Wine, A Tornado and St. Louis!

It's been a crazy few days! Billy got Tuesday, Wednesday and today off so we've been having a lot of fun just hanging out together! We're currently staying in the wine country of the midwest, and there's a nice little place right in the middle of Mount Vernon! So last weekend we went and tasted a few, played pinochle and hung out with friends :)

I love seeing vineyards right in the middle of town!

Then on Monday, after a beautiful day with highs in the 70s a huge storm came through and we experienced our first tornado watch! It was so stressful! There was crazy lightening and thunder right over us and strong winds blowing tree limbs down! Obviously not a situation you'd want to be in a trailer for... But we made it out alive thankfully and hopefully we'll be long gone before the actual tornado season starts...

On Tuesday we spent the afternoon with Billy's stepdad's mom and her husband who happen to live only an hour a way from us. That's one great thing about traveling around so much, every once in a while you're lucky enough to visit a town where you know someone you haven't been able to see in a long time!

Yesterday we spent the day in St Louis shopping and eating and shopping some more :) I've never gotten so lucky at Nordstrom Rack! And we got to eat at a famous BBQ place for Billy, apparently St Lousans eat more BBQ sauce per capita than people in any other city. 

We also of course had to stop here...

Covenant Theological Seminary. Billy actually listens to a lot of their free lectures the school posts online so it was cool to be able to walk around the campus, and check out the book store :)

The weather has just been so crazy! When we left in the morning it was in the 50s and by lunch time it was snowing and in the 30s! Needless to say I can not wait until Spring. 

Today we've just been relaxing and Billy's been taking some time to fill out some never ending job applications. Life is good!

Oliver is a Girl!!

So I went to the vet today and found out Oliver is a GIRL! Which actually makes me really happy :) So since I got so attached to the name Oliver and calling her Oliver, I didn't want to go with a completely different name, so I've been calling her Olive. She's so fun to have around! She's always playing and darting around and running in different directions and of course she's adorable when she sleeps too :)

Earlier this evening I was in our bedroom when the manager of this RV park knocked on the door to deliver our mail (some early birthday presents from my loving and amazing mother-in-law!). Billy answered and I came out of the room a little while later and Olive was nowhere to be found! We looked everywhere in the trailer! In all of the little nooks and crannies! We figured she must have darted out when Billy opened the front door to get the mail. By this time I was freaking out, and on the verge of tears (ok, I was bawling...), and we decided to go look outside. We must have been out there for at least 45 minutes (in 20 degree weather) and couldn't find her. Needless to say I was devastated. So I came back inside while Billy looked in the field adjacent to the park. In our trailer we have tons of storage space, and one spot is a drawer that pulls out under our couch. Well, I was decided to put something away in that drawer and pulled it out, and of course, there's Olive, snoozing away. I'm not sure how exactly she got in there, and am still a little irritated that she didn't meow while we were calling her name, but I'm SO grateful that she wasn't lost after all :)


The last few days Billy's back has been KILLING him. Right in the lower area, above his tailbone. Wednesday I scheduled him a massage, sure that would completely fix the problem. He went and felt a little better, but he could tell the problem wasn't fixed. So yesterday he scheduled an appointment with a Chiropractor hoping for better results. Remember that we're staying in souther Illinois (aka hickville, judgmental I know, but true). This is the office we pulled up to yesterday:

Doesn't really look like the kind of place you'd want to trust with your back.. And this is the only office open within a 30 mile radius...

Thankfully it wasn't as sketchy as it looked. The chiropractor said Billy's hip was raised on one side and he basically popped it back into place and it was good as new! Billy was amazed at how much better he felt! I think he's now a chiropractic patient for life :)

A New Addition to the Family!!!

Billy gave me an early birthday present last night!!!

His name is Oliver and he's about 10 weeks old and sooo cute!! He has so much energy and starts meowing when no one's paying attention to him... I think he needs a sibling soon :) He's so sweet and even when we brought him home last night, he wasn't scared at all, he just wandered around the trailer checking everything out. I think he felt right at home :)

Freezing Weather & an Interesting Trailer Park

It. is. COLD! I'm talking freezing! Literally freezing weather! This is the first time in my life I've ever been in weather like this (and I don't even think this is bad for out here).
Yesterday we drove from Cape Girardeau, MO to Mount Vernon, IL and this was the weather report:

19 degrees at 3:53 in the afternoon! It's miserable, I walk outside and my breath catches it's so cold! As you can see, there is light in this tunnel, today it will hopefully get up to 41!

On top of all of that, two nights ago, one of our propane tanks ran out while we were sleeping (disrupting the furnace) and we didn't realize until 3 in the morning. Since it was only about 12 degrees outside, that was just enough time for our waterline to freeze :( Billy tried working on it that morning with no success and again yesterday afternoon but it's so cold, it's almost impossible to get anything unfrozen! Fortunately we have a fresh water tank that we can turn on and fill up if we need to disconnect from city water. In the meantime I've been looking up ways to prevent this from happening in the future. I realize the #1 thing is to keep our furnace running constantly! Especially on these cold nights. But I've also heard leaving a small stream of water running from one faucet can also prevent freezing. Any other ideas?

