Just an update

It's amazing how so much can happen in a short amount of time, and yet keeping up with the blog seems to get missed.

There has been so much that has happened since the last post, but I will just update you on a few things.

May was a very busy month for us. As mentioned in the last post, we spent pretty much the first week of May in Florida. Then it was my mom's birthday, the high school graduation, open houses, helping with the planning of a baby shower and a wedding, and along the way, being a wife and a mommy.

I get the opportunity to help out with a wedding of one of our teens that graduated from the academy here and then graduated from bible college. It will be a lot of fun. She is a very sweet girl, and we are very happy for her.

I am also helping to plan a baby shower for one of my friends from the church. This is actually their third child (all boys), but the first one she has had while a member of the church. We are also sad as they will be moving out east in July. Her husband does the same kind of accounting work that Brian does, and he accepted a position with a company out east, as he will also be starting some seminary classwork as well. We will miss them, but we are glad to see how the Lord has worked in their family.

On our front, Brian will be starting a new job later in June. It is really neat to see how the Lord has provided different opportunities for Brian's career over the years and how his path has grown, and we are excited about this opportunity. Brian has had the opportunity to do what he does at a couple of companies, but this position will allow him to really tie in all his experiences into one chair. It is a smaller, newer company, and Brian is really excited. He will not only be doing his reporting duties, but he will also be able to help with establishing policies, creating procedures, and getting to play an integral part of a growing organization.

Jackson will be four years old in less than six weeks! I have a very hard time believing that! It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital, and now he is all grown up, trying to sound like an adult, and providing much entertainment in our house. His favorite thing in the world right now is baseball. He could play it for hours. Brian already doesn't like pitching to him, as he has been beaned several times by Jackson's hits. Yes, he is not even 4 and hits live pitching! Brian even started to pitch to him overhand last week (soft pitching of course) and Jackson hits the pitching pretty much the length of our backyard. Pretty soon he will not be able to play back there.

Jefferson is 19 months old now, and is really going to be the one to keep us on our toes! He gets into everything, has very little fear, and just keeps going back for more. He is also starting to say words. He talks up a storm, but as Brian says, most of his talking sounds like Klingon (which is an odd statement, since neither of us watch Star Trek at all), but he can say mommy, dada, hot dog, puppy, etc. He is so much fun to watch as he tries to keep up with his big brother. He is JT's shadow. If Jackson does it, Jefferson does not want to be left out. We are so glad for both of our boys health.

Well, no pictures or anything, but I just wanted to give you a brief recap of our lives.

Vacation is so WONDERFUL!

Sorry that it has been so long since the last post, but we have been rather busy. We went on a family vacation with Grandpa and Grandma Meier from Saturday, April 28, through Saturday, May 5. We rented a house just outside of Orlando, and it was absolutely wonderful. We had a five bedroom house with an enclosed swimming pool and spa, with a private dock to the lake in the back. With the exception of Friday, every day was mid-90's with not a cloud in the sky! A far cry from Minnesota.

The flight was Jefferson's first, and he did tremendous! The only time he fussed was the last 20 minutes, and on a 3 hour flight, that is fair. JT is the seasoned traveller, and he enjoyed it, as usual.

Once we got to the house, the rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful.

Early Sunday morning grandpa and JT went out for JT's first attempt at fishing. We were lounging around when all of a sudden grandpa and JT started to get extremely animated. Brian went out there to see that grandpa had caught a baby alligator (the one in the picture). Brian got out there and was looking at it while grandpa started to tease the baby with the fish he caught. Brian looked up and saw the 8 foot mama (also in pictures) swimming in hard and fast. At that point all lines came out of the water and the cameras came out! The alligators never tried to come up the bank, but when you are on a dock five feet above the water looking straight down at the alligators, it is rather impressive.

On Monday we met up with the Schaffers, friends of ours from Northland who were also in our wedding, up in St. Augustine. It was a beautiful day. We toured an old fort, the historic part of town, and then had a great seafood supper.

On Tuesday evening we took the boys to their first baseball game ever. It figures that we have to go to Florida to take the boys to a Twins' game (it was great timing though). Brian tried to get JT down to get an autograph, but we just missed it. It would have been neat too, because the last player there was Torii Hunter. Now, for all you that have attended baseball games in the past, here is your chance to get jealous. In the first baseball game he ever attended, JT got an actual foul ball game ball! Actually, a guy a couple rows in front of us caught it, but he gave it to Jackson. All in all a fun time.

On Wednesday we went back to the beach. The boys absolutely loved the Gulf of Mexico! We had no sooner got there and Jefferson tried to eat as much of the beach as he could. JT loved digging in the sand and looking for shells.

