Life goes on....

Hello faithful readers (if there are any out there)-

Life around the Hellenthal household has been busy, yet relaxing at the some time. Megan has been working at both church and Family Fare, but has had a couple much needed days off of Family Fare as of late. I have been working full-time (praise the Lord!) and subbing a few days a week as well. It’s weird but every time I walk into a new class, on any given day, I am a little nervous. However, by 2nd hour (most of the time!) I usually have them whipped into shape and I am feeling better about the material the sub has left for me to teach. Subbing isn’t like what it use to be when I was in school. Subs use to just pop in a video and let the students watch it. That is not the case anymore. They have me teaching ratios, fractions, grammar, and all different stuff. Its fun though. I love it!

Youth Group has been busy for both Megan and I. Even though I haven’t been able to make it on Sunday night the last couple of weeks, I have been still doing stuff behind the scenes. Here is what has been going on: We are currently planning a 5 course meal and entertainment for an annual fundraiser we have each year. Its always a blast and we have amazing food, but we got a little bit of a late start this year. The theme is ‘Road Trip’ and Megan and another wonderful female leader, Amy, has totally taken over the planning of decorations, skits, singing, table decorations, ect. They both have been hard at work and keeping the kids on track. It should be an awesome time! At least we hope so! I have been in the starting phases of planning the auction fundraiser we are doing in late April. We are planning a much more simple dinner for the auction and I am starting to pull information together for the “roll out” of the auction announcements and advertising at church. On top of all the fundraising, we are also planning the mission trip we are going to this summer. We are heading out to the northwest corner of the United States to Seattle, Washington!!. We will be working with missionaries from Holland Heights, who also happen to be the two people that married Megan and I two summers ago. Everyone is super excited and pumped about the trip.

Megan and I are also in the beginning phases of the adoption process. We are planning on meeting with a couple different organizations this week and hope and pray that this will help us clear up some things and give us a better picture of how we can receive and nurture one of God’s amazing gifts. Please keep us in your prayers about this.

Other then that, we have been spending time together when neither one of us is working, spending time with our families and our friends. This past weekend was my brother Freddie’s birthday and we went to Crazy Horse with a bunch of his friends and had dinner. The food was awesome, as always, and the server was pretty awesome herself. Megan and I also went and saw Marley and Me at the movie theater that same day. It was a really good movie and we both really liked it. A lot of people were crying at the end, but I held my own and didn’t. Other then that, life rolls on…

I hope all the readers (the one or two of you out there) are having a great day and a great week. Stay warm!!

Hefty

New baby!

Welcome to the world Lucy! My step-brother and sister-in-law had their baby last night! She was only 5 lbs 14 oz. She was 3 weeks early! We went to see her today, what a cutie :-) She is doing well! Just thought I would share that information!

The weekend----

Wow! The weekend was just crazy for us! On Saturday, the 3rd, we both had to work at Family Fare. It was crazy busy! I am not sure why, but it was really busy! Then we quick ran home after work and changed out of our uniforms and went to Lyvi's (our god-daughter) birthday party/kicking chemo party :-) It was fun! She turned one! It was good to see her again. She has pretty sick w/ her hemangioma and she was done w/ chemo too--so what a reason to celebrate! Then, we went out for dinner at New Holland with our friends from CA. However, Jessica was really sick so only John came. I was alittle bummed b/c I wanted to hang out w/ her too, but, she was really, really sick! It was a late night that night. We then had church on Sunday morning.....(Hefty had to do PowerPoint). Our service was awesome! We had Betsy Turnbull, one of our missionaries. She and her husband Brian were the ones who married us. She gave us a GREAT message and I was really touched to hear some of the stories that she was telling us about their ministry in Seattle. We are taking our Youth Group there this summer to work w/ them so we met w/ her after church in the morning to discuss things about the trip. Then, I came home and had to get ready for Tracy's (my sister-in-law) baby shower. It went well and I am glad that I could do that for her. She got a lot of cute things :-) I can't wait for Lucy to come!!! Sunday night, I sat and relaxed. I watched the new Desperate Housewives and hung out. Hefty was working so I had the night to myself. The rest of the week has been pretty calm, just working really. Hefty has 5 nights this week so we don't get to see much of each other, which stinks. An up-date on our adoption quest: we are still praying and thinking about which agency to go through. I guess we are also praying that God would give us some peace about this. There are so many questions that come along w/ adoption! Anyhow, I think that's it for this week :-)
Have a spectacular weekend!
Megan

