Memorial Day Hike Monday, May 28, 2007

We spent Memorial Day hiking 10 miles on the Appalachian Trail to Charlie’s Bunion. In 1929, this hike was named after Charlie Conner who paused for a rest on the rocks, took off his boots and exposed a bunion or two that rivaled the surrounding stones! His friends promised to get the site named after him! We found Charlie’s Bunion to be one of the most beautiful hikes we’ve done this year.

When one gets a blister while hiking in the Smokies, whatever is one to do? Why, stuff a huge leaf in your shoe, of course! At least, that’s what Erik does...

The Honoree Monday, May 07, 2007

Today, we honored Sonya as an Exceptional Nurse of Tennessee. She was nominated, along with only a handful of people from her hospital, and even had her picture in the Knoxville News Sentinel.

The actual night of the event was really cool! There were dozens of tables set up in the Convention Center and they had a wonderful meal for everybody and their guests. After the meal, they even had 2 different kinds of dessert to choose from; an ama-za-zing chocolate cheesecake and some strawberry weird thing. I’ll bet you can’t guess what I chose to eat?!

After our meal, we had a guest speaker talk to us about how to deal with the emotional stresses in the workplace and a few other things. All in all, it was actually entertaining and even pertinent to my job. When she had concluded, they then announced each honoree and flashed their picture on the BIG screen for all to see. They presented each nurse with a rose and a certificate. We had a great time! Here’s a picture of Sonya with her Nurse Manager, Sandy.

Love For The Emersons Saturday, May 05, 2007

A few weeks ago, Erik and I took off for Alabama in search of our long lost friends, the Emerson’s. They were back in the states from Africa, and it was SO good to be with them again. They have committed the next few years of their lives to living with and ministering to the Kabiye people in Togo, West Africa. God’s spirit is moving and working through them, and it was such a beautiful thing to be able to share stories and hear about their work over there. We were thankful to nab some quality time with them amidst their busy schedule. They also have announced that they are expecting baby #2! Please remember Brett, April, Caden, and Baby #2 in your prayers.

A Season For Change Monday, April 23, 2007

Well, since we have recently moved and had to send out new address notifications, changed our Email and had to send word about that, we thought "why not make the tri-fecta complete and change our blog URL?" We've done exactly that.

I'm sure you're already beginning to groan because we're causing you to update more than a Windows operating system, but humor us by visiting our new blog and updating your blogrolls. Here's the new URL (it's pretty simple)...

http://luchauer.com *

*Note: Feel free to keep the "www." if you like, but I'm subscribing to the theory that it has been deprecated.

SO Much to do...so little time! Tuesday, April 10, 2007

So, we thought it was about time to post some pics of our house! We moved in about a month ago, and we've been working on it non-stop. As you will see, we are still in the process of making it our own. The previous owners made some pretty interesting choices with paint colors! That is what we have been working on most intently. We've finished painting the living room, dining room, kitchen, and master bathroom. It's been really easy to become overwhelmed with projects, so we've had to tell ourselves, "one thing at a time". Also, we've realized that every thing takes about TWICE as long as you plan for it to take! So, we've had to re-adjust our thinking and our expectations so we can relax and have fun with this whole thing. Erik and I are alike in that when we set our mind to something, we go at it full force and want to get it DONE. With this house, it's not been that easy. Just because we want to get it done, doesn't mean it will be possible any time soon! So, we are learning patience and we are learning to pace ourselves. God is so good to us, He has given us more than we've ever needed.

We love the screened in porch! We were pleasantly surprised to see that we had some huge Azalea bushes in the front, as well as this pink one in the back. Beautiful...Too bad the cold snap has about killed every bloom in sight (it's been in the 20's each night for the last few nights!)

The previous owners gave us their riding lawn mower, he was like, "We don't need it anymore, so I'll just leave it with you guys if you want it". Hmmmmmm, let me think.....SURE! Erik is excited about getting the lawn in shape :)

Here are some "before" pictures of the dining room painting process. What a long day...that two-tone navy blue had to GO! Amber and Kevin lovingly gave up their Sunday afternoon to help us. Thanks guys, you rock!


Here's the dining room after we've painted and moved some of the furniture back in. We still don't have anything on the walls!



Remeber how the master bath used to be a crazy red color? Well, I've always thought a bathroom should be relaxing, so we changed it to this blue-gray. Much better...





We feel so blessed to be here! Thank you, everyone, for your thoughts and prayers during our whole moving process. It's been a lot of fun and we are thankful for the experience. If you are interested in seeing the finished product, you will just have to come and visit us in person! Our door is always open :)