Beginning of Many Things

Today was a day of firsts.

First, it was a first day of work for me (Megan). (Praise the Lord!) Baptist East Hospital made the offer about a week ago, and today was the first day of orientation. Here's a quick summary:

first day look

6 hours of lecture, rather reminiscent of the first day of nursing school, during which I observed much drinking of coffee. I believe the four pitcher-like coffee containers were full when the day began at 0730, but come 1135 when I accidentally grabbed those in lieu of the hot water pitcher, they were all empty. This, perhaps, explains the 5 minute rotations of bathroom-goers throughout the morning. I, on the other hand, fully enjoyed a retreat into childhood with hot chocolate, yum. Break for lunch, free subs sweet!, where people finally started talking and coming out of their rainy-Monday-morning coma (transition related to coffee use?) and I met some interesting women. The afternoon was filled with the usual safety-emphasis, TB mask fit-testing (which I nearly failed, I think due to the fact that my taste is all sorts of unusual right now), and a trip to employee health. When visiting Jarrod later at work, he asked for a quick summary I responded with "they took my blood, gave me a shot, and fed me lunch, it was great!'.  All in all, I am so excited to be working here. Tomorrow will be another long day of lectures, but then more hands-on training starts.
Second, the beginnings of a "baby bump" are encroaching on my once-comfortably fitting pants. I have joked with Jarrod that baby Reed only made his/her presence known after 7pm with a slight "poof". Despite knowing in my head that this belly-protrusion is entirely normal and good, it's still a bit disheartening when getting dressed in the a.m. and realizing two minutes later that your pants are quite uncomfortable. Sigh... perhaps this weekend will involve the first "m" clothes purchase.
Third, and to me, probably the best: it appears Jarrod has finally reached and understanding with school and church and life and wife. Priorities are set and when there's not enough time in the day to get in all done, the once-existent meltdown has now been replaced by a sigh and a good night's sleep. Hooray! Perhaps he'll avoid that ulcer after all. He really does such a good job or making sure that I, and even Simba, know we're loved and more important than an assigned textbook. Thanks to you for continuing to lift him up to the Father concerning this. I'm sure we will revisit this from time to time; but for today, victory.

Fourth: Jarrod and I trekked our first "AT-like" trails this past weekend. Setting out early Friday morning, in the pouring rain we went to chickfila for free breakfast. Despite the rain and baby Reed not cooperating with the whole eating this, we made for the Jefferson Memorial Forest. Climbing as high as 800 feet above sea-level (oh, how I miss the sea!) and traversing 8.5 miles, we were quite proud of ourselves. Joining us on the adventure were three turtles (didn't expect to see them and as evidenced by the loud hiss I don't think they expected us either!), ginormous squirrels, daddy-long-legs the size of my fist, and quail. Anyone in the Louisville area, you really should check out this park. No fees and it was beautiful. BUT... they did not waste space. What other parks would make into a long switchbacks, they made into ridiculously steep staircases. Whew! I do wish we had pictures of this adventure to share, but we left the camera at home. Excuse to go back I guess :)

Fifth: Lastly, and sadly, my favorite pair of shoes has finally died. The sole has been thinning for quite some time. And today, when I picked them up to walk Simba today, I saw the inside of the upper part of the shoe. Very sad day. The sperrys stood the test of many hundreds of miles. Hey, even with a hole they made it for a two mile walk this afternoon. I know their era is over, but I'm just not ready to let them go. Anyone know how to repair them??  Haha, this is ridiculous, I know.

Perhaps on the news where you are you've seen Louisville on the news recently. One of their three bridges has major cracks in it and is shut down indefinitely. Not really for us, but for many, a traffic nightmare has resulted. What city, situated on a river, only has THREE BRIDGES?!?!? Jarrod and I often ponder what the city planners of this town were thinking. Just adding to the list of oddities....

Anyway, that's about all the news on our front. I pray you all are growing in your understanding of the greatness of God, being fully grounded in love. Thanks for keeping tabs on us!
We love you,
-the Reeds

2 + 1 = 3

Well, it's true. The Reed clan is growing from 2 (plus Simba of course) to 3!! Jarrod and I found out we were pregnant just before our 2 year anniversary. I had suspicions before then, but because we had had so many false alarms before, I decided to keep waiting to test.

Well, the morning before our anniversary, I woke up at the crack of dawn and just couldn't wait any longer! The test seemed to take forever, but there was an undeniable "+". After recovering from my own shock and amazement, I began plotting how to break the news to hubby. Retrospect, I probably should have waited till at least 7am to break the news... but when you're excited and entirely unable to keep exciting news a secret well... sometimes you just can't :)

I found a picture frame, which I'm still not sure where it came from, but it had "Dad" written on the top. I decided I would give him that with the test and let him groggily figure it out. Here's a picture of the present:

He definitely didn't get it at first. The frame he said, "um, okay? I guess this can be for a picture of dad and I". It wasn't until I told him to look closely at the other present that the wheel started turning. "Is that a plus??" was followed by multiple tennis-watching glances and then mushy romantic stuff which I will conveniently leave out....

I think we were both really in disbelief for a while after this. We went about celebrating our anniversary, as described in a previous post, and decided to keep it just between us for a few weeks to make sure it wasn't a false alarm. THAT WAS SO HARD! Part of the reason I haven't been updating this blog very often is because I knew I was likely to spill the beans early :)

My favorite story to share, aside from telling Jarrod, is how we told his parents. We knew we wanted to do something special, since we couldn't tell them in person. So one day while at the grocery store, I saw these cute onesies that said "I heart grandma" and "I heart grandpa". They were too cute, and gender neutral!, so I got them. We then wrote a letter which said they could not open the rest of the package until we were on skype with them (oh boy... getting them hooked up to skype is a funny story to share sometime...). Then the anxious waiting began. Of course, Susan called at least 2 or 3 times while I was waiting for them to get the package, and I tried so hard to bite my lip and not let anything suspicious be said. Finally, they called us saying they had received a present from us. We got on skype, small talked for a while, then told them to simultaneously open their gifts.
Susan's reaction: gasp... tennis-match-watching between the gift and us, "no! no no no no no way! oh my gosh, are you serious?!?!?!?! Ahhhhh!!!! " tears. (the volume continuously increased throughout this dialogue, you understand). And finally a big smile.
Wayne's reaction: "oh!" and a very content grin. I believe now is precisely when he started praying for a granddaughter. haha.

We've had our first doctor's appointment, everything looks good and we've already been showered with tons of love and advice and baby necessities. There's tons more to say, but it will have to wait for another time. Promise to keep everyone posted!

We love you,
the Reeds

So I've Been A Bit Delinquent....

Oops.... so I realized this morning that it's been almost a month since I've written anything. I'll claim as my excuse I've been seeking inspiration- watched Marley and Me the other day, and while I've never had any desire to be a journalist, the movie sure did make it look like fun :) Perhaps in heaven I'll have a 'column'.
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 :(

why yes, I did shop off my hair :)

we always have this pose

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