Time flies.

Wow! It seems like forever since the last time we blogged. A lot has happened this summer to make it a "summer to remember" and very hectic at that. For those of you that don't know, our sweet little Ethel was in an accident with another dog in July and had reconstructive jaw surgery in Indiana during the Haist family reunion. It was extremely scary, and we are finally feeling out of the "funk". Ethel, of course, has handled everything like a champ. September 5th we go for our follow up appointment, and we are praying from there that she will be free from the cone! Here is a picture of Ethel the day we took her home from the hospital (left), and her 8 weeks later (right) when she got her stitches taken out! Happy as always!

 That being said, the family reunion this year was rather eventful (in a not good way). We did enjoy seeing the Haist side of the family for the time we did. Its always a blessing to spend time with them! Here is the only picture we took... Gaye and Mr. Alex from our day at the farm... he will be ONE this month!

We also had a wonderful weekend at home with the Dean's at the end of July. It included a trip to Ikea, Ava's 4th birthday party, a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Nelson, Christina and Jensen's Wheaton wedding reception and quality catch up time with Mom and Dad. It was a fun weekend, and it was great to be "home". Here is a picture of Ava and Lauren blowing out her candles!

Then comes... August! Classroom time! My last day at the daycare was Thursday! Then Friday, I started training at SCCS. The carpet in my room was being cleaned on Friday, so Sam and I had to wait until today to "move in". We had so much fun!!! I can't say it enough... this is such a huge blessing to have my own classroom, and at such a wonderful school! Praise the Lord!

I know my family is dying to see classroom pictures, so here is round one. We will have to make a second trip up to school with more fun classroom additions (including my beautiful rocking chair!). So for now, use your imagination (my table legs and third round table won't come in til next week either). Thank you for all of your encouragement... what a journey this has been and it has only begun! Here is a picture of my classroom last week before I "moved in" today...

...and here are some after shots!

Well, there you have it! The remainder of our summer in a nutshell. Sam and I both start school at the end of the month! Time flies.

We love you guys.
 Sam & Katelyn

P.S. I forgot to include a very important picture (and blogger won't let me insert it above the rest), but Sam went under care of the Missouri Presbytery in July! He is officially an intern of the Presbytery. I am so proud (and how cute is his bow-tie)!

Alabama getaway.

Hello!

We have safely returned from a wonderful, restful, and sweet time with family at Lake Martin in Alabama. Uncle Dave and Aunt Sandy so graciously opened their beautiful home to us. Not to mention their boat and wave runner! We had a blast.

I don't want to make you too envious of our time (or detail every day and write an extremely long blog post), so I thought it would be a good idea to highlight our time at Lake Martin. Here are just a few of the highlights.

1.) Fathers Day - we enjoyed gorgeous weather as we had church outdoors (on the lake) at Church of the Pines. It was beautiful. Then we ate a delicious lunch at The Willow Point Country Club. It was a great day of celebrating our dads! We even got to celebrate with Papa J (Dean) from a distance (thank you video chat!). On top of that, a highlight of Fathers Day was watching Jim's 30 second tubing session on the lake. What a trooper! 

2.) Boat Day- Sam claimed one of the days of our trip as "Boat Day" (and when he gets going on something, he really gets going). It was a fun day spent entirely on the boat and docking only to eat lunch on the lake. Boating, tubing and wave runner-ing were huge highlights of the trip in general. Sun and lake, there is no better combination (except maybe coffee and chocolate).

3.) HAPPY 30th ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!  On June 19th, we celebrated the marriage of Mom and Dad Haist. We felt so blessed to have been there to celebrate with them on this special anniversary.We celebrated with a delicious steak dinner at the house.

4.) Walks- I am convinced that if we lived in a place as beautiful as Lake Martin, we would be more motivated to exersise. Sam and I have been attempting to walk every morning as a way to start our day together and with the hope that we will get more in shape. We had some beautiful morning walks along the lake and enjoyed each others company.

5.) The Spring House- YUM! Pictures below won't even do this restaurant justice. It was gorgeous. The food was impecible, the company wonderful, and the scenery breathtaking.

Those are just some of the many things we enjoyed at Lake Martin. The greatest of course, was spending time with family and relaxing with no agenda (other then "boat day"). We were in wonderful company and are so glad we were able to take the time off work to enjoy ourselves. We hope to be back to visit Lake Martin before too long. A huge thank you to Mom, Dad, Dave and Sandy for a wonderful trip. We are truly blessed.