Yesterday evening the Vice President of Potelco also came into town for a little meet and greet and took all of the employees (and the wives and girlfriends) to dinner which was nice. Billy got set up with a new face mask and glasses which he can always use.

And one more fun piece of information. This new park we're staying at is trailer park, not an RV Park or a campground, a trailer park, with all permanent residents. Like the trailer park you picture Eddie from Christmas Vacation living in. It should be a pretty interesting experience, and in a way I almost feel freed from any societal propriety I've been previously held to. I'm pretty sure at these places anything goes, right? :) Really though, we had three people come talk to us while we were setting up last night and they were all very friendly, so there's a good chance it won't be quite as bad (or creepy) as it seems. 

Winter Break

I have been so lazy when it comes to blogging!!! And, admittedly, a lot of other things... But I'm back! I have so been enjoying these last couple weeks of relaxing and reveling in my lack of classes (and responsibility :) But it's time to get back in the game! I've been reading A LOT and adding more decor to our lovely 5th weel and I have one embroidery project I'm working on but I am so open to more ideas of ways to productively fill my time! So far I've been thinking I should: crochet/knit something impressive and useful, brush up on my french and read every book currently in our trailer (there's probably 50, but I can dream right?). I also have a quilting project that I started last summer but then quickly gave up on as soon as classes started. I've also been cooking like a mad woman. I got two amazing cookbooks from my mom and my grandmother-in-law and have been having so much fun trying new recipes! My current cooking goal is to become an Indian food connoisseur :)

So other than all that, we moved about a week ago to Cape Girardeau, MO. A town in SE MO that actually has a mall! And a Target! And a Barnes and Noble! I usually don't go so crazy for chain type stores (except Target, I love Target), but they are so hard to find out here and there definitely aren't any local counterparts that I could shop at instead. And even better than those, there's a health food store here too! And though it's crazy expensive, I was grateful because I was a few days away from running out of nutritional yeast, not to mention I was able to stock up on dairy free ice cream :)

And I have one more exciting thing to share: I am no longer a caffeine addict!!! After the two possibly worst days of my life (a pounding headache like I've never experienced, nausea and vomitting), I have freed myself of the bonds of coffee! And now that I know what the withdrawal symptoms are like I doubt I'll ever get addicted again. So what am I drinking instead of my morning brew?

This stuff is wonderful. I've been drinking the hot maté, but this is just unbeatable (probably because of all the sugar...). I first drank it at the good ol' Human Bean back in Red Bluff and have loved it ever since. It has this sweet but bitter tast to it, and it's prepared like chai tea concentrate, so it's also super creamy when made with almond or soy milk. It's made from a certain leaf (yerba maybe? but I'm not really sure) and technically has caffeine but it's supposedly non-addictive and doesn't give you that jittery feeling. I love the ritual of my morning coffee and watching the news or reading and this takes the place of coffee wonderfully :)

We're supposed to be moving to Mount Vernon, MO on Monday so I'll keep you posted on our gypsy life!! 

Back from Vacation!

Billy and I had the most wonderfully relaxing time home for the holidays :)
We flew into San Francisco on the 21st and didn't fly back until the 2nd, it was a nice chunk of much needed vacation time.
We didn't fly out of Chicago until 4:30 on the 21st so we had the entire morning, and a couple hours in the afternoon to hang out in Chicago and we spent all of it at the Art Institute. It was the most amazing museum I've seen in the U.S. and was way more impressive than I could've imagined. And Billy loved it too, which is saying A LOT.

And at the airport later that day, Billy got his claim to fame:

Here he is getting interviewed by newscasters for a clip that ended up on CNN! There was a big storm coming in that night so a lot of flights were getting delayed and canceled so they were asking him what our flight status was.

Back in Red Bluff we had a great Christmas and New Years and a lot of down time in between which is what we both really needed.

When we flew back in to Chicago we had to drive 6 ours to our new location: Perryville, MO. We didn't even get to the campground until 1:30 AM and then because one thing after another went wrong while setting up the trailer in the freezing cold, Billy ended up staying up all night and going to work at 5:45 :( I really don't know how he could possibly be a harder worker. But after that first night everything else has gone really smoothly.

On another note, I got some bad news about my graduate school status. Because I applied for the spring semester I'm not eligible for grants so I'm going to take this semester off and think about starting in the fall. On the bright side, I'll have plenty of time to learn some new hobbies and take on a lot of projects!

One neat thing about where we're currently living is that there are wineries EVERYWHERE! There are probably 15 within a 45 mile radius! So last night Billy got off early and took me out to one here in Perryville where we drank Sangria and played Pinochle. Our perfect way of spending a Saturday night out :)