LOL

After youth group on Wednesday night one of the girls and I decided it would be fun to play a game with our sack chairs. The object of the game was to only put one foot on each chair. We had about 6 lined up. Tim was able to make it once. I made it across 5 and josh.... well see for yourself.

Now thats funny. hope you all laughed like I did.

the hike

We all took a nice 4 mile hike this morning. I wasn't sure how well Hugo would do, but he did fantastic. There were two times when i had to pick him up because the rock was to high but other then that, he walked the entire way. when Doc and Jonnie were in front of him, he would try and pull so he could be up with them. Then we got to the water and he did great. He has been afraid of a lot of thing lately, so i wasn't sure how he would take to being in the water, but he dove right it. It was very cold and at some spots very slippery. Doc and Jonnie are pros at getting around, so it was cute to see Hugo try and keep up. Hope you enjoy some of the pictures. All of them will be on Facebook later on.

ohh the dogs

So I thought you'd might like to see some pictures so far from being in Virginia. Hugo is having the time of his life. I know he's loving not being stuck in his crate all day. And the weather has been so nice out, it puts us all in a good mood.

Hugo likes to think that he can be dominate over Jonnie. He also thinks everything belongs to him. Jonnie put him in his place very fast. Jonnie is good with him. Jonnie is very much a morning dog. He comes out of his crate ready to play. He has very good manners and is a good example for Hugo to be around. But oh man it's so awesome to watch them play. Hugo tries so hard to get on top of Jonnie, and Jonnie might let him for a second but then he gets right up and puts Hugo right back down. Its so great. Here are some action shots.



Doc really had a hard time with Hugo. Whenever Hugo would come over to Doc, he would show his teeth. We had to nip that in the butt ASAP. Then last night J was playing with Hugo and Doc just walked right over to Hugo, started sniffing and then was ready to play. It was so much more relaxing knowing they could play. By that point Jonnie was so out of it, he had no desire to join in on the fun. Now its all three dogs are best buds.


It was fun having all the dogs in the back together. Hugo is not used to begin in the back. So he tried to jump over the seat. I had to put an end to that.

J thought it would be fun to take the Dogs to his friends Ty's house. They have two dogs. One that is not to active and then their is Buddie who is crazy. He's a beautful dog that runs very fast and find a Frisbee just using his nose. The creek was beautiful. It was hard to get a shot of the three dogs together because Hugo wasn't to sure about the water and Jonniw kept running off with Buddie.

So i just got a message from my brother that since it was my day off I should update my blog. I know i haven't blogged in a very long time. Reason being I haven't known what to blog about. Right now things aren't bad but they aren't fantastic either and didn't want to blog about negative stuff without a silver lining. So instead I want to share about my awesome dog. I really do have so much love in my heart for him. I love it when i walk in the door and he is standing in his crate waiting for me shacking his butt because he has no tail to wag. I love watching him with Josh. Josh likes to hold Hugo like a baby and Hugo breaths really loud because he doesn't like it.

Look at what a stud he is!!! He knows that if he wants me to throw his toy he has to sit. This is him sitting waiting for me to throw his toothbrush. I just think this picture is worthy for a bulldog calender.

Here he is getting his toothbrush. Look how big he's getting!!!!

He really isn't that fat but the way he was sitting makes it look like he's that big. He really like that spot on the couch as well.

he really loves his toothbrush!

But he really loves his mommy!!!!!

"my brother"

The other day I asked my mom if she had any of my old school stuff. Turns out she had a lot of it. I came across this book I wrote. There is no date or grade and I don't remember writing it but I thought it was to cute to keep to myself. It's hard to read off the picture so I'll give some captions for you.

"My Brother" by Corrie Entwistle


Hi!My brother just woke up from his nap. "Mommy

i"m not tired any more." He jumped from th top pf the step! He tumbled

and tumbled and tumbled! Finaly he stopped and he said "I'm tired!" Here we

go again. "A-a-a-a!" Since it was dinner time, J.J. fell into his food.

My mom read hi a story. He fell asleep. Now it was time to go home. He never to

go to sleep. The next day he didn't wake up. He slept through the whole thing. It was

funny and because he snored. We laughed for a long time. J.J. woke up and he laughed too.