Love,
Sam and Katelyn

P.S. - This was the longest we have been away from Ethel and let me tell you, she missed us (maybe not as much as I missed her :) ). 

Dave and Sandy's lake house on Lake Martin, was the perfect getaway for a whole week! A huge thank you to Dave and Sandy for your hospitality and allowing us to stay at your beautiful home.

Those are some good lookin' people! Jim, Gaye, Sandy and Dave.

Enjoying an early morning swim.

On Father's Day, we enjoyed church on the lake! It was a gorgeous morning!

Happy 30th Anniversary!!! We are so glad we got to celebrate with you.

Matching brothers at The Spring House.

The view from our table at dinner.

Sam and I at The Spring House.

The night we got home, our sweet dog slept with her head under my side of the bed all night. Oh how I missed this dog!

Surprise visit!

This past weekend, we had some surprise visitors! Uncle Tom, Aunt Maria, Seth, Nathan and Faith came to visit us on Saturday, on their way home to Peoria from Texas. What a wonderful surprise it was!

For those of you who don't know, my Uncle Tom was in a very scary medical state two months ago. A text on March 29th from my mom read:

"Tom isn't doing well. His lungs can only do 20% of his breathing, the ventilator (life support) is doing 80%. Conflicting reports from doctors. He is in too serious of a condition to do a biopsy. He is so swollen he can barely open his eyes. He is still in critical care. Keep praying."

I went to Peoria to visit Uncle Tom the previous weekend and could barely stand the sight of seeing someone I love in that condition. It was heart wrenching. When I visited, Uncle Tom couldn't talk because of the life support tube into his lungs, he couldn't walk due to the high volume of blood clotting, but he was still the strong man I knew him to be. He is a fighter. It was an extremely scary time for all of our family. During his month in the critical care, his wife, Maria stayed a constant encouragement and source of "chuckles" for Tom. As well as his kids who constantly prayed, visited and sent cards. What a beautiful picture of God's intention for family and community.

We kept praying. We asked Covenant Seminary to pray along side us, as well as our wonderful church family at South City. On March 30th we received this text, after a "miracle doctor" came into the picture, identified the source of the problem and took Tom into his own care:

"He is doing well! Praise the Lord! They will start giving him more nutrients as well as begin an insulin drip today. He is beginning the weaning process off of the life support. Slow process but good news. Tomorrow or Sunday they want to get a cat scan done and check on the two masses. Other than that, he has had a great day! :)"

What a journey the past few month have been for Uncle Tom and his family. Its not over yet, but he continues to fight the medical battles. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful praying community around us, who cares enough to lift Tom and his family up in prayer daily.

PRAISE THE LORD! For he does work miracles, and has brought Tom out of a very scary time, into a time of surprise visits and sweet times with his beautiful family. Our God loves us, he cherishes us as his children, and he holds us in his mighty hands. We praise you, Lord, for the miracle healing in Tom!

Needless to say, their visit was beyond wonderful. The kiddos enjoyed some fun Wii time with Sam (not sure who was enjoying it more), as I got to stare in amazement at Uncle Tom sitting in front of me without a breathing tube! And of course, visiting with him and Maria (and Faith too, who enjoyed the adult conversation more than the boy Wii time :) ).  They were such a blessing to us this weekend, and we hope to find time to visit Peoria later this summer. We are so thankful for all of you, and your fun surprise visit to St. Louis.

Love,
Katelyn & Sam

Ben's graduation!

On May 17th we boarded the plane and headed to New Orleans... it was a wonderful trip and we had an absolute blast celebrating Ben and spending time with family! 

The night we arrived in New Orleans, we took a tour of the city. It was neat to see the city at night and all lit up. I must admit, I was pretty exhausted and fell asleep on the ride back to the hotel :) The next morning we were bright eyed and ready to go. 

We took a tour of Tulane's campus (it is gorgeous), and got to sit in on Ben's accapella group as they sang a few songs (including Ben's solo song!) and they sang The National Antheum. They are a very talented group and it was fun to see them live singing instead of on YouTube! Friday, we also got to see the Art Exhibition. Ben did a beautiful job making the advertisements for the exhibition, and his piece in the exhibition was extremely creative. Ben was and is a very valued member of the Art Department at Tulane and is very well respected by his professors. It was fun to meet a few of them, and some of Ben's friends. 

