Christmas Rundown

It's hard to believe the holidays are all wrapped up and in the history book, so to speak. We kept it very simple this year and just enjoyed the time with family and friends.

Mark, Jeni, Calvin and Kelly came over Christmas day. We had prime rib, ham and all the fixins, ate too much and then played. Tom and Josiah came over for the evening, but Kerrie had to work, so we were missing her. We played video games and euchre and laughed and laughed and laughed some more...

We decided to switch it up a little bit this year and made the guys do a little "treasure hunt" to find their gifts. I don't know how much they enjoyed it, but we sure enjoyed watching them!

Kelly, Mark and Daniel

Mark and Jeni
Look at how much I'm enjoying playing XBox 360

Adam's smile is a result of watching Jeni's attempt at Pacman.

Smile, Mark!

Crafty Kelly!

Daniel, Kelly and Todd




Tom and Todd!

Photo Catch-Up

All of the photos in my digital camera have been screaming to get out and be published, so here it goes - a rewind from the past couple of months...

Over Daniel's birthday weekend, Adam had a game up at Moody in Chicago, so we packed up and headed up to Chicago for the weekend... We left early and captured the sunrise...

Adam scored the winning goal of the game...

Huntington's homecoming game...

The next weekend, we headed up to Mishawaka as Todd was helping lead worship in a church up there and got to hang out with Todd for the day. We went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch...

I had the privilege of accompanying Daniel's class to Mississinewa for the re-enactment of the War of 1812. It was quite fun...

Look at the sea of kids waiting for the re-enactment to start...

Senior night for South Adams football... Yeah, Calvin!

More soccer...

November 1 Todd played the piano for Lara Sprunger and Mike's wedding. It was a beautiful, God-focused wedding! Ashley got to come spend the weekend with us, too!

Last Friday night was homecoming for Bethel. Todd was nominated for the Junior Class court. We got to go watch the "pageant" and hang out at Starbucks for a little while...

And now I think I'm all caught up, for now :) ...

Soccer Saturday

Daniel had his first soccer game of the Parks and Rec season. The team looked great and won 7-4. Daniel played so well. We were so proud! He played most of the game as forward and then relieved the goalie for the last few minutes of the game. Off to a good start, five more games to go...

Right after Daniel's game we packed up the SUV and headed straight over to Bluffton, Ohio, where Huntington U was playing Bluffton U. We knew we were only going to see the second half of the game because of travel time and walked in just after halftime and Huntington was down 0-2. The game was intense and HU was playing well, but we couldn't get the ball in the goal. With ten minutes left in the game, I leaned over to Rachel and said, "Adam's got ten minutes to score two goals, minimum."

With about five minutes left in the game, HU scored making the score 1-2. So the excitement was building... With one minute left, Adam was taking the ball to the goal. The goalie rushed him and he kicked the ball, it bounced off the goalie towards the goal, Adam kept charging... and... and... and... (how do you like the suspense?) was fouled BIG TIME just before he could put it in the goal. Well, the guy who fouled him was red-carded and sent off the field, and we were given a penalty kick.

We tied up the game with the penalty kick and 1 minute left to go. The game ended in a tie, and after a 10 minute break, they came back on the field for a 10-minute tie-breaker "golden goal" which means the first one who scores, wins.

About 5 minutes into the tie-breaker, Adam got tangled up with one of the Bluffton players and fell as the other guy was kicking and Adam got kicked square in the ribs. Stop the time clock, bring out the trainer, Adam thought he broke a rib or two. After a few minutes on the ground, Adam walked off and play resumed without him. Within just a minute or two of Adam's injury, he was running on the sidelines assessing whether he would be able to return to play. As Adam was running, HU scored. Adam missed it because he was running the opposite way. Rachel missed it because she was watching Adam, but Todd and I saw it, and it was SWEET! So HU won 3-2 in overtime! It was a good soccer day. The game was so good that I ended up putting my camera down and missed all the action shots, so only one of Adam this time, but doesn't he look like a man? Seriously, baby number two has grown up!

Friday evening at the lake

Todd, Daniel, and I took a trip to Celina Friday evening for dinner at Bella's overlooking Grand Lake St. Mary's and then hiking around the lake. When I say around, I don't really mean around the entire lake - It's huge - 13,500 acres huge, and incredibly the entire thing was dug by 1700 German and Irish immigrants for the whopping wages of30 cents per day. Legend says that they also received a jigger of whiskey a day to fight off malaria... right, for the malaria... It took six years to dig the lake, and all the dirt/mud was hauled off by wheelbarrows and especially built one-horse drawn dump carts. It has an average depth of only 10'. I just had to share all of that because I thought it was fascinating.

Anyway, after dinner we explored, rock climbed, caught falling leaves, hiked, chased birds, took pictures and dreamed of fishing. The fish were actually jumping out of the water and taunting us - not just little fish, either - big fish. We have plans to go back Friday evening to fish and hang out - can't wait! I love to fish, and more so, just love to hang out with the guys. Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.