Goodbye 2007, Welcome 2008!

Pigskin Pick'em Nelson/Pester Bowl VIII - Results

For 8 years my family has competed against each other in picking the outcomes of the NFL games each week on ESPN.com's Pigskin Pick'em.

Oh has it been fun. Making the picks rooting for a team, even though you dislike them, just because you picked them to win in the game trying to get "one up on the guy behind you."


Well, another season has finished and it is time to crown this years champion.

Before we get to that, let's do a quick re-cap of previous champions.

Season - Winner
1 - Scott won the inagural family challenge.
2 - Scott repeated to take the championship the second year.
3 - I won my first championship.
4 - I repeated to take my second.
5 - Again, I re-repeated to take my third championship.
6 - I won my fourth straight family championship.
7 - Tim (who couldn't compete this year because of a new baby & school)
won and was the first, other than Scott & myself to be champion.

Season 8's champion is....

...wait for it...


Scott, to take his third championship!

Hip hip, Horray!

Congratulations man on picking well done!




Second place had a tie between Doreen & Sue. This is the second time in her Pigskin Pick'em record she's come in second.





Congrats on pulling out a second place tie Sue.






My dad and Dan finished in a tie for 4th place.






Kudos to them.





My sister, Staci, finished 6th.




And of course, for the first time in my Pigskin prognosticating career, I finished last.





I think a good time was had by all. I thoroughly enjoyed the NFL season, even though my Denver Broncos didn't fare so good, and loved picking the games against family. Makes the NFL even more interesting, if that's possible.

Thanks to you all for playing another year. Enjoy the off season and we'll see you again, on the Pigskin Pick'em gridiron for another season of smashmouth competition!

The Roof

Here is our new roof! We're pleased 'as puddin' how it turned out. Now if we can just get the new siding, a new garage door, new driveway asphalt, a rock walk around the house, the sidewalk moved, the furnace fixed, some electrical stuff straightened out, the deck stained, a new shed built, some rocks in the back yard... etc. I could go on for hours! :)

We are thankful for our house and we're excited anytime we can make improvements.

Hopefully this one will last a long, LONG time! :)

Paintin' & Tentin'

Today the girls had quite a bit of fun at home. One of Joelle's Christmas gift was a set of wood horses to paint. So she worked on that and Natalie just created her own paintings.








Here's the finished product. Precious!







After painting, the tried making a tent to play in. It didn't work very well, so they enlisted an experienced master tent builder - Mom. Here's the finished product. Nice!






The girls moved in and played in there pretty much all day! Cute!

Ahhhh Christmas - Nice!

Hey Family and Friends, I hope you had as great a Christmas as we did! It was awesome!

Christmas eve, we opened presents! What fun!


Here Joelle & Natalie are wearing some very funny, cool hats from the 3 C's. Good pick Monkies. Very cute.











Here are some super comfy outfits that Grammy & Poppy sent. It has become immediately Natalie's favorite. BTW - Joelle is not that much taller that Natalie, she's just wearing her new Heelys.














Joelle's giving her new bicycle a initial run!








Christmas dinner at my in-laws house was most delicious! Of course I've got to brag on my wife's mashed potatoes. Yummy!!! She also made a pie, apple, from the stock my folks sent us a while back. Also extremely delicious!

The nice thing was, afterwards we took a quickie tour to see the progress my in-laws have made in redesiging the room over the garage. Larry & Joelle stayed out there, Sandra and Doreen played the board-game Upwords, Natalie played a DS and I took a nap. Very cool!

This evening after the kids got put to bed we watched the Bourne Ultimatium. Awesome flick!


Of course I have to share the quote on a t-shirt gift I got! I LOVE it - thanks family!








Again - Ahhhhhh Christmas!

Best Wishes to You and Yours!!!!

Worker Girls & A Relaxin Dad

Went over today to my in-laws. They're home for the holidays and working on a renovation project in the room over the garage. My girls wanted to get into the act!









They went at it with gusto. It was sooooooo fun watching them hammer those nails into the wood.












After Natalie was done, I had the blessing of her coming over to chill with me. It's these times that I cherish. It's not gonna be long before they'll be too big - but I pray to remain this close to them!

What a day!

Ice Queens - Three

So this morning, I don't know what it was, but Doreen, Joelle and Natalie ALL had cold hands, EXTREMELY cold hands! And they all found their way onto me somewhere at some point.

BUUURRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Chop Chop!

Tonight, we took the girls to a new experience. A friend's son was having a birthday and they let him choose whatever restaurant he wanted to go to for his birthday dinner. He choose Shogun and we were invited.

