Misc Fun Family Fotos

One Saturday night in college we were over at a friend place and someone snapped this photo when Doreen was trying to choke me - all in fun of course! :)









I love this photo of my little girls. We had a few minutes to kill before Adventurers, so we went for a walk on the greenway and saw the new Desmond Doss memorial.











Doreen and I were at the Aquarium and she got a pic of me in the shark cage!

Great memories!

Kindergarten Field Trip - A Grocery Store

I got to go with Natalie and her Kindergarten class on a field trip today. We went to a grocery store and for those in the know, it was the V.M.

Here Natale and her friend Jasmine as we rode to the store.







Man, it was really cool. Here we learned all about UPC codes and stuff. Did you know we are in the middle of a transition from a 10 number code to a 14 number International code? Me either.

Did you know that those codes have to be applied for each new product put out? Me either!

Did you know that every company has its own unique 5 digit code that is the 1st 5 digits of the code and the last (currently 5 upgraded 9) digits is the specific code for that product? Me either. I learned a lot today! Very cool.



We got to go in ALL the back areas of the store. Never been in the back of a real grocery store before. Saw lots of very neat things and storage places and stuff!

For instance this place was extremely 'cool!' Yes, that pun was intended cuz it was the walk in freezer.











Here we got to meet the 'Green Monster.' A cardboard compactor for recycling.












And finally this was the herb/spices room. We got to smell an extremely yummy spearment herb bag. Delicious! Then he shared with us an herb they kept in a 5 gallon bucket with a sealable lid - for a very GOOD reason. It was Velium (I think that's how it was spelled) root. Awwwuuffff! Man it smelled like nasty feet that hadn't been washed in forever! It's supposed to help someone calm down and rest. I don't know how anyone could 'down' that stuff! Oy vai!

It was a great experience and the kids had a ball!

Afterwards we went to the imagination station and let the kids run and play and get LOTS of energy out. Then we had a lunch an back to school.

What a very cool day!

Icy, Slick & Snowy

Ok - that's two trips in two weeks that have gone a LOT longer than they should have! I mean, what is the deal?

Look at what we're sitting in here - SNOW and lots of it. Not only that, but ice came down and kept on a comin. Oh my goodness was it icy!

Ok, here's the story.

We left about 1am for Olney, IL. It took us 45 min to get our truck out of the safety lane and we spent the better part of 30 minutes looking at the weather and other routes to get us where we needed to go. Nothing was looking good. On the weather channel the 'pink' area was right over where we were headed.

So we left and got to Nashville at 3:30am and shut down at a truck stop. I had to 'blind-side' back into the last parking spot there, which is why it was probably open, it was tough. (Blind side backing is backing in on the right side of a truck - there's a point where the end of the trailer completely disappears in the mirror and you hope you set it up right and it's going in the right spot without hitting anything else.)

We shut down for 4 hours, till daylight, and left. 10 minutes on the road and I start seeing ice in trees and grass. A few cars off the road in the medians here and there. We made a good decision to stop.

(Look at the pretty icecicles hanging from the visor of our truck.) The interesting thing was another 30 miles farther and the roads got bad. What should have taken me 6 hours to get too took 8 1/2 hours. Oy vai - some of the roads were really, REALLY bad. We unloaded at that first drop and headed to our next one in Carterville. 82 miles, a 90 minute drive took almost 3. We got empty at 10pm and shut it down at an old Wal-mart in Marion just across from the truck stop. Dozens of trucks already stopped there, we had to the roads were just too icy to continue - especially with an empty trailer.

We got up this morning to head home and with the 4 inches of ice and snow we were on already, another 3 or 4 fell during the night. We couldn't move. So I threw some salt down, didn't help. My partner tried chipping away at the ice and snow - nothing. So we threw on the snow chains. That is NOT a fun job on a semi-truck. Those chains are heavy.

Got the chains on and was able to get out of the thick stuff onto a snow packed road. Had to stop and bang on the brake drum on one of our trailer wheels that froze up. Finally, we put the chains up and headed home.

Saw some beauty on the way home with the ice in the trees all bowing down and what not. HATED driving in it, but made it safely.

My partner and I turned our typical 20 our trip in to a 41 hour trip.

I'm glad to be home!

Refinancing

A month ago, we got a letter from a friend who works in a financial services field. He told us that interest rates are down and now's a good time to re-finance.

