The Delp Details

GRADUATION!

2009-06-16T17:27:00.005-05:00

FINALLY...
I (Kim) am finally a grad school graduate! All the hard work has paid off! I still have 300 hours of clinical work and my final presentation at the end of August, but the important thing is NO MORE HOMEWORK and NO MORE TESTS! Praise Jesus! He is good!

Pictures of Spring around the Delp house

2009-06-05T17:14:00.007-05:00

What does the RESURRECTION mean to you?

2009-04-23T15:45:00.003-05:00

Michigan VACA

2009-04-16T16:19:00.013-05:00

We recently got to take a skiing/relaxing trip to Charlevoix, MI. We had a great time and relaxed much more than we did ski. I am defintely thankful for vacations. Even though it was fairly cold, we enjoyed sleeping in, some skiing, lots of coffee and hot chocolate, good food, and just a time of relaxing and being together. It was a nice change of pace before I started my LAST school quarter!

We also had a fireplace. I love fireplaces in the winter. SO COZY!

Our hotel in Charlevoix, MI

Our jacuzzi suite room! How relaxing

After dinner at the hotel restuarant

A little coffee shop we went to. (Don't you just LOVE the name!)

The view from Charlevoix

The view out to Lake Michigan

Don't look mom! Doing what our mom's always told us not to (I should know better). Walking out on Lake Michigan ice! Don't worry. The water was only a couple inches deep. It only would have been our shoes that froze!

The view out of our hotel of the 5 inches of snow (5 MINUTES BEFORE WE LEFT!!)

Red Envelope Day

2009-03-30T11:08:00.003-05:00

I encourage you all that view this blog to participate in Red Envelope Day. This is a grass roots project giving YOU the opportunity to take a stand against abortion.
What to do:
Send a RED ENVELOPE with the writing you see on the envelope above to the White House and President Obama on March 31st:

The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington D.C. 20500

The goal is to send a message to the President and government in general and take a stand against abortion. Make sure to put a return address on the envelope so it is not pulled and put in the 'JUNK MAIL' PILE at the post office.

Learn more about Red Envelope Day at

http://www.redenvelopeday.com/index.php

A goal met...

2009-03-26T20:01:00.003-05:00

I just have to share this new thing I am thankful for. This week I hit a weight loss goal of 20 pounds through weight watchers! I am SO excited about this. I started July 1st, so for sure it has taken awhile, but it is so amazing for me to reach this goal. I really felt like if I would be treating patient's and giving them ways to be healthy, that I needed to practice what I preach. I still have some weight to lose, but wanted to share this goal with you blogger friends. Before and After pictures will be coming when we get back from vacation!
Blessings to you all!

More Thanks!

2009-03-08T14:44:00.003-05:00

So, as I mentioned in the last post, I am trying to take a suggestion from a friend to weekly and more often to give thanks for things in my life. Second to accepting Jesus in my life, is God giving me a wonderful, amazing man for my husband. To me, Joel is the example of Jesus that we are called to be. He has taught me so many things about life, dreams and love. He has taught me about unconditional love. I am SO thankful to have him as my life partner, my encourager, my leader and my best friend. I thank God for loaning him to me for this life. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us and for our lives!

Give Thanks

2009-02-23T23:20:00.003-06:00

I was talking to a very wise lady today who made the suggestion of keeping a journal of the blessings that God has given us. I thought what a better way to do that than through our blog. I am going to TRY and update it every week, not making promises, but I will do my best. So, this first Blessings post is to thank God for my friends. One friend, my best friend, Christa and her husband came tovisit last week. We had a great time. It had been years since we had seen each other, but it was like no time ever really passed. So, this post is honor of the friens God has given me. I am SO thankful to know that there are people in the world who love you unconditionally and who are daily examples of Jesus. Thank you Jesus for my friends for the blessing of them on my life.

Winter Wonderland

2009-01-14T10:56:00.004-06:00

Our front view-notice the pups in the window

Our street

I love and miss those winter Indiana skies

A Carter Christmas

2009-01-14T10:45:00.005-06:00

Todd continuing to look goofy with mom and dad lookin on

Mom and daughter! Love you!

My brother Todd acting goofy! He's good at that!

