There's a Light In My Windows

For anybody who was unaware (sorry Teresa) that I am fixing up my parents basement... Here's a brief post of how that is going. Fixing up might not be quite the correct word but anyways. Mel and Ben used to live down here and had made a pretty cozy apartment out if it. Of course they had couches and coffee tables and all of the stuff that is on the agenda to get... Hehe, it all takes doing so first comes the cleaning and then the sparse furnishings. Ang, Julie, Abbie & Megan were helping me out with the cleaning in the kitchen while I was shampooing the carpet. That took some doing I tell you what! It takes a long time to get anything done when there is something going on pretty much every evening and weekend and you can only work for short periods of time. I took down the old blue plaid curtains and was determined not to put them back up, so I have finally put up some flags which I rather like the look of. The windows in the front were an odd size so my 3x5 flags didn't all fit so the blue thing is a piece of cloth from Thailand. They aren't that "homey" looking, but I am not "living" down here, just taking care of it and it is really nice to have your own space to have people over. For the moment I just have Camp chairs, and while it isn't the same as curling up on a couch they are not all that bad. : ) The cleaning pics are back in Sept. and the ones of my windows are just this morning. Kris came over the other night after the meeting and was helping me out putting them up. Supposedly they look pretty cool from the outside as well. : ) I am hoping to get stuff up on the now clean walls soon. Will post pics of that when I do. Here's a few for now....

It was pretty spotted up... probably hadn't been shampooed in forever

You wouldn't believe how long it takes to shampoo carpet until you do it.

Ang cleaned my fridge!

"God Bless America"

Israeli Flag

Union Jack (Great Britain - Not to be confused with England)


My Thai "curtain"

The Pool Table Area (used to be the dining room when we lived down here)

Living Room - very bare.... I know.

Girls Night At Unos

This is a post especially for Teresa cause the girls here still do miss her, even though the pain is now down to a dull thud... : ) Just kidding! I think we all miss you, but are very happy you are where you are. So, wipe away the tears... Here's a pic of the girls out at Unos on the night before elections. I left my memory card in my computer and my internal memory was almost all used up from the last time that happened so I only have this one pic. Otherwise.... I would have taken a picture of the cheese fries and hot wings and cheese sticks to make your mouth water. : ) Hehe, now aren't you glad I didn't???

Happy Birthday To Kris!

Kris and I have birthdays 4 days apart, and when we were growing up we always celebrated them together. When we got a little older we hooked up with Teresa who is 3 days after Kris and were all later joined by Abbie who's birthday comes one day after Kris. (tyoday! Happy Birthday to Abbie!) It is much better to have just one party in the course of a week than 4! Somehow... even though she had a few attempts at suprise parties, until last night, Kris had never been suprised. Somehow the suprise always leaked out. Last night we finally managed it, or Daniel planned it and we all managed to keep the secret in. We did have a little fun and play a joke on Jon an yelled surprise when he came in the door about 5 min. before her, and the look on his face was more surprised than hers! : D Hehe! Twasn't a big party and I didn't take many pics, but was a nice evening anyways. "Copper, you're my very best friend..."

Surprise!

The "real" surprise : )

Activity Club Indoor "Campout"

A few weeks back, Activity Club was supposed to be going on our fall campout. It was supposed to be outdoors in tents. However.... Hurricane Hannah decided it would be fun to pour down rain over the weekend and make us stay inside. So we all ended up sleeping here and there all over the meeting hall for the weekend. We have started a project called "Around the World" where we are all split up into groups with a couple AC leaders and about 4-5 kids and do a project on a country where there is a church. So those were our teams for the weekend competition which started Sat. morning and continued through Sun. afternoon. The names the teams came up with were most interesting indeed. Los Spoons (my group), Malay, Pudgy Bacon, The Nile Numpties, and the Brazilian Stealth Warriors. Friday night, Daniel (mostly) and I rigged up a bunch of activities for the teams for the weekend and for the most part kept all the activities a secret so that even the leaders could be in on the competitions. That was super cool cause I think the leaders were equally or more enthusiastic and competitive than the kids! :D I nearly got jumped before I posted the score board. Some of the activities included, the team guiding one blind folded team member putting a puzzle together, most decoritive cake, highest marshmallow and spaghetti noodle structure, "Know your Bible verses puzzles", making a funny video (they were HYSTERICAL!), paintball target shooting, and a bunch more stuff. It was a most fantastic weekend. One I personally thoroughly enjoyed. Hope you enjoy the pics and can catch a glimpse of the fun we had. Guess what? There is actually an album with this post! Unbleeevable right? Right... I quite agree.

Saturday evening we had a "campfire" in the meeting hall. Even though we didn't roast anything over it, it created a very cool atmosphere and we had a very good meeting.

