Gymnastics Sleepover, Colts and Tribute to JIM

HAPPY MONDAY!!

Gosh, what a GREAT weekend! Friday night's Gymnastics Sleepover went wonderfully! The girls loved the table cloth thing. I had them write their own name at their place setting and then they played muscial chairs to get around to each name. Alyssa wrote to Katelyn, "You remind me of Cheerios and I really like those." Crack me up! They are so completely random! Darin and our other coach's hubby were the servers. They had on layers and layers of other schools shirts with a Wawasee shirt on the bottom. The girls had to tell them something about Warrior gymnastics for them to whip a shirt off. Sounds erotic, but it really wasn't! There I go being a failure of a mentor again! I wish I had the camera.. Darin took it to work today! You guys would love the pics!

Saturday was so completely awesome. My house was clean because I cleaned it before the gymnasts came so I actually had a Saturday to do hang out at the house WITHOUT FEELING LIKE A CLEANING SLAVE! Since I work 40 hours a week, coach on weeknight and do the minister's wife thing 24/7, Saturday's are left for cleaning. =( I organized all the shelves in my kitchen played around with our house plants because we have more plants than a funeral home right now! and most importantly.. SCRAPPED!! First, here's a LO I did of Darin at the Colts game on Dec 4th. Oh, he's so cute! He seriously was having the time of his life. This was only a week after Jim passed away so this game was so incredibly good for him.

I mentioned last Friday that I went off the scrapbooking deep end because I had a LO completed minus one thing.. the picture! So, here it is: Wow.. this was a healing page to complete. Darin's dad, Jim, was killed in a tree cutting accident 3 weeks ago. He was such a sweet father-in-law. As I mentioned in the journaling, he was so willing to make me anything for our wedding. He was not the kind of guy that liked to be the center of attention, never cracked jokes and was content to be by himself reading. Even though Jim was very introverted he would do ANYTHING for ANYONE. He knew that his witness and service to God was through his talents to fix, make or help out anyone in need. He never had any daughters, but treated Liz (my sister-in-law) and I as equals to his sons.

The morning after Jim passed away, Darin made his way out to his woodworking shop. Jim was amazingly talented at woodworking. I knew I had to give Darin a few minutes to be by himself. After a bit, I made my way out to the shop to condole my husband. I held my composure because I knew Darin needed a shoulder to cry on.. he needed for me to just hold him. After a few minutes I turned around and saw my almost finished jewelry box... the jewelry box that I had forgotten that he was making for me. His pencil, ruler and gloves laying on his workbench as if nothing had happened.

You know, I'm pretty sure that Jim never told me that he loved me. He wasn't the kind of guy that was open about his feelings. I can only remember a few times that I hugged him or even touched him. When I glanced over at his bench and saw this jewelry box that he was making perfectly for me, I felt his love like I'd never felt before. I knew that he loved me.. not just as a daughter-in-law, but as a daugther.

I LOVE to joke around and have fun, but I really needed to do a blog in tribute to Jim. I realize that I may have more days that I really need to blog about him.. and I'm sure I'll need to blog about my mom at some point too.
God is just so good.. 7 months ago on May 28th Darin and I were married. We had a ton in common.. sports, world views, we both wanted a family, and most importantly both had a love for Christ that exceeded our love for each other. I would have never guessed that 6 months later that the loss of a parent would be something else we would share. He knew that pairing us together would be better than if we were separate.. He knew that we could handle this together and with HIS strength. Romans 8:28 "For we know that all things work together for good to those who are called, according to HIS purpose."

Just an FYI.. I will not have access to a computer until Tuesday the 27th. This will be VERY hard considering that recently I have been addicted to bloggin' and 2Peas. Everyone have an AMAZING CHRISTMAS and I will anticipate talking to everyone next Tuesday!!!