Just Stuff…

Teens' Involved went really well and all of our entries but one will be going onto Regionals which are in Crawfordsville, IN, on April 12^th. It was an exhausting day, but I am so proud of all of our Word of Life kids. They really put their heart in their performances and did such a great job for the Lord. That night we ordered Pizza Hut for dinner because there was so way after that long day that I wanted to cook dinner. Jared still was running a pretty high fever so he ended up staying home. I know how badly he wanted to go, but it was a good thing he stayed home cause he said he slept most of the day.

Sunday he still stayed home from church in the morning, but by the time we got home he wasn't running a fever and was feeling much better. I let him play with Brandon in the afternoon and then he went to RUSH that evening, but it turned out that by the time he got home from RUSH that he was running a fever again! I was part of worship team on Sunday and it was quite a hard one for me. We actually sang 2 songs for call to worship and then sang 3 more for worship team time. They were really great songs, but two were brand new so that made it a lot more challenging for me.

Monday even though Jared was still running a low grade fever we decided to take him to get his hair cut because it needed it SO bad. I don't think his hair has ever been as long as it was this time. Afterwards we went to homeschool bowling and then ran some errands. By the time we got home, he was pretty tired and still running a low grade fever! When we got home, I was surprised to find Mark curled up on the couch with a blanket…guess who is sick now?? Yes, Jared passed it onto Mark and he has been home from work for the past 2 days and I am not real sure that he will be going in on Thursday either. It is the same thing Jared had…just a fever which I assume is all viral.

Tuesday we had a bit of an accident. When Braden's grandpa dropped him off, when he backed out of the driveway, he hit Adam's car!! Thankfully it was only the mirror and actually the mirror itself is okay, but the case is nearly cracked in half and is dangling. We dropped his car off at Jerry's place tonight on the way to church and he is supposed to get it fixed tomorrow. Adam is not thrilled about driving our van to work, but at least he has a way to get there and I don't need take him.

Last night the boys had a 4-H meeting and I had to go and sign their sign up sheets so afterwards I went and ran some errands. It was really snowing and the roads were icy underneath and we saw a van turn sideways in the road in front of us. That was kinds scary, but nothing else happened, thank goodness.

Mark still wasn't feeling well this evening so he stayed home from Word of Life and since he had the lesson and Scott wasn't prepared to teach we did Quiz Blitz for the evening and the kids had a lot of fun with it.

I guess that is all for now…time for me to get my pjs on, pop some popcorn and go curl up on the couch with my book and my puppy!

Scrapbooking & More…

We had a great time on our Potato Creek Scrapbook weekend. I completed 14 layouts, 13 of Adam's baby photos and one layout of Tucker. I had hoped to get more done since we stayed an extra day, but it was still pretty good for me. While we scrapped we watched some movies in the evening so I had a hard time staying focused on my layouts, plus you know…I had to take time to talk! (We watched "50 First Dates", "Amazing Grace", and "Mr. Bean's Holiday"…it was pretty silly!) I am all ready looking forward to our next year's retreat. We have all ready decided to do all day Sunday again next year. It was so nice having that whole extra day. It just make the weekend much more relaxed. We started and ended our weekend by eating out so that was an added bonus. We ate lunch on Friday at Panera in Elkhart and then on the way home on Monday, we went to Pages in Time in Granger and then to Applebees for lunch. I didn't get home Monday until just after 4:30 and left again shortly after 6:00 when Anna picked me up for the first night of our new Beth Moore Bible Study. There was also a WOL team meeting that night, but since it was the first night of Bible study and I didn't want to miss so Mark went to the meeting by himself.
Following is a photo of my scrapbooking friends, but Donna is missing from the photo as she had to leave on Sunday evening and we forgot to have our photo taken until Monday morning. Sandy, Bettie, Anna, Ester and Me.

While we were away, the water came back up in the basement, since it rained quite a bit over the weekend. It had just started to dry up after the flood from the last week and then got wet again. As usual, there wasn't much water, but since it stayed wet for nearly 3 weeks this time, we had two toadstools grow in one corner and some mold on other places. GROSS!! Things are back to normal by now, but we need to get some bleach and spray on some of those spots and get it cleaned up.

2/28-2/29 Jared has been running a fever for the last couple of days. I am not real sure what is wrong as today, his fever was up around 103 most of the day, yet he said he felt better today than he did yesterday even though yesterday the fever was only around 100. Tomorrow is WOL Area TI and Jared really wants to go with us but if he is running a fever like that he should probably stay home. I guess we will just see how things are in the morning. Mark has to leave early to head over to First Baptist in Goshen as Dave Eger has asked him to be Quiz Master for the Quiz Blitz competition which is first thing in the morning.

TI ought to be interesting…the Hembress are out of town, so Mark and I are on our own this time around. I was very stressed out on Sunday trying to figure out what to do to get all of these entries ready to perform for our congregation on Sunday night, but it all came together very well. We had practice all day Sunday, after church, but the Hembrees weren't able to be there until around 4:30. Then they went out of town this week leaving on Wednesday morning. So, it has been quite a bit of learning for Mark and I trying to pull things together. The teens are doing SO well on their performances, and so as long as I have all of the paperwork together correctly, I think we are all ready for tomorrow morning.

I know there is probably lots more that I should be writing about the last couple of weeks, but it is nearing midnight and I need to think about going to sleep so I can get up for TI in the morning!

I Have Been Tagged!

Okay, this is the first time I have ever been tagged...probably because not many people have the link to this boring blog. LOL! I was tagged by my friend Jessica and quoting from her blog here are the rules: "The point of this fun game is to answer the questions, then tag 4 of your friends and post their names on your blog. Might want to leave them a message telling them they've been tagged. Oh, and I make a new rule: absolutely no retagging."

Where Were You 10 Years Ago?

10 Years ago…hmmm… Feb. 1998, if I remember right that was our first winter in this house and the boys would have been 8 and nearly 5. (My goodness it is hard to remember that long ago….) I think that would have been the first year that I was homeschooling both of the boys…Jared in Kindergarten and Adam in 3rd, we skipped around some back then which is why he never really knew what grade he was in! I also was selling Pampered Chef at that time.

5 Things On My To-Do List:

Only 5? That is funny!!!

1. Get everything ready for Word of Life Teens' Involved, which is next weekend, March 1st. We need to get paper work around and get copies made among other things.

2. Start getting things around for the Word of Life sleepover which is in a 3 weeks. Yes, Word of Life keeps me busy!

3. Try to figure out how to keep Jared on task and motivated to get his school done before 5:00 PM every day. This is an ongoing thing for me and would appear on my To Do list each and every day!

4. We just started the brand new Beth Moore Bible study at church on Monday, "Stepping Up: A Journey through the Psalm of Assents", so I want to be able to keep on top of my homework. I can all ready tell it is going to be an awesome study, and I don't want to get behind.

5. Work on more layouts for Adam's graduation open house…specifically baby and toddler photos, actually any photos before about 1999, which means I only have about 10 years of photos to go through between now and June! YIKES!! Okay, I don't have any aspirations of scrapping all of them, but I do want to go through them and pick out the highlights of those times.