Hummm - lower interest rate, lower payment? How can this be a bad thing?

So Doreen faithfully pursued it. She made all the calls and arraingments etc and last Friday we closed on our refinanced home loan. Dropped a whole interest rate percentage point. (6% to 5%) Most awesome.

We decided to refinance for 30 years again to get the lower payment to be able to make extra payments towards principle and to give us just a bit more wiggle room in our budget. That should a bit...

...except for one small (ha) thing.

We just received the latest property tax assessment this week. The value of our property jumped $20k. WOW. That's gonna be a big jump in our property taxes next year.

So, we'll see how it goes.

The story on that is the state legislators are wanting to increase revenue, but can't due to already having one of the highest sales taxes in the country. The county commissioners don't want to raise taxes and look like the bad guys and make it hard to get re-elected. So the Hamilton County tax assessor, who is really sick and won't be runing for re-election next time was willing to take the hit and be the 'bad guy' raise everyone's property assessments. It's amazing how it jumps just like that.

I tell you what, I HATE ALL POLITICS. It's no longer about what's best for the country, state and county, it's about what is best for the politician! That's it.

Oh well - time will be coming to an end here in the near (very near I hope!) future!!! Then NO more politics!!!

Rollin Rollerskating

Thursday night our SS class went rollerskating. It was a blast. Natalie did a LOT better this time. I thoroughly enjoyed rolling around with her like this.










Joelle is my little zoomer!














Natalie got pretty good at making her way around the rink.













Me and my 'short' wife whom I love VERY much!!! (Of course I was on skates and she wasn't!)

2009 TN Snow

Lately, the girls have really been wanting at least one good snow. We've been getting teased with a slight flurry now and then, but nothing sticking at all. Well, Monday we got about a quarter inch that stuck. Boy the girls went nuts. They were outside slogging through it trying to make snowballs and snow men and catch it on their tongues. They had a ball - so we had to document a bit of their fun on photographs!

Right after I snapped this photo, I got hit in the chest by that snowball in Joelle's hand! :)






Joelle worked so hard going ALL over the place trying to get enough snow together to make this cute little snowman. Adding some raisins for eyes, a carrot for a nose, a couple of sticks for arms and a bandanna for a scarf made it very cute and she was so proud of it!







Poor little Natalie got so cold. Maybe cuz she kept eating that white frozen stuff! Still she had a LOT of fun with it!

Slip Slidin Away OR Murphy's Law Hits OR Whip It!

As you can tell, I had a tough time trying to think of a title for this post. All the titles I thought of for this post are very apropos, so I just decided to use all of them!

This week of work was extremely challenging. I left Sat night at 8:30, got home Monday afternoon at 4pm. Left again for work at 10:45 on Monday evening and didn't get home until 11p on Tuesday. In just about 75 hours, or 3 days, I spent 6 hours and 45 min at home. Very odd, very odd indeed!

Let me start at the beginning.

Sabbath was awesome. We did 2nd service, got to sleep in, go to SS then Church, a nice leisurely worship morning. Then lunch at our place with my in-laws and Doreen's home-made gluten patties, lightly steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy all topped off with a yummy bowl of ice-cream.

After a bit of visiting they took off, and we piddled around a bit then met back up with my in-laws at the McDonald Road church for a quartet concert, in which 3 of the singers had been either voice students or in the choir when Larry taught at Southern years ago. The Highlanders. They were pretty good, enjoyable to listen to.

Then we ran over to our church where our Pathfinders were having a Pine Car Derby race. I got to help in the prepping of the cars to be raced. (Making sure they all were of equal weight.) Then helped keep the winners and losers straight until we had one overall winner. The girls really enjoyed it and had their favorites and were rooting and hollering every race. (I figured Joelle would be into it and was pleasantly surprised to see Natalie thoroughly enjoying herself!)

We finished with that, ran home, I changed and ran to work arriving at 8:45p. My partner and I got the truck prepped, and off we went. I was to drive 4 hours to Glad Springs, VA, we'd sleep for 2 hours and he'd get up and take us the rest of the way to PA, we'd unload and head home. All well and good, except for one small detail...

