April Showers

Just to remind you (and us) that we live in Alaska, this is what we woke up to today. These are pictures from the Anchorage Daily News. Although I didn't see or hear any weather reports, I actually dreamed of feet of snow piled up rather than the dusting and accumulating inches that we did experience. Recently temperatures outside have been mild enough and sunny enough for me to walk Titus for a few minutes without a jacket, and we've had our windows open in our apartment every afternoon for a few weeks now. We also have seen pussy willow buds. But today the weather conditions were severe enough for schools to cancel all afternoon activities, news reports to issue warnings, lots of cars to get into accidents or slide into ditches, and our Wednesday evening church service to be canceled. We are supposed to get a few more inches tonight and part of me is hoping for our one last chance of a snow day!

While I might get a free day off of work, James is studying hard for his big FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) exam this Saturday. It is going to be an eight hour exam covering every engineering and math course he has ever taken. He has been studying night and day, talking FE exam, thinking FE exam, and dreaming FE exam. His favorite method of studying involves teaching someone else, so I'm learning all kinds of abstract, unrelated information from this too, although don't ask me to try to reproduce it on a test! Too bad I'm such a lousy aural learner! Please pray for him on Saturday (he starts at 7 AM) to do great on the test and then have a really good feeling about it afterwards so he won't worry about it anymore! He has an uncanny ability to predict his grade down to the tenth of a percent on regular tests, and I want him to be able to walk away from this and enjoy the celebrations and events of the next couple of weeks without feeling like he has something hanging over his head.

This test marks the beginning of the end as over the next three weeks James' classes will culminate with his final finals of his engineering school career. Graduation is May 4th. Although I have been dreaming and planning and praying and hoping for this, I can scarcely believe it's here. I am sluggishly waking up to the fact that in three weeks and five days, we will wake up and not have to worry about homework, class schedules, ordering books, exam weeks, buying notebooks, and so on for a long, long time. Good bye College, and Hello Life!

I wish you all could be here with us to celebrate this happy time. I will try to post updates and pictures of our special events as they come up so that you can share in part of the experience. James would love to hear from you too, and a note or email would be so appreciated.