This weekend, we had a HUGE treat at our house!

Anthony, Mary, and Allie Mercado, some great friends of ours from Michigan, passed through here on their way to move to San Antonio.  They arrived late last night, after braving blizzard conditions through Michigan and Indiana, and we had a wonderful visit with them, catching up on all the happenings from our favorite corner of MI.

For the last few months, our ward has been doing Dessert Nights.  In an effort to help our HUGE ward bond and get to know each other better, every month those adults who want to are put into groups of three or four couples who get together on a designated evening, each bring a dessert, and just hang out.  Can I just say--it's awesome!  After a year and a half, I can finally say that I feel like a part of our ward.

Plus, it brought me together with this new delight:

That is a maple/bacon cupcake, one of the desserts from this month's Dessert Night. 

I am in love.

That, my friends, is what a perfect Sunday afternoon looks like.

 As you know from previous posts, Adam's heart was broken back in November when he didn't make his school basketball team.  Being the Good Dad that he is, Brad signed him up for a YMCA basketball league and volunteered to coach his team so he could work with Adam and hopefully help him be ready to make the school team next year.

I realize this is a really bad picture of Adam making a free throw.  That is him almost completely hidden by the ref.  Sorry.  I was more interested in whether he made the shot than in taking a great picture.  Sadly, he didn't make the basket, and I took a lousy picture of it, so everybody lost.

This little basketball team has turned out to be a highlight of our winter.  Adam is proving himself to be quite a star, and Brad loves working with these boys.  He stews and connives over every line-up, trying to find his best player combinations, and they have had some really great basketball moments.  I am proud of both of them: Adam, for pushing forward and working hard despite a significant disappointment, and Brad, both for helping his son and being an extremely fair coach to the whole team.

And me?  I get to sit in the stands with my beverage and cheer them on.  Delightful.

Hello all!

Well, it's 2014, and with very few exceptions, I've posted something for every day of three years.  I've enjoyed thinking, every single day, "What is worth remembering today?" and then figuring out some way to share it so it won't be as boring as it really is.  Somedays I've succeeded, others not so much.  But, it's been fun.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been missing days lately.  I think it's time to stop posting Every Dang Day so I can focus on some other projects.  I always told myself that I'd stop this when it stopped being fun, and that is starting to happen.  So, I'll see you when I see you, but it won't be every day.

Happy 2014!

 Haley and her family gave us this crepe grill for Christmas this year, so we gave it a try tonight.  You can see I'm a novice crepe maker, but what they lacked in beauty, they more than made up for in taste.

Jess had some friends over, and I was appalled to learn that NONE of them had ever heard of crepes.  Seriously?  Well, a crepe or two later, complete with strawberries, Nutella, and whipped cream, they were enlightened and delighted. 

After crepes, Pepper went to a tri-stake youth dance and had a ball.  It still surprises me that he is old enough for stuff like that.

Happy New Year!

When we moved here, we promised Adam and Lukie that we'd get them bunk beds for their shared room.  Today, finally we made good on that promise.

Since we were in shopping mode, I also got them each a clip-on lamp.  Both Adam and Luke are the readers in our family, and often I'd find them in bed with the closet light on, trying to read when they should have been asleep.  But, I can't really get mad at them, since reading in bed is my personal brand of paradise, so I figured I could at least make sure they don't go blind from squinting in the low light.  This is what I found tonight around 11:00.