Ok so i'm not a huge fan of college basketball. My thing is Pro football (Go Colts) and Pro baseball (Go Cards). As you can see i have had a pretty huge year, superbowl champs as well as World Series winners. My husband however is a college basketball fan. And March madness is upon us, so to inspire myself to get excited i decided to fill out a bracket, well i actually did two. In one i picked a whole bunch of underdogs and the other one is a little more realistic. I figured if i took the time to fill out a bracket and made my own predictions i might be a little more excited when the games are on. You know what.... It worked!!! I'm actually looking forward to the games now. Me, Bart, Suzie and Christian made a little game out of it. Whoever has the bracket that is closest to the final outcome gets bragging rights. Oh and this is just a side note, if my huge year continues, you can expect the Indiana hoosiers to come out victorious.

It seems like i always wait a couple of months to post and by then i have so much to say that sometimes i leave things out. Or maybe i just don't have a whole lot to say until a couple of months have passed. Either way, i will try and remember everything that has happened since i posted last. February was busy, Of course there are the church duties and the babysitting the nephews, that pretty much stays the same. We haven't had a whole lot of snow this winter and i was getting bummed out because i love to play in the snow. Every time they forecasted snow we didn't get a thing so I got to the place where i didn't pay attention to what they were saying anymore. On Valentines day (which is my parents anniversary) we got some bad new about my grandma. The nursing home called and said that she wasn't eating and it was only a matter of days. I thought i had pretty much dealt with the fact that Grandma was sick with alzheimers and her days were numbered, you see Grandma hasn't been herself for a long time now, but when we got that news it hit me and after i went to see her it hit me even more. On Feb 17th (my birthday) i woke up and there was snow on the ground, i could hardly contain my excitement. I sat there and watched it until it stopped which was a couple of hours or so. We ended up with 2 inches or so. I know it doesn't sound like much but when you consider we hadn't gotten any until then, it was a big deal. That night i got the news that Grandma had passed away. It was kind of bitter sweet. I knew she was in no more pain and that she was in Heaven but it is hard to say goodbye. I also got news that we were going to have to move into a new apartment. They were going to have to do some repairs to my apartment that they couldn't really do with us living in it. So we had two weeks to move. We moved the last of the stuff over on Sunday (Mar 4th) and on Monday Bart's Jeep broke down as well as the washer and dryer. The washer and dryer belonged to my Grandma and were purchased in 1967 so they had a good long life, they were this nice avocado color and were quite loud, not to mention the dryer took 2 hours to dry a load. On the positive side, i love my new washer and dryer and i love my new apartment. It has been totally redone and it looks a million times better than my old one. So that is what has been going on here. Stay tuned for the next installment, hopefully it won't be two months down the road.

What a wonderful whirlwind this past month has been. Of course this time last month i was down in Georgia we had Christmas with Bart's folks. Then when we got home we had to get ready for Christmas with my family. I waited until the last minute to shop (I know that doesn't sound anything like me, i'm not a procrastinator at all) Anyway, Christmas was good. Tina and her family were here, Steve and his unfortunately were not. That's the thing with a big family, sometimes everyone can be there and sometimes they can't. New Year's was fun. We had our first lock in with the youth group and boy was it a treat. I was a little concerned because during my training for this event, the latest i could stay up was like midnight. That was about 8 hours shy of my goal. So i decided to consume enough sugar and mt. dew to fuel an entire army and i made it (the fact that we had a monopoly tournament helped out quite a bit) Shortly after the new year we had what i call a moving extravaganza. My sister Lisa and her family purchased a new home so i was helping her pack and move and then Suzie and her family moved into Lisa's house so i was helping her pack and move. That process took about a week and a half. I am so glad it is over, and so is my body. Tonight we had the family over for an american idol party. I fixed some spaghetti with meatballs and these kick butt crescent rolls with a special ingredient in the middle (sorry guys, it is confidential, but if you bribe me i may spill the cream cheese) Anyways what was i saying, oh yeah, the party was good, it ended with some cookies and cream milk shakes and some tylenol because for some reason there weren't many talented people in minnesota. So that is pretty much what i have been up to. I'm a little on the delirious side right now. I think i need to get some sleep. Adios for now.

