8th grade lady chargers

 

Thank you God for allowing me this opportunity.  Coaching has been something that i've wanted to do for a while now, and He has given me a great group of girls and parents, to break into coaching with.  

so far the girls have been great and so have their parents.  they have been patient with me as i try to adjust to the system AND to being the head coach.  

it was fun this week because we got to play dodgeball for a warm up and my wife and caleb got into the action.  Caleb loves hanging out with the team and the girls have been great with them.  

i'm very proud to be their coach.  

a sign of the apocalypse

holy crap....

just read the headlines and the "new kids on the block" are coming to our area in April.  

you can pay anywhere from $30-$65 to see a bunch of MEN singing Hangin Tough.  

i'm sorry, but they have got to give it up!  They are no longer New and they are no longer Kids.  

oh yeah, i forgot...to avoid the conversations they are calling themselves NKOTB.

my bad.

its a sign of the Apocalypse.

God and our home

So yeah, here's the time line...

July - go play in a softball game with our new church.  Amber meets a woman from the church who is renting a farm house in Osco 1.5 miles away from the church and is moving in August.  

August 23 - We move into our new farm house (even though the rent is higher than we really wanted, or feel its worth).  But it is a house that God has provided and we are truly appreciative of the blessing.  

October - I go to a students volleyball game where a grandparent of a a student comes up and asked if i was looking for a different place to live?  He then gave me a name and number of someone in Andover who has a house for rent.  We call him, look at the house and find out that he is going to drop his desired rent to $550 because i'm a minister.  We agree to move in to the house in November.

November - due to the fact that i felt guilty for moving again in 3 months, i didn't recruit a whole lot of help moving this time.  our parents came out along with  some friends from Osco.  Amber and I moved a lot of the little stuff throughout the week and were putting it away as we went, so when the big day came, we had mostly large items left and were able to get settled in pretty quickly. 

NEW HOUSE  - our new landlords have been  a true blessing to us.  They didn't require a security deposit, they let us live there for the last 2 weeks of November for free, and after 2 weeks, they decided to drop our rent another $25 if we can get the rent to them by the 10th of each month!!  So now our home is 150 less/month, we have internet and cable for half the price of our satellite service at our old place.  And most importantly...this place feels like home.  

Now for the reason for the post besides relaying really late information.   I went in to the office yesterday and had a member of the church tell me that it was a good thing i got out of Osco  when i did.  When i asked why she informed me that the furnace at our old home, caught on fire.  She said that it was mostly smoke and that one of our old landlords kids found it when they went to check on the house during that really cold spell at the beginning of the year. 

all that to say that, God is still taking care of our family and i thank him for the many other blessings he has given us.  

sorry, short story made long.

coaching debut

so today was our first game/tournament.  we played 3 games in 6 hours and we came out 1-2 (1 win, 2 losses).  I'm proud of how the girls played.  we played 3 teams that travel and play on a regular basis.  my girls have had roughly 7 practices and don't play traveling ball.  So they held their own and i firmly believe that we will be sherrard when that time comes.  

we have a lot of things we need to work on, but it is all things that CAN be worked on.  so we are alright.  

then after the tourney, we met up with our friends and had a good time as always.  The boys got to play with Emery, our friends 2 year old, and had a blast.  We always do. 

so all in all, it was a good day.

what does God want?

Hosea 6:6

God's desire for Israel and Judah

 

I want you to show love,^*

not offer sacrifices.

I want you to know me^*

more than I want burnt offerings.

volunteer appreciation news

so i just found out today that the irs has a rule in effect that will not allow organizations to show there appreciation for volunteers by giving of gifts.  so from now on, all you will get from me is a big fat hug, pat on the back and thank you.

way to ruin appreciation IRS... you suck.

My temperature

reading an article today on developing a personal growth plan (good time to do this right?) and came across something that i've known for a while but it still sucked to hear...

"if you want to measure the spiritual temperature of the ministry in which you are involved, put a thermometer in your own mouth."  

it just stung.  but i guess i'm glad they didn't suggest taking your temp the other way right?  

here's to climbing out of that valley.  maybe i'll post my personal growth plan on here with my SMART goals as an act of accountability.

new addition to the collection

Over the past couple of years i’ve collected various Yoda figures. It started in college when i came across a catalog of cardboard cut outs and in my search for an ewok, i came across yoda and bought it. Since then, different people have added to my collection and i’ve found different figures with each trip to toys-r-us with the boys.

tonight we had another trip to the toy store and as we were checking out i looked over in the christmas clearance isle and found this little gem sitting there. Initially it was $20 and i wasn’t gonna spend that much money, so i had the lady price check it and found that it was marked all the way down to $5. check him out...

can you believe that he was still sitting there for $5? luckily i have the coolest (and hottest) wife and she humors me and let me get it.

ps- my collection is maybe 8 figures, so i’m not a crazy cat lady yet. just having fun.

new years party

Amber's sister and her family came into town (from Boston area) and i finally got to meet my niece Karis.  I was super excited to see them and meet her.  And since they were only in for a brief time, i tried to make sure that Amber could spend as much time as she could with them.  So for new years, my mother in law had a slumber party and we all spent the night playing the Wii and a new card game that was pretty fun.  below are some high lights from the night and meeting Karis.

Cousins

My niece.  I'm super excited to be an uncle.  

Its not a new years party until someone ends up in their underwear

party hard, crash harder.  The party was still going on around him

here are some videos of the evening.

 

this is my brother in law playing a training game for 

wii boxing

They get there rhythm from Amber.