We stopped Friday for lunch at The Rum House, which was to die for. The tacos were out of this world! Let me tell you something about New Orleans -- if I can take away anything from my short time there, they know what they are doing with food. It was some of the "best eating" I've ever experienced. That afternoon we enjoyed a walk around Audubon Park and the Wave Goodbye Party on campus that evening. After the party, we took the Street Car (so fun) downtown and I experienced for the first time ... Cafe Du Monte. One word- amazing. Beignets are out of this world. Coated in powdered sugar, a billion deep friend calories a piece, and worth every single melt in your mouth bite. 

Saturday morning we woke up early and got ready to roll for the BIG DAY OF GRADUATION at the Super Dome! Tulane's graduation was no joke -- complete with bag pipers, jazz bands, Trombone Shorty, Ruby Bridges (the first ever African American to walk into an integrated public school during the Civil Rights Movement) being awarded an Honorary Degree, fireworks, confetti, and oh the list could go on. Talk about a celebration! And of course, the best part of the graduation-- Ben earning his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art and Digital Media. We couldn't be more proud of him. Ben is extremely gifted, and we know that whatever he puts his heart into he will succeed. First stop, UCLA in the fall. Next stop, we're anticipating seeing his name in the credits for Pixar in the near future ... Congratulations Ben, we can't say it enough, we are SO proud.

The night of graduation we had an exceptional meal at Commanders Palace. Words can't even explain the delectable food, wonderful conversation and the overall experience that was...Commanders Palace. That night, we headed to bed early in anticipation of a very long drive home on Sunday. We arrived home Sunday night after a wonderful trip to New Orleans. We couldn't have done the trip without Gaye and Jim's generosity. We were so happy to have been there to see Ben graduate and get a small taste of where Ben has been the past 4 years.

Congratulations again, Ben. We are glad we got to be at your big graduation day. UCLA is going to be blessed to have you join their campus... and oh the places you will go... 

Love,

Sam & Katelyn 

Waiting to hear Ben's acapella group, THEM sing. 

Riding on the Street Car! 

Po'boy sandwiches for lunch-- YUM!

Just a small glimmer of the fireworks...

A very proud momma with her two bow-tied sons!

What a great trip!!!

Life lately...

 HELLO from Sam, Katelyn and Ethel! 

Sorry we have been missing in action from our blog, life lately has been crazy. 

May started off with 3 birthdays, Sam on May 8th, Ethel on May 10th and Katelyn on May 11th. Birthday week was definitely a success! Above, you can see that between my sweet husband and myself the kitchen was festively decorated for the week.

 Happy Birthday Sam!!!! Enjoying breakfast before heading off to work/school. Sam requested birthday brats for his b-day dinner and I put in my request for waffles. Overall, we had wonderful birthdays and felt very celebrated and loved by our family and friends. A few weeks later, Sam completed his 2nd year of seminary on May 16th-- I am SO incredibly proud of him and I finished up the school year at Hancock on the 23rd.

 Happy 3rd Birthday sweet dog! We celebrated Ethel's birthday by giving her some new Dingo Chicken Chews. She was pretty pleased with how we celebrated her 3rd birthday. She even got some leftover steak that night. She's pretty spoiled -- just look at that sweet face!

Other exciting news in the month of May- we got a new couch!!! Our good friends, Anna and Scott bought new couches for their house and asked us if we would want their current couch... OF COURSE we did! Here is a picture of Sam and Ethel relaxing on the couch. Special thank you to Jim and Gaye who brought the couch down to us AND spent 3 hours helping us put it together. It was much more complicated then you think. 

May has been a crazy, busy and fun month for us. Not only did we celebrate birthday week, complete our 2nd year of seminary and finish up the school year at Hancock-- we also attended one very important and exciting graduation for Ben Haist!  We thought his graduation deserved its own blog post, so see the next blog for our adventures in New Orleans! 

We have spent our Memorial Day weekend relaxing, taking naps, hosting our Community Group BBQ, and tomorrow we are planning a picnic in the park with our good friends, Amber and Sean. Tuesday I (Katelyn) start back up at the daycare...just for the summer! We hope all of you are enjoying your long weekend, and remembering our soldiers both past, present and future this weekend.

Love to all of you. 

Katelyn & Sam

Praise the Lord!!!!

I am ecstatic to announce that I signed my first teaching contract this morning! I will be teaching K/1 at South City Community School! I couldn't be more excited! Even though I can't start setting up my room (I love the sound of that) until August 10th, I've been going through all of the teaching stuff I have accumulated in the basement tonight and it is so much fun!