Cody (my nephew) and his girlfriend Marlie

Mom and Dad's Tree

The Delp Christmas

2009-01-14T10:36:00.005-06:00

The nieces (Brianne, Bailey, Braedyn, Sheena and Reenna) helping me make Peppermint Bark

Reenna and Brianne

Joel and Reenna playing WII boxing

Hireq enjoying some family time

O Christmas Tree

2009-01-14T10:31:00.002-06:00

Here is our Christmas tree-this year we went with white lights instead of the multicolored.

Christmas Blessings

2008-12-25T22:50:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas to you all in blogger land. Blessings to you all from the Delp house to yours!

Full Circle

2008-12-05T19:56:00.002-06:00

I loved this song the first time I heard it, but yesterday, I saw this video and couldn't believe that it showed ECUADOR!!! I know we have probably all had those moments where certain things in our lives just come together. FOr me, I felt things really came full circle in my life. The song has a quote that says I wonder what life would be like if we let Jesus live through you and me...? It was a major challenge to me when I heard that. Sometimes I feel like such a failure and such a fallen person that HOW could Jesus use me when I am such a sinner. But I realize that He CAN, and He will and He does! WHen I saw this video and it showed the children in the garbage in Ecuador it just brought to the front of my mind God's call on our lives and how we can be used through HIm if we are willing. No matter where we are, no matter how clean or dirty we are, He can use us.
I am so excited about this and about sharing it with you. I hope it touches you and challenges YOU to be God's vessel, no matter WHERE you are, no matter how fallen or how dirty.

The VACCINE Controversy...Do they REALLY cause autism?????

2008-11-05T12:28:00.004-06:00

I feel it is important to write about this because there is a lot of controversay out there surrounding it. There are a lot of parents who are not vaccinating their children because they think there is an increased risk that they will get autism from the vaccine, particularly the MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine). Even Oprah last year had Jenny McCarthy on her show because her son who was diagnosed with Autism and "is now in recovery". I know that I can not relate to this because I don't have children and especially because I have not been in a situation where my child has been diagnosed with Autism, however, I do want to discuss what I have learned recently about this subject because I can empathize with families who ARE dealing with this.
First of all, I do not want to say that people shouldn't question what they are their health care providers are putting in their body. I think they SHOULD question and educate themselves. However, knowing WHERE you are getting the information is important. Checking out any book or ANY website on the internet is NOT the answer. The place I recommend researching is the CDC (Center for Disease Control) when researching anything with health. THis is what health care providers use. The website about vaccines is:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/default.htm
The issues surround autism and vaccines started with 2 research articles by Andrew Wakefield that hypothesized that the MMR vaccine caused Autism. To read more about this, go to the AMA (American Medical Assoication):
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13697.html
There are also news articles and 20/20 specials that say these things too. Before accepting all these as fact, it is important to arm yourself with information that is factual. I believe the CDC does a good job of this because they are their own entity, they don't get money from drug reps or other businesses to make certain statements. They research these issues and report the results.

I spoke with a Pediatric Neurologist about this issue who takes care of children with autism. He said there is no substantial research that supports the idea that vaccines are directly related to MMR. He said one issue he has noted is that Autism usually peaks and is diagnosed around the age of 1, the same age that children receive their 1st MMR vaccine. This is why a lot of people make the correlation between the vaccine and Autism.
THe other problem is that there is no definitive cause that has been associated with Autism. It's not like diabetes or heart disease where we know the reasons that cause it.
The bottom line is, parents need to have the facts about these issues before making the decision NOT to vaccinate their children. Vaccines have been created to prevent people from HAVING certain diseases such as Smallpox (no longer an issue), Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella. Many of these diseases are deadly or life altering. Before the decision is made to NOT vaccinate your child, know your facts. Don't make a decision based on a few articles written. If everyone makes the decision NOT to vaccinate their child, it puts others at risk in the long term for HAVING the diseases mentioned above. I don't think anyone wants to see POLIO or RUBELLA as the norm for children again because they haven't been vaccinated.
AGAIN, I want to stress that I empathize with families who are dealing with Autism. It is difficult, but don't automatically jump to the conclusion that vaccines are the only culprit. We all want to know the WHY's and how things are caused, and I suppose blame has to be put somewhere. Sometimes though, we just DON'T know. Although difficult, we have to educate ourselves and know before we assume.
I'll get off my soap box now and as always would love to hear YOUR opinions...

Did you miss us??????

