Hangin' Tough?

Jaye and I picked up some "new" music last week at the Walmart. Whoh...oh..oh...Whoa Oh, these boys still have the "right stuff". Funny how music brings back so many memories. When Jaye and I were at Eastview working with the teens as Sunday School teachers/youth sponsors there was a young lady that was in "LOVE" with the boys. She and her mom went to a few concerts. We miss those days....funny that little teenie bopper is now a young lady with a husband and children of her own. We're proud of you, Jama, and who you have become. So all and all it was sure worth the $4.99 we spent to travel down memory lane.

Too Good Not to Share...

Laugh if you want, but you should really try this stuff. A few friends at church got me started on making my own laundry detergent. I'm a tried and true "Tide" girl and to say I was a bit skeptical is an understatement. But, raising 4 kids on one income we're always looking for ways to stretch that almighty dollar!! Since it only costs a few bucks to make I thought I'd give it a shot. I have to say, I was very impressed. Works just a good as my Tide and only pennies a load. I usually do 15-20 loads per week and those pennies do add up!!

Here's the recipe: 1 Bar of Fels Naptha Soap (Personally, I'd never heard of this stuff. My mother-n-law got a kick outta this because she remembers HER MOM doing laundry with it. If it's still around after this long, it must be good stuff). 1 cup of Borax and 5 gallons of water (warm enough to dissolve soaps). Grate the Fels Naptha and dissolve in warm water with the cup of Borax. Fill gallon jugs, either milk or water containers or empty detergent contatiners. I used 6 gallon jugs to fill just cause it was bubbly and would take forever to squeeze into 5.

Okay, so that's it. It's as easy as it sounds and works great. If you "Google" making your own laundry detergent there are tons of recipes. This is the simplest and works just fine! Now if only I could make my own Downey!!! :)

Baby Luke

This is Baby Luke. His daddy is the youth pastor at Fairmount Wesleyan. His mommy used to be in my youth group back when we were at Bryant Wesleyan. It has been such a blessing to watch their family grow. Mischele (his mommy) is one of those reminders to me that when things aren't going so well, ministry gets hard to do and you wonder if you're making any kind of difference, just to hang in there because once in awhile you'll have a Mischele in your ministry and sometimes they turn out wonderful. Luke is a beautiful little guy, what a blessing.

Joseph found this picture and his sister decided to relive some old memories. I really like this picture, its kinda cute.

Spring Break Day #4 Family Time

After work I was able to play a game of cooties with the little
ones. Anna won.

Spring Break Day #3

Took the youth to IWU for dinner

Then we joined Fairmount Wesleyan for youth meeting. Here we are
at the old Fairmount High School,

Spring Break 08 day #2

Big day at the Plaza Bowl

Spring Break 08 day #1

Our Trip to Marengo Cave

A visit to Milltowns famous "Shoe Tree"

Another Cave Picture

FYI

The Bears had a better record against the Packers during Walter Payton’s Hall of Fame career (17-7, .708) than Green Bay had versus the Bears during Brett Favre’s career (22-10, .687). This fact was taken from www.chicgobears.com. I am looking forward to this years football season.

4,723 and counting...

Just for the fun of it, when Joseph was born we decided to keep track of how many diapers he went through!! So we have...at the age of 2 years 3 months and 17 days he has used 4723 diapers!! As of now there is no end in sight. He does like his Bob the Builder potty seat but just to sit on while I run his bath water. We also have a "potty chair" but it is used to store his special toys (right now it has his Thomas trains in it)!! I'm not stressing though. The girls were trained by their 2nd birthday but Wesley wasn't done until he was almost 3. So once summer is here we'll get serious about it. For now we'll just keep adding to the total 4724...4725...4726!!

For those of you that like to do the math...yeah, approximately $1000.00 spent filling the landfills!



Our little, diaper dirtying boy!

So Long

Ok, I know I'm a little behind the news in this post...I just wanted to choose my words wisely.

In just about every Bear/Packer game for the last 5 years, the TV station will bring up a statistic that shows the GIANT list of Chicago Bear quarterbacks that have been starters while Brett Farve has been the starter for Green Bay. The list is really endless. Green Bay will be facing the idea of someone other than Farve lining up under center for the first time in years. This new generation of Packer fans hasn't known anything different. There are kids graduating high school this year that have only seen him as the starter. He was an NFL iron man. He was a Bear killer too.

