. I've missed so many family friends. It was also really nice to be able to go to church and not be part of the service. We love our role in the church but it was nice to be on the other side of things again! For lunch my parents took us to Cici's because we don't have one in Vincennes. That was a treat! We then went to visit my great grandma Mabel. The woman continues to amaze me. She's 98 and still going strong. That evening we did nothing but relax with my parents. Christmas Eve morning we had a small Christmas with just my parents, my brother and his wife, and my sister and her family. We had breakfast, opened presents, ate lunch, and squeezed in a game of Settlers. Things have changed so much in all our lives since we were younger but I still look forward to that time with them. My sister's boys are just so adorable and I loved spending time with them! They have changed so much and are getting so big. It's really hard being away from those two!

Please enjoy the slideshow of pictures from Christmas Part 1:


We left that afternoon and drove to Illinois for Christmas Part 2. It was fun spending Christmas Day with them. We had breakfast, opened presents and then played with our presents! That night we went to his grandparents' to have another Christmas with his dad's side. On Wednesday Aaron and I and his sister went shopping and saw the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was really good! That night we relaxed and then Aaron's cousin and his fiance came to hang out and of course, we played Settlers. I almost won too! Thursday was full of more laziness and packing. Our car was completely packed! We left after supper. We made it home safely. The week went so fast but we enjoyed it so much. It was nice to be back home too because there was plenty to do waiting for us. I'm looking forward to this next week because I have one more full week of Christmas vacation and I'm definitely going to take advantage of it!

Slideshow for Christmas Part 2:

Zehr Home at Christmas

I just thought you all might be interested in seeing what our apartment looks like at Christmas time! I wish you could all see it in person but I guess this will have to do.

This is the outside of our apartment at night time. Aaron did such a nice job of lighting up our little place!

Our Christmas tree with ALL the gifts under it because we are done with our shopping! It seems that our tree isn't big enough for all the gifts.

So it's not quite a fireplace but it will have to do!

Holiday Fun

This past weekend we had many more Christmas activities. Friday night we went to a church in town for a Christmas concert. We were invited because the secretary of our church attends there and she was in the program. It was amazing! They had a huge stage and had costumes and everything and their choir was huge. The Lord was glorified and I’m looking forward to going again next year. Saturday was pretty jam packed. We begin our day by going to church to help with the Angel Food distribution. From 1-3 we rang bells with some of the kids from the youth group at Walmart for Salvation Army. That was fun but it started to get pretty cold. When we got done with that we got ready for our youth group progressive dinner. It is there tradition to get dressed up and travel to houses of people in the church for different courses of the dinner. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the time. We went to four different houses and then we did a while elephant gift exchange at the last house. We didn't get home until 10:00. Sunday morning the little kids had their program and then that night we had our choir concert. After the concert we had a reception from the pastor's to the congregation as a thank you. We finally got home and were able to rest after a busy weekend.

It's the Christmas Season

The life of a youth pastor's family is busy anyway but when you add the Christmas season into the mix it makes it even more so. Last weekend (Dec. 7-9) was full with activities. Friday night we traveled to Indy for a pastors and wives dinner. It was the annual Christmas dinner for the Free Methodist pastors in the Wabash Conference. The dinner was catered and it was very nice. I enjoyed our time there but driving 2 hours there and back was no fun. Saturday morning we met some of the youth at the church to set up for our dinner fundraiser featuring the Hoosier Swing Band. The adult leaders came back at 4:30 to start cooking the food. We had salad, chicken alfredo, breadsticks, and pie for dessert. Going into it a couple of us thought we were pretty good cooks. While in the middle of cooking we decided that we are only good cooks for small groups of people rather than a group of 75. I also decided that I could never be a cook in a restaurant because there is too much pressure! We were in the kitchen the whole time and didn't really get to see what was going on. We still enjoyed our time though. We have gotten so many compliments about the dinner. They enjoyed leisurely eating dinner, listening to the band and being served by the youth. I'm sorry I don't really have pictures because I was too busy in the kitchen. There was never a dull moment! After everyone left we were able to eat and then the youth cleaned up the kitchen. They had a pretty big job because we made a HUGE mess! We were both ready to go home because we were so tired. Sunday we had a carry in breakfast to honor the Sunday School teachers and then another great service. I came home and took a two hour nap because I've been sick with a cold. We went to a band concert to see some of our youth. That night we had the usual praise band practice and Bible study. It was a very busy weekend! Only one more week of school after this one and then it's home for Christmas!! I just can't wait to see our family!

These are some pictures of us preparing for the fundraiser dinner.


These are some pictures of the actual dinner. There aren't very many because I couldn't really leave the kitchen to take them! It took my like 1 hour and a 1/2 to cook all the chicken!

These are two of our adult leaders that helped out. I was so glad to have them!