2008-10-13T22:18:00.003-05:00

Well, at least it hasn't been FOREVER since we have posted on our blog. We are still alive and well, busy as ever! A quick re-cap of what we have been up to...
In July we moved to a great house that is on the property of our church-Northwest Covenant in Mt. Prospect, IL. Joel is doing grounds work at the church and in turn, we are able to live in the house. It has been SUCH a huge blessing and very humbling for us. So many people in the church and community have made us feel SO welcome and they re-painted and re-finished the entire floor! It's AMAZING! I will post pictures of the inside of the house when we have everything in it's place.
In September, we had visitors from BOTH sides of the family. Joel's parents and brother and fam came and visited as our first guests. A couple of days later, Kim's parents came and in a whirlwind changed the entire outside of the house! You can see the pictures. They brought TONS of landscaping goodies including roses and lavender! I think they were a bit tuckered out since we pulled out gigantic shrubs in the front of the house! Thanks mom and dad!
Kim is still plugging away in school-just a couple quarters away from being done! She's in her pediatric rotation right now which will come in handy for Ecuador!
Joel just today started as a manager of a Verizon store in a town about 30 minutes away from us. He is excited to get to put his own touch on a store-he's got some great ideas.
Hireq and Patah are loving the new house and run around in the big basement. I think they LOVE their new surroundings and love looking out the front window and all the people and dogs walking by. They are quite the hit with the kids in the neighborhood. The parent's like them too because their kids are worn out after playing with 'em.
So, that's an update in a nutshell. Leave a comment and let us know how y'all are doing.

Before and After pictures of our house!

2008-10-13T22:05:00.008-05:00

After picture of the front of the house

Before picture of the front of the house. After picture of the side of the house

Before picture of the side of the house

After picture of the back of the house (facing the church)

Before picture of the back of the house

We went BOATIN'

2008-08-22T19:48:00.001-05:00

We were finally able to connect with some friends at church who have a boat in Lake Geneva, WI. ON Wed night we all got together and had nice snacks on the boat and enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful creation of our God. Can't tell you how much it meant to us to do this and how relaxing it was in the middle of the week to get out of the city. Thanks Carol and Irwin!

Residency Update

2008-07-13T14:56:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my (Kim's) residency. My residency hours are 300 hours after I am done with my school work where I will work with a nurse practitioner or doctor in the area related to what I will be doing after graduation. Ideally, we would have liked to do that in Ecuador since that is where we are going to hopefully be working long term. When Joel was in Ecuador, I talked with my school about this and the answer eventually was "no" to doing it in Ecuador. Bummer! We were excited about this prospect because it means we could have gotten to Ecuador quicker. That's OK. Our plan will be for me to finish school this time next year and to do my residency hours here and then take my certification boards here. After that we will plan on leaving.
Just a quick update. Thanks for your love, support and prayers!

Our DEEPEST Apologies

2008-07-13T14:40:00.002-05:00

I have to send this apology out to those of you who read this and say I am SOOOOO sorry about the music on this blog. I had downloaded a lot of Christian songs from playlist to play when this blog is accessed. I was just listening as I was doing homework and realized there is a song on there under a Christian artists name, but it is NOT. It has vulgar words and themes. I just now realized this. Again, my sincere apologies. I hope you all do not think less of us or are not reading the blog because of this. Truly, know that I would NOT have had this on here had I realized that this song was playing. I have since removed playlist from this blog. Please accept are apologies. We did not realize until today.

New Job and New House.... Good!

2008-07-10T17:57:00.003-05:00

Well, we can officially announce that we are moving... whohoo!!!! and I (this is still Joel!) am starting two new jobs.

One is with Verizon Wireless where I will be a Store Manager In-Training. I'm very excited about this opportunity and it will be nice and close to our new home.

My second job is related to our move. I am taking over as the grounds person at our church. Basically, I'll be responsible for mowing the lawn and snowblowing during the winter and making sure everything is locked up at night. In the end, it's just making sure the place is in good working order. The awesome thing is that I don't get paid!!!! Rather, Kim and I get a free house to live in!!! Hot dog!!! Pretty cool, eh? Yeah... we are going from almost paying $1,000 per month in rent living in Chicago to moving into a 4 bedroom house in the burbs for what equates to about 2 or 3 hours worth of work on average per week. It's safe to say we are pumped!

We are moving on July 30th. We have only lived in Chicago since we have been married and we will definitely miss it. At the same time, we are also very excited about being right next door to our church family.