A little more about the school. This was taken from the school's website. The SCCS's teaching philosophy relies heavily on the 19th century educator, Charlotte Mason. Here are few of the things both Mason, and South City Community School value:

Children participate actively in their own learning – wondering, observing, exploring, experimenting, mastering, creating – and become communicators of that knowledge.

Narration, or telling back, is used in all subjects as a tool for learning and assessment.

Living Books - books (either classic or modern) that are excellently written, tell a story, and inspire children to love the subject and hunger for more - form the foundation for our curriculum.

Nature study, Artist and Composer studies, foreign language, Art, Poetry, and Music are a regular (at least weekly) part of every student’s experience, building an appreciation for the fine arts and nurturing these gifts at an early age.

Enrichment Trips extend learning beyond the walls of the classroom.  Classes at SCCS take monthly or bi-monthly trips to various locations throughout the St. Louis metro area.

Support for homeschooling families through a Homeschool Community Day program offered one morning a week for Kind - 3rd grade.

Small class sizes –  (below are maximum class sizes)

    8 children in PreK3

    10 children in PreK4

    14 children in Kindergarten

    14 children in 1st grade

    14 children in 2nd grade

    14 children in combined 3rd / 4th grade

Family involvement is seen as a vital and required role for the success of each student and our school community.

You can see more of what goes on at the website:  http://www.sccommunityschool.org/home.html


I don't know a whole lot about Charlotte Mason's Philosophy yet, but I am SO excited to learn more about her and her view of education. One of the things I love about Mason is how much she values and nurtures the whole child.  I will be going out to North Carolina for a conference with one of the Heads of School and three new teachers June 6th-9th to learn more about Mason's philosophy. I will begin training on August 8th and setting up my room, then school starts on August 23rd!

Thank you to all of you who have been such a wonderful support system. Thank you for the prayers the past 2 years and all of the encouragement you have given me in some of the most discouraging times of my career. I am so blessed.

Praise the Lord, for he is GOOD! 

Love,
Katelyn (and Sam)

He is Risen!

Hello family and friends!

Happy Easter (a few days late)! This past weekend we celebrated Easter with the Dean family (including Grandma Dean). They drove down Friday evening and we enjoyed a yummy dinner of Dewey's Pizza (mentioned it several posts, its one of our faves!)We watched We Bought A Zoo (GREAT movie) and headed to bed for an action packed day on Saturday.

We woke up Saturday, and after showering 7 people with one bathroom, found it noon by the time we were all ready to go! We had waffles for breakfast and had a quick lunch before heading off to The City Museum. This place is unbelievable and gets neater every time we go! Jesse was in heaven, and Sam was a great sport :) We climbed the tunnels for hours, enjoyed the circus, and laughed harder then we have in a long time. We left the museum around dinner time, grabbed a quick dinner, and then headed to Ted Drewes for the best frozen custard in St. Louis! When we got back home, we mustered up the energy to dye Easter eggs before heading to bed.

Sunday, we got ready for church in record time and even got to the service early. It was a beautiful service at South City. We are so blessed by such a wonderful church family, and it was fun for our friends to get to meet our family! After the annual balloon launch, we headed home for Easter lunch. We stuffed our faces with good food and dessert, opened our "blessing buckets" and a little something from the Easter bunny, and then said our goodbyes. Weekends with family always go by too fast.

We had a blast with the Dean's and another successful Easter of hosting our families! We are thankful for such wonderful families that have made the trek to spend this glorious holiday with us the past 2 years, celebrating our RISEN KING! 

After the Dean's headed home, we spent some time video chatting with Mom and Dad Haist before taking a much needed Easter nap.

We hope all of you had a blessed Easter.

Love,
Sam & Katelyn

Saturday night, we dyed Easter eggs!

The City Museum. If you look closely, that is us in that tunnel aprox. 40 feet above the ground!

What is better after a long day of climbing then Ted Drewes?

He is Risen! Beautiful service at South City on Easter morning and the annual balloon launch.

Whole family together again! Easter morning picture.

And then...we feasted! Honey Baked Ham, broccoli salad, pretzel salad, sweet potatoes, fruit skewers, tomato mozzarella salad and the list goes on.

But of course, we saved room for dessert. Birds Nest cupcakes (from Katelyn's addiction to Pinterest), Grandma's delicious sugar cookies, jelly beans and cashews.