The Brazilian Stealth Warriors

Los Spoons

The Nile Numpties

Free Dictionary

I was looking for an online Norwegian dictionary and came accross this one here. It is available to download for free to your computer as well as online. The program is very small so it doesn't take up much space on your computer (approx 4-5 mb). There are Norwegian -> English: 13 940 words English -> Norwegian: 12 759 words. The program also allows you to add your own words (nice for church purposes) or make up study lists for yourself which will then play at an adjustable speed. Click here to go to the website. If you are interested in other languages there are 202 others available as well. So take your pick. : ) Anyways, just thought I would pass it on... Have a great day!

Free Indeed!

Well, finally another post. I will probably stick a few up from previous events, but since Teresa is waiting on this one, I'll let it cut in line and go first. We had an extremely "interesting" weekend to say the least. We found out about an hour away from Victory that our hard drive with all the videos on it had "crashed". Upon our arrival at Victory, the discussions immediately went began as to whether or not something could "maybe" be salvaged from it if we took it to a tech place in the morning or if we should turn right around and go back home for two of the films which were on a computer at home. (one of them was ONLY on that hard drive... know not to do that again!) The decision to drive home was made and at about 3:30 a.m. my car headed straight back to the place of whence it had just come... only to return to victory again at about 3:15 the following afternoon. Meanwhile back at Victory, our soccer team was doing stupendous! At the end of the day, they were undefeated and were set to play in the semi finals the next morning. "Delaware Rwocks!" Sat. afternoon, Daniel and Abraham "accidentally" found almost all the footage they needed which they thought was only on the hard drive on my laptop. (I had told Ben to delete it and he forgot for some reason... : ) wonder why that was) So they were working furiously up until the last 2 min. before it was supposed to be shown. I think they should get an award for the fastest editing job ever. Quite flink they were! As for the feast, I don't know if I can even give an accurate description. I didn't see all of it anyways..., but to tell about the whole feast would take a very long time, so I'll just say, I am extremely thankful to have been able to be along in any small part I had in putting the feast together to make an "edifying evening" as our announcers stated. If you want an account of the feast with pictures I'm sure there will be an article on ottawa.brunstadworld.org. very soon as they are much better at updating than I am. I wasn't able to take many pictures of the actual feast since I was in and out and up on stage as well as in a very bad spot so here are just a few of our practices at home and of the soccer team who finished 2nd to Ottawa after beating Urbana in overtime in the semi's. Fantastic job guys!

"Everybody who loves Victory put your hands up!" The kids were the best!

Dress rehearsal at the meeting hall

Verba made cool stage flower arrangments

Saving our film : )

Kids choir waiting for the feast to start



I think our soccer team got in some of the weirdest positions. Note the following pics. They aren't the best quality, but still funny/cool. An this isn't all of them. : )

Not really a Beachy...

They were awesome! Plan on 1st next time! : D

Fellowship Week - Victory

Hey, I got an extra min on my lunch break so I decided to post something about the fellowship week at Victory. I was really glad I got to take the time off work and stay for the whole conference. Sat. was just a really nice relaxing day to visit catch up with people, play golf (for the brothers - I still never heard who won that tournament... anybody have any clue?), choir practice and then a youth meeting in the evening. Sunday morning was a children's mtg with a musical preformed by Ottawa of the story of Joseph which was AMAZING! Since most of the music had been used last year at Brunstad, all the songs were duly stuck in my head for the rest of the week! Later in the afternoon we preformed all our choir/band songs along with a few other performances including a quite funny one by the 4 idiots. : ) Monday was Outdoor Challenge day. I think everybody was really excited for that! Our team didn't win, they gave 100% and I think we'll have a bit better idea what to expect next year. Tues. was children's day and we had quite a collection of activities. I didn't get too many pics of the activities, but I took a couple of the ice cream stand, which is functioning better each year I think. Still a very popular hit with the kids (and adults) hehe... half the parents try to steal a bite of their kids ice cream. Tues. evening was a yth/mission mtg which was an extremely good way to end the conference. I am really thankful for the time there and that we stayed for that meeting even though it meant driving home in the middle of the night only to get up at 6:30 a.m. for work the next day. "This is a coffee drinking ordnung? Praise the Lord sister!"




Victory now has street signs and guess what... We live on Delaware St.! : )

I think the bar for the size of the poster that leads the parade has been lowered....

Ottawa's play (gotta love the make up jobs... musta been an inch thick!)

Can we say sassy?

Our team all chained up. They worked really well together! Awseome teamwork!

They had to eat an entire raw clam. They all managed it too! : D


Connecticut & Urbana were in the finals and after a close final Urbana ended up winning.


Can you help but love that face?

