deJong Online

Today, we celebrate 11 years. It has been 11 years since we said “I Do” in a small country church in Byron Center, MI. I loved that church, how small it was, the fact that Msgr was just wonderful and all the stories behind it. I had Faith Formation there, went through my Confirmation classes there (Confirmation was at the Cathedral downtown Grand Rapids), taught Preschool Faith Formation and was a reader. It was a beautiful setting for our truly beautiful day.

11 years ago, we were both getting ready for our ceremony, seperately. Jon was able to see me for the first time as I walked down the aisle with my dad. I spent time with my four bridesmaids and flower girl. Since those 11 years, said flower girl just graduated from High School and the Ring Bearer graduates next year, man that makes me feel old! Funny thing is to this day we still try and see all those that were in our wedding. One groomsmen is difficult since he moved to California and we are never home at the same time, but regardless we do see most of the wedding party when we are back in Michigan once a year.

In those 11 years we had a great honeymoon in the Smokey Mountains, a sub-honeymoon up in Traverse City camping one last time before we moved away, moved to Minnesota, Jon finished college, job change for me, moved again, job change for Jon, had our beautiful daughter C, change job for me, had our beautiful daughter CJ, I stayed home for two years, and here we are. Never would have thought 11 years would go that quickly, or the fact we have been together for 15 years already.

It may be 11 years later, but I love my husband like I did when we first met. The love has changed, increased, over the years but it is still as strong as when we met in 1996 or married in 2000. We have had ups and downs, but through it all we are still together. And for that I am eternally grateful.

So, if you have a twitter account like I do (@Storm_Jr), then you are aware of hashtags. They are essentially a fun thing to put into your tweets and in some cases more people will use it, then you can track what people are saying about that subject. So when I put this hashtag in a weather tweet, #MNwx, it is referring to Minnesota Weather. That way if people search for #MNwx, they can get updates or whatever on that subject. It’s pretty intuitive and neat.

If a hashtag is used enough, it ‘trends’ on twitter. This means it is getting used a lot and will show up in a top trends list, getting even more attention.

Which brings me to the reason I’m doing this post. There is a young girl name Alice. She lives in Ulverston, UK. She is 15 years old. And she has terminal cancer. She’s been fighting this terrible disease since she was 11. She started a blog for herself and her friends, so that she could list things on her bucket list and hopefully share any experiences with her friends in crossing items off of her bucket list.

On her bucket list are such things as, Meeting Take That, Staying in the Chocolate Room at Alton Towers, to Have a Nice Picture Taken With Mabel (her dog), and to make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor. One other thing that was on her bucket list was to ‘Trend on Twitter”. Well, that’s one thing that can be marked off. And because of it, even more can be marked off. Someone took it an ran with it and started the hashtag #AliceBucketList. Within hours, she was trending. Hits on her blog rose to astronomical levels. One of her posts had almost 2000 comments, most from people she’s never met and all of them giving her encouragement and finding inspiration from her. She has had to have friends and family help her read and respond to messages that have come pouring in.

As if that wasn’t enough. In a recent blog post, as mentioned before, she said she is not looking for money for her. She didn’t start this for her own personal gain. And instead said if people want to do something, to donate to her sister who is walking/running in the Race for Life. They had a 1,000 £ goal to be donated to Cancer Research….as of right now they’ve raised almost 14,000£!!! And again, bunches of donations from people across the world! And the comments are amazing.

Random Acts of Kindness….there are amazing people in this world. This girl and those random people running to help someone they don’t even know are absolutely amazing.

Alice, if you read this, I hope you get to do a lot more on your bucket list, but you’ve already inspired a lot of people across the world to join in the battle against cancer and that will save COUNTLESS lives in the future. You are a true hero.

If you’d like to follow her blog: http://alicepyne.blogspot.com/

If you’d like to follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/Alice_Pyne

If you’d like to donate for her sister on the Race for Life (or to just see her amazing total keep rising): http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/millypyne1908/1

If you’d like to become a bone marrow donor: http://www.marrow.org/

So….apparently the Rapture is happening today at 6pm. This is according to a religious man that owns and runs 200+ Family Radio stations. So he cracked the ‘code’ that Bible scholars from all times could not. Riiiiight….Obviously you can tell that I don’t believe the Rapture will happen this evening. And you know why? Because of this…
³⁶ “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³⁷ As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹ and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴² “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ⁴³ But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. (Matthew 24:36-44, New International Version)

So not even Jesus (the Son) knows. How is some guy who’s been studying the Bible going to figure it out?

