Winter, finally!

At the end of our January blog post, I mentioned how we were so thankful for being blessed with mild weather and good health. Unfortunately, February changed both of those things for us here in the Duerr household!  

February finally brought the winter we’ve been expecting for months! We’ve actually had a few snows that leave more than just a dusting on the ground, and it’s been cold enough that there are piles of snow sitting around, still there after several weeks. It’s been quite the adventure for us! Fortunately, we are still both in love with the snow, and every time there is a snowfall, it’s hard to pull us away from the window. It just would have been nice to have this back in December when we wanted it, not so much now when we want to look ahead to spring! We are also fortunate that the snow has not brought any bad driving conditions for us so far!

February also unfortunately has been a month of sickness in our house. I (Mikaela) came down with strep throat early in February, and I had to take my first sick day of the school year. Thankfully, a trip to urgent care and some antibiotics helped me get back on my feet quickly and in time for my parents’ visit. Unfortunately, a few days after I finished those antibiotics, I started getting sick again. A few days later, Nick ended up really sick as well, so we both made a trip into urgent care, and both tested positive for strep. So we were administered a different kind of antibiotics, and we both took two days off work this week and just stayed home and rested! We are both feeling much better now, and hopefully it stays that way this time!

Thankfully, Nick stayed healthy until after finals week was over. He spent several weeks this month working non-stop on papers and tests, and was very glad for the end of the quarter to come. He gets one more week of break this upcoming week, and then he will be starting his spring quarter! Spring quarter will bring some great classes like Homiletics (after which, he will be able to preach!), and Exodus and the Torah. My month in my classroom has been equally crazy, between several sick days, a field trip, Valentine’s Day, a Kindergarten preview night for prospective students and their parents, and many, many days that have been too cold or wet to take the kids outside to play. I’m looking forward to the days when we go outside more often than we stay in.

A big event for us in February was when my parents came out for a visit! They made the long drive first from California to South Carolina, to visit my younger sister in college there, and then stopped by St. Louis on the way back for a week-long visit. Well, that was the plan anyway! One normal Sunday morning, Nick and I went to church, and since he was doing liturgy at both services, I went down to my classroom during the morning service to get some work done in my classroom (that’s the life of a first year teacher!). I walked up to the church just in time for the late service, and when I opened the door to the narthex, to my surprise, there were my mom and dad standing there! Since I hadn’t seen them since July when we left California, it was a very exciting and emotional moment. They attended church with us, took us out to lunch, and then were on their way to South Carolina to surprise my sister in time for her birthday! (She expected them to arrive several days later). About a week later, they returned to St. Louis (to stay for a while this time!). We had so much fun just hanging out with them and showing them our life here in St. Louis. It was fun for us to show them our apartment, to cook dinners for them, and show them what we’ve accomplished and how we’ve grown up in the last six months. My mom, being a former Kindergarten teacher, loved being in my classroom, and she even came and helped with our Valentine’s Day party and taught my kids some songs and read some fun books to them. Their departure was scheduled for President’s Day, and then a snowstorm came in, so they ended up staying an extra day, which worked out great, because Nick got a snow day off of school, so we had a fun extra day to spend some time with them! They left the next day, leaving our refrigerator and freezer full of food and meals ready to put in the crock pot – such a blessing for us! It was a fun visit, and we look forward to the next time they come!

Another really exciting event for this month was just a few days ago, when we booked our plane tickets to visit California for two weeks this summer! We haven’t been able to afford a trip back since moving here in July, and so over the last few months, we’ve saved as much Christmas money as we could, and any extra money we’ve had left over at the end of the month. We finally saved up enough to purchase the plane tickets! We are looking forward especially to seeing friends and family, going to my cousin’s wedding, throwing my sister a baby shower, and of course, spending some quality time at the beach and eating some In-N-Out!

All dressed up at an Oscar-themed birthday party for a friend! 

In the name of Christ our savior,

Nick and Mikaela Duerr