3 Bad Habits:

{Gulp…once again…only 3? Okay, maybe there are only 3 that I want to tell about!}

1. Jessica, this one ought to make you feel better… I get up between most days between 7:00 and 7:30, but with the exception of Tuesday when I need to get in the shower and ready to go before 7:15 since Emma's dad drops her off, other days I am lucky to be in the shower by noon! (I can't really believe I am admitting this here!} We start school and once I get started on it I don't want to stop to get myself around so don't end up getting out of my pjs until later. I guess that is one advantage of being a homeschool mom, but it just sounds as if I am lazy!

2. Not posting on my blog more often. I tell myself ALL OF THE TIME that I will post at least once a week, but it never seems to happen.

3. I am a packrat, but I get it naturally, from my dad and from my grandpa before him. I am an organized messy, and I hate getting rid of things cause you just never know when you might need them. {blush}

Places I Have Lived:

1. Kewanna, IN: little tiny town where I live for my first year, so I don't remember it at all.

2. Rochester, IN,- from the time I was 1 until the summer before my 8th grade year.

3. Argos, IN: bigger than Kewanna, but not much! This is where I went to high school and graduated from and lived until Mark and I got married in 1985.

4. Warsaw, IN: From the time we got married until 1988.

5. Elkhart, IN: Fall 1998 to present. (2nd house though.)

As you can see I am true Hoosier at heart since I have lived her all of my life, always moving a little farther north with each town where I have lived. Hopefully the next move will be south…..way south…where there won't be snow!

Things Most People Don't Know About Me:

I don't know how many people know these things, but I guess they are worth mentioning.

1. I inhaled a carpet tack when I was just a toddler and had to be rushed to the hospital, but no damage was done.

2. My dad was Chief-of-Police in Argos, which is why we moved there, and so I had to be a good girl. :)

3. I got married less than a year after I graduated from high school and didn't have our first baby until 4 years later.

4. We have hosted 2 incredible exchange students, who I both count as daughters…Marica from Serbia, (2000-2001), and Nathalie from Germany, (2001-2002, and has come back to visit twice, Aug. 2003, (or was it 2004 the first time?), and Aug. 2006.)

Here Are The Lucky People I Tag:

1. Gena

2. Heather

3. Sharmin

Now, remember, no tag backs, girls!

Here we go again!

Well, once again we have water in the basement. Just a month ago, we went through this! UGH! The Elkhart River is currently at 10.4 feet, (flood stage is a 7 ft), and it has officially made the #5 spot for all time high historical water levels, effectively bumping our Jan. #10 spot, record of 10.07, off of the charts. This is just crazy! We had some snow, but not nearly as much in Jan. and then a couple of days of rain and, up came the water again. At the moment, the water is just starting to creep through the cracks in the basement floor, but the water is just as high or higher in our neighborhood as it was the last time and it came up a whole lot faster…just over the course of today. We just got the basement back in order from the last flood and today we had to get everything up off of the floor once again.

Here is the chart of Historical crests for the Elkhart River from the Nat'l Weather Service site. You can see our Jan. measurement at #10, but as soon as they update this list it will be gone and our record from today will be at #5.

Historical Crests
(1) 11.94 ft on 03/14/1982
(2) 11.87 ft on 02/24/1985
(3) 11.03 ft on 12/30/1990
(4) 10.46 ft on 03/17/1982
(5) 10.33 ft on 07/10/1951
(5) 10.33 ft on 03/05/1979
(7) 10.27 ft on 10/11/1954
(8) 10.20 ft on 06/09/1993
(9) 10.15 ft on 04/04/1950
(10) 10.07 ft on 01/09/2008

The weather in general has been pretty crazy. Twice last week, schools closed due to snow and ice, (Wednesday and Friday) and then Tuesday of this week, they postponed 2 hours due to dense fog. Tonight most of the area churches cancelled their evening services, but since we didn't have church last Wed. we decided to go ahead and have it this week. Halfway through the day today it started to snow and it got pretty bad, but it started to taper off and the roads didn't end up being as bad as what we originally thought. (so tonight our flooded neighborhood is covered with snow!!)

On a good note…we booked our vacation! Hooray…we are going back to the beach! Officially to Topsail Island, which is about 30 minutes north of Wilmington, NC. We are going the first week of May and I can't wait to go. (Now would be really good!) We aren't 100% sure what we will doing along with it, maybe DC, Gettysburg, or who knows, but we have time to figure that out before we leave. I am just very excited that we are going back to the ocean. The home which we have rented is right on the water once again and has its own walkway right to the beach. It is also pet friendly so we will be taking Tucker to the ocean with us! Here is a link to the home which we are renting:
Our Rental House

Here are a few more things that have been going on in the last few weeks, (since I got behind on my postings once again!)

• Jan. 19^th- we had Parent/Teen game night for WOL. We played life-sized Trouble and were able to play our new WOL Quiz Blitz too.
  

  
  

• Jan. 25-26, Mark and I, along with Pastor and Nancy went to Kokomo for the WOL Leaders Training Seminar. (Scott and Lori weren't able to attend.)
  

  
  

• Jan. 27^th, Grandma Eunice's birthday and we met everyone for dinner at Logan's Roadhouse in Mishawaka and then everyone came back to our house afterwards for dessert and just spending time together.
  

  
  

• Jan. 28- I started to come down with a scratchy throat and ended up by Thursday with a fever of 102 and sick on the couch all day. I am still not completely over it, (have a cough and a runny nose), but am feeling better than I was last week.
  

  
  

• Jan. 30^th, even though the roads weren't great today and I was not feeling the best with my cold, Jared and I took Tucker to get his hair cut and Jared and I ate lunch at Burger King. Before we went back to pick Tucker up we went and got Jared a new pair of jeans at Kohl's.
  

  
  

• Feb. 2^nd, we had FIF dinner at Jim and Willa Floras, also with the Wieses, and we had a very nice evening. It was the first time I had been out of the house for a few days since I hadn't been feeling well.
  

  
  

• Feb. 3^rd- Superbowl Sunday. The guys went over to the Jordan's, the ladies went to Chevalier's, and the teens had a Superbowl party at church. Tucker came with me and got to have a play date with Lucy and Peanut, even though he wasn't too thrilled with Peanut, but he and Lucy got along great! (Lucy is the Chevalier's new Bichon which they got after Chloe died.)
  

  
  

• Feb. 4^th- homeschool bowling started up again and Monday evening I went to Hacienda with Julie for dinner. We had a nice evening, but the fog was so dense on the way home, it was quite a challenge seeing the road!
  

A Nicer Week

What a much nicer week this week than last…very uneventful, which makes for a nice change! We still have water in the basement, but there are dry spots and really the only standing water is in the shop and the back corners of the playroom. Most of the rest is still damp, but we are making progress. I have only done a couple of loads of laundry in the past week and a half, out of necessity, but I really need to get down there and do more. It is just not pleasant to be down there with everything being damp.

We babysat for Emma twice this week, once on Tuesday as normal and she is here again today. (She is napping right now.) We also had Braden both of those days and today we went and picked him up from preschool since his grandma and grandpa are going out of town.