I don't know why I wrote that story especially because most of the time my brother and I were not getting along. I hope this made you laugh or help bring back memories of simpler days in elementary school.

one very long weekend

It comes with the territory i guess. Josh planned a dodge ball/snowboarding weekend. It all started on Friday. I was at work until 6 and then i had to go to my parents house to switch cars for Saturday. Then I ran home, packed cloths and stuff for our night at the church and the snow trip the next day. By the time I got to the church there were already 4 teams of 6 their. And that was just the beginning. We had 10 teams, spectators, and honored guests (our pastor and his wife). Needless to say it was very loud and very smelly.

This picture captures a lot of what the night was like. In the Back there was a room crammed with kids hanging out and eating chick-fil-a. Then in the front you have a kid pointing at another kid to make sure I knew he was out.

One of our students, kyle, was nice enough to make me a shirt so people knew who i was. This time they had no problem getting in my face about calls. There were times when my hands were shaking because i was getting so nervous around them. When all was said and done, everything turned out fine. Josh did a nice talk about dodging all the crap in your life.

what would be an event without my awesome dog being there! look how big he is!!! Once all the kids had left the church well after 12 it was time for the 10 of us to sleep. sleep??? whats that. Our friends Jeff and Kelly were nice enough to open up their home that is right next to church. Some of us were very tired and ready for bed (i was lucky to be with the girls that wanted to go to bed some time around 2)4:30 came to soon when we had to get up and get ready for snowboarding.

snowboarding was awesome. I've been a few times and everytime i go i get better and better. This time was especially nice because i was with people on the same skill level as me (except josh who can go 100 miles per hour and not care). I was very proud of my progress and i look forward to next winter going again. J, i know you will be really busy but we have to go at least once. Cheryl make sure he takes a day off to hang out with me and josh! Mom and dad can dog sit.

OHIO

Josh and I had the opportunity to go to Ohio for youth leaders. We were very lucky to get out of New Jersey. Our flight was at 6, we didn't take off until 7 which meant we were cutting it very close to catch out connecting flight. when we got out of the plain we asked if we could make it and the guys said if we hurried. Of course our terminal was not right down the hall. It was down the steps, down the hall, on the tram, through the crazy mystical tunnel, up the steps and then down in the middle of the terminal. When we got there we found that not only did we make it on time, our pilot wasn't even their yet. so we sat down and coughed for 30 min while we waited.
Once we got to Ohio, everything was awesome. The sessions were exactly what we needed. Josh is doing so much, in life, in work, in ministry, and in our marriage (in no particular order). Being at that place made us feel like we are not alone. We are not the only onces that are struggling. We are not the only onces that feel burnt out, or discouraged in ministry. All those people there have been through these things, and with the grace of God they have done it. And it doesn't matter if there are 5 kids or 500 in the youth group, everyone has their struggles but we all have the triumphs in the Lord.
I wish I could show all of you how awesome it was, but I could not find the camera when we got their. It wasn't until we were packing that I found the camera. So with a few hours left in Ohio we took some photos.

this is the hotel that we stayed at. It was nice because it was directly connected to the conference center.

This is Josh and Matt (a friend of ours from PBU) this is us walking to the "mall". This is where we found....the second best bourbon chicken

Oh it was good. One day Josh and I had a very full schedules but we were very hungry. Josh had to get stuff from the room and I was in charge of the food. so yes I found the awesomeness!

dinner of niceness

On Saturday the teens hosted a dinner at church called the "dinner of niceness". The teens planned most of it. We were all dressed in white shirts, black pants, and pink ties. It was so great to see so many people from the church come out and support our teens. Some of the teens gave a short testimony about whats been going on in their lives and I think people were able to see that huge things are going on in this youth group. Hopefully this is just the beginning of the youth events that impact the church> like Josh said in his devo... Our missions trip starts right here in NJ.

Half the fun was getting the gym decorated. The lights took a long time. We had a super long ladder with one kid at the top and about five people at the bottom to hold the ladder. After all was said and done I think it looked awesome!

we did have some honorary guests. Avery being happy.... all the time!

