Easter Dinner

I couldn't have asked for a better Easter Day. The girls wanted to go to church this morning. So we went early. The Easter bunny came here too. We had eggs and candy. It was a lot of fun to enjoy the girls on Easter Sunday! Then they wanted to spend some time on the beach which we did. Also, we threw the ball around. We hit some balls on the beach and ran two miles!! It was a good team bonding day. Tara and Craig and Paige arrived too.

I was most impressed by the Easter dinner. Everyone did their part Nd helped make it awesome! No complaints either. All the adults were truly impressed by the players and their cooking Nd cleaning skills. It was great. Today I am thankful for Easter with the team.

Saturday

Long car ride ends. We got into our house early. It was sweet! The girls were tired a d hungry. We headed straight to lunch and Walmart.

In the car, made a list of food. It was a long one. The we divided up who was getting what. We made it out of there in 50 minutes with $500 worth of groceries. I was very impressed with our girls and their shopping skills.

I'm thankful we made it trough Walmart quickly.

Friday

We made. Long. Long ride in the car. I'm thankful my team had a good attitude and stayed positive throughout the ride. :)

Four Days!

I had four days to get through before we hit the road to Florida! Doesn't seem possible. I'm looking forward to fun filled trip.

Good deeds

Today I witnessed a few good deeds by co-workers. However, after school, one of our teammates decided to do something above and beyond for another one. I witnessed some of the conversation too. It was nice to see two young adults be so kind to each other. :)

I'm thankful for some of my player another

14 at Practice

Tonight we had all 14 players at practice again. No drivers education. No New York trip. No sicknesses. It was 14 girls in the gym working hard. I enjoyed it.

I was thankful for a good practice tonight.

Baby Avery

Our good friends Amanda and Corey had a baby 13 days ago. We hadn't gotten a chance to visit them yet. I was starting to feel really guilty too. We leave for Florida soon and I really wanted to meet him before we left.

Tonight we got a chance to visit the Hackworth's and baby Avery. He was so cute!! Tiny and cute. Craig, Tara and Paige came too. I'm so happy we got to visit our good friends tonight.

I'm thankful it all worked out to go visit our friends.

CPL

Today instead of packing and working on softball trip items and instead of resting or napping all things I wanted to do, I spent 10 hours taking a Concealed Weapons Licensed class. What a long, cold day!

My sister Tara and I arrived at the class before 8am. We were both a little nervous. We sat and learned a few things we weren't aware of, but mostly we just listened. We ate lunch and headed to the gun range. It was muddy and FREEZING outside. I was really nervous to shoot the gun though. Tara was too. However, the instructor asked who wanted to go in the first line, we stepped up! Little did we know, it didn't matter, we didn't get to leave an earlier. Ha!

We shot over 85 rounds of ammo a piece. I have never shot that much ammo except for Bb's in our Daisy Red Rider in my teens. Killing bats in our barn was a little less intimating. However, we both did a nice job shooting. It got easier each round. I found myself asking if I could really shoot a gun at someone under the stress of a possible attack, possibly was my conclusion. I know though, I need more practice. The last round, the out knew paper up so we could see how we did. It was a successful final round!

Even though I'm still freezing, I glad I have taken the CPL class. I'm not 100% that I'd carry, but I'm thankful that the USA is the only country that citizens get the choice to protect themselves and carry.

Crazy Day

I dislike funerals. I really dislike family funerals. I especially dislike unexpected family funerals. Today, my family had to attend one. It was not fun to see my now older aunts and uncles at their worse. I can't believe they outlived their son. Awful. I hope my Family on my dad's side, can find some peace soon.

After a long morning of sadness, Josh and I had the pleasure of attending our first SAU softball game of the season!! Fortunately, it was 12 miles from the funeral. We were excited to watch Alexis and Tori dominate the left side of the field. They did this very well. Dispute the cold, I'm glad we were able to support our favorite SAU ball players.

I'm feeling pretty stressed about all the things on my 'to do' list before we head to Florida. However, Josh has been very helpful tonight.

I know this isn't really a list of things I am thankful for today. Certainly not the death of my cousin/God father either. However, I saw this picture tonight and thought this completely sums up my day. I'm thankful for my long day and that I was able to live another one.

Big YELLOW IPad!

Today we had a funeral visitation to attend for a family member. We tried to save some gas money and all ride together. Just the girls were all able to go with the kids. When I arrived at the park n ride, Wyatt was so excited to see everyone. Then as he saw me approach the van with my backpack, he asked, is the 'big yellow iPad' in there? I laughed. I then reached into the bag and pulled out the 'big yellow ipad!' I wish I could have recorded Wyatt's outburst of joy as he screamed, "it IS the 'BIG YELLOW IPAD'!!" He was so pumped to play games on it during our long car ride.

This made me really thankful for the 'big yellow iPad'!

Fun night!

Who wouldn't love a fun evening with our SAU College friends?

First they came to help with practice. That was wonderful. Then they came out to dinner with us at Panera Bread! Yum. We had to watch some NCAA Basketball. And of course some Grey's Anatomy. Loved it!
We tried to compete with some friends doing crazy skilled moves...you can see below. Fun times!

We love hanging out with Alexis and Tori. We are thankful to get a night to catch up with them!

Self Reflection - Compliments

I wish I could blog earlier in the day. They be so much 'more'. My apologies.

