Alright, updates:
Jarrod and I celebrated our second anniversary! We each planned a day, and in the Reed way, there were dangerous adventures, inadequate maps, artistic pictures, and of course: food.
Jarrod's day, the 8th, started very early. My only clue was to pick two pairs of shoes (out of 8) that would be required. Despite my detective reasoning, I guessed wrong, so I had to go to bed not knowing anything about what the next day would hold. Before the alarm went off, I snuck off to do some prep work for my surprise to Jarrod (more to come on that later). I made it back just as he was waking up, and he told me to grab my hiking boots and some comfy clothes. What the hey? Where were we going? We packed up some snacks and left.
In the car, I was given a sweet letter, and after some mushy moments I wont describe here, he told me we were headed on a caving adventure: to mammoth cave!
There are many tours which run through the cave system (it stretches over 300 miles! nothing like the caverns in Marianna, FL). Most of the tours are varying lengths of walking on well established trails. Not ours. We were going on the "wild cave" tour. We were given coveralls, hard hats with lamps on the front, and knee pads. I was a little nervous when they talked about how we would be squeezing through holes, doing long crawls and be scaling rock walls. What if I freak out in the middle? What if I can't do it? Jarrod was a bit nervous too, I think. But, our competitive side reared its head and we couldn't be shown up the the other people on the tour, so we took the plunge.
A few of the really intense moments: the "bare hole". It's a tunnel, probably 8 feet long, which ends in a hole that is 42" in diameter. We had to slide one arm through first then do "scissor hips" (as the army man called it) to fit through. Whew! And this was only a small indication of what we were getting into. The hardest part, in my opinion, was Kathleen's crawl. After squirming through a small hole to get into it, we had to belly crawl for about 100 feet (though it felt like a mile) with the gap between the floor and ceiling being just larger than our hard hats. This is the one I got banged up the most on. about 3/4 of the way, I was ready to give up (though, what would I have done to get out? haven't a clue) but my teammates were so encouraging!
Jarrod's favorite line throughout the tour (other than the many lord of the rings references) was when a person in front of him would grab hold of a rock and say "watch your head!". He told me later he kept thinking, 'what, watch my head smack into the rock?'. It was a great experience, we were SO tired afterwards.
Here's a few pics we were able to snap before the tour started, no cameras were allowed in the cave :(
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| why yes, I did shop off my hair :) |
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| we always have this pose |
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| one of the cave river exits |
So, that was Jarrod's day for me. My surprise for him the next day entailed going to a Louisville Bats baseball game and enjoying "ballpark food" as he called it. Afterwards we went home and had chocolate fondue with strawberries, marshmallows, oranges, and the works. It was so yummy! We really liked breaking up our celebration over two days. Who knows, next year we might just celebrate for three days :)
Jarrod has started his first full semester. It's a lot. Please pray for him as he's trying to learn how to do his best work, while still keeping his priorities straight. The professors all said one the first day, 'you need to maintain a personal love and relationship with the Lord, don't neglect your family, continue to be involved and serving with the local church, and do well in school'. We're a bit perplexed on how to do this still, especially when there's so much assigned reading! I'm sure Jarrod's approaching the 800 pages a week mark, on top of assignments and working and the like. So, please lift him up to the Father for strength and focus. We've figured out now why everyone told him he was crazy for taking 5 classes at once :)
I have two more interviews this upcoming week: one at an outpatient clinic and one at a community hospital. Through this hardship of trying to find work, God's really brought me to a place where I can say (and believe), what ever you have for me Lord. We've been blown away at how He has provided up to this point. Hopefully the next time I write you all I will have some awesome news to share!
We have been blessed to have Jarrod's cousin live with us for a while now. She's so sweet and has been such an encouragement to us. Please pray for her that she would plant seeds of the Gospel at work and that the Lord would reveal His plan for her.
Okay, this is already a mile long, so I'll have to save my opinion on traffic lights until next time :)
We love you!
-the Reeds