About 11:45 I hit the I-40(E)/I-81(N) split and got slowed down by about 4 accidents within about 8 miles. The kicker was there was about 15 cars, total, in these 4 accidents. Then I saw it, ice had quickly formed around the edge of my windshield. Oy vai!!! I tapped the brakes and sure enough the trailer started to come around. After it straightened back out I goosed the gas and you guessed it, the tractor started sliding - the road was ice. I HATE driving on ice. I went another 10 miles or so and came across another accident and right after it 6 semi trucks all sitting on the shoulder of the road. That's it I thought, I'm outta here. The next exit happened to have a TA truck stop - I slid 'literally' into a parking spot, pulled the brakes, called my dispatcher and said, "The road is covered in ice. I'm shutting down until they get it cleaned up." He wholeheartedly agreed.

My partner gets up at 5am and figured they had the roads salted by then so he goes on duty and heads out. 8 miles and 20 minutes later - he had to stop, couldn't go any father. The road was blocked by a bunch of vehicles. Because it was still night, we couldn't see exactly was blocking the way, but when he pulled over on the shoulder the truck and trailer slid off the road on to the gravel the ice was so slick.


Not 30 seconds later a second LD truck stops next to us in the center lane of traffic. When daylight came we got out and all tried not falling on the slick road. Just look at how shiny the road is. Not a patch of ice free pavement anywhere on that Interstate. You can see the traffic backed up behind us. It was the beginning of a 5 1/2 mile back up before the TN DOT decided to shut the interstate down.



The mess ahead of us is what blocked everything up. I know the pic is kinda small, but the truck at the very front has his trailer on the shoulder and the tractor in the slow lane. Another truck has his tractor in the middle lane and trailer in the slow lane. Then not seen in the picture is a cattle truck with his trailer in the middle lane with the tractor in the fast lane, effectively blocking up the entire Northbound side of the interstate.

Well, all this ice and shutting down twice put us behind 10 hours. The problem is, that isn't the worst of it.

When the state finally got the salt trucks out, it was a slow process getting everyone sufficiently salted to get 'em going. When he got back to us, he got us going but didn't salt the lane in front of us to keep us going. It was flowing water over ice. I climbed out of the truck to throw salt under the drive tires to get it melting and us some traction and when I stepped, I slipped and landed on my right butt cheek and elbow, trying to keep from cracking my skull open like a melon on the pavement. I got up, took two steps back towards the tractor and went down again the exact same way. OY VAI! It hurt.

We were finally headed northbound again and I climbed into the bunk, changed into some dry threads and went back to sleep. We arrived at our first drop and when I got up, found that I was very sore. I could work though. We got empty and back to swap trailers and home. When we arrived at the trailer swap point, not a soul was there and no paperwork anywhere for us. So we had to sit for 2 hours waiting for a dispatcher to arrive, which put us even farther behind.

Once we got our info I took off, drove for the last two hours I had available and shut down for another two hours until my partner got enough time back to get us home at 4pm. Almost 12 hours later than we usually get back from that trip.

At home, we enjoyed a bit of snow, I repacked my gear bag and lunch cooler and took a shower then went to bed. When I got up, I was really hurting. It had a very similar feel to whiplash I'd gotten in years ago when I got thrown off a wave-runner. So I downed about 4 Advil and off to work at 11p for a midnight dispatch.

My partner and I arrived at the yard at the same time, went into dispatch for our paperwork and trailer assignment and found out, our load was not yet loaded. Of the 9 drops on the trip, 3 1/2 still had to be loaded. So we got our tractor, loaded our gear, parked it and went to sleep. Just after 2am the dispatcher called the truck-phone, it was ready. I popped more Advil, we loaded up and left.

After we got to IL, it was COLD. Single digit temps. That didn't help much. But we worked quickly and got the trailer empty and I got to go to bed. When we got back home, I was still stiff, but it wasn't hurting like it had been. Boy was I thankful for that.

Saw my Chiropractor today and will go again Fri just to make sure, but man, Mr Murphy hit on this week of work. Just about everything that could go wrong (save for an accident or equipment breakdown) did. I am SO glad to be done with this week and home now. I hope to not have a repeat of that anytime soon!!! :)

There IS no place like home!!!

Top Ten Predictions For 2009

Look for all these predictions to happen this coming year...

1. The Bible will still have all the answers.

2. Prayer will still work.

3. The Holy Spirit will still move.

4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.

5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.

6. There will still be singing of praise to God.

7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.