Adam has had a very busy week this week. He is now taking two classes at Bethel, Written Communication II which is Monday evening and Psychology which is Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Logan is taking the writing class too, but he is on his own in the other class. I guess it is good for him so he can get more used to going there on his own next year. Yes, I am pretty sure he is going to go to Bethel next year. He has been accepted and even has been offered a scholarship from Bethel, which he has a chance to increase if he attends a scholarship day at Bethel. We haven't actually turned in the acceptance letter and paid the fee yet, but that is definitely the way we are leaning. Adam also had a Nat's Honor Society meeting this week as well as a busy week with work. This week was the deadline for the 4-H scholarships, so that was kinda crazy trying to get those finished and turned in….then we forgot to sign them and he had to drop of new signature papers the next day.

Yesterday we had Joel L. here for a couple of hours while Julie had a dentist appt. and lunch date with Jay, and then last night I had worship team practice. Tonight after Braden gets picked up, we are going to meet the Hembrees for dinner at Rulli's to go over plans for tomorrow night and have our monthly meeting. Tomorrow evening we have WOL Parent's Game night. We will have a short parent meeting and then play games. Lori is making a giant Trouble game where the kids and parents will be the "markers". We are also going to play the brand new WOL Quiz Blitz…parents against kids. It ought to be a lot of fun.

Tomorrow morning we were supposed to go to church and do follow up for the Jesus Film Project. http://www.jesusfilm.org/ It is a great movie that was distributed in part by our church around our church neighborhood and tomorrow we were going to go out and ask if people had watched it and get feedback. Unfortunately, it is supposed to be well below 0 wind chill tomorrow and we are also under a lake effect snow advisory. Right now the sun is shining, but it is very cold! (Wind chill currently is 17, but is supposed to drop throughout the day.)

One month from this weekend, is our annual scrapbook retreat at Potato Creek and I am all ready very excited about it. Same ladies as always are going, but this year since the weekend we are going falls over President's Day, we are staying through Sunday night as well. I need to get busy and start pulling together page kits because as long as it takes me, I will need the whole month to get it done. I think what I may do is start working on some of Adam's baby photos and younger years' photos, so I will have some of them done for when his graduation open house comes around.

Flood!!!

(The following posts span a few days, and were things that I posted to Praisebooking, so the tenses and formats may not be quite right for my blog, but I want to get this up and don't have time to fix everything to have it in the right perspective, so I hope it makes sense!)

Thursday 1/3, we woke up to freezing weather, -2 and by mid morning is had warmed up to a whopping 8 degrees! The nice thing was, the sun was shining and with all the snow that we had it made for a bright and beautiful day.

After all of the snow and cold that we had in the last week, Sunday it got up to 51 degrees and the snow turned to mush! The Sr. High youth group were supposed to go to MI to go tubing, (Echo Valley), but they were closed because of the warm temps so they had to cancel.

By Tuesday it got up into the low 60s, we had severe thunderstorms Monday evening as well as a tornado watch. (And a week ago we were under nearly 2 foot of snow!) Now that all of that snow has melted, the Elkhart River, which is behind the homes across the street, is nearing flood stage. Our neighborhood is known for water, sometimes up into the streets, but more often in people's basements. Our sump pump has been running extra times today so I know the water is starting to come in, but when the basement gets really wet it simply seeps up through the floor so there is nothing that the pump can do to stop that. One good thing is that our home is higher up than most of the other homes in our neighborhood so we usually have some warning since the neighbors start pumping water out of their basements before we get wet.

Well, we got the water, much to my disappointment. The boys and I spend quite a bit of time Tues. morning/afternoon picking everything up off of the floor in the basement, and trust me that was no small task. UGH!! There was a small river flowing from Mark's shop through the laundry room into the sump pump, which was dragging saw dust with it. How pretty! The water is just flowing in and I have no idea how bad it might get, but even this is too much for me. Normally, when this happens we only get an inch or just a couple, so hopefully this time won't be any worse than before. We have been very lucky and this is the first time we have had any water in the basement for a couple of years.

(Thursday morning…..) Wow, what a night we had last night! Adam drives to Awana since he comes from work, so goes home a bit earlier than us. Just as we were leaving church, Lori, my best friend who lives across from the church comes out and says that Adam has been trying to call me on my cell phone and to call him right away. Uh oh...has our pump given out while we were away? Do we have 3 feet of water in our basement? We continue on our way home and my cell phone won't work. ARG! I can see that Adam is still trying to call and now Lori is trying to call too, but I can't get anything else on my phone. How frustrating and what a tense ride home, not knowing what was going on. Thankfully, we are only about 10 minutes from church. We finally get home and Adam says the Red Cross has called and the police and/or firemen are going to be around our neighborhood in about 45 minutes to evacuate everyone and then they will turn off our electricity!! What?? Why in the world would they do that? Don't they know that those of us that aren't completely flooded out need the electricity to keep our pumps running so we won't be totally flooded out?? How crazy is this? So I went into panic mode...moderate panic mode, I guess you could say. Mark and the boys started bringing up stuff from the basement, especially his woodworking equipment since he has a lot of money wrapped up in that. So far those things had just been up on tables, but if they are going to turn off our electricity, who knows how much water we might get. Meanwhile, I see the firemen pull up in front of our house and I go out to see what is going on. They don't really know much about the evacuation or the electricity; they say they are just there to rescue those in the back of our neighborhood who truly are stranded. All of the neighbors started coming out of their homes, everyone trying to figure out what was going on and what we were going to do. In the midst of all of this, Lori called to see what was going on and assured me that if we did have to be evacuated that we had a place to stay, as our church has two empty parsonages right now and she had talked to Pastor and he said that was no problem at all. At least that was one less worry. After that our evening turned into a waiting game. We watched 3-4 fire/rescue vehicles come into our neighborhood, including the rescue boat. The neighbors all congregated in another neighbor's yard and one sweet friend, (Leah), even went into make coffee for all of us!! It ended up that we didn't have to evacuate or have our electricity turned off, thank the Lord! They were only going to turn the electricity off in those homes where they had rescued the people that they knew were all ready flooded out and the electricity could cause a problem. About 10:30 everyone decided to go home and pray that our pumps all ran through the night and nothing else happened. Mark decided to take part of the day off from work today since he still had some personal days to take and is at Lowes right now to buy a new pump…just in case. Ours has held up so far, but it has run constantly for at least 36 hours and we are worried that it is going to die. Several other neighbors have had this problem and have gotten more water in their basements.

Flood Photos

Here are some photos of the flood. You can click on each photo to make them bigger.

Our wet basement. You can see all of our junk piled up to keep it dry.


The river across the street. Obviously the trees, picnic bench and lightpost, (in the 2nd photo), are not supposed to be in the water. Normally, they have 4-5 more feet of land after the light post before the river starts! This is Jared and Braden, (the little boy which we babysit.)


Our neighbor's car in his driveway. (This is just 3 houses down from us!)


This is a photo from the Holmes backyard shooting down the street...you sure can't see the street though since it is covered with water. That bush is about 5 feet tall.


Boat ride anyone?


The view down the street in front of the home where the boat is. See the mail box?


This is the end of our driveway by the later afternoon, Wednesday. Notice the car parked in the road...that is the car from one of the homes around the block, and the car in our driveway belongs to the Holmes, 2 doors down.


Our Wednesday night adventure.


The neighbors were all trying to figure out what was going on and what we were going to do.


