Friday and Saturday

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FRIDAYS ACTIVITIES:
(Sorry we forgot to take pictures. Next time we’ll do better.)

Friday Morning- (Natalie’s Day off) we woke up at 6:15 to shower and made our way up to St. James to meet for breakfast with some church family and friends. Tyler met with Aaron and Phil while Natalie met with her mom (Holly) and Kathy. It was a great time of conversation and lots of laughs. While we were there we also saw the Grubaughs and Whonsetlers eating, what a small world.

Friday Afternoon- we had a visitor, Amber Grey, a former member of our youth group. It was good catching up with her and being able to fill each other in on life and our hopes for the future. It was great having her back in town, although it was too short.

Friday Night- We met up with Glen and Natalie Robinson. Glen is a Wesleyan Pastor at Etna Ave. Wesleyan Church in Huntington. We met for dinner at Biaggi’s, which was delicious and then went on to Starbucks where we enjoyed lots of great conversation and actually discovered that we have quite a bit in common with them. Turns out Glen and Natalie were married on the very same day and year as Tyler and me (May 31, 2003)! We share a lot of the same passions including Tyler and Glen’s love for Israel. We look forward to continuing in a friendship with them. Needless to say we had a lot of good laughs and a great time.

Friday Late Night- We went up to LWC to visit the very enthusiastic and committed youth who were taking part in the 30 hour famine. What a huge group having so much fun and their night had just begun. As you would expect, since they weren't eating any food, the Gatorade was being chugged by the overactive teens all night! There were approx. 20 people and their goal was to raise $1000.00 for starving children. We are so proud of our youth, and Aaron and Jenny are so good at what they do.

Saturday- Tyler and I, for the first time in months and months watched movies, did a little cleaning and slept. How refreshing it was! We haven’t had the opportunity on a Saturday “to do nothing” for a long time. We don’t do this kind of thing very often but once we finally do it feels so great!

FREE Digital Camera

Just wanted to encourage all of you to check out our friend Zack's blog. He is giving away his old digital camera for free. All you have to do is enter into his Free Camera Giveaway Contest. Check it out by clicking HERE.

7 Deadly Sins

Hey just wanted to let all of you know that we are doing a sermon series at our church right now called 7 Deadly Sins. We've covered three of them so far...Pride, Envy, and Greed. Check them out if you get a chance. To listen to the messages go to our Pastor's Blog at www.lwcpastor.blogspot.com

Massage Video

We weren't going to post this...but since Aunt Carol requested it we decided to go ahead and do it. Enjoy!

State Wrestling Tournament

Friday we made our way down to Indy for the State Wrestling Tournament. My bro-in-law (Natalie's brother) Joel made it to state for the second straight year. The tournament began on Friday night. Joel wrestled a guy from Indianapolis and totally outwrestled him. The frustrating thing though is that the guy Joel wrestled got a few cheap points and then stalled the entire third period. He didn't even give Joel a chance to wrestle him. It's too bad some guys try to win that way. Joel did get beat 4-3. We were so proud of him though because of how great he wrestled. Congrats BO! We love you man!

After the Friday night portion of the tournament (that got over around 10 pm), we tried to kick some of our winter blues with a visit to Cheeseburger in Paradise...so good! We got back to the hotel around midnight and went to bed around 1 am.

Saturday morning (after sleeping in), we ate breakfast and wasted some time playing a game substitute for the summer time classic Corn Hole...it's called BUTTON HOLE. Basically the way we play is I lay on my back on the hotel bed and press my shirt down into my belly button. Natalie then takes spare change and tries to land it on my belly, and even better in my belly button hole (score it basically the same way). We were going to show pictures, but figured the mental images you have would cause enough nightmares. Try it at home sometime...it's sure to be a hit.

Another thing we tried at the hotel involved a card on display in our room (See picture below).