I don't think people give compliments enough in their daily life. If I look back on a single day, I've encountered over 75 interactions with people. That is a lot, but considering I work in a school, it's not. All day long, I have everything from a small 'hi' interaction to long insightful conversations.

Today, my day started with a conversation with a good friend. He complimented me. However, my prideful self didn't do a good job of accepting it and was rude by not saying thank you. After he left, I reflected on our conversation. An hour later, the opportunity to apologize and actually thank him arose. I did make sure I was thankful.

It made me realize that I do not give out enough compliments throughout my day. For the rest of the day, I made sure to give out many more. It was fun to see how others responded to them too.

I need to continue to make sure I compliment others daily. It's a nice thing to do and it also makes you feel good as well. It takes pride and respect to compliment others. I plan to continue this on my daily life too.

Today, I'm thankful God opened my eyes to the realization that I need to learn to accept compliments and dish them out more frequently in my life.

Generosity

Today I got to tell two different families that their $300 trip fee was covered by an anonymous donor. Even though it wasn't my donation, it felt good to tell the mothers the burden was lifted. It was nice to see tears in their eyes and hear sad joy in their voices. I was happy it made them relax a little too.

I'm thankful tonight for some generous people who are willing to donate for the good of others.

Cleaning

Today was a busy day. When I returned home, Josh had cleaned our entire bathroom. He's great. I'm thankful he's willing to help out around our house. ;)

Dinner at Moms

Today my mom invited us to her house for dinner. Just Josh and myself. We haven't been there for dinner in a while. I was pretty pumped about it too!! I didn't have to make dinner. Whoop whoop! I haven't been feeling so hot, so it was nice to just clean and not cook.

It was nice to have dinner with larry and my mom. We even had one of my childhood favorite dinners, steak and mushroom gravy. Yum!! Yum!! :)

I'm thankful my mom invited is to dinner tonight!

Youth Camps

Today the varsity softball girls, along with our JV Coach Janna and our assistant Donna, ran two youth clinics. I was a little nervous about the amount if girls we had coming. However, everything ran smoothly.

I was very proud of my girls for showing up not only in time, but early too. They even wore a few smiles too. I was impressed. Each girl had a station with basic fundamentals to teach to the youth. I will have to say, they ran each station very well. Each of the girls had a lot of fun too!


I was really happy with the compliment a some parents gave to our group throughout the day. They were happy their daughters were each getting a lot of attention.

I'm thankful for such a great group of hS athletes. I'm thankful they each came with a great attitude and worked the camp.

Fun Friday

My evening started out with an awesome practice from my team. It was the last day of hell week. The last time our seniors have to run a two-person! In fact, my seniors really pushed themselves and some even said they were sad. That was motivation for the rest of the group too. Loved it! They even cheered at the end! I love our seniors.

Josh and I got home at the same time. He surprised me with a sweet new shirt he ordered offline. It's awesome! We the ate some yummy Panera healthy dinners. Then together we made, no, not a baby, you sick-O's, we made balance beams for our youth camp tomorrow. In 45 minutes, we had two small balance beams for tomorrow. I sanded them and Josh cut and screwed them together. First project in a while that we didn't kill each other doing. Ha. :) Josh is awesome!

I am thankful for my seniors and for my fun Friday date with Josh! :)

Practice

I'm thankful for Josh who had dinner made when I got home from practice today. He's awesome! :) I appreciate Josh for being a team player.

Doctor

Today I'm thankful that my doctor is awesome! I woke up feeling awful. Head was full of crap and green snot was coming out of my nose and mouth. My head was pounding. After a shower, I felt a little better. Throughout the day, I got worse. My voice was shot by practice time. Ugh. Cough drops saved me. Thanks to Hannah and Hannah for picking them up for me too.

Luckily I'm a regular sinus sicky. So my doctor called in some meds for me. I made it to the pharmacy by 7pm too for a pick up. I'm so thankful for my doctor. No time to be sick or to go to the doctors.

Chili

Last night I knew today was going to be a long day. I made a huge salad to eat for lunch along with strawberries. I also made a huge crock pot of chili for dinner tonight. Yum! When I retuned home at 9pm tonight, I was pretty happy about having a warm dinner already waiting. I really love chili for dinner. Yum!

I'm thankful I took the time last night to prepare myself for a long day with healthy meals.

Hell Week Day 1

Today was the first day of hell week. Today was a day I was looking forward to since June 1st 2012. Softball season. I love and hate hell week. I love the start of a new season, but I hate not being able to be outside. I'm really excited about my team this year too. I have some talent and some good ball players.

I'm thankful for the first day of hell week.

Chucky Cheese

Today we are watching our nephews so my sister could celebrate her birthday.

I love watching them. They are so cute. I love that we get to spend quality time with them. Soon they will be grown up and we won't be as 'fun' anymore. So time is precious.

We met Tara at the park and ride and transfers car seats so we could ride to Chucky Cheese in Ann Arbor. For 10 bucks, we had spent over an hour chasing the kids around. They loved it. They even played together and shared. Paige loves Wyatt too. It was definitely so fun cousin time this weekend. I love my nieces and nephews. I'm so glad Uncle Josh and Aunt Tara and myself had some fun times with the cousins tonight. :)

I'm thankful for our trip to Chucky Cheese.