But there is something very important to learn here. First, lets get some background on what exactly the Rapture is. At an elementary level, the Rapture is when God calls his children (those who believe in him and have been saved by him) up to heaven to be with him while the world goes to war, good vs evil. These people who are raptured will join with those whom have passed before them. Those who are left on earth will have the chance to become saved and join with the Raptured souls at the Battle of Armageddon. After this battle, those who do not believe and are not saved, along with Lucifer will be thrown into the fiery pits of hell…among other things.

So, now that we know what the Rapture is, lets ask the question. Say that you DO know that the Rapture is happening on a certain date. What would you do? What would you do, knowing that if you do believe that Jesus died for you, you would join him and all the other believers in heaven, free of pain, free of death, free of evil, joined with passed relatives…

• Would you go to church more?
• Would you stop swearing?
• Would you stop hatred?
• Would you be more kind?
• Would you start giving more instead of being selfish?
• Would you go visit that relative that you haven’t seen in a while?
• What would you do?

But here is the kicker….here is the REAL question. We don’t know when it will happen. So why wait until you think you know? Why not start now?

Thanks for listening/reading….

Jon

So after all that craziness of last night in the South. I wanted to add a little look at our life on Easter. We hope everyone had a wonderful day. Thankfully it was beautiful here in the frozen land and coats weren’t needed.

So we joined a gym, yup in January we took the plunge and joined a place that has a great kid center for the girls, lots of equipment to work out with and classes to take. When we signed up I hadn’t really looked at the classes as I figured that I would have at least one to go to a week that would help me work the weight off. I was wrong! Over the past few months I have gotten more and more frusterated at the fact that there are no midday classes at all at any of the like 19 locations in Minnesota. Now really, I work in the morning until noon so when the majority of their classes are at noon or before don’t think I can make those no matter how hard I try. Pretty sure my boss won’t let me off for 2 hours so that I can work out, when I only work 4 hours a day. The rest of the classes start at 5 pm. So how do you feed 2 kids, bathe them on bath night, read to them and enjoy some special time together that you have had since they were both born which allows them to have bedtime between 7 and 7:30 each night. Yes, you read those times right. We have girls that enjoy getting up at 6:30 in the morning and if they go to bed later they are just grumpier the next day, making momma unhappy as well.

Anyways, back to my mini rant… so if Zu m.ba is offered at 6pm at the gym that is roughly 20 minutes away I need to leave our place at about 5:15. That allows us to drive there, find a freakin’ parking space amongst the 500 other people going to the gym after work, bring my kids to the kid center (praying that they don’t hurt themselves or others each time I drop off), changed and stuff put in the locker and in the room no later than 15 minutes before class starts. Z umba especially packs up quickly. I have been told there normally is 70 in the class so it is super tight and not getting there early causes you to miss or be super squished. Now then, class is 1 hour gettings us done at 7 pm (yup bedtime). Oh and I have a max of 2 hours a day of kid center time so need to watch that as well. Geesh! I need a vacation just from all that running to take a class to help me lose weight.

So, why can’t gyms have classes that start at say 1:30 so moms can attend that kids are in school and get out at 3? Heck I could even be there at 1 pm if I needed to. Or a class that starts at 3:30 even would be better than 5 pm when it isn’t so busy at the gym finding a parking spot isn’t like it was in Q lot of SCSU! Don’t get me wrong, I love our gym, it is more a love/hate relationship in truth as I hate hurting the next morning if that is the case. I just am not feeling like I am getting out of it what I joined it for. Before you ask no a personal trainer is not in my budget, as much as I would like to have someone work along side me and help me out as I totally messed my arm up today that had surgery on it almost 3 years ago. Back to square one on that now which means either walking the treadmill or biking.

Anyone want to work out with me?

http://www.lisaleonardonline.com/blog/2011/03/09/big-big-giveaway/

So, I have been in love with Lisa’s jewerly for the past two years. Just love it! I had to pass along this amazing giveaway to all of you to hopefully have a chance to win.

My hope is to get one of the circl personalized necklaces. The one with two circles, one with each girls name, and their birthstones. Maybe this year for my birthday (hint, hint!)

After a slight southward trend to the 6z GFS, the 12z GFS is back north. The heaviest amounts right over the Twin Cities.

Here is a snap shot of the storm from the 12z GFS at 3pm Sunday:

Here is a snap shot of possible snow accumulations from the 12z GFS:

Now, I’m not saying we’ll get 12-18″ of snow, but with the models trending the heavier QPF over the metro and keeping the warm air to the south, confidence is rising in a 6″+ snow storm.

Wait, what’s this?  A blog post? Yep, it is. But, just a quickie.

Just wanted to let our readers know that we are still here. I still someday plan on keeping this blog active. I have no idea how or when, but I will.

So…hi!

On a side note, as much as I love snow…the feeling of the 45 degree plus air yesterday was amazing. I am looking forward to spring!