Christmas at Stone Mountain

Well we've tried to jam as much as we can into this Christmas season. On Friday we took the kids to Chuck-e-Cheese and had a great time. Saturday we went to Stone Mountain to see all their Christmas lights. They had about 2 million (literally) lights on display. We got to take a half hour train ride around the complex as well as watch a 20 minute clip of the Polar Express in 4D. Not too mention a little Christmas parade. Here are a few videos we took while we were there. We bought a new digital video camera, the Flip Video, nothing fancy but works great for it's size (a little bigger then a cell phone).

It figures that while we are in a drought...it rains the entire day we went. The picture may be a little dark but you should be able to get the point.

Enjoy...

Stone Mountain


More Stone Mountain. Kaylee watching the Christmas parade.


A Video from Chuck-E-Cheese.

Andrew's Baptism

Andrew made the decision a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to get baptized. The decision came after he participated in a fun weekend retreat, D-Now (Disciple Now), though Johnson Ferry Baptist Church which we have been attending for the past year. The weekend pretty much consisted of a couple hundred Middle and High school kids getting together for some bible studies, games, junk food, pillow fights, and a couple concerts. They were all broken down into small groups and they spent the weekend together at someones house. The church actually had people volunteer their homes to host these groups. Not a big deal until you find out that Andrew's group consisted of 12-14 6th grade boys!! Imagine opening your home to that!!!

At the end of the weekend Andrew made the decision that he wanted to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior and that he wanted to be baptized. Well they had a special service Sunday evening for all the kids who made that decision. They baptized, I believe, about 45 kids (30 Middle schoolers and 15 High schoolers).

Here are a few pictures from the service and the reception afterwards. They did the baptism via full submersion, not just a little drop on the head. The church has a full tank, typically hidden, up on the back of the stage so it was a little hard to get some good pictures. If you look just below the overhead screen you can see where the pool is.

We are very proud of Andrew and the choices he made on his own.

We're Moving Again!!!

In case you haven't heard the latest....We're moving again!!!

After some long conversations we've decided we need to move again. I know we have said that we were going to be here in Atlanta for awhile but the time has come to take our next step on to somewhere else.

After three to four nights in a row with temperatures dropping into the the 30's, even the upper 20's this morning, and only warming to the mid 40's during the day we've decided we've had enough and we're outta here! I mean my windshield was half covered with frost this morning...that's just crazy talk!!! We are not sure where we are going yet but this has just been too much, this cold weather is ridiculous!!!

We'll keep you all updated.

Disappointing Loss

Unfortunately we dropped another one Saturday morning. I think the 8:50 time slot was too early for a few of the boys. They just seemed to lack the hustle and enthusiasm they have had they past two weeks. We lost 19-22 and even had the chance to tie it up and take the lead with under a minute left, but we just didn't capitalize. To come back and make it that close was nice to see. We were down 4-11 at the end of the first and then tied 11-11 at the half. By the end of the third we were down again 13-20. So that made 2 quarters we held them to 0 and 2 points respectively. We just didn't play with the patience we have displayed the previous weeks.

Andrew did okay, he had a few rebounds (offensive and defensive) but no points. He is still trying to learn the game and how to move with and with out the ball on offense. His defense is his strength right now. Being the second tallest on the team (we have a short team) he usually gets paired up with one of their big men and typically does well guarding them. We are one of only a few teams in the league that dares play man-to-man, everyone falls back into zone coverage, but with our speed we usually do well with it.

We've dropped to 2-4 but after looking at the rest of the schedule we can easily finish 5-4 and make a good run in the tournament, when it really matters.

A Christmas Dance

I finally pulled out the Christmas CDs last night. Grandma Marty got us the Chipmunks Christmas last year and the girls love it. So we had a little Christmas fun before bed...

Warm weather

Here's my video intro...

If you have seen the weather lately then you know we have a warm spell going on...oh sorry to you Midwesterners going through your freeze though (honestly I'm not laughing). It has been up in the 70's the past few days (again, still not laughing). I took Kaylee and Allison over to the fields at the church Sunday to let them run around for awhile. I took a little video on my phone, sorry if it's small but I think you can see the fun we had, and yes we are wearing shorts.

Just a note that the voice at the end of the video is Kaylee even the it's Allison kicking the ball.

Some more of our little soccer star. Not bad for 15 months.

And a picture of Kaylee doing a little tumbling.

Good News / Bad News

Well I told you I would write more once I had some good news to report about basketball. Well, after this mornings game, now I do. We won a nail biter 27-26. The kids hung in there really well throughout the game and staged two 2nd half rallies (down10-14 at the half and down 19-24 late in the 4th) to tie it up as well as take the lead, only to loose the lead and then get it back for good once more with 26 seconds left. I spoke with the opposing coach after the game and he was telling me about the scouting report he had on us (seriously he got a scouting report from another coach on us, for U12 rec league bball). He said that he knew even though we were 0-3 we were "sleeping giants" (I think they were 2-1). Hopefully it's true and we turn it on for the tournament at the end of the year.

Now if you noticed the header of this post then you must realize there is some bad news coming. Unfortunately Andrew left his jersey sitting on the couch. He didn't realize it until we walked into the gym. By then the game was supposed to start, I am the coach so I couldn't leave, we drove the van with all the car seats so Mom wasn't able to load the girls up and bring it over and because they track stats they wouldn't let him borrow one from someone else (because of the numbering on it). So Andrew didn't even get to play in our first win. He did do a good job cheering on his team from the bench though.

Hopefully next week I will be able to post one of these titled Good News Good News.