·The Exchange Rate:
1 USD = 2.39697 Reais

·The Weather:
Temperature: 71°F
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy

Tomorrow: Chance of Rain. High:66 ° F.

On October 25th, my grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Here are a few pictures I scanned in from their wedding album. I really love these pictures. The expression on my grandma's face is priceless.

As much as I keep trying to deny it....Summer is over. I miss the warm, sunny days already. And I know snow is just around the corner. Even though this is our last true winter for a while, I still cringe at the thought of snow. With the seasons changing, it reminded me that we haven’t updated our site recently. We wanted to share an update on our lives with you.

This summer we were blessed with a lot of opportunities to travel: Eastern camp, Mid-west camp, Richmond for a Beach Outing, and Syracuse for Andrew and Bethany’s wedding. We enjoyed spending time with friends, building relationships, and relaxing a little bit. Check out some of our pictures from our summer trips in the Photo Album

Jake is still working hard. The course he is taking for our visa is almost finished. He has one final paper that he is working on and the final and then we can celebrate being done with school … again. We are praying that the course will be acceptable to get us a missionary visa (it lasts 5 years rather than just 1 year – and the bureaucracy and stress of renewing visas is something we want to avoid as long as possible).

Work has picked up considerably since August for me. My work picked up a school contract with one of the local schools so I have basically doubled my case load. I see kids at Crestview Elementary, Middle, and High School on Tuesday and Friday and I am at Rehab on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It was a stressful transition but I’m finding my way around now and learning the paperwork and processes of School OT.

We are excited to share that Mansfield has accepted being our home church and is willing to support as missionaries. We will meet with the Missionary Committee on October 5 and begin determining what further preparations we need to complete before moving to Brazil. Tentatively, we are hoping to leave for Brazil in February sometime. Looking ahead it seems like we still have so much left to do!

If you haven't been to the Tremont Turkey Festival, You are missing out on living. Jake introduced me to my first Turkey Festival this year. It's a weekend full of turkey sandwiches, carnival rides, strawberry shortcake, petting zoo, and Tremont's very own Bed Race to name a few (http://www.turkeyfestival.com). Teams are made of 4 runners and 1 rider. They get together to design their beds. The day of the race there is a 100 meter dash with a chinese firedrill in the middle. Following the bed race, we watched a strawberry shortcake eating contest. Although our stomachs weren't up for the contest, we had an awesome strawberry shortcake. I even got my very own Tremont shirt to top off the weekend. The weekend was a lot of fun.

We’ve passed a new milestone - our 1st anniversary on June 2nd. In some ways it feels like just yesterday I was putting on my white dress and Jake was the most dressed up he has ever been in his life. Yet in many ways it feels like we have known each other forever. Some would say we have survived our first year. But if this was the worst….I can’t imagine what the better years will be like. We went out for a nice dinner and played a round of putt-putt golf. Dinner was great; putt-putt… lets just say we were a little out of practice, but we got a lot of laughs out of it.

So I remember people talking about the Blizzard of '78. Now we have our own memories of the wonderful weather potential of Ohio in the winter. Last weekend, between Friday and Saturday we accumulated 14-16 in. of snow. With perfect timing, Andy and Katie Roth (friends from Tremont) made it for a weekend visit just in time to get snowed in with us. We were put under a Level 2 Snow Emergency.

(For those non-Ohioans - there are alerts put out with travel restrictions.)

Level Three means all roadways are closed to non-emergency personnel. No one should be out during these conditions unless it is absolutely necessary. Those traveling on the roadways may subject themselves to arrest.

By Saturday afternoon, the boys were getting anxious to get outside. They decided to get the cars out and go to lunch. Surprisingly, they got the cars out relatively easily because there wasn't much snow underneath them and had a great time driving around the parking lots, getting stuck and fish tailing. Then they decided we needed to go out to lunch. The only problem - everything was closed. We found McDonald's drive through to be the only thing open and we were one of 5 cars on the road. I suppose the rest of the world was in hibernation. Sunday, everything was still canceled but the world became a little more alive by the afternoon just in time for Andy and Katie to make their way home. It was an adventure of a weekend.

Time just keeps flying by. In December, I finished my last internship. I had great experiences at the school for children with special needs. I was able to work with children from 0-3 in early intervention all the way through high school kids. I really learned a lot and enjoyed my stay there. On December 8, I graduated with my Masters in Occupational Therapy from the University of Findlay. Another chapter has come to a close.

The job search didn't take long. After a few applications, a couple of interviews, and some much needed prayer, I found a wonderful job at The Rehab Center in Mansfield, which is a non-profit outpatient pediatric center with other community and adult supports as well (http://www.therehabcenter.org/medical_rehab.php). Conveniently, it is only about a mile from our apartment. I will be working with children 0-3 as well as school aged kids. I will most likely be doing a few school contracts with smaller private schools in the area as well. I am excited about actually doing what I have only studied for so many years. The people are wonderful, the work is very flexible, and I know God has a lot in store for me over the next year. My ultimate goals are to develop more OT skills to be able to meet the needs of the children at CLM as well be able to pay off my school loans within the next year.

Jake is keeping busy too. He is working on a few new homes in the area and just started a course for us to apply for our missionary visa. It is an online course so it is flexible around our schedule. However, Satan's darts will certainly be against Jake's dedication to getting the course done without distractions. One of those distractions, Chelsea got a Wii for Christmas this year. Jake is now a Pro Boxer. I am so proud. I'm still working on my tennis swing - definitely not pro yet.

To see them, follow these instructions:

Go to http://www.collages.net.

Fill in the following name and password information:
Username: Amanda and Jake
Password: 14488

Para todos quem querem ver, nossos fotos de casamento estão online, para vê-los, segui estes instuçôes:

Vai para o site http://www.collages.net

Para "username" usa: Amanda and Jake
Para "Password" usa 14488

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Dear Prayer Warrior,

I want to start out by apologizing for the following short, snappy letter.  There is a lot going on and I would like to share the details, but the day is not running along as I had hoped.  My prayer at 4:30 this...

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