"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.

Hugo is here

Oh yes! Hugo is here!!! Today Josh drove out to Revine PA to pick up the newest member of our family. He came with the name Max but we decided to change it to Hugo and i think it's awesome. He is a pure breed English bull dog. He is only 8 weeks old but boy is he big. He's got huge paws which tells us he's going to be one large dog. He is still a little timid with his new surroundings. We hope to be good parents from this wonderful puppy!

PowerSurge 4 life

This past weekend josh and i had the opportunity to go on a snow retreat with our youth group. It was AWESOME! we had a group of 6 guys and 6 girls. It was a nice mix of different groups within the youth group. We had sooo much fun just hanging out. We had about two sessions a day and then free time. OOOHHH the free time! Here is just a few of us just hanging out. There were about 250 kids at the camp at the one was time so it was nice when you did get a space just for you and your group. This is just a few kids that were there at the time.

It was nice to have SNOW!we had some pretty crazy snow ball fights... more like attack the closes person to you and fill them with snow. In the picture from top to bottom is Chelsea, Emily, Brianna, Chris, Kyle, and Tim. The best part was watching them all fall after they couldn't hold themselves up anymore.

I was introduced to a new game. Carpet ball. If you do't know what it is, allow me a moment to explain. There is a long table with walls and lined with carpet. On each end there are 6 balls and a white line about two feet from the end. There is one white ball that you role from your end and try and knock the other ball into the bottom section of the table. reading this it doesn't sound all that exciting, but it can get pretty intense. i was starting to loose my voice because i was yelling and getting so stressed out about it. eventually i had to stop playing because i was getting to carried away. Josh wants to get one and put it into our youth room.

And hen there was dodge ball. You had to make one team of 8 players. The game is a little bit of a sore spot so all i will say is that we had a lot more fun practicing. Josh and i lined the kids up against the wall and then threw the ball at them to see if they could catch it or dodge the ball. Oh man it was funny to watch them. Like i said the game wasn't great but everything else was great.

With all the fun that we had, it can't compare to the amazing life changing decisions some of the kids made. After each session we would go into small groups. Since we were one of the smaller youth groups, we just kept all our kids together to talk about things. The kind of things that the kids were asking and saying were awesome. You could see them thinking and you could see when all the dots would get connected and they would answer their own questions. a lot of them have been trying to read the bible in a year and have already seen God do things in their lives. They are such an awesome group of kids. I think sometimes josh and i forget how good we have it. Yes there is still a lot that still needs to be done with them and in their lives but steps have been made and it's all because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

All I have to say is POWERSURGE 4 LIFE!!!!!

Merry Christmas (a little late)

This Christmas was so awesome. all I wanted was to hang out with my family. I know my parents were happy that we were all there but at some times it was a little over whelming. As you can see Baby Gideon was always the peaceful one. He was such a snuggler. So much so it gave me a little baby bug.

Avery at Joe and Lori's wedding shower... thats right it's a shower not a shin dig. It was amazing having like 11 kids 5 and under. At least we had a good adult to kid ratio. To look at pictures of when i was a baby with all of my cousins and now to be one of the adults taking care of all the kids, oh how times have changed. We missed you Lawrence family!
















The Christmas trampoline. The fact that Jess and Josh's kids have more energy then the sun, we thought the trampoline would be great for them. the kids were so excited and they handled not being able to open it right away. My parent will be driving it out in the spring. The kids had just as much fun just jumping on the box. When they do get the trampoline up and running, we'll have to pray for safety! no hospital visits!!!













Jonnie is such a good dog. (as is Doc) but my dad was so cute laying with Jonnie. He's such a big dog. To look at him it could be a scary dog, but he is so gentle dog. He loves people and really cares about them. When my brother left his dogs with my parents christmas day, you could see how sad they were because their mom and dad were not around. But then they get attached to my brother-in-law josh and jonnie would follow him around. It's so nice to have a well trained and caring dog. I can't wait till josh and I get a dog and have an opportunity to train it and make it part of our family.















the long awaited family photo.Let's just hope that the number of people in the picture doesn't get any bigger any time soon. My parents house can't handle much more! So where's Christmas going to be next year?

It's Christmas Time!!!!

Tis the season for craziness! There is not one day where there is nothing to do. I'm sure you are all feeling the same way. Especially those of you who will be traveling this season! This is a snap shot of what i going on now a days. This is me and josh sitting in front of our first Christmas tree! Most of you will be getting this in our Christmas card.

This year the teens were recruited to be in the Christmas musical at church. Josh and I were not sure how well this was going to go over. It was a little easy because the teens that are involved with the Puerto Rico missions trip have to participate in whatever we tell them they have to be in. The program was on Saturday night and Sunday night. It was AMAZING! i was sitting in the front row making sure they were coming in on time, and i couldn't hold back my emotions! i cried tears of joy! the fact that we had 19 teens stinging in the choir which is the same number of people in the adult choir! needless to say they did a wonderful job and i could not be more proud of the teens and of josh for putting up with a lot in order for that night to happen. LOVE YOU JOSH!

picking out our first tree was a lot of fun. Growing up we always went as a family to pick out a tree. Never did my tree get picked to be the one to be taken home. well, in all fairness, i did pick trees that were really fat and way to tall for the room, but still i never picked the tree. When josh and i went it was very cold but a lot of fun. We made the decision together and i think it was a good one. Josh put the lights on as soon as we got home and said that it needed blinky lights... so we got some. I was in charge of putting on the ornaments. I had a shoe box with all 20 ornaments in it. The tree was looking pretty empty, so i got some of the ornaments from our wedding and we put them on the tree. It's looking better. Now all we need is a tree topper and a tree skirt but it is crazy how expensive those things can be!
This is josh putting his favorite ball on the tree! Lets go METS! I can't wait for all my family to come to our new home!