I remember that last game that Walter Payton played. You've seen this picture of him sitting on the bench on the side line, both hands on his head holding his helmet as he looked down at the ground. That was a sad day not only for a Bears fan but for the NFL. When teams have GREAT players that leave the game, like Farve and Payton, things change. Packer fans of today will talk about the good ole days when Farve played week in and week out. His legend will grow.

Since Walter left the game, we haven't had any running backs that have come close to playing like him. There have been some guys really run the ball for a year or two. They were short timers, they didn't last. Green Bay won't see another QB like Brett again. They will win some games, maybe even a Super Bowl, but it will never be the same.

It's fun, the banter between me and my Packer friends. I have said as a Bears fan I'm glad he's gone because he really owned the Bears over the years. But as an old guy and a football fan, the game won't be the same. So-long Brett and thanks for the thrills.

Our Camera

If you remember, a few blogs ago I told you that our camera was broken at the District All-nighter. We dug out the receipt and found that the camera was less than a year old, well 11 months old to be exact. After a little research we learned that Canon has a one year warranty on their stuff. I have to say that we were a bit skeptical on what it would take to get the "warranty work" done. Let me tell you about the process. I first called Best Buy in Ft Wayne because that is where we purchased the camera. I was on the phone-on hold-for 22 minutes. You guessed it, I got angry and hung up. So looking around online I found the Canon site and called them. They were amazing! The dude I talked to told me everything I needed to do to get the camera to them. He was very knowledgeable, very friendly and very helpful. He said, "I'll send you an email with all the instructions as soon as we get off the phone." 5 minutes after we hung up I had the email. I followed the instructions and sent in the camera. I received another email from Canon saying they received the camera and that the cost was 0 dollars to fix. It was covered in the warranty. They also said it would be fixed within 10 days. Whatever, ten days, yea right.

I got the camera back early, it is fixed and works great. Canon is now my favorite customer care company. I am so impressed with their service. You get so used to being treated like you're at Wal-mart that when a company does a good job you're really impressed. I called them to say thanks and let them know they rock.

So many lessons to be learned here...I'd have to say that if your looking for a new digital camera check out a Canon.

Here's to Good Friends...

This past weekend at a school fundraiser I ran into one of my bestest friends ever!! Susan Cox (aka Shoes -n- Sox) and I were inseparable in our growing up years!! Her family took me with them on several family vacations!! We made memories to last a lifetime on those trips!! :) You can't imagine my surprise seeing her again...it has been YEARS. We still exchange Christmas cards each year and always mention getting together but that's as far as it goes. We both have busy lives, busy families...you know all the excuses. Anyway, it was great to reconnect! I found that with a true friend it doesn't matter how long it has been since you've seen each other...it just seems like yesterday!!

Jaye and Susan ~ Florida '86
Definitely the 80's with those shades!!

Susan ~ I could've picked other pictures but I knew this one
would get a comment out of you!! Love ya Shoes!! :)

New Youth Group Post Cards

Check out our new post cards. Thanks Stevan for the heads up on the freebie. Becca, one of our youth sponsors did the design, she rocks!

More Pix from Jessica

Ok while at the skating rink Jessica and I had a little fun with our big red gum wrappers. I made a gum wrapper dude, then Jessica did. The gum wrapper dudes followed us around the rest of the evening and Jessica captured their district overnighter adventure until her camera batteries died. Enjoy the photos.

Pictures

As we leave the Church

At the Rally~ view from up front

The guys

At the skating rink (the last in focus picture from our camera)

District Overnighter

Oh my, am I getting old or what? I was able to say up all night no problem but I did spend all of Saturday sleeping. I don't rebound like I use to. This weekend the district hosted an overnighter in Ft. Wayne. We took a van load from Chapel Pike. I was pretty excited that we were able to take two of our youth sponsors that have never been to a district event. I think they had a great time. We were expecting about 400 to show up but ended up closer to 600. It is one of the biggest district events we do. It was a good time. We started off with a rally and a pizza party at a school in New Haven. The rest of the time was split in two hour segments between bowling, roller skating, lazer tag and go carting. I'd like to add that I won two games of bowling beating everyone's high score from our group. The lazer tag was a good time. I think Amanda, one of our youth sponsors had never been lazer tagging before. While we are at the skating rink I asked one of the teens to take some pictures with my camera. I handed it to him and said, "Don't break my camera. Seriously be careful." Well, you know what I'm going to say next. I went up to him to get the camera back and it was broken. So there will not be any new pictures on the Holland blog. But other than that I think we had a good time.