Sorry for the huge delay. It seems that being an aunt is a busy job. so here is a picture of the new arrival. And of course i'm very happy about the cards winning the world series.

So here is the 411 on what is happening. While we were the youth advisors at church, we took the teens over the bridge to my brother's youth group. We pretty much averaged two the whole time we were doing this. We were really wanting it to take off and grow but it didn't, so when they asked us to be the youth pastor's we were excited but we were also thinking how good of a youth group can you have with just two teens. Actually that was a fleeting thought, it was only there for a moment. Deep down we knew that God had more for the youth group. At our first meeting we had 4 teens. I just about started doing cartwheels right then and there. I know that some may think whoop pa di do, 4 teens, but to me it was increase and i was super excited. The next week we had 5 teens, again i was elated. This past wednesday was our third week. One of the girls that came the week before couldn't come so i was hoping someone would show up in her place, actually four did. WE HAD 8!!!! I literally started jumping up and down right before they walked in the door. Praise the Lord! You know what i'm most excited about is the fact that the kids that are coming are not "church" kids. They haven't grown up in the church, while there is nothing wrong with kids that have grown up in the church, it is exciting to know that we can be a small part in impacting these kids' lives. All they want is love, genuine love. You know, "the no strings attached" kind of love. Please pray that these kids will come to know Jesus as there Lord and Savior. Pray for me and Bart as we endeavor to lead them.

Where in the world is carmen sandiego? I know, I know, I haven't posted in ages but there really is an explanation for this, really.... I just need to think of it real quick. Lot's have been happening here. First of all, i am unemployed. It is awesome! There were several people that tried to tell me if i quit my job that i would be bored and I wouldn't know what to do with myself but Praise God they were wrong. In fact, when i stepped out and actually did it God supplied something to keep me busy. As of a couple of weeks ago, Bart and I accepted the youth pastor position at our church. This is a very interesting thing. You see Bart was approached by the pastor about this a few months back and thought he told me about it but i missed what he was saying (miscommunication) Anyways at the same time God was speaking to me about it, and to make a long story short, that is where we are now. The name of our youth group is called driven youth ministries and we have a website it is driven24-7.org God's timing is perfect, i am astounded when i think of it really. Please keep us in your prayers. I will post more soon

Last night i went to a tent revival. It was just like back in the old days, there was saw dust on the floor, at least i'm told that it was like that back in the day. Anyway enough about all that. The preacher said something very interesting and i thought i would share, She asked if there were any rebekahs in the audience. Then she went on to explain herself. In Gen 24:10 it talks about Abrahams servent going to a foreign land to find a wife for Isaac. It says that he took 10 camels with him. This is just a paraphrased version, you all can look up the story for more detail but in a nutshell it says, the servent was going to approach a woman who was drawing water and ask if he could have a drink, if the woman replied yes and i will water your camels too then that would be the girl for Isaac. Ok something that i never realized or paid much attention to was the fact that she gave the camels a drink also. I always thought well big deal she gave the camels a drink but i never realized what a big deal that was. Camels drink 20 gallons of water at one setting. 20 GALLONS, that is a huge amount. Ok so we are gonna do a little math here. If there were 10 camels drinking 20 gallons of water, that is 200 gallons. Evidently back in Bible times they had a container that held around 5 gallons that they used to draw from the wells. Ok so if we estimate that it takes around 15 minutes to draw 5 gallons of water from a well and you have to draw 200 gallons it is going to take you roughly 10 hours to do this little biddy task. What a servent. I mean she went one step further, all the man asked for was a drink for himself and her response was hey here is some water for your camels too. Her actions not only changed her life but changed the lives of everyone in her family. Anyway i thought that was very interesting not to mention thought provoking.