8. There will still be room at the Cross

9. Jesus will still love you.

10. Jesus will still save the lost.


God whispers in your soul and speaks to your mind. Sometimes when you don't have time to listen, He has to throw a brick at you. It's your choice:

Listen to the whisper, or wait for the brick.

~~unknown

Have a blessed New Year!

File 13

A few years ago Doreen and I went through all our files and organized everything. It was great, but you know how things tend to get messy over time - well that's what happened. We'd get things out of order or in the wrong file and then our files were just building up they were so very thick it was hard getting them in or out - so yesterday and today we went through it all and cleaned up! Big-time.

This pile ended up being one of three trashbags of paperwork we have NO need of anymore!

We had credit card statments, electric bills from 2 houses ago, medical eob's and just various and assundry things we've been storing since '98. Time to GO!

We bagged it all up and today went over to my in-laws who have a buring barrel and we reduced 3 bags of old paperwork into a small pile of ashes in a couple of hours!


We lit it off and added and added and added and I did some stirring to make sure it all burned and burned good! Man it was SO nice to get rid of all that junk. It was a really cold day, perfect for a nice rip-roaring fire!

Now if we can just get everything on e-mail or electronically to save on an external hardrive to save paper, space and postage! :)

Fall 2008 Report Cards - 2nd quarter

Didn't even think anything about the girls school progress report until they handed them to us yesterday. (Other than the kissing situation) they seem to be doing awesome in school.

Well, the latest progress reports verify that feeling. :)

Joelle's marks are great and her teacher says, "Joelle is solidly on grade level." I like to hear that!

Natalie's marks are great too, with the added plus in this grading period that she is performing above average in Math by counting, reads, writes, orders and compares numbers. She also improved in Math by using number lines to solve problems. Awesome!

Natalie's teacher writes, "Natalie is a well rounded student and seems to enjoy learning in general. She is a willing volunteer to help the teacher and classmates."

Aaaahhhhh - reading these progress report does a dad's heart good! :)

Racquetball League - Game 1 of 11

The racquetball league just started up again at the gym this season. Racquetball is a great winter game! :)

Tonight was my first game, oddly enough, against the guy I play with on a regular basis just for fun and exercise.

Aaron kicked my hiney. We usually go back and forth on who wins. We usually split pretty evenly, but not tonight. The weird thing was that both of us played very badly. We very rarely ever double fault on the serve and both of us did it a number of times tonight.

He beat me 15-13, 15-13. Two games was all it took.

Plus during the game I rolled my ankle so I'm hurtin' physically and mentally from getting beat so soundly!

We had a bit of extra time so we played one more to 11 and he beat me on that one too 11-10.

Oy vai.

I was looking through the list at the other people I'll be playing in the league, no gimmies this year. They're all gonna be tough. Should be fun - especially if I play better! :)

Freaking Out - Part 2

Ok - now that we're past all the drama by a few days, I have a bit of perspective on it now and can share the story.

By the way - let me just say at the beginning of this. If any of you read this and happen to talk with Natalie anytime soon, please treat the whole thing with 'kid gloves' we're trying to help our girls be open with us and that requires some gentle handling of tough situations! Thanks!

This all started on Friday. Everyday Natalie brings home in her school notebook a page with a daily report on how she did in school each day. You can get a smiley (exceptional), a check mark (Satisfactory) or frowny face (not a good day.) We initial it, so the teacher knows we know what's going on, etc.

Natalie ALWAYS gets smileys. In fact, I've taken to teasing her ocassionally about wanting to see a frowny face and she always says, "No daddy, I'm only gonna get smileys."

Well, Fri, she had a checkmark. So I asked her what it was for and she didn't wanna say. So I told her that I couldn't initial her page if I don't what's going on. Finally she said that she and a boy in her class were talking while the teacher was talking. I asked her if she should be doing that and she said no. Then I asked her if she was going to do it any more and again came the reply, "no." I initialed it and we went about our day.

Fast forward to Sabbath lunch as we're eating, Doreen, asked Natalie about the checkmark and all of a sudden she kinda got defensive and didn't want to talk about it. Doreen just wanted to see if Natalie and the boy were just talking or arguing. Natalie didn't want to talk about it.

So Doreen kindly asked again and Joelle jumped in and said they were talking about... and she tapped her all her fingers on both hands together and twisted them. Doreen asked what that meant and Joelle looked at Natalie and said, 'nothing.' Both our 'parent sense' began tingling at that point and so Doreen asked Joelle again what that meant and she said nothing and was just doing it.

