Rock Wall

Who knew a lot of hard work, some cash and a very wise wife could make the front of your house look better?

For those of you that know me well, I just want to clarify - rock wall does not refer to me, or my lack of opening up to others, or my closed emotions, or any of that so just keep your jokes and cracks to yourself (or e-mail them to me since I like to laugh).

Over the summer we updated the front of our house with a rock wall so I thought I'd throw up some pictures. Jaimie worked really hard to get it completed and it looks amazing. Only problem is that with the new wall, and the front cleaned up, the crumbling steps stand out even more and look terrible. Oh well, guess we know what our first spring project will be!

KG

Who knew I'd still enjoy KG after all this time?

Yup, still my favorite NBA player...I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he plays with so much passion - as do I.

Found this pic the other day...yeah, I'm pretty much his biggest fan.

Pumpkin Carving

Who knew giving a group of girls sharp objects would be a good thing?

So Laura and Jaimie are doing girls nights for some of the middle school girls at our church - they are planning on meeting twice per month. Last Wednesday was the first meeting of the group and they did pumpkin carving. Pictures below show the wonderful masterpieces the girls came up with. Sounds like they all had fun and no one was injured (which is always a good thing).

Tough Game

Who knew the hardest game of the season on paper would really pull the team together?

We are currently 4-0 this season playing basketball and had a game on Saturday with the other undefeated team in the league. They had 2 scorers in the top 5 in the league (one averaging 30 and the other averaging 22 points per game). We had talked about working to contain their top players and to lock down our defense.

We came out pretty fired up and put together the best game I've ever seen a Vineyard team play in 7 years in the league. We shut them down on defense, kept them off the boards, and played one of the best offensive games ever. With over 13 minutes left in the game, we had a time out and I told the team we needed to start slowing down and stop trying to run up the score. We did slow it down and just made sure our defense was still ok for the last part of the game. Even after not giving it everything we had for that much of the second half (we only play 20 minute halves), it still ended like this. I don't think the other team was quite ready for us (we are the home team in the picture below). I was pretty proud to say the least.


There are still a few games left including playing against Milan Vineyard...so we aren't celebrating too much just yet. Have to close out the season before we really begin to cheer. Just not everyday you put together a game like this one...had to show off my pride just a bit.

Catch up

Who knew life could be crazy busy...and then get worse?

So the last few weeks have been absolutely insane to say the least. Work, home, everything seems to be at a heightened state of being. It's hard to find time to sit and take a break at times (hence no blogging for about a month). So, this post is going to be an attempt to try to catch up a little of the last few weeks.

Ok, going all the way back to September 20, we were able to see the Vikings play Detroit at Ford Field. It was our first visit to an NFL game here in Michigan...and we had a good time. I got a special deal on tickets through work and we couldn't pass up a chance to see the revamped Vikings. We had really great seats and enjoyed the time.

We also went to Minnesota for Pete and Steph's wedding and had a blast - that is too much fun to pack into this post so that will be another post on it's own coming soon. Right after we returned from that trip (we were gone 6 days), we had visitors from Indiana which was a nice surprise. Always fun to have visitors and they were here for 3 days - even went to watch my basketball game and were great fans! Here is a pic of the happy group taken by Nadia (who was taking a nap and we rudely woke her up - thanks Nadia!).

So there are the last few weeks in a nutshell. I know there has been so much more going on, but those are the pictures I have as proof of our busy but fun few weeks. I'm definitely tired and ready to take a nap...for a week...

Book Reviews

Who knew you could do book reviews on your blog?

I just read the latest post on Mark's blog (see post below) and noticed his new book will be coming out soon. That's pretty exciting and I'm looking forward to reading it. I have a bit of catching up to do (haven't read all of his other books yet), but it's something I'm going to try to keep up with. In the beginning of this blog, many moons ago, I had a few book reviews and kind of miss doing that.

Always fun to see good press about what Mark is doing out there as well. Pretty exciting stuff for sure. I'm going to have to convince J to make a visit out there to see what's happening first hand. We have been talking about going east for a while, so this may be a good excuse to make the trip.