From Paris To The Land Of The Vikings & Midnight Sun

July 3rd I left for Brunstad with Aaron Miller knowing we had a long layover in France. We hoped we could take the train out into Paris and see at least the Eiffel Tower. Sitting in Charles de Gulle Airport from 8 a.m. to 6:30 pm did not sound like a very inviting experience so we attempted to talk to some "information" people in the train station to see if we could get there, but they were most unfortunatly not very helpful or imformative. We finally ended up meeting a lady who spoke good English (this is a rarity in France) from Brazil, who was married to a Dutch guy and lived right next to the Eiffel Tower. What Luck! She took us most of the way there until the train blacked out on us and she had to get a taxi and left us to our own devices. We had a few interesting people encounters trying to switch trains, but finally got there. The site was actually amazing! I never would have believed it looked so cool just from pictures. We didn't go up as there was an insanely long line and it cost a bunch of money, that we didn't have and had a hard time trying to convince Hungarian beggar ladies of. We took a few pics, ate lunch at a little cafe right below the tower and then caught the train back to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Was a really cool experience, and if you have the time in a layover it comes highly recommended... it also comes highly recommended to speak more than 2 words of French cause they don't speak much more English than that! We ended up getting to Brunstad about 12:30 a.m. on the 4th so needless to say we were exhausted. Was super nice to be at Brunstad again and to see Teresa again! Heaven's knows I won't get pics of those put of for a long time to come if at all, but here's a few. (can't believe I managed two posts in July! wow!)

At the Fish Restraunt with Teresa (this food also comes HIGHLY recommended!)

Climbed the mountain behind Brunstad one afternoon with Marty and Keri.

Madison Elizabeth

Well, I told her to wait... or just hurry up, but she just didn't listen. Madison Elizbeth Coblentz was born July 6th while I was gone in Norway. Was quite exciting news to get though, and after the whole story of her weighing 6.15 kilos/ 13. 5 lbs was dissolved it was all good. She was a pretty "small" baby at almost 7lbs for our family anyways. She has really long legs and arms so I think she will make a really good volleyball player. Hehe, and I might just be a tiny bit jealous if she can block without hardly jumping. Well, I didn't get to see her til she was two weeks old, but that's ok, I still love her anyways. Baby's only get cuter as they get older so that is cool. Kris and Madison are both doing really well so that is fantastic! I will now try to keep putting pics of Madison up in between everything else around here. It is gonna be crazy busy for pretty much the rest of the summer since we have the Victory Feast in Sept. Well anyways... we do what we can, and what we can't do, doesn't get done. As anyone who happens to look at this blog finds out.

One More Post....

Ok, this post is just to post one more pic of Kris before I leave on Thurs. for Norway. She is now 38 weeks and could quite literally have the kiddo any day. We are having a war around here cause there are quite a few of us leaving on Thurs. who won't be back before Kris has her baby (unless she goes overdue) and then there are others who are currently gone and won't be back until after we leave. So we have two sides hoping and praying she has it before and after July 3rd. At any rate, unless she has it before Thurs. afternoon, this is probably the last pic of her you will see like this. It has been rather nuts around here. I haven't been home for a weekend in about 3-4 weeks and won't be for another 3 to come. Meanwhile, we have had our church outing at Killen's Pond, a baby shower for Kris, Jenn & I took a vacation to Williamsburg (not THAT is quite an interesting story, free vacations come with a price is all I have to say about that at this moment) Maybe I will have some pics on some of those things at some point, but at at this current moment... nicht. This other house picture is for Teresa. It is her house here in DE for those of you who have never visited, and a very nice house it is too. One day it rained really hard and the colors after were so nice. It looked really cool even though I missed the nicest part of the rainbow. Well, will update again after I get back on the 20th. Waaaaaaaahoooooooo! (yes, i'm excited! Don't ask if I am or I might just hand you a sign. ; )

Hurrah For Ben!

Ben, the sneak, did not tell anybody with the exception of Ang, that he was actually Valedictorian instead of Salutatorian and just let us read the programs and find out ourselves! Just a quick post for now. More later. Fantastic job Ben! An you had the best speech of the night by a Loooong shot. Wouldn't have taken much tho to beat talking about the "depressing world we live in", Dr. Seuss, cakes and sermons, and the other weirdnesses we listened to. Was still a good speech anyways.

Memorial Day

Monday was Memorial Day and while I think everybody enjoys a day off work every now an again I wonder how many people think of why they are getting off. Hmm, anyways... we had the whole family over for a cookout in the evening and had just a nice relaxing evening. We played "Scene It" with the kids, which is a game of seeing how well you know Disney movies. Ask Daniel's opinion of the game. : ) You may get an interesting response. There was once again an over abundance of good food. Was really nice to eat summer foods again. Grill food, corn on the cob, strawberries etc... Mom, Jenn, Kris, Ben, & I stayed up til 12 then playing dominoes. Was the first time for all of us except Kris I think. Me thinks she will have to bring that game over again sometime. Here's a pic of Kris's INCREASING bump taken on Memorial Day. Not much longer now. Bout a month an a half. Yeah!

God Bless America!

She husked it herself! :D Very pleased she was!