Well - weren't we in the middle of some high drama at that point! Oh my word.

Finally after a little more 'talking' it comes out that Natalie and a boy was kissing in school. My little kindergardener. Oh my word. But she didn't want to talk about it. So we didn't freak out, we just calmly let her know that we just need to talk a little more about it sometime before Sunday at bedtime. Whenever she wanted to talk would be fine.

Then we asked Joelle why she 'blatently' lied and we'd have to talk with her after lunch.

Boy, was that a LOT of drama around a meal or what! I felt a bit drained, especially trying NOT to freak out and just go off, which of course would do absolutely no good.
(Is this what the teenage years with two girls is going to be like - OY VAI!!!!!)

So after lunch Natalie told Doreen she wanted to talk with her. So they went back in to Natalies room to talk. Doreen didn't talk so much about the kiss, but about keeping secrets from us. Turns out that she and two different boys in her class have kissed at some point and the teacher didn't know about it and she told Joelle and a friend, Jannah, and she didn't want to any more but didn't feel right about it and didn't wanna get in trouble, etc! Doreen stressed that she could come talk with us about anything at any time and it's not good to keep secrets. Natalie understood and said she was sorry and they both cried a bit and Natalie offered Doreen a kleenex. Too cute! Then Natale said that mommy could tell daddy and her teacher about it.

During that point I was downstairs on the computer and Doreen came down and relayed all the info to me. Then Natalie came down and we all talked a bit. We tried to let her know that she doesn't need to keep secrets and if she doesn't wanna do 'stuff' anymore but doesn't know how to get out of it to use us as the 'fall guys.' (I learned that good bit of parenting from my folks. I'm willing to be the reason she doens't want to do anything - cuz her parents won't let her. Helps her save face.) Anyway as we wound our talk up we asked if she kissed the girls at school, 'No', then should you be kissing boys? "No." Hugs or shaking hands would work just fine! "Right" Who can you give and get as many kisses you want from, "Mommy, daddy, Joelle, Grandma, Grandpa, Grammie and Poppie." Exactly!!!

Wheeewww - One down, one to talk with.

We had to deal with Joelle's blatant lying. That is unacceptable!

So we talked and yes she knew and so we gave her suggestions on how to handle things differently next time. If she didn't want to tell us right then, just say so, or ask to talk privately with us or tell us you'll tell us soon. Do NOT lie to us! The chances are you'll eventually get found out and then the punishement will be worse!

My initial reaction was to not let her go to summer camp. (We've had a couple other issues with lying recently and so I was thinking this would make a HUGE impression.) It did. I told her if I can't trust what she's saying when I'm around, how can we trust her when she's away.

We then decided that was a bit too harsh, yet, so we gave her an option. Come up with your own consequences or not go roller skating next Thur with us and our SS class. Wow - that really hit home. She loves rollerskaing/blading.

Hugs, kisses, and a prayer and we kicked her loose.

Well, she'd come wandering in with a couple of lame consequences, and we'd explain why they wouldn't work and tell her to try again.

We had an event at the church, so we loaded up and headed over. They both started playing and playing with others when friends arrived. But ocassionally Joelle would wander over with an idea or say she didn't know what else to do, but she didn't want to miss rollerskating. So we'd just tell her to think about it.

The meeting concluded and she came back from child-care and went to talk with Doreen and was in tears about it. Finally I talked with her and told her that lying is really bad and if she is willig to lie to us, then we can't let her do fun things.

All the way home she was crying about it - so I told her to just let it rest until she's slept on it a night and to call me on my trip on Sunday and we'd talk. She continued to cry and fret over not coming up with something. Finally I told her to chill and say a prayer, maybe Jesus would give her a consequence idea, in the morning.

We got home and they got ready for bed, then Joelle came in with a smile on her face and said she had an idea. She could miss two nights of Narnia. (After worship we read a chapter of a book of the Chronicles of Narnia to the girls. Joelle is BIG-TIME into it!!!) I said it's a decent idea, but not enough for the seriousness of the 'crime.' She said a week and I countered with missing the entire book we're currently starting with the proviso that she NOT get up, or try to sneek in to listen or fuss or whine about it AT ALL. If she broke any of those guidelines then roller-skating is automatically gone. Missing the whole book was agreed upon.