The photo is a little blurry, but here you see Mark enjoy the coffee that Leah, (in the green jacket), made for all of us. This is in front of Mindy's home, who you can also see in the photo.

Happy New Year 2008

Wow, 2007 is gone all ready. The years just keep flying by faster and faster. Everyone always said that when I was young too, but I never believed it. I remember when the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas felt like it would never end. I even kept a countdown on my calendar, counting down those endless days until Christmas.

Now, 2008 is here and everyone is talking about New Year's Resolutions. Do I make any or just forget about it. It seems like it is very rare for a New Year's Resolution to actually take hold and get carried throughout the year. I could make the traditional resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, etc., but who am I kidding. I am not even going there. Even though I may not keep them, I am going to make some anyway, and here on my blog I am going to put them into writing. Okay, I know…that sounds really bad to all ready be saying that I won't keep them, but hey, I know myself and actually living by them and keeping them for a whole year just probably won't happen, but even if I can improve and do a bit better on those things that I am making my resolutions is better than nothing at all. So, with that said, here it goes:

My 2008 New Year's Resolutions

* To be happier every day and not take out bad things that happens on those around me.

* Work on having more of a quiet and gentle spirit. (This will be a tough one for me.)

* To go along with the one above… Be careful what comes out of my mouth. I really need to just learn to keep my mouth shut most of the time. Not everything that pops into my head needs to be said out loud.

* Be faithful in my quiet time. I have done great this WOL year doing my quiet time every day, but I want to make this something that I do all of the time and not just for WOL.

(edited 1/4 as i thought of a few more I wanted to add)

* Post to my blog more often. I did really well at the beginning of 2007, but then things started to fall apart during the summer. My goal is to post at least 4 times a month, but more than that would be even better.

* Keep the house cleaner, (which will make Mark happier!) I have been following the FlyLady plan for several years, but never very well. This year I want to try to do better by following her Daily Missions and my own personal Flight Plan.

http://www.flylady.net/pages/FlightPlan_Missions.asp

In the Scrapbook area:

* Scrapbook 90 Layouts. (Less than last year, but I really want to make my goal and I know trying for much more than this is definitely going to set myself up to fail.)

* Finish my ABC Scripture album.

* Continue working on my journaling.

* Continue working on showing more of my faith in my layouts.

We had a nice New Years Eve; we spent it at the Jordan's house, with the Springer, Chevaliers and the Burns. Springers didn't get there until late because they had a family thing with some of Brads relatives. Burns had to leave early because Tiffany wasn't feeling well. The Jordan's got the kids a Wii for Christmas and instead of spending the evening playing board games like we normally do we took turns playing the Wii. It was a lot of fun. We bowled and I played baseball with Veronica. I actually won in bowling…something I never would do in a real game, but in baseball Veronica won by the mercy rule…no, I wasn't doing very well. HA!

The days leading up to New Years Eve, weren't too great. I started coming down with a cold on Christmas Night and I have been fighting it all week. I am on the back side of it now, but it still isn't quite gone. We had Jean's funeral last Thursday and that same morning my hard drive crashed on my new laptop. Oh, was I mad!!! I spent an hour on the phone with Dell tech support and they determined that it needed to my replaced. They said that I wouldn't have the new drive until today, but unbelievably it came the next day. I am back up and running on my laptop now, but am still waiting to see if any of the data can be recovered from my old drive. Mark Kerk is looking at it and is going to try to get as much of the data off of it as he can. One of these days I am going to learn to keep everything backed up so I don't lose things. Thankfully, right before Christmas I backed up all of my photos, so I didn't lose any of those this time, but there are other files I really hope to get back.

Back to New Year's Eve….they were calling for snow, but not a lot. Adam came right from work so we had two cars there. About 7:00 it started snowing and did not let up all night. By the time we left at around 1AM, it had snowed between 6-8 inches and Adam didn't want to drive home so I drove the van and mark drive Adam's car. I really didn't want to drive, but I followed Mark and it was okay. It snowed like crazy all night and most of the day New Years Day and by now we have close to 2 feet of snow!!!

Here are a couple of photos that were taken on New Year's morning.

New Year's Day we took down the big Christmas tree even though I wanted to leave it up for a few more days. Oh well, at least all of my snowmen are still up and that helps it from being so dreary. We watched the Rose Bowl parade in the morning and in the evening I watched the HGTV Dream Home show. It is an incredible home that they built in the Florida Keys. You can enter a drawing to win the home, wouldn't that be awesome??? http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home_2008/text/0,,HGTV_30596_65296,00.html

Tonight Jared is spending the night with Turner Hanson and so it is a little on the quiet side around here right now. We are having chili for dinner and I think it is almost ready so I guess I better go and get the rest of the things ready for the meal.

Jean went home for Christmas

 

December 24, 2007, 7:10 AM, Jean went to be the Lord and her husband Myron who passed away in Feb. 2003. Her obituary can be viewed here. http://obit.stemmlawsonpeterson.com/obitdisplay.html?id=488408

This has been such a long path for all of her family and having her go home on Christmas Eve will always make the holidays bittersweet. Today was Jean's viewing and tomorrow morning is the funeral. I finished writing my part for Jean's funeral and sent it to Jay and Julie this evening. I had it mostly written last week, but had to do some tweaking and I just hope it is okay and that it will honor Jean.

We had a very nice Christmas all the way around, but I think I am paying for the business and the late nights now because I am definitely getting a cold. After all of the snow and bad weather we have had for all of the December weekends, we ended up with a green and not white Christmas. On Saturday it warmed up and rained and melted nearly all of the snow. We got a few flurries on Sunday, but that was about it and it hasn't snowed since then.

It is hard to believe that Christmas is over for another year. The time from Thanksgiving to Christmas just flew by. It always seems to go quickly, but this year, more than normal. I didn't even do any Christmas baking. I only made some fudge, (which turned out really sticky), and a pumpkin dessert to take to mom's on Sunday. Mark and Jared made most of the Christmas Eve goodies on Monday while Adam worked at Martin's and I spent the day doing the rest of the wrapping. Every year I say that I am going to have all of the wrapping done before Christmas Eve, but that rarely happens. The Christmas Eve service was very nice this year. Jared even had a part. Rachel Laborde sang a song while some of the Jr. High and Sr. High kids came down the aisle with candles. Later, that same group did a choral reading and Jared had some lines then as well.

I am going to make this short tonight so I can get to bed! Night, Night!

It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas…

It has been another week of bad weather for us. It has been kind of strange because mostly the bad weather hits over the weekend and then hangs on for another day or so. School did delay 2 hours last Tuesday, but unlike the teachers at Concord schools, the Elkhart teachers, which is where Emma's mom works, still have to go in at the same time even when school is delayed. How crazy is that?? So I still had Emma at regular time, but had Braden early that day since his preschool was closed.

Last Thursday night we went to an awesome program with Mom, Dad, & Grandma at a church in Plymouth. It is called the Festival of Lights and they have the whole sanctuary covered with lights...from the ceilings to the walls and everywhere else. Then they have them "dancing" along with the music. This is the 2nd time we have gone to this program and we really enjoyed it. A really cool thing...my very best friend from high school, Marica Clark, (now Branch), who was the maid of honor in our wedding now attends that church, (her husband is one of the assistant pastors there), and I got to see her. This is the first time I have seen her in a whole lotta years and it was so nice to get in touch with her again.