My Beautiful parents...

The lovely Ange and Andrew. Thank you guys for coming up and supporting me and josh as well as the teens.

Of course no youth event would be complete without hugo!

smarter then your average bulldog

Hugo is getting really big, he's going to the vet tomorrow to get vaccines, so he might be down for the count for a little bit, but other then that he's been really active. He's learning how to "come" and "sit" by hand signals, which is pretty amazing. The only problem still is getting him to only go to bathroom outside. With time that will come. Well hope you enjoy. ok bye.

my dog is awesome!

This is our awesome dog! He has gotten so big, so fast it's hard to believe. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like wen we have a baby. Right now he is our baby.

His training is going very well. He used to not like to walk. It would be a fight most of the way and then he would sprint as soon as he sees the door. Now he sits before we walk out the door and walks by our side the entire time. And now he'll take long walks. We have a huge pond behind our house (a photo to follow) and he likes to walk around it.

Josh is doing a really good job with him. He is very assertive with his commands. Hugo knows that he is the pack leader. I do my part as well. He knows that he goes to the bathroom outside. But if he gets mad at me he will pee inside. that doesn't make me to happy.

Oh man he loves to sleep. He got really sick last week so i finally broke down and bought him a bed. He LOVES IT! He will go get in his crate just so he can sleep in his bed. One day (far from now) he will be housebroken and will be able to have the entire kitchen when we are not home. For now this will have to do.

As soon as i get a good video i'll show you how funny he is when we walks and runs. Until then I hope these pictures tide you over until you can meet him for the first time or for the 500th time!

Happy Birthday Avery

Happy Birthday Avery! It was a good day and a good group of people. Not to mention there was a ton of kids around. You had to watch your step, if not you could have stepped on one of them.

Avery got a ton of great gifts. It's easy to buy for a one year old because they wont remember anything. But pictures are worth a thousand words.

The cake was awesome....

as you can see :o)

ready....and dodgeball!

Last week Josh ad a Dodgeball Tournament at church. The kids had hug up flyers all around their high school to promote the event. We had at least one team from each school show up. (there are 4 surrounding high schools) plus one team from BBC. We had music, food, and most importantly.... dodgeball. It's such a classic old school game. I'm sure my dad and brother can think back on dodgeball in the bodine!

This is one of the kids, Kyle. He was on the BBC team called AA (affirmative action. He was in charge of making the shirts and he also made the sign that i think everyone of the teens took a picture with. (i will spare you all that weirdness)

At times the games could get pretty intense. 90% of these kids don't go to any church or youth group so some not so clean words would come out or an occasional finger would fly in the air. I understand that just because you are at a church that doesn't mean that you are "holy". I would make a comment or give a look because I didn't want to make them feel like they couldn't have a good time, but some respect needed to be shone. It was fun for me to watch Josh play. This is him in action. He takes dodgeball very seriously. People would gang up on him so he wouldn't get so many people out and you could see the frustration on his face. but for the most part he was a good sport about it.

I was in charge of reffing the game. Now that was crazy! there was always another reff on the other side of the gym (sometimes josh sometimes our friend adam) but it was always me. In the beginning, they were getting used to the rules and wouldn't put up a fight. Plus Josh said that if the argue with the ref then they would be out. IT wasn't until the last 1/2 hour when i started the get nervous. IT was the game before the championship. On one team a guy blocked the opposing teams ball with the one in his hand. The opposing teams ball flew in the air so he dropped his ball to catch it. I called him out because if you drop the blocking ball you are out. Well they didn't like that5 call and about three guys from the team started to gt into my face. JOsh was in the other room and didn't know what was going on. luckily Adam came over and made them back up. Oh man i mean they are only teen age boys... i probably could have take then (yeah right) but it got my heart rate up for sure.

during all this Hugo was being the best AA mascot he could be. A few of the girls took turns taking him outside and watching him so josh and i could keep an eye out on the teens. By they end of the night he was pooped! He better get used to it because we are having another one at then end of February! Any takers?

more hugo!

just a few more photos for your enjoyment. This was Hugo at our dodgeball tournament. I will fill you all in later on how all the dodgeball playing went.