And the Devil takes a swing....

Last week Justin, Morganne, and I had a great, uplifting week blitzing a Habitat house with our Christian brothers and sisters from Harvest, in Wapello, IA. It was a great week. Very tiring, as we worked in 100+ degree heat, and long days, but when you are working with friends, and for the Lord, it all is worth it and everyone had good attitudes all week. We were also blessed that Grandma Sue (Justin's mom) was able to come along for the week also and watch Mo while we helped at the work site. We arrived to the foundation and when we left we had the entire outside done, including siding and shingles. The inside would have been done too, if we could have gotten and electrician and plumber there, but we did all that we could. We had evenings of worship and games and a lot of fellowship with friends. It was a good week. Praise God.
Unfortunately, like many other times after a great week serving God, the Devil decides to take a swing and knock us back a few notches when we get back into the "real" world. Unfortunately, often causing some non-Christian behavior to escape. Upon arriving home, we discovered that we owe IUPUI $800 by the end of July or they will send us to collections. Funny, how we never received any notice of this before hand, however Justin has also not checked his IUPUI email in a while either. Frustrating. Monday, I returned to work and it was like a deflating feeling walking through the doors. Found out yet another doctor is leaving, and two of my closer friends at work will be turning in their notices this week. This will be 35+ people leaving since we opened 3 years ago. A 50% turn over rate per year. Not good, yet our management doesn't seem to ever change or see anything wrong with this picture. I am the last remaining technician from when we opened 3 years ago. I would be long gone, but I love what I do and when I shut my rehab room door I'm able to stay away from most of it, as I run a department of one. I came home Monday night yelling and almost in tears. Justin is so patient with my venting. Also on Monday, Morganne fell at Nana's down two steps onto a brick walkway. She has a nice bruise on the side of her head, but luckily it's in the hairline and you can't see it. She has been pretty grumpy since. Tuesday, Justin gets pulled over for expired plates, (oops) but luckily the cop was nice and told him a way to get out of his ticket (legally of course!) however, it requires him to show up at court down in Indy sometime this month. Then while mowing a yard later in the day he blows a tire on his mower and has to have that repaired. He then has to go to the BMV to register his truck, money we weren't expecting to pay. We then check the car's plates that night and they too have expired (oops). However, I know we registered them online and we found the receipt (praise God) but must have just not received the '10 stickers. So, this morning Justin takes the receipt and off to the BMV, again. There he is met by a rude assistant manager that proceeds to tell him that the Honda registration I did online was in fact for our old '95 Honda Civic that was totalled in an accident 2 years ago and that the Accord's registration will cost another $90 today. Then Justin asked for the registration for the Civic so that we can have a sticker, and possibly run the risk of having the wrong registration, and the guy said no because you no longer have that vehicle. Well it didn't stop them from allowing us to register it and pay for it! When asked for a refund then, the AM said that only I could file for a refund since I was the one that registered it online, however the state would not refund the excise tax. So, even if we did get a refund it would be for a measly $7.00. Arrrgh!!!! So, after Justin got very loud in the BMV, there went another $90 for the registration and $30 for a car we don't even own anymore!!! I'm tired and I'm frustrated. Please God, let me see you in all of this.

Here are a few pictures from our trip. I have to keep thinking that things could be much worse and to keep praising Him. I hate the Devil.

Day one, we arrived to a foundation built and a LOT of mud....

Making walls and moving them into place. Definitely requiring teamwork.

Day two...

Walking, walking, and more walking. The church we stayed in had several long hallways that Morganne loved to cruise.

Being silly with Daddy with Mommy's cut off sleeves. How cute...

Staying cool in the kiddie pool. Mommy enjoyed it too!

Day three....

Bath time outdoors!

Group worship at night.

Justin lead the evening on Wednesday night with a talk about Rocky Balboa and our training within the Christian walk. He did a great job.

Seeking shelter from the storms. Twice during the week we had to head to the storm shelter lockerooms due to tornado warnings in the area. Apparently, in Iowa they take these much more seriously than we do.

Working on the roof in 100+ degree heat. Praise God, no one got hurt.

Sue hammering away inside.

Day four, look at that roof!!!

The kids were great and they all enjoyed entertaining Morganne. We enjoyed it too! Playing the infamous "Clump!"
End of day four...All that we accomplished. It looks like a home. Due to Iowa law, we could not complete the inside because we did not have a licensed electrician and plumber to finish electrical and plumbing before we could drywall. So, we went as far as we could and accomplished this in 4 days. Apparently, this amount of work would normally take a construction crew 3-4 weeks. Again, Praise God.

We were excited that Grandpa Fred got to visit one day.