We'll be emailing out our new address soon, we just wanted to let you know.

Ecuador, Ecuador, Ecuador!

2008-07-10T16:46:00.014-05:00

Hey y'all!

This is Joel and I'm doing my first ever post on our blog!!! Whoo-hoo!!! Sorry for not being the communication giant that Kim is....

I had to blog becuase I just got back from... well... I guess you can probably tell by the title.

I had a fantastic trip! It was a part of our church's (Northwest Covenant) every 3 year youth mission trip to Ecuador. Kim and I went 3 years ago and that is where we started feeling like Ecuador may be where we will end up. We've visited one more time since then, but since I am between jobs, it worked out perfectly for me to head down to South America for 9 days.

We were again helping our missionary friends Karen and Carlos Feijoo with the ministries they are a part of. Our primary work was in the small town of Carabuela, which is a town just outlying Otavalo, where one of the world's best markets is located. There we were helping Fundacion Amor A La Vida, a foundation dedicated to youth of Carabuela. Here some pictures of the foundation and kids.

We were able to fix up those desks that you see above. We also did a lot of other work at the Foundation and ran a VBS and just loved on a bunch kids. It was a ton of fun!

The kids on the trip have created a blog so you can track their progress... http://www.nwccyouth2008.blogspot.com/

I guess I could get into a lot more details, but I'll just share pictures for now...

Time with Family

2008-06-25T14:40:00.004-05:00

We got to get out of the city for awhile this past week to visit with JOel's family in Goshen. It was fun to spend time with family and to see those we hadn't seen in a couple months. We had some nice weather and played lots of Tennis and Joel even got to golf!!!!! It was a nice relaxing week for us.

As a little update and prayer request...
Joel is able to make a trip to Ecuador and leaves this Saturday for 8 days. He will mainly be spending time with the youth kids from our church, but will also be able to connect with people involved in future ministry. He will be trying to set stuff up for our short term mission adventure coming up in about a year. Please pray that God will give him opportunities to set these plans up and will guide him in the area where HE wants us. We are praising Jesus for this time he can spend in Ecuador! (I am a little jealous that he is going and I have to work and be in school).

Further updates to follow...
Blessings to all.

We can clean up nice sometimes

Reenna showing her balancing skills

The cousins playing together

Joel's older sister and her family

JOel's older brother and his family

New FAV recipe

2008-06-17T16:21:00.002-05:00

Well, I was watching the cooking channel recently and I found a great new summer, HEALTHY recipe. It is
Lemon Basil Salmon Pasta
1-4 Salmon FIllets
1 lbs (less if for less people)whole wheat pasta
2 cloves of diced garlic
Zest of a lemon
Juice from 1-2 lemons
Basil (as little or as much for your tasting)
2 tsp Cajun Seasoning
2tsp Paprika
2 tsp Chili Powder
Capers-optional

Cook the pasta in a salted saucepan until done-drain

Season with fish with cajun seasoning, paprika, and chili powder-you can use more if you like it spicier. Cook the fish in a pain until flaky-or grill it.

Mince garlic, mix it with lemon juice and zest and cut up the basil. When the pasta is done and drained, mix it with the lemon juice mixture and toss it. Place the salmon on top and enjoy.

THe original recipe said to season the salmon with just salt and pepper-but I added the cajun stuff to spice it up a bit!
HOpe you enjoy!

Top 10 signs your car doesn't have AC

2008-06-11T15:11:00.002-05:00

#10 The temp outside is cooler than your car after a 1 hour drive with the window's down!
#9 You CAN actually fry an egg on the dash board
#8 When you leave a bottle of water in the car during grocery shopping and you come out and it's boiling!
#7 You accidently leave chapstick in the car and go to put it on and it's a puddle in your lap (yes this actually has happened and it's always when I am dressed up).
#6 After a nice drive during rush hour traffic, it looks like you have run a marathon from the amount of sweat pouring off of you.
#5 When you go into the gym to work out and they look at your funny because you look like you already HAVE worked out!
#4 There's always the possiblity of heat stroke on any given day
#3 During the summer no one else can ride in your car-if they do-you have to have a consent form that says "you have been warned"
#2 You have to stick your head out the windown with you dogs (and the slobber from doing it is refreshing)
and #1 Every time you get out of the car, it feels (and probably looks) like you wet your pants!