Ashley's Soccer Season

Soccer tryouts started Oct. 31, and lasted about a week. There are 3 teams, Varsity, JV-A, and JV-B. There sure were many freshman trying out, wow. What an exciting time to be a girl in high school!

These girls worked hard on sprints, drills, and plays. Not to mention in AZ it's pretty hot even when it's fall.

Ashley and all her friends made the JV-A team, yeah way to go girls!

Here are just some random photos of her playing soccer. Ashley is #24. Black jersey's are for away games and the white jersey's are for home games. She also had orange cleats which made it easy to spot her out on the field.

I love this picture...there's a Husky (Ashley) in the Puma Den. Huskies won, of course!

Ashley and some team mates atching the varsity game...brrr, it was freezing that night.

#24 - Ashley # 9 - Ashley

Thank goodness for her orange cleats otherwise they all look the same.

It was such a fun experience for her to play soccer for her high school. Matt and I were so thankful just for Ashley to be a part of the team. I know I will always remember watching her run up and down the field...I can't believe she used to be 4 years old just starting to play soccer.

___________________________________________

_______________________________________

_____________________________________

I'll always remember the days when 'dad' was her coach. She always got the 'smart player' award.

Then somehow, she grew up to be a teenager! Parents with small children who are reading this beware - it happens!!

No matter what, we'll always be Ashley's biggest fans...mom & dad sitting in the stands.

Ashley's hip had been hurting her almost half way through the season. She didn't want to go to the doctor about it because she didn't want to risk not playing. However, we should have took her in sooner to get an x-ray since her pelvic bone was in fact broken. Sigh...4-6 weeks of no playing, but at least the season is over with!

__________________________________________

The Ashley's with Coach Chris. They all look gorgeous in their soccer banquet dresses, but SO different than soccer shorts and cleats. What a fun memory.

This was the end of season soccer banquet. I'm so proud of these girls! Way to have an undefeated season. They sure had a a lot of fun together.

REAL Marriage Conference

We are huge Mark Driscoll fans, he is the Pastor at Mars Hill Church up in Seattle, around the same area where both Matt and I grew up. We heard about the new book on marriage from our small group, and bought tickets for this marriage conference as soon as tickets were available. HEre we are with our friends the McBurney's, Eric happens to be our small group leader, and he has a thing for Mark's sermons, lets just say he was extra excited.

There were actually a ton of people we knew there, since our church Redemption and the Mission Church where it was hosted, set up the conference. These are my sweet friends Jenn & Caitlyn. Their husbands came too.

We walk in and who is signing books?! Mark himself. How cool! I was so bummed that his wife Grace wasn't able to come, after all they have 5 kids so I completely understand, but it would have been really cool to hear some of the things she would have had to say since they wrote the book together on marriage.

Here we are waiting for the conference to start...exciting.

I took some random shots through out the conference - why? - because I have a blog.

Here is Pastor Mark showing a picture of his family.

This was really cool, as you can imagine, there are a lot of hurting marriages out in our world today. I'm sure there were tons sitting in this very same conference. Pastor Mark decided on a whim, to have men come forward who were ready to stand up and be a man, and put their faith in Jesus. It was a really cool moment, because at first no one went up...talk about being brave for the first guy to walk up there. It was pretty cool, you had to be there.

Of course we HAD to get a photo of this!!

My prayer is that God would always for now and forever, BLESS our marriage as only He can. I know I learned a lot at this conference, about how truly sinful I am, and how God designed marriage in the first place. What it was meant to be like from the begining. I wish I had learned this stuff when I first had been married, but I am so happy that through Mark and Grace Driscoll's struggles within their own marriage, they are using that time in their lives to help and bless other marriages. It's pretty amazing. Even if you can't make it to the conference, get the book which is on the New York #1 Best sellers list, because you're NEVER to old to learn something about you and your spouse.

The Dinner I Made...

...For Valentines Day was so good. When my mom and I were in England, I picked up some truly authentic home made heart shaped pasta from a store called Umberto's. I wanted to make something special for my family and serve them a tasty meal.

You can see the bag I bought on the right hand side, 2nd row up on the left. This is the best smelling pasta shop in the world. The man who owns it has such a thick Italian accent. So cool!

I got all the food, ingredients, and love ready to make my Valentine's dinner.

Where food becomes art...

I've never made chocolate dipped strawberries before but decided to surprise everyone. I'm really getting into cooking, huh mom?!

They turned out pretty tasty!

I made 2 different sauces to choose from: Alfredo with brocolli or Marinara with turkey sausage. Everyone picked the alfredo...except:

Alyssa. She went with the marinara. Yum! (and BTW - we are not counting calories just for today.)

After dinner we all settled in to watch a movie together. I just love these girls, ok Max too, and of course Matt. Hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day!

Mia's 79th blood transfusion

I haven't put any of Mia's recent blood transfuion pictures on my blog, I'm behind the times!

I'm pretty sure this is #79, although I seemed to have lost count. There's been so many. Mia had been really sick and missed a week of school plus she needed a transfusion. Whew! Glad that week is over with.

Mia and her wonderful nurses...and giraffee's.

Thank you Miss Christine for always helping us with a smile, and for all the Valentine's cards we made today!