A New Semester, A New Apartment

My roommate Sonya and I have moved into a new, smaller fourplex. Only the two of us are in this apartment, and we're excited to be living among all the other students. After living in our large dorm-style apartment last semester, I was looking forward to being able to decorate this apartment like a home! Thank you for the Christmas gifts that enable me to splurge on making my house a home. It's not completely finished (one corner to go), but here are a few pictures of our little home:

The view from the front door
My room is to the left

So, this is it! Feel free to come visit and see it in person. ;-)

Ice, Ice...

Well, if you've seen the news in the past few days, you may have discovered the central U.S. is in a major ice storm! I've lived in some pretty cold and wintry states in the past few years, but Missouri wins by FAR! I got back to campus from the airport after fighting the storm for nearly 24 hours. By the time we arrived, ice was covering anything that stood still for too long. Classes were canceled until the 22nd because too many students were not back before the storm. Here are some pictures from my outing today:The sun through the ice looks like "blown glass" according to my roommate Sonya. It reminds me of how I imagined the forest to be in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

This is what our road off campus looks like--don't worry, once you get through this mile of icy winding hills, the roads are clear!

As you can see, we got quite the storm!
As beautiful as the ice may be at times, it has also taken out many limbs from our trees on campus. No one has been injured, no property damaged, but our trees have paid the price for the storm. This limb is outside our new apartment, and is actually one of the smaller limbs down. The campus has a nice smell of cedar.

Please pray as the rest of the students return to campus over the next few days and for the men who are doing tree removal and maintenance due to the storm. Thanks!

Love, Carrie

Home From Christmas Vacation!

I made it safely to and from North Carolina. I was able to spend a great month with Mom and Dad. Tim and Britney were even able to come down for a brief period just before Christmas. Mom, Dad, and I went to Florida to visit Grammy and Pappy Martin over Christmas. It was so great to see everyone and rest up! Thank you for your prayers as I traveled!!