Friday night once again both of the boys worked concession stand for the basketball game and this time Mark and I went to our Sunday school Christmas party. We met at church, had a nice meal and then did a white elephant gift exchange. It is fun, but sometimes the presents end up being more dumb than fun. I ended up with a day-by-day calendar of 365 Paper airplanes and Mark ended up with a box of chocolate covered cherries with two reindeer headband things.

Saturday morning I had an ABF Breakfast at Esther's home. I was supposed to make muffins Friday afternoon, but didn't get to them before we left for the party so ended up baking them at about 11PM Friday night. That is definitely the latest I have ever baked anything. Our brunch was very nice, but I woke up to a lot of snow so wasn't sure how the roads were going to be, but they were okay. After the brunch, I ran over to Walmart to pick up some photos and do some stocking stuffer shopping. I didn't have much shopping time as we had to be a church Saturday afternoon at 2PM for a leader's meeting and TI skit tryouts/practice. Saturday night we had the WOL Christmas party which was a progressive dinner. However, as the day progressed the weather kept getting worse and worse. Pastor Ray went with us and drove the church van and I was sure glad that I wasn't driving! We went to 4 homes for part of our meal…the Shira's for appetizers, the Zentsen's for salad, the Arko's for the main dish and Pastor and Nancy's for dessert, games and a gift exchange. Our food at every stop was excellent and at the Arko's we even got their son, Titus to play Christmas carols on the piano for us. By the time our party was over, there was quite a bit of snow on the ground and it was still coming down. Pastor said he wouldn't cancel church though unless it got much worse…….

Well…it did….get much worse! ;) We woke up Sunday morning and at first glance it didn't look like that much worse, but it was and when Mark checked the WFRN web site, sure enough McCoy had cancelled all services for Sunday. Honestly, I was quite shocked, but I do think it was a good idea. By mid morning almost all of the area churches had cancelled and Mayor Miller even declared the city a state of emergency. I am not sure how much snow we ended up with but it was close to 10 inches, I am sure. It ended up being a lazy Sunday. I made a fire in the fireplace and sat in the front room most of the day working on some Christmas projects, reading or doing things on my computer. By early evening almost all of the area schools had postponed 2 hours as we were supposed to get a lot of drifting over night. I don't think it drifted as bad as they thought, but it was still best to not have those buses out so early.

Monday morning we did a shortened day of school and when Adam left to go to work, Jared and I left to go to South Bend shopping. Thankfully, by this time the roads were pretty much cleared. We went to Erskine Commons which is where Scottsdale Mall used to be. We got bunches of shopping done and can say that I only have a few more last minute things to get done. I had put a rolled rump roast in the crock pot so that was ready for us when we got home and after dinner, Adam, Jared and I got almost all of the gifts wrapped that weren't for our immediate family.

Tonight Mark and Adam are finishing up shopping for me and Jared I got all of Mark's things wrapped while they were gone. They still aren't home yet, in fact, so it is pretty peaceful here. HA! Jared is off doing something with his IPod and Tucker is curled up in a pile of blankets on the couch in front of me.

Jean has taken another turn again. I got an e-mail from Julie today that said that they had to put Jean on oxygen and that they could only get it up to 80% or so. The hospice nurse really feels that this time she is truly nearing the end and thinks it may be only a couple of days. Jay called me tonight to say that she is still hanging on, but there was no improvement over the day. Not that any time is a good time for something like this, but so close to Christmas has to make it harder on Julie and her sisters.

Hopefully, I will get here to post again before Christmas, but we have another full weekend of course, so we will see how things go. Here is a quick rundown of our schedule.

Saturday: Shopping with Lori and then doing the annual Springer/Martin Christmas that evening.

Sunday: Church and then going down to my mom & dad's to celebrate Christmas with them.

Monday, Christmas Eve: Adam has to work until 4:00, so we will most likely stay home, prepare all of the goodies for the evening, go to the Christmas Eve service and then come home to do our gifts.

Tuesday, Christmas Day: going down to Mark & Linda's for the day.

Ice & Snow!

Jean is still hanging on. I really thought last week may have been the last for her, but it sounds like she has reached another plateau and is holding her own again. I know this is so hard on all of the family, but it all is in God's hands.

This last week has been pretty eventful weather wise. As I was typing my last blog post it had just started to snow, which ended up accumulating to nearly 5 inches overnight. All of the schools were delayed 2 hours and I think some ended up closing all together. Of course the boys tried to talk me into delaying our school, but that wasn't going to happen. HA! Then over Saturday night it got really icy again, just like I did a week ago. Many churches ended up cancelling services, especially Sunday evening. Of course, McCoy didn't close though. There have been several times where we have had to cancel Awana and WOL on Wednesday night, but only once can I remember them cancelling Sunday church and that was well more than 10 years ago when we still lived in the other house. This morning schools were delayed 2 hours and I won't be too surprised if the same thing happens again tomorrow as we are supposed to have more ice over night tonight. The ice storm is moving over IL right now and should be here in a few hours. I babysit for Emma in the morning, but since her Mom is a school teacher I may not have her as early as normal. I guess we will see what the morning brings.

Anyway…backing up a few days. Friday night both of the boys worked again. After dropping Jared off to work, I took Braden and Tucker into Martin's to see Adam and Sherry, the lady Adam works with. Before Adam got his license, I used to go in at least once a week, sometimes more and Sherry always gave Tucker a treat. Braden loves to go there to look at the animals and to hold one of the rats! After Linda came to pick him up, Mark and I went out for some Christmas shopping and to dinner. We started out at the Farmer's Market: http://www.americancountryside.us/market/ , then went to Sam's, to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings and then to Meijer for a few groceries.

Saturday, Jared and I went to South Bend for the day to do some Christmas shopping. I don't usually go to South Bend on Saturday this close to Christmas and it was really busy! I was happy though because I got quite a bit of shopping done. Still seems like I have quite a bit more to go through.

Sunday after church, we went, (slid is a better word….) to the Elco Theater downtown Elkhart to watch Jillian in "The Wizard of Oz". She had the part of one of the beauticians and an Ozian. The play was really good. In the evening the boys had their RUSH Christmas party and we went back to church to hear Jay Shaffer and his group, "Quartet plus One" sing and then we had a business meeting.

Tonight I had a very nice evening…I went out to dinner with Julie Lininger. She and I had been attending Bible study together and the last Bible study (Jesus, the One and Only), we went out to dinner before the last session. However, last Monday she had to go out to town, so tonight since Bible study is over with we went out to eat to make up for last week. We went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant, Hacienda...they have the best food! We sat and talked for nearly 2 hours after we got done eating..it was very nice.

By the way, Nathalie…if you read this…remember the man that sang Happy Birthday to you when we went there??? He was there tonight singing as well. He looked very different this time though…he got his hair cut short, (remember he had that long braid?), and he wasn't dressed in the sombrero this time either. It brought back some fun memories hearing him sing tonight.

