Honoring Stan

We have been in the process of looking for a new youth minister. Our current youth minister, Stan Phipps, is going to become our Family Minister. The search for a new youth minister seemed to go on forever (but I think in actuality was only about a year) and I can't imagine how frustrating it must have been at times for the committee. First of all we had to replace someone who has been great and with us for 15 years. Then they had to find someone who believes what we do and they felt would 'mesh' well with our kids. On October 3, Chuck South along with his wife Bethany and son will start their work with the Bartlett Woods church. I am really excited about that, especially since Kaitlyn will be in the official youth group in a year and a half. I am also excited about the new ministry for Stan. Well I guess it is not a new ministry but now we have someone specifically geared for family involvement.

This past Sunday we had a meal and honored Stan and his 15 years of service as our youth minister.




We had a panel of past and present youth group members to answers some questions about their time with Stan and favorite memories.



Then we presented Stan and his wife Janelle with a trip to Yellowstone as a token of our appreciation.

Disney on Ice: Let's Celebrate

We went to Disney on Ice on Friday night. The show was really good! If it comes to your town, definitely get tickets and go see it. I took a ton of pictures (155 to be exact). Of course not all of them are any good but when trying to decide which pictures to upload here I realized I could not post all that I wanted to so I think I am going to upload them to my facebook photos (which I hardly ever do). I did take a couple of videos too.















And for some reason I can't get my video to upload. I will try that again later.

how young is too young to learn how to text?

Ashley plays with Luke's old iphone (and gets mad if you try to take it away from her). The apps still work with wi-fi even though the phone has been turned off and has a cracked screen. We were sitting at the kitchen and suddenly Lora gets a text that looks something like this:

hadnfklnkleihewihklnjktheikliwlwn

So we go back to Ashley's room and there she is sitting and texting.








Silly girl!

Buckeye family day at the zoo

Buckeye had family day at the zoo today so after Kyle's soccer game we went down there for a while. At least to get a free lunch.





Kyle loves to look at the maps





I love to go into the bird exhibit. And it is totally worth the dollar it cost to get a stick with bird food on it to feed the birds. I get some of my favorite pictures here.









Then we wondered over to the Teton Trek



The grizzly bears were very active. They were wrestling with each other and swimming all around. One of them jumped on the glass and scared this poor little girl almost to death. Then about 5 minutes later jumped on the glass again and scared some more little kids (including Kyle).



We watched the Sea Lion show



And saw the hippo actually out walking around and not in water



Then ended by riding some rides (doesn't John look cool!)

1st soccer game of the fall

Kyle had his first soccer game of the fall season this morning. We had a bye last week. He has switched from Bartlett to Arlington leagues. We are now playing with 3 other boys from church. There are 11 players total on the team. The field and the goal are a ton bigger than last year and they play 7v7 instead of 3v3. Plus they actually play positions. It is a big change for him but he is real excited to be on the team with his best buds. They tied with a whopping score of 0 to 0.

Kyle's 7th birthday party

I finally got around to having Kyle's 7 yr old birthday party tonight (his actual birthday was on the 1st). He wanted a water gun party at the church building so I thought that would be pretty simple. WRONG! I bought water guns and water balloons at Dollar Tree well in advance. I was going to fill up the balloons at home and then put them in a laundry basket to transport them. John said you know that probably is not smart, what if you hit a bump and they bust, water will get all in your car. I said well you are probably right. So I get to the church about an hour early to fill up the balloons. Here is what the faucet looked like:



Yep, no handle to turn the water on with. Thankfully they haven't changed the locks on the back door yet so my key still worked but the little adapter that comes with the balloons to fit over the faucet to aid in filling up the balloons does not fit on indoor faucets. ARGH! oh well, my brother filled up the big container I brought for the water guns and rolled it outside for me.

First we had pizza and cupcakes.

Silly boys



I told Kyle and Lucas to wave at me. One of them listened, one of them ducked behind the fence. Oh well, it is a cute picture of Lucas anyway.






Then they had their water fight:











Then Kyle opened his presents (and enjoyed them all)









And the boys (minus Ryan who left a little early and I couldn't convince the siblings to join in the picture)