hours and hours of football

After nine last night when Steve and I had watched well over six hours of football, both championships, my girls had had enough. They lamented over both of their parents being fans of football. There might have been a tear or three. I assured them I was just being a good wife. I was not a "true" NFL football fan, just a fair weather, end of the season watcher. Plus I liked trying out the football lingo that I know, on Steve. Hey, a girls got to do, what a girls got to do, to get some attention around here. I am just afraid he thought this was a new habit I was starting yesterday. It isn't.

But today when I got the sad and unfortunate news from a dear friend of mine that her marriage was being assaulted, I was glad Steve and I had taken the time to have a date Friday, and enjoy each other's company over burly men chasing a ball. Effort, connection, attention, all of these play a part in making this thing called marriage successful. It also is great to be reminded that love is not just a feeling, but a commitment, vow, a covenant we have. Not one of us is immune to hard times and even the death of a marriage, but I think that is worth knowing and remembering at times. Not taking each other for granted. Recognizing each other's worth. Not making it work on my own, but needing to be needed.

As for my friend and her husband? God is in the business of restoration. He always has been. And, He always leaves it better than it was before the destruction. So there is hope. He is our hope.

Skating and other fun

Happy 8th Birthday Emma ! Skating party was the blast! Goodies bags were superior!

Uncle Aaron was scaring a few of us, lost his breath a few times, but was reliving his twenties.

Uncle David put on his old speed skates and showed how to do it backwards! The kids loved having some of the adults joining in the fun. Steve and I did not, and our kids called us "OLD" when we got in the car that night. We just smiled and agreed.

This semester we are focusing on Medieval Times and the Middle Ages. We are loving the curriculum The Story of the World, vol II.

The book series, "You wouldn't want to be..." in this case a knight in medieval times is an interesting look at times of old and how they lived.

This collection of beads was passed down from Ms. Brenda at church...I am still deciding if I need to "pay" her back or not. Stephanie was in her state of creativity and glory all afternoon. For some reason, Sunday afternoons become her zone for making things. It is quite interesting.

Ten inches

Here is my sweet nine year old who decided last spring to grow out her hair for locks of love. She came to the realization of "fake" hair by comparing her American Girl doll to her first 18" doll, a My Generation doll. The first doll's hair was so unmanageable and never felt nice. Her AG doll has always had such nice hair. I let her know that some children who experience a loss of hair have to have wigs made, and wouldn't it be a shame to have "fake" hair that never looked real. She made that choice that day to grow her hair out so that some other child might get a wig made out of nice real hair. Now over ten months later this is what we did tonight.

Waterfalls and floods

So, January did not just bring cold weather, but it brought waterfalls and floods to our humble abode. Monday morning as we were sitting at the table doing school, I heard a strange sound.

It sounded like water dripping. Fast. I got up and went in search of the noise and found water escaping out of the fluorescent light in our kitchen. What? was my response. I grabbed the trash can and then the phone. Called my grandpa. What else is a girl to do? So what that he is ninety and lives 30 minutes away. He calmly agreed I needed to go to the street, turn off the water and then call him back. So I tried. Not enough muscle. Three unfound neighbors later, I was running back inside to call the city. They came ten minutes later, but by then water was covering my kitchen floor and coming out of the air duct that is over the refrigerator.

The water stopped within a few minutes, but then I noticed the flood in the hallway. Yes, the flood. With a call to our insurance agent, we sat wondering what would be next. By the time the sun was setting, degrees were falling again into the low twenties, a company who removes water showed up. He brought fans and dehumidifiers. They pulled up carpet in the hallway and living room...oh the dust. Things will get better. We are just dodging machines, and trying not to step on the nail strips from the carpet. I have caught it a number of times, and boy do they hurt.
Nice water line on the carpet. Rumor has it, we will be getting new flooring. Blessings in disguise.

And this is the kitchen. Holes drilled in the toe boards to get the air flow in to dry it all up. Vinyl is pulling up and we are still doing school. We are grateful for this whole insurance thing.

Today found our great handyman up in our attic hunting for the source of the water. He found it in the copper tubing that was not protected by any insulation, but rather left to the freezing elements thus causing it to expand to almost twice its normal width. And then it cracked. And water sprayed. Very interesting how a freezing water can cause metal to just burst.

So, with God's protective and merciful hand on our lives and family, we are looking at minimal damage and restoration to our home. Good thing I home school and was home at the time, or we would have come home to our ceiling on our kitchen floor and our house with about 3 inches of water in our house.

The Winter freeze of 2010

With not an ounce of complaining, we are having record temperatures this year. We have had about ten days of super cold weather with about seven of those nights in hard freezing temperatures. We were planning on camping six months ago when we made reservations south of Tampa, but I SO called and cancelled them. Not just due to the cold, but because of a crazy week of sickness. Stephanie and I along with Sam and Aaron had undiagnoised food poisoning. It was bad people. Hours of bad. Then Olivia had to have round two of surgery on her mouth. Steve had his yearly bout of vertigo, which left him in the bed for 24 hours. Yikes. But in the midst, we had fun with the "snow".
The girls collected cupfuls off of the deck table. They would come in and warm up just to go back out and play.

They both gathered sheets of ice off of the top of our pool. We live in Florida. Amazing.

This happened about four days in a row.

Good thing we were prepared with mittens, gloves and hats.

This big cold event led us to the next adventure of our lives. Hold on for the ride.

Happy New Year: 2010

It was going to be a normal evening with the Wii and maybe watching the ball drop. Plans changed. We ended up in Belleview with a great group of friends that we consider family. I attempted some really good bacon-cheesey-biscuity yummies, but they did not turn out to be impressive to anyone...could this have been a hint for things to come? Nonetheless, the girls had a blast with friends and so did we.
Wings are always right.

Good friends to celebrate with.

Mah-jong. Fun!

The next day at our house we had our family toast. It was less heart felt since it was interrupting the game of tennis. We did have a great day one of the year! Twenty ten looks favorable.