St. Louis Earthquake!!

Keri here. You may have already heard, but early this morning at around 4:35am, St. Louis all the way up to Wisconsin felt a 5.4 earthquake. It was a gentle, rumbling one, not rolling or a sudden jolt. Now, having grown up in southern CA, anything under a 6.0 normally doesn't faze me. I was scared of earthquakes when I was younger, but by the time I was 17, I had a routine with middle-of-the-night earthquakes of waking up and thinking, "Is it getting worse or better?....Good...better...I can go back to sleep" Or "Oh crap, worse...I have to get out of bed now." Well last night's quake shook me up for several reasons, though it was a small one and I'm used to that feeling. Here are some reasons...

1. A little history for you. St. Louis is on the New Madrid fault line, which is acutally a bigger fault line than the San Andreas fault (the one I lived on in CA which is much more active). However, the last big earthquake that St. Louis had was in the 1800's, and the earthquake this morning was the biggest felt in the whole midwest region in the last 40 years. It's not all that comforting to hear that a fault line is once again active in your area.

2. This is especially concerning as the entire town is made out of brick. As I was lying in bed, hoping that the quake wasn't a pre-shock (which happened quite often in CA...a littler one before a big one), I realized that the original construction of our apartment building was 1884. That does NOT give me a whole lot of confidence in its ability to withstand seismic activity. I was suddenly glad that our door to our back deck and backyard is in our bedroom so we can peace out of the building if we ever really do get a big one. This city will be a MESS if we ever have a large earthquake.

3. This was the first night earthquake that I haven't been in my parent's house for. After an earthquake was over, my parents would always come down the hall to my room and make sure I was okay. Now, don't get me wrong...I love my husband dearly. However, when it comes to middle-of-the-night happenings, he is sometimes less than comforting (He slept for the first part of the quake and when I woke him up and told him we were having an earthquake, he said, "huh." and promptly went right back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't even believe me that we had had an earthquake and had no recollection of me waking him up and talking to him...nothing like marital comfort in the scary times! :)

Anyways, I was up for a good 45 minutes afterwards and then went back to sleep and dreamed that our building had structural damage and we had to evacuate and then CJ went back to get something and the building collapsed on him and he died. Rough night!

A REAL OT!

Hey everyone (this is Keri),
Just letting you know that I passed my OT boards and that I'm a real OT now! I just found out today. I've started the job search, and things aren't looking incredibly promising for the exact kind of job that I want. I am applying to a couple of places this week to see what they have, but you can be in prayer about that. I know God has a job for me somewhere, I just need his wisdom and guidance to figure out what that is. No matter what, it's a tough transition to go from student-mode to full-time worker. My whole class has been struggling with it whether they're in jobs or still looking like me. I guess the grass is always greener because in grad school we would always talk about how much we wanted a normal 8-5 schedule with no homework at night. Now that we're all facing that or already in it, we all are missing the flexibility and vacation time that a student schedule offers. I just need to pray for contentment in whatever stage of life I am. Thank you for your prayers and support while I studied for my test! They paid off!

Another DeGroot Update

Time for another update...this time from Keri. Spring has sprung in St. Louis! We'll have to post some pictures soon of the daffodils, magnolias, and forsythia that are blooming! I'm done with my certification exam, but won't find out for a while how I did. It was a tough test and I didn't leave feeling all that confident because the way the test is set up, you can flag answers you're not sure about to go back to at the end of the test. I flagged probably 30 or 40 out of 200, but then you leave the test after just having gone through all of the answers you're not confident about. You kind of forget that you answered the other 170 pretty confidently, and just kind of feel like you knew nothing! Anyways, we'll see how it turns out. I am starting a job search, but because I'm pretty sure of the type of job I want (full-time, inpatient rehab with spinal cord injury patients), the positions are limited, and none of the places I want to work are currently hiring for those positions. I'm filling my time, though, babysitting for good friends, helping out some people in the community, and coming up: volunteering at the local stray dog shelter. I REALLY enjoy having a flexible schedule and being able to help people.

C.J. has officially decided to go back to grad school in the fall. We are both excited about this opportunity for him.

The church plant we are a part of is going well and while we've had to be patient with some things getting pushed back, we are learning to love on each other as a leadership team and community of believers and have all started serving the community of Lafayette Square in some capacity.

I'll leave you with some pictures of our trip up to Michigan to see my parents two weeks ago. We were only there for the weekend, but it was great to spend time with them. We spent a chunk of Saturday digging post holes (C.J. did that) and mixing/pouring cement so that my parents can get a fence built and be able to let the dogs run freely in the backyard. My siblings have joked since C.J. and I were 17 and dating and my dad had him help tear off the old roof on our CA house that C.J., like Jacob in the bible, was having to do hard labor to earn his wife. Now they joke that although we've been married almost 4 years, C.J. still seems to get roped into home improvement projects :) All jokes aside, we were glad to help my parents get that done and it was actually a pleasant sunny day in MI to do it.

Keri mixing concrete

C.J. helping fill the concrete into the post holes with Keri's parents