Here I am again

We are still working on our Christmas decorations, but at least most of them are up and all of the lights work! For some reason I am having a hard time getting into the Christmas spirit this year. It just does not seem like it should be December all ready. I hardly have any Christmas shopping done and not a single thing wrapped. I don't really know what my problem is, but I wish I could just get into that "cozy-homey" Christmas feeling because that allows me to enjoy the holiday so much more. Not that I am not looking forward to Christmas, but it just doesn't "fee" right this year, not that what I am saying makes a whole lot of sense, but that is how I am feeling right now.

Jared ended up placing 3^rd in bowling with a high score of 153, not too bad! He actually bowled over 160 one day, but it wasn't a league day so didn't count for a trophy…to bad! It is going to seem kind of empty next Monday since both bowling and Bible study ended yesterday. Bowling will start again in Feb. and Bible study will probably be starting about that same time too. Beth Moore has out a new study now on Psalm, and even though it is only a 7 week study compared to 10 week's which is her normal, it sounds like that is probably what we will be doing next.

Mark's Christmas party was very nice, but Saturday night we got a lot of bad weather. It kept going from snow to ice to rain, and you all know how bad that makes the driving conditions. We went ahead and went to the Christmas party and just took it slow. I was okay with that, but I was so nervous about Adam. First off, he had to drive home from work, and secondly, that evening they were having his Christmas party at one of the boss's home, where he had never been before. This is the first time he had really driven in the ice and going at night to a place where he wasn't familiar, well, I am sure you can understand why I was a little worried. I just kept praying for God to keep him safe. We are sitting at our party when I realize I have missed a call, so I ran out to listen to the message and I can't tell you how proud I am of Adam. I called home to talk to him and he decided since the roads were so bad, he wasn't even going to the party. {Praise God!} I felt bad that he had to miss his very first work related Christmas party, but I feel like he made a very mature decision to stay home. He actually started out, but only went a few blocks when he turned around and came back. The weather had gotten worse just in the hour from the time he got home to the time he left for the party. Thankfully, by the time we left to come home, even though the left side of our van was a sheet of ice, the majority of the roads weren't too bad and we made it home safe.

Julie Lininger called me today to say that things are real bad with her mom, Jean Springer. At the first call, it didn't sound like she was going to make it through the day, but it turned out that her body is simply shutting down and they feel like she may have a couple more day or as long as a couple of weeks. Jean has been ill for some time, years actually, and this has been so hard for all of them. Jean means so much to me as she is the one who first asked me to teach Sunday school for her when she and Myron went to Florida in the winter. I didn't think I was "cut out" to teach Sunday school, but she encouraged me and taught me so much. She saw something in me that I could not see, (and maybe never would have seen.) For a few years I just taught one quarter while she was away, and the rest of the time I was her assistant, helping out with crowd control and watching her teach. A few years ago, when Jean first started getting sick, she stepped down completely from teaching and I took over full time. She was an incredible Sunday school teacher and I hope that have been able to reflect some of that in my teaching. Julie asked me a couple of months ago if when Jean passed away if I would be willing to say something at her funeral. It definitely won't be an easy thing for me to do, but I want to be able to share with others what a positive Christian influence she was in my life. If it wasn't for Jean, I am sure I wouldn't be where I am today. Teaching Sunday school is a part of who I am, and even though there are weeks where I am sure I haven't done a very good job preparing, I just pray that I am being a positive influence on the little ones that I am teaching and helping them grow and learn more about Jesus each week.

December Already!

Today we are finally getting the Christmas decorations put up. The last days have been so busy there just hasn't been time. We are getting the trees put up and hopefully the lights on and then tomorrow we will do the ornaments when we can all be here to do them. Adam is working today as usual. Already we have run into light problems just as it seems we have every year. We plugged in the 3 strings of lights, which were brand new last year for the snowman tree, and NONE of them work!! How annoying is that?? We don't have the big tree up yet, so who knows about those lights.

This weekend starts our busy December weekends. The boys work most every Friday in the concession stand for the Central & Memorial games. Last night Mark and I went to church to help get it decorated for Christmas, (then we all ate Vesuvios Pizza afterwards), and the boys worked. Tonight is Mark's Christmas party for Regal and it is at the Tippecanoe Place in South Bend. YUM! Adam has a Christmas party for Martin's at one of the owner's homes and Jared will stay home with Tucker. Next weekend is the RUSH Christmas party and the weekend after that is our adult Sunday school Christmas party and the next day the WOL Christmas party.

Tomorrow after church we have a carry in dinner for the people that have gone through the NETS training, so this afternoon I am making a dessert and a salad. I think I am going to make Beth Moore's Texas Sheet cake recipe, which is linked at the bottom left of my blog, and pasta salad. I also need to work on my Breaking Free Bible study this afternoon and if I have time, put my next quarter's Sunday school lessons into the weekly folders. If I don't have time for that today I will work in it tomorrow. Tomorrow starts the new quarter, but I don't actually have to teach since they will be spending the whole Sunday school hour going over songs for the Christmas program which will be in a couple of weeks.

Catching up once again

Almost a month has since the last time I wrote in my blog, but I am not giving up on it! I will just keep plodding away. Mostly things have been pretty typical around here in the last weeks. There have been a few "extra" things that I want to write about though.

I have been doing a lot of research online about where we might go on vacation this year. The thought was that since this is Adam's senior year that we would let him have the majority of the decision so it could kind of be his senior trip. We just keep going back and forth. His original thought was going to Washington DC, which would be a great trip, but nothing any of us really want to do for a whole week. Then going west, to see Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National Park was considered. Next, and the best in my opinion, we thought about a Caribbean cruise! They really aren't nearly as expensive as I originally thought, but ultimately, Mark said that it still was going to be too much money. Cruises are cheapest in Jan. and money is always kinda tight after Christmas. I haven't given up the thought of a cruise, but it just won't be this year. Now, it looks like maybe we have settled on going to the beach again….Adam's suggestion…not mine, believe it or not. However, the *tentative* plans are to go to Washington DC for a couple of days and then for a week to rent a house at the beach. We are looking at some houses at Topsail Island which is about 30 minutes north of Wilmington, NC. This area will be perfect because the college that Adam ultimately hopes to attend is in Wilmington, (University of North Carolina- Wilmington), and while we are there, we hope to arrange a campus visit.

Thanksgiving is past and now Christmas is rushing quickly toward us. Wow, the time sure does fly! We had such a nice Thanksgiving. All of my side of the family came to our house, and Mark cooked our turkeys in the deep fryer. So yummy! In fact, tonight for dinner we have are having turkey noodle soup with some of the leftovers. He cooked extra turkeys for us to put in the freezer so we will be sure to have some good turkey related meals in the next weeks.

The day after Thanksgiving was the WOL Superbowl. It is such a fun night, but very tiring!

Of course the day after Thanksgiving is also shopping day too and I every year I go with Lori. This year though she called me Friday morning and said she was sick, so she wasn't able to go! L Jared decided he wanted to go with me, so we went and picked up Jill and the three of us shopped for a few hours until it was time to get to church for the Superbowl. Adam decided not to go this year since he enjoys his job and Martin's so much. Plus then he was able to stay home with Tucker. We left church about 2:30 Friday afternoon and went to Indy to a Pacers game. They played the Dallas Mavericks and it was a good game. The Pacers won by just a few points. After the game was the big WOL rally still at the Conseco Fieldhouse and then onto a new sports complex called, "Sports of All Sorts". The place is huge and has all kinda of places for different sports. Not really my kind of place, but the kids had fun there. Then around 2:30AM, we left to head to the bowling alley, where we bowled until 5:30. Wheww! I bowled terrible the first game…only an 80 something, but my 2^nd game was better with a 114, (which still isn't great, but hey it was about 3AM by that time!). We arrived back at church around 9AM Saturday morning. You can imagine we all slept a lot Saturday afternoon. We did take time to run into Martin's to see Adam though. He went to work Saturday morning before we got home and as soon as he got off there, he had to go work concession stand for a Central basketball game.