She felt much better then told us she'd prayed to Jesus while taking her contacts out for a good idea and it came to her just as she finished.

VERY GOOD!

We did include one other hitch in her gidde-up. If she lied to us again, her week at summer camp would not available to her. AT ALL. She understood and I'm praying we made a lasting impression on her!

We did take a moment to talk with both of them and let Natalie know that by keeping a secret and telling only Joelle & friend that she put Joelle in a tough spot. We told Joelle to avoid situations like that. Of course Joelle got into trouble by willingly lying to us.

Anyway - what drama! Oy, after even thinking about it all again I'm all worked up!

NO MORE DRAMA!!!

Backed Up

Today I finally got around to backing up everything on our computer to an external hard-drive.

We've got 2 hard-drives and I keep one here - and the other at my In-laws. So every quarter I back stuff up, swap drives and double-back it up.

The cool thing is I finally got this page backed up, mostly properly. I thought I was backing it up for quite a while, but once while our internet was down I went to look at the Blog back-up just to see it and it wasn't there. The software I had was only backing up the current page and that was it.

So I finally found another free-ware version and got it all backed-up today so I have everything I've written since Aug 2004. That's a lot of memories I don't want to lose externally cuz I've lost most of them in my head. (It's an old throwback 64 megabite brain capacity so I've got to use external sources ocassionally for memories! Wish I could upgrage to a smarter brain with at least a terabite of memory!)

Anyway, glad to have that done!!! (Until next quarter!)

I'm FREAKIN' OUT Here!

Natalie just spilled the beans at lunch that she's kissed a boy, Ethan, one of her classmates at school!

OH MY FREAKIN' WORD! Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhhh!

I knew this would be coming, but I figured it'd be Joelle first and that time was still a little while away.

I'm keeping very calm & light at home cuz I don't want her to clam up and not want to talk to us about things - but Oy VAI!!!

So I'm freakin' out on my journal to get it out and for something to remember!

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Wheeew. Oops - here comes again!

AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008 Pigskin Champion!

Well, after procrastinating I'm finally getting around to posting the Champion of this year's Nelson/Pester Family and Friends Pigskin Pick'em!

Sue - my brother-in-law's mother beat us all!

Congrats and way to go!

Until next year all! :)

Frustrated!!

This morning I went to the gym to swim half a mile in the pool for exercise. While I was swimming my mind began to wander, as it often does, and I was starting to feel disappointed and frustrated.

You see, we have friends in California we'd like to go see - but I don't see us ever getting out there. We have family in Minnesota that we haven't seen in a year and a half we're desperately missing. We have family in Florida we'd love to go spend time with, but can't right now.

Then we have a set of friends that we want to go on a trip to the beach for a week - but have no vacation time or $'s to go. We also would love to go to Puerto Rico with some friends, but that is WAY out of the question. We've got a set of friends that have been on a number of cruises and we want to go on one with them!

Of course I want to get to Hawaii so bad and Doreen has a hankerin to get to Alaska. That will put each of us in all 50 states, respectively. I just don't know when we're gonna be able to squeeze those in.

On top of all that I've got a cousin getting married in Cape Cod this summer and would like nothing better to attend that for him and the experience of being there. I just might be too far to make the trip. Also my sister-in-law will be finishing up her masters this spring and if she marches in her graduation, we'd love to be able to support her as well.

When I think about that I just get frustrated at vacation time and the money it takes to make all those trips and to really enjoy them.

Now of course I'm really thankful because we were out in Colorado visiting family in May/June and hopefully we'll be able to get out there at Christmas '09 for another visit.

My folks and grandma are coming out in May for Natalie's kindergarden graduation, so that's awesome.

Doreen and I are both excited to take a weekend each and are planning to go to both our 20th Academy Reunions this year. (Doreen and I are going to Keene, TX in March and I'm going to Loveland, Co at the end of Sept.)

So much to do, so many places to go, so little time 'off' and money! :)

Guess I'm just gonna have to wait for Heaven to have all the time I need to visit family and friends anytime and anywhere.

(Still can't help but feel a little frustrated now though!)

Pioneer Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon we had an interesing experience.

Just after we finished, about 3:30p, putting all our Christmas stuff away, we had a huge wind storm and rain being blown sideways. It was interesting to watch. 10 minutes later, our power went out.

