Little friends...

On Saturday evening, we got together with some more friends and had an enjoyable time once again! We met at a mexican restaurant, which is one of our favorites, and then went to their house to visit! The kids had so much fun being wild and we adults were outnumbered! We managed to sneak in a couple of games and stayed until nearly midnight! Thanks so much Dunn's for a fun evening!

Paige and her friend, Blake! (They were giving hugs and kisses before the night was over!)

The boys helped themselves to some Sun-chips and were watching a cartoon while the adults were playing games!

Friday night fun with fabulous friends!!!

On Friday evening, we enjoyed a great night of food and fellowship with several of our friends! We always "talk" about getting together, but rarely make it happen! We decided to just set a date, get sitters and meet in Indy for some fabulous Italian food and funny fellowship!

We met at Carrabba's in Carmel and had a fantastic meal and great time visiting! I nearly embarrassed myself by dropping the entire basket of bread, but shocked myself and everyone else with a great catch instead!

Angie felt obligated to cut up someone's meat and kept finding herself looking for sippy cups as we got up to leave!

Angie and Gene Davis
Travis and Jody Johnson Monica and John Myers

After we left Carrabba's, someone mentioned trying to find a Starbucks. Off we went in 3 different vehicles. The one Starbucks was closed and we had quite a hilarious time trying to find each other and meet at the right Starbucks! (What did we do before the age of cellphones?)

Travis...the life of the party! They had so much fun recalling some hilarious moments with

The Singing Friends...

I think we about got kicked out of Starbucks...

Enjoying the evening together and entertaining the gentleman sitting at the table next to us! I think he was just pretending to be working on his computer!
Jody...wired!

John can't believe that Jody recorded his story on her digital camera!

By the time the evening was drawing to a close, several of our friends became quite sleepy!

Jody has obviously heard all of Travis' stories before...but the guy behind her hadn't!

Some are obviously just too OLD to keep such late hours!

And some can just fall asleep anywhere!

Bedtime prayer and laughter!

Jonathan was saying Parker's bedtime prayer with him earlier tonight and was quietly listening to the little man bombard Heaven. In the middle of Parker's prayer, he stated, "...and Jesus, help my head to feel better, and my foot, and my arm, because it sort of hurts when I go like this, so you can help that too if you want too..." Jonathan couldn't hold back the laughter any longer. Parker stops praying, grabs Jonathan's head and whispers, "Dad, stop laughing, it's not funny!" He then quickly returns to his prayer and says, "Sorry about that Jesus, that was my dad laughing!" Jonathan then completely lost it and laughed for the rest of the prayer!!!

My Valentines...

Since I had to work 12 hours on Valentine's day, Jonathan and I celebrated on Friday evening. He decided to take me to Nashville, Indiana to one of the restaurants there. Mom agreed to keep the kids for the evening and off we went. Jonathan had seen this place advertised in the newspaper earlier that day and thought it sounded like a good place to eat! He was right, the food was great but I told him it didn't sound very romantic at all! :) They had a Valentine's special so we took advantage of it! Jonathan had a steak and baked potato and soup. His steak was smothered with seasonings and he gave me a bite and it was delicious!! (Wish I had ordered that...) I don't know why Jonathan cut my food off in the picture, but anyway... I had the smothered chicken with steamed veggies. It was good, but not Texas Roadhouse good!!! :)

The real treat was this delicious dessert that was included with our meals! This apple cobbler came out in the steaming hot iron skillet and was absolutely delicious! I'm sure it was at least 2,000 calories each, but it was soooo worth it!

As if you can't tell, we took this dorky picture of ourselves after dinner! I'm pretty sure I gained another chin by eating all that dessert! :(

On Saturday, I had to work at the hospital all day. That afternoon, I heard some familiar voices and saw my three favorite kids each with a rose in their hands! Paige had picked out a pink rose for Mommy, Peyton a white one and Parker a yellow rose! The baby's breath barely made it to me in one piece but they were SO proud!! Then, Jonathan peeked his head around the corner and handed me this vase with 12 red roses in it and a box of Dove chocolates!!! My favorite! I felt truly blessed to have 4 wonderful Valentines!!! They are the joy of my life and I couldn't have been any happier with my Valentines day weekend!!!

The dreaded phone call...

Most of you know that Jonathan has been employed at Cummins for 9 plus years. You may also know that in December they cut 600 jobs and we were "sweating it" then, but Jonathan survived. In January, they announced that they would be cutting 800 more jobs starting February 1st. Again, we were all nervous and concerned about Jonathan losing his job. Times are tough everywhere, but especially at Cummins.
Jonathan had some red flags last week that made him worry even more. His boss scheduled a "one on one" meeting with him on Wednesday morning at 9am. They always had a weekly meeting on Friday so Jonathan figured this would be bad news.
On Sunday night, our pastor, Brother Nathan Shockley, preached an excellent message talking about "taking a leap of faith into the unknown!" On the way home from church, Jonathan looked at me and said, "That message was for me...I'm done at Cummins."
Then several times throughout this week, he kept hearing a song by his favorite singer, Ivan Parker, titled "I'll do the miracle." Again, he felt this was a sign from God to put his trust in Him and was preparing himself for the worst.
Yesterday morning, at 9am, Jonathan walked up to his bosses desk for their meeting and his boss said he wanted to "take this somewhere else!" Jonathan said he knew right then it was coming. They walked in silence down the long hallway to the front of the building, into a designated room, and sat down. His boss began to read him a manuscript and proceeded to tell him that he would no longer be employed by Cummins due to major economical cut backs. They asked for his badge, company credit card, laptop computer, uniforms, and anything else that might belong to Cummins. His boss walked him back to his desk to grab his coat and proceeded to walk him out of the doors of Cummins for the last time. As his boss was telling him goodbye, he became choked up and told Jonathan that he was very sorry and wished him and his family nothing but the best.
At 9:24am, the home phone rang and the caller ID stated it was "Jonathan's Cell." I dreaded answering it because I knew it wasn't going to be good news. Jonathan had told me if he called from his desk, things were okay, but if he called me from his cell phone, he'd been walked out! The first words out of his mouth were "I'm done." What a terrible feeling, I felt so helpless and there was nothing I could say or do that could make things better for him.
The kids broke our hearts at lunch as each one of them said their routine prayers, they all prayed to "help Daddy to find a job!" We didn't tell them to say that, but they just did it on their own. Of course, that made me cry all over again. They did it again at supper too! (I don't know how much of that I can take!)
Jonathan has been employed full-time since he turned 16 years old. He isn't one that enjoys sitting at home and especially when it involves babysitting 24/7 either!!! He's already sent his resume to two different companies and is trying to make connections to find a job as soon as possible. He did get a severance package, but that won't last long.
Please pray for him and our family that God will work something out and that he will be able to find the "right" job. Jonathan has a very positive attitude, much more that I probably would if it were me, and I know that God is helping him deal with this.
(He has no idea I'm posting this and may make me delete this when he sees it, but I thought all my blogger friends would want to know what's going on in our lives this week.) It won't be easy but with God's help, we will survive. I would love for you all to help us pray about Jonathan getting a job, and that God will work something out that will glorify Him!