The girls LOVED watching the cook make dinner right in front of us. It was almost more cool watching their faces than the cook. Although - he was awesome. Talk about dinner entertaiment - the stuff he did with his spatula and an egg and his fork was amazing!!!

Christmas Play Participants

Tonight Joelle & Natalie took part in the Christmas Play for their school. They were SOOOOOO cute!

They sang Away in a Manger and Feliz Navidad with the rest of their classmates!

Very precious!

COOKIES!!!!

I am a LUCKY man. With all we've got going on, making cookies for 'this and that' is one thing that is first and foremost.

So all week out house has smelled YUMMY!

Awesome!

Sick, Crazy, Wore Out or Christmas Excitement

Hey there,

What a week it has been! The weather has been awesome. Except for a little rain here and there, it really feels like early spring here. It has been quite pleasant, however if it keeps up we're going to have to double up on the insect repelent this next summer! :)

Natalie got sick this week. So on the score card for school, she attended three full days, stayed home one and made it half a day on the other. One day at school she didn't do much except sleep, and rest with the teacher.

Poor little girl probably got a small sinus infection and the "side of her face," as she put it hurt. Unfortunately she get's that icky trait from my side of the family. When I get sick, sinusitus and bronchitis - guaranteed! :)

Thankfully she's much MUCH better now!

Doreen's been home all week. In fact the day Natalie had to come home, I was in Cleveland, OH and wasn't much help. So the teacher called Doreen and she went to get her.

Doreen's been baking cookies, cleaning, doing a little prep for a big report she has to write next semester and just hanging out.

Of course, I think the 'let-down' of no pressure while being out of school for Christmas break is getting to her. She and the girls were being absolutely hilarious tonight with their crazy thoughts, crazy faces and crazy actions! Also this morning when I got on the computer to check e-mail etc, Doreen hoovered right there and was giving me a very hard time about various things I'd type. Today was her crazy day! Very cute!

I reqested and got 3 trips for the bakery this week. On all of the 3 trips I ended up driving or working late nights and I'm a bit wore out. I've taken 3 cat-naps today. I'll lay down for a moment and be zonked out in no time! Doreen thinks I'll stay up to 3am tonight - hardly. I'll crash not long after finishing this blog entry! :)

Some presents showed up under our tree this week. I was downstairs when Natalie found them Monday morning. She started yelling, "There's presents under the tree, Joelle, There's presents under the tree." (Repeated numerous times of course.) Joelle came running out all excited and they danced around the living room with joy. It was very precious!

Then on different days this week, I've taken each of them separately to buy a Christmas gift for her sibling. In the past they both have wanted to get something they wanted for her sister, and this year they truly got something they thought the sister would like. Nice change!

Well - that's all for now.

Wheeeww!

Later!

Feelin' Fine

I was just talking with my mom, who lives in the western portion of Colorado, this morning. Our conversation, at one point, turned to weather. She told me they had 6 inches of snow fall and were expecting a bit more before all was said and done. My sister-in-law who lives in Minnesota wrote in her blog a week ago, they just received 8 to 10 inches of snow.

Here today in Tennessee, it's Sunny and 80 degrees. I've been inside, outside and just about everywhere today in nothing but shorts and a T-shirt. It's the middle of December!!! How odd is that?!!!

I told Doreen today after doing our grocery shopping on the way home, I feel like we live in Florida. This is Florida's winter weather, not east Tennessee!

Oh well - I'll take it cuz it feels GREAT!!! :)

Hobos??? :)

Here's the four Pesters just hanging out on the railroad tracks like some hobos waiting for a ride to where ever!

Yeah right!

This was just a cool place we found while caching yesterday and thought it would be good to snap a family photo!

Have a great week!

2 Major Milestones Crossed

Hey, just wanted to share a couple of milestones that we've crossed recently.

Milestone #1 is I just passed 900 posts on my web-journal here. That covers a LOT of time from August 26, 2004 until today. It is AWESOME having this blog to go back and read from time to time to see what has happened in our lives that I've forgotten.

Coolness.

Milestone # 2 - We just passed 200 geocaches found! We went out with some friends today and together we found 5, just the number we needed to hit the 200 mark. There were 7 in the Chattanooga Audubon Park where we were. We tried to find all 7, but couldn't for various reasons.

Lets see, we started geocaching in Nov of 2004.

Waaa hoooooo!

Coolness!

Dry, for almost 40 years to come. Hopefully! :) OR A work in progress.