So we did a few things around the house while it was still light out and what not. Then Doreen and Natalie went to the kitchen table to play the game of Set. Joelle and I sat down on the kitchen floor to put a 9 piece puzzle together. (We never did get it Shelly & Randy. We'll try again soon - by the way, thanks for the Christmas gift!)

As the evening got later it got darker out, so we whipped out some candles and finished our activites. We put a few more candles out then got supper on the table, all by candle light. After supper we piddled around a bit, the girls got ready for bed, then I pulled a flashlight out and started reading worship.

At about 7:30p, 4 hours later, our power was restored. Cool beans.

Man - we have become SO dependent on electricity and what-not.

It was quite an adventure/experience for us and the girls. Joelle was loving it, Natalie kept wishing the power would return.

Anyway, it was interesting, but I'm glad to be back in the 21st century again! :)

Coincidences OR Miracles - Judge for Yourself

I've always believed in miracles. I've seen quite a few of them in my life. The interesting thing is rarely do I see them as they are happening, but as I look back they just pop up all over the place.

I believe someone once wrote that, 'a coincidence is God performing a miracle while choosing to remain anonymous.'

I don't believe that many coincidences are really anything but miracles.

Let me tell you the story of last night and let you judge for yourself.

My partner and I like to leave around 11pm on our Monday trip. Hasn't happened lately, but we try.

This week's trip was dispatched Tuesday at 1:30am. I called in at 7p to see if shipping had started loading our trailer. They'd just put one on the dock and it was next to load. Cool - it usually takes about 4 hours to load a trailer, we'll be able to leave at 11p.

I call in at 10:50p and the trailer's not complete yet. Got 6 of the 8 shipments on. Yeah - ok, we're going to get out on time. I arrive at the yard Tuesday at 12:30am figuring we could be gone by 1am and in Galatia by 7am-ish.

First of all, the trailer has been done since 11:30p and hasn't been pulled off the dock yet. So I have to hunt up one of our trailer jockeys to go pull it out of the dock so I can hook the tractor up to it. This takes about few minutes, he has to verify it's completed before he can move it.

Secondly we have to wait another few minutes for another truck to pull out of the slot where we have to back into to load our rollers.

Lastly, with the new PeopleNet logging computer system we have in each of our trucks, we have to input the trip data and request a verification message that we have the correct trip before we leave. This is usually a short process, but it took quite a bit longer to receive the trip confirmed message.

Oy vai. It seemed like everything was working against us. I grumbled about shipping, about the limited access for our roller storage and about the super slow computer. We left the gate at 1:30am.

I drove and drove and drove, over Monteagle, through Nashville across the TN/KY state line and then across the KY/IL state line on I-24. Just about 40 miles from our first stop in Galatia, IL is the I-24 west /I-57 North split.

Now before I left, I took a peek at the WeatherChannel to see what the road conditions were going to be like. They predicted rain/ice the last 20 to 25 miles in KY and into S Illinois. So I was wary as I drove. No ice formed on the truck mirrors or windshield wipers and the road, though wet and with a temp of 32 degrees, was not slick at all. So I continued at the posted 55mph (for trucks) speed in IL.

4 miles before the 24/57 split the traffic came to a grinding halt. No movement at all. Finally the word came back through the CB that 3 miles ahead 3 semi trucks tangled up on some ice at the bottom of the hill and were completely blocking the Westbound side of I-24. I heard another report from an Eastbound driver that 2 miles further another semi-truck had jack-knifed on a bridge and had the road blocked.

We sat completely still on the highway for over 2 1/2 hours (I heard the back-up was 10 miles long) before the IL State Troopers started allowing everyone to drive across a paved median crossover and go back East and take a detour.

We could see the carnage of the 3 semi trucks as we reached the turn-around point. Looks like one truck jack-knifed, one t-boned the 1st and a 3rd ran into the back of the 2nd. What a mess. Don't know the condition of the drivers. (Although it really didn't look like anyone could have survived in truck #3.)

As we took the detour though, it hit me, if we hadn't had those delays we might have been right in the middle of that melee, or may have had a bad time dealing with the slick ice. Wheeew!

I learned a lesson on this trip, to be thankful for 'irritating' coincidences, they might just be miracles in disguise!!!

Things to make you go "hummm!"

Hey, got this forward from my Mom. I really enjoyed these and wanted to share them with you.


