Lots to catch up on!

Okay folks, it's been a busy week for the Key family! I will try to not let this post last forever, but no promises.

FIRST-An update on my friend, Sarah. Thank you SO much for your prayers. I believe that God is watching over Sarah and holding her through this whole process. Her MRI results came back on Thursday with a GOOD prognosis! They believe that she has a VERY rare form of Ewing's Sarcoma, a cancer that typically only infects children. However, she is missing the typical "chromosome switching" that occurs to form this cancer, so the diagnosis is still not nailed down. BUT... the cancer is LOCALIZED in her arm (meaning that they found no other cancer in any other part of her body!!!) and it has NOT invaded her bone tissue, making her prognosis very good--PRAISE THE LORD!! She will start treatments at M.D. Anderson Cancer Facility here in Houston in the coming weeks. Keep her in your prayers DAILY. God has been so merciful to her body and we know that he will continue to take care of her.

This is Sarah :-)

Okay. So to catch you up on last week..... Last weekend, Scott and I drove 4 1/2 hours to Rowlett, TX to visit our dear friends from John Brown University! Katie's parents were so nice to let us stay at their house for the weekend while they were out of town on vacation. Scott usually does the driving on our travels (because if I drive longer than an hour, I fall asleep!) and we typically take his car, which gets considerably better gas mileage than my SUV. But, his car was in the shop, so the Highlander we took! We left with just over a quarter tank and our goal was to make it to Buc-ee's gas station, a HUGE gas station that Scott really likes, to refill on gas and pick up some snacks. WELL..... Buc-ee's in an hour and a half away and a quarter tank in my car gets used up VERY quickly! We were about half an hour from Buc-ee's when the gas tank looked like this:

That's right. Past empty. No sign of a gas station ANYWHERE. Dear Lord, get us to Buc-ee's, please get us to Buc-ee's!! We climbed a hill..... (keep moving little Toyota, keep moving)..... and r-o-l-l-e-d downhill to find our SAVIOR--BUC-EE'S!! Just in the nick of time! Whew!

I don't think I've ever been more excited to see an over-lit mass of concrete.

We made it to Dallas pretty late, but enjoyed the embraces of our friends when we arrived. The next morning, the girls made a delicious breakfast of French toast, eggs, and bacon. After breakfast, the John-Brown-boys loaded up their bikes and went on a very muddy mountain bike ride while the John-Brown-boys-wives went shopping. We came home, shopping bags in hand, to find our boys COVERED in mud! It was caked on their hands, legs, and the bikes!

Jared, Brock, and Scott--The John Brown Boys

It sounds like they had a great time, though. No major injuries. We had leftovers for lunch and just hung around playing Wii until dinner. Before dinner, we went to The Pier and enjoyed some tasty cocktails on the lakeside.

Katie and Jared

Audrey and Ben (Ben is also from JBU). They couldn't join us for the whole weekend, but met up with us for cocktails :-) Glad we got to see them!

Around 8:30, we headed back to the house to start cooking dinner-FAJITAS!! The boys put on the grill and cooked up some delicious medium-rare chopped steak and (fully-cooked) chicken with grilled peppers and onions! The girls stayed inside and made guacamole and margaritas. Sarah and I squeezed three HUGE bags of limes for the margaritas.

Me and Sarah squeezing limes!

Needless to say, our hands were on fire by the end of it! Who knew my hands had so many tiny cuts for the acid to seep into and burn! Ouch! But, the margaritas were very tasty! And the fajitas? Wow! So, so GOOD! Personally, I think they were better than Jalisco's fajitas (gasp!)

Sarah eating up! See how tasty those fajitas look....

Soon after clean-up, we all got into our PJs and played "Catch-Phrase", a fun group game kind of like charades, but with words.

We played boys v. girls, which means you have to sit boy-girl-boy-girl. The girls kicked major tail! I think the guys may have won one round....

Sunday morning included eating a left-over breakfast, packing, and saying our goodbyes. Such great friends and wonderful fellowship!

Now to this week:

So, Scott and I have decided that we want to plant a vegetable garden for the summer (from seed!) This week, Scott bought the seeds and began the "germinating" phase, a two week process in which the seeds are kept very moist and warm and they sprout.

Very tedious work. Scott always pinches his lips real tight (as seen above) when he is concentrating. Focus, babe, focus.

The color-coding system: each color represents a plant. Scott' s idea!

The color code

Well, after only one week, our tomatoes and tomatillos have already sprouted! Yeah!!

They are now currently in a window absorbing as much sun as possible to encourage further growth. We are cheering on the bell peppers and jalapenos to do the same.

The week in work and school has been pretty typical. Lots of class and clinic for me and lots of work for Scott! We so enjoy coming home to each other, though, at the end of our long days. It truly is such a blessing to come home to him.

Last night, (in celebration of Sarah's good prognosis) we went to the Houston Rodeo Cook Out with Eric and Sarah!

Walking through the carnival to get to the food tents

Stopped in the carnival for a snap-shot!

Basically, it is a pre-rodeo weekend barbeque competition between TONS of companies in the Houston area. You can only get into the "tents" if you are invited and lucky for us, Scott had a co-worker that was working one of the tents! We each paid $10 and ate as much barbeque as we wanted! Yum-yum!

I had a rib, some sausage, cheesy nachos, potato salad, and some beans. Oh, and one beer.

We got to meet several of Scott's co-workers and each of them told me how Scott is "seriously the nicest guy you will ever meet". Well, I happen to agree :-) We stayed in the tent (out of the cold!) for several hours, talking, eating, more eating and decided to leave at 10:30.

Inside the tent: capacity-180 people!

The ribs were SO good!

Eric and Scott... silly boys.

Sarah and Scott had to potty and of course the only option in a huge parking lot full of tents is porta-potties.... yuck. Glad I didn't have to use the bathroom!

Sarah: "I wish that I was a boy sometimes!!"

Eric drove us back to Target to retrieve our car and..... well, where is our car?! That's right, towed. Our car was TOWED. An hour and $200 later, we had our car back and drove home. Would have been so much cheaper to just have Eric and Sarah pick us up at our apartment! Oh well, lesson learned!

Scott is at work today and I am at home "studying" for my Swallowing Disorders test on Monday night. It's more like: study for half an hour, do something else for an hour, repeat. I feel pretty good about it, though, so no worries here!

Alright, I will let you all get back to your life now that you have spent the last 10 min. reading about ours!

We love you.

Blessings,

HK