Work on our new roof began on Wednesday and finished today. I should have a 'finished' picture for you, but don't. I'll get one, but for some reason today, I just didn't think about it. Duh! :)









Anyway, this is a start to the renovating the outside of our house. We went with a metal roof because they're guaranteed to last 40 years. Let's hope that is true. Our next step is new siding and instead of brick at the bottom, we're going to have some rock-work that will really give us the 'rustic' look we're seeking for our house.

But for now, it's just nice to know the next time we get a Tennessee rain, we won't get any wet spots inside! :)

"Freeeeeeedooooooommmmmmmmmm!"

Borrowing the words of William Wallace there. Doreen has completed her first of four semesters to become a Dental Hygientist!

With LOTS of studying, prayer and hard work, she has passed this semester with stellar grades.

I am so proud of her for ALL that she keeps up with, including school.

Anyway, she's got a bit of downtime coming, then she'll have to get back to researching a report due at the end of the semester, so she's gonna work on it while the kids are still in school to get a head-start on it.

Great job dear!!!!! :)

Dental Hygiene Gals

At Doreen's Dental Hygiene Christmas Party - we had lots of fun. I enjoyed putting faces that go with the names Doreen tells stories of.

This isn't all of her classmates, but a good representation of them! :)

Very nice people.

Collegedale Christmas Parade

My family got to take part in the Christmas parade this year. Natalie rode on the Adventurer float and had fun tossing lots of candy to the attendees.







Joelle rode on the float with OAKS - her school and had a ball. Of course - this was messed up, with all the adults walking and kids riding. Who has more energy and should be walking! :)








Here was an interesting entry in the float. This brand new piece of machinery was HUGE!









Never seen Santa show up like this before. Guess the sleigh was in the shop! :)

Making Mice

Doreen's Dental Hygiene class was having a Christmas party. For that party Doreen wanted to take her little chocolate mice. It be came a family affair. Joelle & Natalie unwrapped the chocolate kisses.








Doreen melted the chocolate down and dipped the cherries in it. I put kiss on the cherry and the two little chocolate kisses for ears.

















After we got the whole crowd of mice created, Doreen put the eyes on them.



















We all wanted to try one, but waited for the party - then ate some - YUMMY!

Extra Expense

Last week, we had a pretty heavy rain here. One morning, I look up and see a wet spot. Aye carumba.








So I had an expert to come in to check our roof. Sure enough, our roof is about 15 years old and has worn out. It's going to have to be replaced. That was some money, that we don't have, we weren't planning to spend. Got to have a roof though.

Oh well - extra trips, here I come! :)

Buuurrrrrrrrrrrrr!

So, I was on a trip to Saginaw, MI yesterday night. We were working up there and it was 26 degrees. I can deal with that, but the wind was blowing at 30 miles per hour.

That adds up to a 16 degree wind chill. Not only is it cold, but that 'wind' blows right through you.

I am so happy to be back in the south!

:)

Injustice...

...again!

It's interesting, Martin Luther King, Jr once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

I just read a blog by a fella named Daniel who stated, "The injustice among the world is not as heart breaking as those witnessed within the Church."

How incredibly TRUE both those statements are!

Fortunately, the aforementioned injustice was not directly part of my life. I dealt with that enough in the last year of my previous job to fill a lifetime. However, I just had a terrible injustice, in my beloved denomination, come to my attention today. It has made me very sad, frustrated and angry. And the worst part of it, as much as I think about it - I don't see anyway to help rectify the situation. I feel completely helpless.

Now let me say at the outset, I do NOT have the full story. I have bits and pieces from here and there - and I am trying to get the 'rest of the story,' just haven't gotten it all yet.

In a particular church in my denomination, there are two pastors, both have been there for quite some time. It is my understanding that for almost the entire time, there has been a 'personality clash' between these two. The last I knew of it, they were attempting to work it out.

Unfortunatly, I found out today, that apparently, the 'Head' pastor had the 'Associate' pastor removed. He cleaned out his desk/office last Monday and is gone. My understanding it is over something that is pretty petty, and some of the 'founding families' of the church took offense to a 'decision' and made it known to the head pastor, who then took it to the local conference to have the associate removed - totally bypassing the local church board. In the melee of everything, the associate apologized for the handling of the decision, but not the decision itself.

The associate, began a 'planting of a church' in an area that needed a church and the 'head' has 'moved' in, in taking 'credit.'

The associate is HIGHLY active with the youth and young lives are being touched.

The associate is helping parents understand better ways to be a Godly parent.

The associate took a few hours out of a Sabbath and just went up to a campout that a group of the church was having - just to 'hang' with the gang for a bit. They (asociate & wife) only stayed for an hour or so, but they showed they cared enough to visit.