Our first session of homeschool bowling is almost over…only the party next week. Jared is very happy because it appears that his team is going to come in 2^nd. He has really improved over last year.

Oh, I almost forget... on Nov. 13^th, we got some sad news. Our friends the Chevalier's who go to our church and I used to babysit for Aric; their Bichon, Chloe, got hit and killed! We got Tucker because we fell in love with Chloe and we "babysat" for her several times when the Chevaliers were on vacation or away. It was very sad, of course for all of their family, and it really made me sad too. We always said that Chloe was Tucker's "girlfriend". We would even say to Tucker, "Where is Chloe??" and he would run to the door and look for her. Rosie, (the wife), was really torn up over it and I don't blame her a bit. I know I would be in BAD shape if something happened to Tucker. They had all ready considered getting another Bichon as a playmate for Chloe, and so they are going to go ahead with it and get her. Her name is Lucy and they are picking her up tomorrow. She sure won't replace Chloe, but I do think it will help all of them to have another dog in the house.

Life, one day at a time

Last Wednesday was Halloween, but as usual, for WOL, we went Track-n-Treating instead. The kids go around the neighborhood of the church and pass out bags of candy which include a tract as well as some info about our church. It was different having this on the same night as regular WOL club and it definitely rushed the rest of the night, but the kids always have fun.

Thursday I met mom in Nappanee so we could go shopping. We went to Borkholder's Dutch Village. They have a large building which includes all kinds of little booths with crafty type things to antiques. There is another building that has a restaurant where we ate lunch. We both had smoked chicken salad sandwiches and peanut butter pie for desert. YUM! It was a nice day with mom. It has been forever since just the two of us have done something together. A couple of weeks ago, a tornado came through Nappanee, but thankfully it was on the other side of town from Burkholders and Amish Acres. I really only hit on one corner, but did a lot of damage to some of the RV companies in the industrial park. Also Dairy Queen and Taco Bell got pretty hard hit as well.

The last few days I have been doing some research on where we might go on vacation next year. We told Adam that he can choose where he wants to go and that will be part of his graduation gift. We have been exploring some different ideas. Washington DC, going west to Mt. Rushmore & Yellowstone, or maybe even on a cruise!! A cruise would definitely be my top choice. I didn't even really think it would be a possibility, but after doing some looking online, they aren't nearly as expensive as I would have guessed. I found one site that even includes the airfare in with the cruise prices. But they are more like last minute cruises so nothing is available for the time when we can go yet. If we are able to go I am thinking late Jan. or maybe in March. Those are the time when the rates are lowest, (Feb. is low too, but we have a lot going on in Feb, so it would be harder to plan around. Who knows where we will really end up going, but when I talked to Adam about it he voted for a cruise. Now if we can just talk Mark into it. He is saying he would rather go west, but we will see!

It looks like this week is going to be a more relaxed week than last week, mostly just the normal weekly things so far…homeschool bowling, Bible Study, babysitting, WOL, etc.

Some Photos

Jared and Mark getting ready to take the Gators to Plymouth for the Blueberry Festival. Aug. 24th, 2006.












Mom, Grandma Eunice, & Aunt Kathy getting ready to watch the Blueberry Parade.











Adam and his new car! Sept. 13, 2007.

Adam is 18 now!!!

Well, Looks like I have done it again, but even worse this time. It has been over a month since I last wrote on my blog. I don't know how to get back into the habit of it, it seems. Days go by and think, "I really need to write on my blog", but then it never happens. I guess once a month is better than not at all, but still that is just not how I want this to be. I am trying, really I am, but just not making much progress. {{SIGH}}

Here is a quick rundown of things that have been going on in our lives in the last month.

1. I started babysitting for a little girl, Emma, once a week. Her Dad works with Brad and so he recommended me to them. (Her Grandma watches her the rest of the week.) So now I have Emma & Braden on Tuesday and Braden on Friday.

2. Aunt Mary passed away On Friday, Sept. 21st. (Grandma Eunice's sister.) She hadn't been well since just before Labor Day, but of course it is never easy when someone dies. Grandma was pretty sad, but she is doing very well now.

3. On Sept. 21 & 22, we went to Mark's 25th high school reunion. His friend Jerry Meadows who now lives in PA came home with us on Friday and spent the night. Friday as a tailgate party at Vally High school and Saturday was a more formal dinner at the fairgrounds in Warsaw.

4.Sept. 28-30th was the Ladies Retreat and always I had an awesome time. The weather was perfect and I even went canoing with Esther on Friday afternoon. We did Beth Moore's Living Well for the retreat theme, it was excellent. On Saturday afternoon the massage school came in and I had 15 minutes on my arms and 15 minutes on my back. Oh, it felt wonderful!

5. I have started another Beth Moore Bible Study, "Breaking Free". Our church has offered it a couple of times before, but I wasn't able to attend, so am really enjoying it now. It will go until the first week in Dec.

6. We have started another season of homeschool bowling, but this time around Adam is unable to bowl because of his work at Martin's Pet & Garden. He really likes his job, so is okay with missing bowling for it. Jared is doing very well and is improving his average considerably over last year.

7. On October 16th, Adam turned 18 years old!! We went to Red Lobster for dinner to celebrate. YUM!

8. On October 18th, Adam got his driver's license!! He is very happy to be driving on his own now and it has been very nice for me not having to take him to work all of the time. He even drove Jared to RUSH Sunday night.

9. On Oct. 21, we had a bunch of family up for a dinner for Adam's birthday. It has been a while since we have had that many people here, but we had a nice time.

So, I guess that is about it...just typical life for us, I guess. I am still scrapping when I have the time, which hasn't been much lately. It is really taking a lot more involvement on my part for Jared's school this year, so I just haven't gotten the time to scrap as much as I would like. Tucker is getting more spoiled every day. HA! He sleeps with Mark and I nearly every night and I can hardly believe that Mark ever allowed it, but I think he enjoys Tucker as much as I do.