It's obvious it's a promotional piece for their hotel...we saw it though as an opportunity to try to get our sister-in-law (Jordan's wife Sara) to do something dippy. We told her that we weren't sure what the card was supposed to do...that we had all tried it (put our head on the card and closed our eyes) but nothing happened. See picture below of me "trying it out."

We asked Sara to try it out to see if she could get it to work. She did of course (see picture). What fun...we are cruel.

After spending some time with the family at the hotel, we decided that since we were in Indy we would stop by to see our friends Matt and Natalie. We caught Natalie just before she went to work and spent a little time with Matt at their house. It was great spending even a little time with him. I wish they'd move to Fort Wayne.

Then we went for lunch at Bahama Breeze (thanks P and K). It was great. We were stuffed and ready for a nap (we didn't get one though).

Instead of napping, we went to visit Natalie's counsin who just moved to Indy as well. Finally we headed home. What a full day!

Valentine's Day

Natalie and I emerged from our Blizzard of 2007 hibernation on Valentine's Day to enjoy some much needed and much appreciated time together...just the two of us. We decided to go for the classic dinner and a movie date for V-Day.

We began the evening with dinner at Cheddars. We started with some Spinach and Artichoke Dip appetizers, and then Natalie had Key Lime Chicken and I enjoyed a full rack of ribs. We ended with desert (a cookie monster) and to top things off Cheddars gave Natalie a chocolate covered strawberry and a red rose. It was a great start.

After that we went to the movie theater and watched Music and Lyrics. It was a good Valentines Day movie...basically a chick flick...but a good date movie. We both enjoyed it.

It was a great V-Day. I thank God for my wonderful wife and am so glad that we get to journey the adventure of our lives together.

Guess the Logo

Most of us see some of these logos daily. Try out this little game and see if you can identify which logo is the real one. If you do it...let us know how you did.

My time was 1:28:93 and my rank was 52.61%

Click HERE to play the game.

Pictures from Leor's Visit

Leor, Natalie, and I getting ready for the Super Bowl.

Leor with Natalie after giving her a new necklace for her birthday.

Where Have We Been!!

So sorry to those of you who are still checking out our blog even though we haven't updated it forever. Thanks for your patience and for sticking with us. It has been a full few weeks...I will try to summarize.

Since returning from Israel a little over a month ago we have...

SHOWN OUR HOUSE so many times. For those of you who are interested, we haven't sold it yet, but based on the interest people have shown, we are confident we will (at least we hope so). We had one offer that didn't work out, and many others who have considered offers. We'll keep you posted.

ENJOYED THE BEGINNING of a new season of 24. What a great show. Can't wait to see where things head. The only scary thing is that much of what is happening in the show could easily happen in real life before long.

CHEERED ON MY BRO-IN-LAW at conference, sectional, and regional. He is wrestling his way towards a second straight trip to the Indiana High School State Wrestling Tournament. He will be wrestling at semi-state this Saturday. GO JOEL!!

SOAKED UP TIME with my grandmother during the last two weeks of her life. What a special person she was...she loved so many and influenced all of us. She truly set a example of what it means to die as a child of God. I will miss her dearly, more than most folks know. However, I rejoice that she is where she is. Praise God!

HOSTED OUR FRIEND and tour guide from Israel. Leor came and stayed with us Saturday February 3rd through Tuesday February 6th. What a blast...and what a blessing to be able to spend time with him so soon after our trip. It seemed to be a real encouragement for him...it certainly was for us.

CELEBRATED NATALIE'S BIRTHDAY on February 5th. Even in the midst of my grandma's death and Leor's visit we were able to celebrate Natalie's 23rd. I praise God each day for her but especially on her birthday. I could not ask for a better wife and friend to spend my life with.

MOURNED THE LOSS by Da Bears at the Super Bowl this year. Congrats to the Colts. I'm real glad for Dungy...still can't stand Manning. It's just a game though...and there's always next year. Looks like I'll be wearing my ten year old Salaam jersey at least one more time.

As you can tell, we've had a lot going on. I will add pictures when I get a chance. Thanks again for your patience. We hope God is blessing each of you greatly.