MARCH MADNESS

The Kansas Jayhawks on their way to the BIG game!
Candice Parker dunking! She will the first round pick for the WNBA in the near future!
The LADY VOLS going to the BIG game yet again!

Oh what a fantastic month March is. Spring is here and the warm sunshine is upon us. Plus it is the great month of college hoops tournaments. This year both of my favorite teams are in the final game - also known as "the ship!" My boys the Kansas Jayhawks and the Tennessee Lady Vols!! The next two nights are going to be great times of watching some great basketball games.

Spring Break '08 in Los Angeles

Griffith Park hiking up towards the observatory
Cute mini palm trees
Yoh and I at the top of Griffith park after a hike
Santa Monica Beach
Surfers at Santa Monica Beach - can you see my future husband out there

Eating at the Dresden Restaurant (in the movie Swingers)
My mom's future husbands star! :)
View of the city - a little foggy/smoggy
Yoh's friend D holding up the Hollywood sign
Ellen studio: where we went for a show and left with $400

worth of skin care products. Also where we showed our dance moves.

Beverly Hills Hotel Sign
Laugh Factory Comedy Club
Hollywood Sign

The side of Hollywood High School (does this make you want to go here)

The overall trip to Los Angeles was really great. The pictures above are taken by my good friend Melissa Yoh. We got to see many things, however my personal highlights were the hike up Griffith Park - which was really just walking up a big dirt path. It was just pretty and it did not feel like you were in a big smoggy city. The other highlight was being on the Ellen show. It was just neat to see all the behind the scenes things that go into making a show. Besides the guests were good: Courtney Cox, Brodie Miller (handsome, wonder if he loves Jesus?), and an American Idol singer Amanda something? Hope you enjoyed the few pictures.

Rat a tat tat

Well this weekend I had my first drum lesson! Yes this is true I am trying to be musical. I have really always wanted to play the drums (or at least since I was in fifth grade) and my parents were like you can play an instrument just not the drums, so I ended up playing the flute in middle school - not as much fun at all!! So a year ago my great brother bought me a snare drum for my birthday...it was so exciting! So I tried to learn how to play from a video and a book but that did not really work out too well kind of hard. So this past birthday my friend DJ bought me some drum lessons! And yesterday was the first one - since my schedule is kind of hectic I had to wait awhile. So it went really well and I had a great time, it is not very often that I do something for myself and by myself that is so rewarding and just plain fun. Now I do not think that I will be leaving my job or the state to go our tour or anything like that. However I do want it to become a fun hobby and maybe learn a few worship songs that I can play along with on my iPOD!

Aha!

• Religion playing a part in ancient Greece, but remaining just that – a part. But for the Hebrew, worship was a way of life.
• the Hebrew word for work and worship are the same: avodah.
• Both of these aha moments were found in the book Assumptions That Affect Our Lives. By: Christian Overman.

Please come soon Spring!!

I will be honest I enjoyed the winter and the snow but I am getting cabin fever - but today I was able to get outside. Today in Kansas the weather was in the 60s - I was excited cause I did not have too much to do on this beautiful Saturday! I am ready and excited for spring or even warmer weather. However I did hear that it might snow in a few days - welcome to the midwest!
So with that being said Yoh, Harley, and I went to enjoy the weather. We went and grabbed lunch and went to Shawnee Mission Park. After lunch we took Harley on a long walk around the area, in the grass, by the beach, in a creek etc. We all had a great time - only one of us got into the water - I will let you guess who. I hope that some of you were to get out and enjoy the amazing weather that the Lord blessed us with.

2 years and close to/or over 100 done!!!