Thursday was a different day as grandpa and grandma went out for the whole day with friends of theirs, so we had a day to just the four of us. It really was a great, relaxing time.

On Friday we all just relaxed and enjoyed the pool again. It really is nice to be able to swim every day and not worry about having a bunch of people jumping all around you. The boys were relaxed, so they really had fun in the pool.

As with anything else, all good things must come to an end. On Saturday we flew back home, but we did not want to. When we took off, it was 95 degrees in Orlando. When we landed in Minneapolis it was 57 degrees! Enough said there.

Enjoy the pictures of the trip.

It has been a while...

I apologize that I haven't posted for a while, but those of you out there with young children can relate. Of course, who isn't busy anymore, right? Life has been pretty hectic here since the end of basketball season. My husband thought that once his season was over that life would be a little more regulated, but boy was he wrong! We have been running pretty crazy right now. In March, Brian was very busy with his job and the SEC filing that he does for his company. The first full weekend of April was Easter, the second weekend of April Woodcrest (my church) hosted a Deaf Retreat, in which I was in charge of the kids program and also helped in the music. Then the next weekend we went to Brian's parents for the weekend.

The boys are growing like weeds and are more and more fun each day. Of course, two "very busy" boys can create all kinds of not fun situations too, but I just love the two little guys to pieces.

Anyway, I really did not have much to say at this point. I just wanted to get a new post out to let people know we are still alive, and that things are going well for us.

Just the boys

Sorry it has been a while since I have put up any pictures of the boys, so here are some pictures to enjoy.

This IS Minnesota!

It only took about 5 years, but we finally got a snowstorm kind of worth talking about. We had about a total of 12 inches (I know, for Minnesota that seems small), but it makes us glad we don't live in those areas of New York. We have gotten about 22 inches on the year, with another 6-12 inches supposed on the way the rest of this week, and that is about how much some of those areas out east got in a 24 hour span! At least the boys get to play with their new sled more now.

A seven year career comes to an end

Well, the basketball season is finally officially over. The MACS tournament was this past weekend, and the boys placed third. They were seeded first, but the team experienced a couple of issues and problems on Friday night and came up just a little short in their first game, but responded wonderfully on Saturday afternoon. The girls were also seeded first, and took second place, so all in all, it was a great year for Woodcrest basketball. The girls ended up their season 17 - 3 and the boys ended up 16 - 4. We were very proud of both teams this year.

What is even harder to believe is that after seven seasons, Brian is not planning ahead for next year. It was a hard decision for him to come to, but he has decided that now is the right time for him to hang up his whistle and focus on some other things that he feels he needs and wants to accomplish before the boys get into high school. Actually, he was really debating whether or not he was even going to coach this year, but after we talked it out, he knew that he needed to see this last group through. He said that even though he went out on a winning note, that when that final horn went off on Saturday, a whole flood of emotions came over him. He really enjoyed coaching, and I am sure that down the road he will manage to get back into it, but I am glad that he was able to have that opportunity, and that he said he feels like he can step down with absolutely no regrets.

As for our family, I will post another day all the fun and different things that have happened, along with some new pictures of the boys.

Another day in the life

Well, today I get to post (this is Brian) and update everyone on what has been happening in our lives lately.

This week I have had to do something that I have only had to do one other time in over 8 years of marriage - be a bachellor for a week. The last time was the summer of 2001 when it was just Jody and I. The story is that my mom had reconstructive surgery on her wrist last week Wednesday (January 31). My dad was home with her for a few days, but had to go back to work on Friday night, so after we beat Rosemount for homecoming, we all drove up to my parents house, and then I left on Saturday afternoon to come back home for some appointments, leaving Jody and the boys to take care of my mother.

Well, they were supposed to be coming home today, but my wife had left me a voice mail at work at 4:00AM and then called me on my cell phone on the way in to work to inform me that they were all pretty sick, none of them had slept the night before, and they are all miserable. We narrowed it down to food poisioning at a restaurant they ate at last night. She is tired, the boys are both so sick and miserable that all they can do is lay down and moan and wimper. So, needless to say, I will be home alone until this weekend, and they all need to get better.

Please pray for Jody and the boys to get better and for my mom to heal. Saturday morning she had to wake me up around 6AM to take her to the emergency room. She was afraid she might have had pneumonia, as her lungs were "bubbling" when she breathed. Fortunately it was just an infection in her lungs, not contagious, and easily curable with meds.

Other than that, I have been busy with work and basketball, so I am fortunate there. Otherwise I would probably be going nuts.