The Holidays-

Well, the holidays are pretty much over. In some ways it is a relief. The holidays are always so crazy for us. Being that both of our parents are divorced, we have double the parties for Christmas. It's fun, but very busy. The season started with a family get together the Saturday before Christmas. After we were done with the family thing, it was off to a nice dinner with our friends to celebrate! That was so much fun! It was nice to see some friends who live outside of MI who were home for the holidays! Then we had Christmas morning w/ Hefty's brothers and mom/dad. It is kindda nice that his mom and dad get along good enough that they can both be at the same party. We had a nice brunch w/ them and we opened gifts and just enjoyed each other's company. Then, it was to my dad's extended family. We stayed there for a bit and my dad came to our house to open gifts with him. Then at night it was off to my step-dad's mom for some dinner and more celebrating. We were with my mom on Christmas Eve and have her extended family's party in January sometime. We rang in the New Year last night with some friends from church. They had a small get together that our friends from California were at so we went there to be w/ them. It was fun to be w/ them again, as well as meet some new friends from our church that we haven't hung out with before. New Years Day was relaxing....I didn't do much, but Hefty had to work 3-11. At least we could sleep in :) Well, anyhow, I think that's about it for our holidays---I hope that everyone had a AWESOME Christmas and your New Year is truly blessed!

Megan

Thanksgiving

Well, once again we have reached Thanksgiving Day. It is such a great day to remember all that the Lord has given to us. Hefty and I both have 2 jobs each, (some people don't even have one). We have each other and our families, we are both healthy, we have a place to live, we have clothes in the closet and food on the table. We are so grateful for all of these things! We have awesome friends, an awesome church family, awesome kids who we mentor for youth group, the ability to go to California last month and visit friends.....the list could go on and on!! As you are with friends and family on this Thanksgiving Day, may you be blessed.

Megan

California!

Well, after much anticipation, we were off to California on the 24th of October. The flight and everything went well, except my darling husband thought that we need to take the Wii to play also. At the security check-point, we get stopped b/c we have an electronic device. It was pretty crazy. All in all, we made it to California, and our friends picked us up at the San Fransisco airport later that day. It was such a great trip though! It was so nice to be able to connect with our friends again (some of the best in the world for putting up with us for a week) and being away from work and everyday routine. We went to San Fran for a day and hung out there, saw all the sights and everything. We went to Alcatraz Prision, which was really cool. We rode the famous trolly around town, saw the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf, ate at the Cheesecake Factorty (some of my FAVORITES!) and also shopped a bit. We went wine-tasting too (I don't really like wine all that much, but I found some that I did like). We took a tour of a brewery (our friend is really into making some home-brew), went to the Charles Schultz Muesem (Charlie Brown) which was really cool and drove up and down the coast on High-Way 1 for a while. It was so nice out there in California! The weather was about 70 everyday and we only had rain on Friday, and Sat am as we were flying out. We finally got home last Saturday at 7 or so. It is hard to get back into reality again, but I was excited to get back to work. Also, last Sunday we took our Youth Group to Gull Meadow Farms for a hay-ride and a Corn Maze. It was a riot! The kids enjoyed themselves so so much! They also had donuts and cider for us! Well, I guess that's about it really. I will post some pictures when I can.....I am not at home so I will have to wait until I get home...
God Bless--
Megan

God is so good

Hello all--
I just wanted to tell you a awesome God story. Well, this past weekend, we found out that Hefty's cousin was in the hospital with a coma. It's a long story as to how he got into the coma, and I will not go there b/c that is not important. Anyhow, the situation was looking pretty dire and depressing. He was on oxygen and not doing well at all. We went there Tuesday to say our good-byes. They were going to pull the plug this coming Monday if he didn't improve. Well, we got a call today that HE WOKE UP!! He had woken up this morning! He still wasn't talking or eating, but he was responding to people and opening his eyes on command. What a miracle this is! Please pray that he would fully recover and this would be an eye-opening expierience for him! We don't know the extent of his "brain damage" yet or how much additional help he will need, but he is alive and breathing on his own! PRAISE GOD!