Well some of you might not know that I have a side hobbie/spiritual tool that I do in my "spare time." This task is to type the important parts of books that other people in my church (mostly Paul) have read. The readers go through and highlight important factors, and then I type what I call the cliff notes. These cliff notes then are being used to help with three books that Paul is writing.
So just the other day I was going through some of my old emails and deciding if I still needed to keep them or if I could delete them. While doing that I came across an email that was from February 2006 asking me if I would be willing to type highlighted books. So with that being said I have been going hard at it through basketball and softball seasons, shoulder surgery and just other life things for awhile now and the stack is getting really small now as Paul is on the beginning of the writing season and less reading! I am not sure of the exact total of books that I have typed, but I do know that it is close to 100 if not over it. Needless to say I am happy to this task for my community and for someday the world. It's funny but somehow typing the books relaxes me and at the same time I do remember some of the things that I type.
Places I type besides my home, at my desk at work, Starbucks, the cafe area at my fitness center, and my favorite place was at Dunn Brothers Coffee House with the Simon's - good music and of course good company.

Randomness

Okay so I have realized that it has been awhile since I have posted anything - probably a month. I kept waiting for something fun to happen so I could post it but then nothing really has happened so I will just give you an update into my life/world.

I will start with my evening job - coaching basketball: We have less than a month left and my team has improved a ton, however we only have one victory. I will say that ALL of our losses have been under 14 points. Which is good and bad all at the same time. It means we were right there but then we could not just hang on. My team seems to have some trouble with rebounding and turnovers. These are 2 huge factors when it comes to winning a game, so you can see why we have only won 1 game. But really my job as the JV coach is to make them better and to have some of my kids getting Varisty minutes - which a few of them are - one has shin splints/stress fracture so she is out for the rest of the season, but she was getting some varsity time prior to that. I do think that a few of my girls will either start varisty or get lots of varsity minutes next season if they do what they should in the off season. As far as the varisty team they are doing really well. They beat Bishop Miege a few weeks ago. A little background info on that so you can see how that is a HUGE win for our team. BVNW (where I coach) has not won an EKL (the division we play ing) game in 4 years, and we have not beaten Bishop Miege in 6 years!! Bishop Miege has won state 17 times total including last year! With that being said Bishop Miege was not expecting to lose to us - the team who only had 3 wins at the time!! Well they were WRONG - we beat them in OT it was so fun. The girls were so excited. Then on Thursday we played against Blue Valley North who ended up beating us but we were only down by 5 at half and were in the game almost the whole time. True they beat us by a lot still but we were in the game for 3 quarters for sure and I can't remember the last time that has happened. (Blue Valley North won state 2 years in a row) So with that being said the team is playing exactly like they should be at the end of the season so hopefully we get a good match up at the end of the season in substate - which is where it all matters anyways.

Home life: Things are pretty good there. We are fasting television for 40 days - started on 2/1/08. I really should say that my roommate is and that I just am benefiting from it. Also we don't have cable so its not like when the tv is on that there is anything exciting on it. We sometimes just have it on in the background for noise. I am enjoying not having the tv on so far. We listen to music instead, and I am sure eventually I will be reading more - or maybe typing etiher for Paul or for the blog! I have taken my cute dog Harley to the vet 2 times in the last month. She is having some trouble with her booty...I won't go into too much detail cause it is grossamossa, but if you would like details just ask. She was on some drugs that did not help so we had to go back and be more aggressive this time - hopefully it helps - I really do not want to go back and have them do even worse stuff to her, I cried this past time cause she was in some pretty serious pain. I might be the mom who has to wait outside in the waiting room if my kids ever get hurt or something. I thought I would be able to go in cause I am kind of tough and I don't normally don't get grossed out by those things, but the last vet trip was a little tear jerking. My cousin is getting married tonight the first one on my mom's side - she is younger than me by five years. I wonder if I will get some hints on the fact that I should be next tonight. Good times!My brother is coming in town so I am excited to hang out with him - maybe he will be my dance partner too if my mom and grandma don't hog him :) He just recently recorded (not sure if that is the right lingo) a commercial the Spanglers - a restuarant in Witchita. It is a local commerical but he was/is excited. If it gets on YouTube or the internet no worries his big sister (me) will be posting it right here on the the blog! Way to go lil' bro - one step closer the red carpet! :)

Okay will I am not quite sure what else I can type about so that is it for now. Hope I kept you somewhat interested.