This Assoicate Pastor is 'in the trenches' working along side the congregation to make things happen to further God's word. The Head pastor rarely makes an outside the sanctuary appearance.

Now which pastor would you want leading up the church???

Well, the conference saw it differently and removed the associate. What sense does that make?????

When the local board found out, they asked to have the 'head' removed as well and was told by the conference that was not an option.

What is with our denomination that they allow things like what happened at my previous job and currently at a church?

Now, this is where I could start coming up with all sorts of 'reasons' (excuses) why I should not attend the church every week and pay my tithes and offerings because of the way the denomination is handling things like this. But that is my emotions talking. Satan wants me to walk away from the church and so he's creating circumstances for me to 'have' excuses - and if I think about things logically, I know God has a special mission for this church and the devil will attack it - forcefully.

Yet, it deeply distrubs me when I see blantant 'evil' taking place in the denomination.

How does one listen to a pastor on a radio show talk about compassion for fellow man, yet fires 80+ % of his staff, after putting them through so much strife? How does one listen to a sermon, and gain a blessing, from a 'Head' pastor who attempts to undermine the effectiveness of a Godly associate and then pushes him out? (Oh by the way, the 'head' tried getting associate ousted about a year ago as well.) AND why during the holiday season?!!!

To show the difference in the reactions of the two - the 'Associate' pastor and wife, even when they are leaving, are trying to keep from being 'negative' about the situation and talking about it or the cause of their plight little or none.

Does that sound like a troublesome pastor to you? Which pastor seems more Godly?

I just DO NOT UNDERSTAND how things like politics get into a church setting and cause rifts and strife.

In just sitting here thinking about this situation and all, I just cannot help but shake my head in disbelief.

What a sad day in our church, that politics leads more than Jesus does. No wonder people fall asleep in the pews, or aren't willing to volunteer more to even take one position in the church to help in the work or perpetuate problems instead of solving them and moving on.

That is so very sad.

SO VERY SAD.

Fix-a-Flat

Had a third trip at work this week, voluntarily. Could use the extra money. (See post coming at a later date for a further explanation.)

It was a little gravy run to 3 stop around Atlanta. We left so we were running around in the middle of the night delivering snack cakes. (That's the best time to be in Atlanta - otherwise plan LOTS of extra time for copious amounts of traffic.)

We had a back-haul scheduled for 9am, but we arrived at 6. The place didn't open until 7, so my co-driver was in the bunk and I grabbed a nap up front.

At 5 till, this little guy comes up and knocks on the door, "Back into door #6 and take your paperwork inside."

An hour later, they're finished loading us and I pull out to close the doors and head home.

As I walk back to the cab, I notice one of the tires looks funny. I kick it and it flops - FLAT!

I call the bakery and find the closest place is a TA truck stop 3 miles away. I limp it over, get a new tire and get home 2 1/2 hours later than expected.

Don't know why we got a flat there - but as always, I choose to look at it as a blessing to avoid something maybe more dangerous down the road.

Fixed-a-Flat! :)

Santa's Little Elves

You have to watch us in action. Boy can our family boogie down. Took us a while to get the choreography right! :)

Waaa ha, ha, ha, ha!

Click, The Pesters, to watch us dance this holiday season! :)

Sabbath Girls

Last week, Joelle got to help be a 'deaconess' at church. It was a thing the Adventurers were doing, so she got all duded up in her dress uniform and was very precious!










Natalie on the other hand, decided she didn't want to, so she got dressed up in one of her new dresses she got from Grandma O on her birthday!

Both - precious! :)

Christmas Preparations!

It's the day after Thanksgiving, and now that holiday has passed, according to my precious wife, we have permission to begin making preparations for Christmas. Here are my three precious 'girls' in the spirit of the season.








My sweet girls and I all ready for Santa! :)













Putting our 'fake' tree together. We've figured out this is the last year for this old tree. It's served us well for a number of years but it's beginning to fall apart.
















Getting the right ornaments together to hang. We've got two precious 'elves' to do all the hanging.










Here's the 4 of us happy to be together and all set with our Christmas decorations for this year.

"You Can Take That to the Bank!"

Today was a big day. The girls took their piggy banks and we opened an account for each of them. They have a LOT to learn about money. What a better way than to start them off with an account, with their own money, give them a 'pay day' each week and help them to learn now how to handle this stuff.






Everyone mentioned how 'cute' they were when we walked in. They sat so nicely while all the info was being filled out on them for their accounts.

Precious little ones. Pray that they learn well!! :)