Oh, the post below, which seems kind of random for my blog....it was something that I read during Word of Life a few weeks ago for our prayer and share time. It is one of my favorite stories. I was in a huge hurry that night and so I just posted it quick to my blog without any explanation of why it was there. So just in case you wondered...now you know. :D

Table for Two

Table for Two
by Kirsten Burgess


He sits by himself at a table for two. The Waiter returns to his side and asks, "Would you like to go ahead and order, sir?" The man has, after all been waiting since seven o'clock --- almost half and hour. "No, thank you," the man smiles. "I'll wait for her a while longer." "How about some more coffee?" "Certainly, sir." The man sits, his clear blue eyes gazing straight through the flowered centerpiece. He fingers his napkin, allowing the sounds of light chatter, tinkling silverware, and mellow music to fill his mind. He is dressed in a sport coat and tie. His dark brown hair is neatly combed, but one stray lock insists on dropping to his forehead. The scent of his cologne adds to his clean-cut image. He is dressed up enough to make a companion feel important, respected, loved. Yet, he is not so formal as to make one uncomfortable. It seems that he has taken every precaution to make others feel as ease with him. Still, he sits alone. The waiter returns to fill the man's coffee cup. "Is there anything else I can get you, sir?" "No, thank you." The waiter remains standing at the table. Something tugs at his curiosity. "I don't mean to pry but..." his voice trails off. This line of conversation could jeopardize his tip. "Go ahead," the man encourages. He is strong, yet sensitive, inviting conversation. "Why do you bother waiting for her?" the waiter finally blurts out. This man has been at the restaurant other evenings, always patiently alone. He says very quietly, "Because she needs me." "Are you sure?" "Yes." "Well, sir, no offense, but assuming that she needs you, she sure isn't acting much like it. She's stood you up three times just this week." The man winces, and looks down at the table. "Yes, I know." "Then why do you still come here and wait?" "Cassie said that she would be here." "She's said that before," the waiter protests. " I wouldn't put up with it. Why do you?" Now the man looks up, smiles at the the waiter, and simply says, "Because I love her." The waiter walks away, wondering how one could love a girl who stands him up three times a week. The man must be crazy, he decides. Across the room, he turns to look at the man again. The man slowly pours cream into his coffee. He twirls his spoon between his fingers a few times before stirring sweetener into his cup. After staring for a moment into the liquid, the man brings the cup to his mouth and sips, silently watching those around him. He doesn't look crazy, the waiter admits. Maybe the girl has qualities that I don't know about. Or maybe the man's love is stronger than most. The waiter shakes himself out of his musing to take an order from a party of five. The man watches the waiter, and wonders if he's ever been stood up. The man has, many times. But he still can't get used to it. Each time, it hurts. He's looked forward to this evening all day. He has many things, exciting things, to tell Cassie. But, more importantly, he wants to hear Cassie's voice. He wants her to tell him all about her day, her triumphs, her defeats...anything, really. He has tried so many times to show Cassie how much he loves her. He'd just like to know that she cares for him, too. He sips sporadically at the coffee, & loses himself in thought, knowing that Cassie is late, but still hoping she'll arrive. The clock says 9:30, then the waiter returns to the man's table, "Is there anything I can get you?" The still empty chair stabs at the man. "No, I think that will be all for tonight. May I have the check please?" "Yes, sir." When the waiter leaves, the man picks up the check. He pulls out his wallet and sighs. He has enough money to have given Cassie a feast. But he takes out only enough to pay for the five cups of coffee and the tip. Why do you do this, Cassie? His mind cries as he gets up from the table. "Good-bye." The waiter says, as the man walks towards the door. "Good-night. Thank-you for your service." "You're welcome, sir." The waiter says softly, for he sees the hurt in the man's eyes that his smile can't hide. The man passes a laughing, young couple on his way out, and his eyes glisten as he thinks of the good times he and Cassie could have had. He stops at the front and makes reservations for tomorrow. Maybe Cassie will be able to make it, he thinks. "Seven o'clock tomorrow for a party of two?" The hostess confirms. "That's right," the man replies. "Do you think she'll come?", Asks the hostess. She doesn't mean to be rude, but she has watched the man many times alone at his table for two. "Someday, yes. And I will be waiting for her." The man buttons his overcoat and walks out of the restaurant, alone. His shoulders are hunched, but through the windows, the hostess can only guess whether they are hunched against the wind or the man's hurt. As the man turns towards home, Cassie turns into bed. She is tired after an evening out with her friends. As she reaches towards her nightstand to set the alarm, she sees the note that she had scribbled to herself last night. "7:00 - Spend some time in prayer," it says. Darn, she thinks. She forgot again. She feels a twinge of guilt but quickly pushes it away. She needed that time with her friends. Now she needs her sleep. She can pray tomorrow night. Jesus will forgive her. And she's sure he doesn't mind.

Where does the time go?

I have no idea how so much time goes by between the times when I am writing here in my blog. I think I will do better "the next time", and before I know it, 2 weeks or more have passed and I haven't written again. Not sure it really matters that much, since there is not much of anyone reading it anyway, (Nathalie and Marica are you out there?), but I do want to at least hit on the highlights just for memory sakes and for the 2 of you when ever you may have time to pop in and see what is going on in our lives.

The biggest news in our lives right now is last Thursday, Sept. 13th, Adam bought his first car!! (I haven't downloaded the photo from the camera yet, but will upload them as soon as I do.) We went out to dinner at Cici's Pizza and afterwards stopped by the mall since they were having a big parking lot used car sale just to look for cars. We didn't really plan on finding one since it appeared that most were way more expensive that what Adam could afford. We talked to one of the salesmen and told him what we were looking for and he found one that Adam really liked and that is what we ended up buying. It still was more than we had originally planned, but we payed for part of it and Adam will pay us back for some too. He bought a metallic turquoise Pontiac Grand Am. It is a really nice car...perfect for a first car for Adam. The only problem is, he still doesn't have his license! He isn't too far from being able to get it, I think just a bit more time behind the wheel and some parallel parking practice and he can go and take the test. He did drive his car to work on Friday and then Jared and I took it to the mall. It drove really nice. It feels so funny to drive a car after driving a van all of these years. I feel like I am sitting on the road.

Lori and I had our last scrapbook show of he year the weekend after Labor Day. It was he Midwest Scrapbook show in Indy and we hosted the crop on Friday night as well. as usual, it was a lot of work, but it turned out to be a good show for us and I made enough money to pay off my laptop, which was perfect! I never would have been able to save up enough to buy this computer if it hadn't of been for these scrapbook shows, so all of the work was worth it, I guess.

We had our first night of Word of Life last Wednesday and it went really well. So far we have 10 teens, 7 girls and 3 boys, but I expect that there will be more as the year goes on. Sunday was the RUSH kick off party and it seems strange to have both boys in RUSH this year. Jared, being a freshman, got initiated with the other freshmen and came home with make up all over his face and weird colored hair with glitter in it. HA! They also played weird Olympics and I guess the games were pretty crazy.

We now have one week of school under our belts and I guess it is going fairly well. There are things that aren't getting done as I would like, but I guess I should have expected that. I have Jared on a more structured schedule this year, which I think will help, but some how he still manages to not get everything done. I guess I am going to have to be more careful in checking to make sure he has done what he said he has done. Last Monday morning both of the boys went to see Josh McDowell at First Baptist church. He came to speak for one of his Bold Truth Seminars. Josh McDowell There was also a parent seminar in the evening and I went with Esther Flora. I was a really a great seminar. I am very glad that I went.

Tonight we started a new Bible Study at church, Beth Moore's Breaking Free.
http://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/product.asp?isbn=0767391128
I just love her studies and I all ready know that this will be a great one.

Updated my Slide

I updated my Slide this morning to include all of the layouts that I created for the scrap game as well as some older ones that some how never made it there. Nathalie, make sure you check out the one of Mark and Wonder Woman that was taken when we went to 6 Flags last summer. I have had that layout done for quite a while, but never had it ready for upload.