Read Each One Carefully & Think About It a Second or Two


No man or woman is worth your tears, & the one who is, won't make you cry.


Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have..


A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand & touches your heart.


The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can' t have them


Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.


To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.


Don't waste your time on someone, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.


Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.


Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.


There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting & just be more careful about who you trust next time around..


Make yourself a better person & know who you are before you try & know someone else & expect them to know you.


Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.


REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Overdone!

Grettings and welcome to 2009.

You know, as a 38 year old, you'd figure that I would have learned how to do things in moderation and to pace myself.

Guess what? Nope - hasn't happened yet! :)

Oy vai!

Had my two trips at the beginning of the week. On Wed morning, I woke up with a bit of a stuffed nose and the beginnings of a sore throat. I should have just taken it easy and got to feeling better, but nope - couldn't do that.

Ran to two stores, to pick up videos for the kids to watch at the New Years party and do the grocery shopping. After getting home and putting the groceries away, we ran to the guy working on our home refinance to deliver some papers. Then off to a thrift store to find the family some 'hawaiian' shirts for the church surfin party on Thursday.

Once we did that, we meet my in-laws at Olive Garden for lunch and the to the mall, back to Build-a-bear for the girls to use up the last of their Christmas gift cards.

Back home we all took naps to be able to stay up until midnight - Doreen had to get the girls and me up, or we'd would have probably slept the night through.

At our friends house, we had lots of fun Wii, playing a board game, laughing, talking, eating and bringing in the new year, then setting off some fireworks. (My nose was starting to seriously run at this point.) We got home about 1:30a and crashed.

The next morning, Thursday, up at about 8:30a and make breakfast for me and the kids, then I run off to help some friends move. Which was a disaster, cuz the apartment wasn't packed, except for about 12 boxes and the duplex she was moving into was still being vacated. We loaded up the trucks, then waited 3 hours before we could unload.

Finished up and back home about 2p, grab a quick nap and the back to the church at 5:30 to help set up for the New Years party and stayed until 9:30p.

Then drop exhauseted into bed.

Friday, I did NOTHING, except blow my nose of course. The kids and I played a little DS, watched some TV and a movie and just chilled.

Today, Saturday, I'm playing hookie from church so I can hopefully feel good enough to run my trip for work tonight. We'll see.

It has been 3 years since I've been home on New Years, so I wanted to participate in ALL the activites and not miss a moment. I did, but I'm paying for it now! :)

Maybe moderation sinks into the mind permanently after 40? Probably not!

All in all, parties, sickness, activites - it has been a very good week.

Happy 2009!!! :)

Surfin' in the New year

Our church social committee planned an event on New Years evening, 'Surfing in the New Year.' It was a beach theme with everyone to wear beach attire and we had some surfing tunes and some fun games and surfing door prizes and some yummy food.














Doreen was in charge of the music for the devotional. She and another lady got up and lead us all in some fun worship songs.















I ended up taking quite a few pictures of the event, especially the boogie boarding station where I snapped pics of many of the attendees boogie boarding in TN.

It was a LOT of fun!

Happy 2009!

Happy New Year!

This was my first New Years home in the last 3 years, since I started my most recent job. Our friends Shannon & Janee' invited us over for an evening of fun with friends, so we went.

One of the activites we did while there was to play a little Wii Bowling. Here's Doreen perfecting her throw!












My father-in-law, Larry, is getting ready to go for a strike.


















Our host, Shannon, partaking in some of the goodies we all ate that night.

















Our hostess, Janee', whipping together some delicous pizza bunz! Yummy!


















My mother-in-law, Sandra and friend Jackie (Shannon's Mom) wearing their Happy New Year crowns!












This is the first year we let the girls stay up until the New Year started. (Of course we all took naps earlier in the day to avoid tired, grumpy, grouchy, winey, fighting kids - They did GREAT) We're counting down and they're getting ready to blow their noisemakers for all they were worth!






Their is nothing like bringing in a new year with some good friends like Cheryl & Tracy!

















This little newborn was celebrating his first new year with his parents and the rest of us. Looks like he had a little too much to drink and passed out before the ball dropped and didn't get to blow his noisemaker!








After the ball dropped and we hugged all around we went out and set off fireworks to send off the last of 2008 and bring in 2009 with a bang. The kids had a ball with their sparklers too!

Hope anyone who reads this will have a blessed 2009!!!

Happy New Year!