Basketball Injuries

We were unlucky enough this week to have a couple of basketball injuries in the family. On Saturday, the girls played a GREAT game and won 16-8 but Kelsie had a very bruised up arm after having it stepped on in a pile of girls fighting for the ball. Way to be agressive! It bothered her for a few days but there wasn't any swelling and very little bruising. Her coach (who is also a personal trainer) said he thought it was a possible muscle bruise and to watch for swelling and/or radiating pain. The soreness lasted until about Wednesday but nothing a little ibuprofen couldn't handle. This coming week is our last game of the regular season and we play the best team in the league so we decided to have a little extra practice time on our own. So, Monday night we met the Alfords at the church (outside concrete court) to run some drills with the girls and play 3 on 3 - Bartleys vs. Alfords. We had a great time playing and we all laughed about how tired we were going to be that night! On Tuesday we thought it would be fun to play again on Tuesday night so we met up at the church again to play. This time it was the moms and girls scrimmaging and Wayne was the ref. After a pretty little lay up, I landed half on the concrete and half on the ground and couldn't get my balance (getting old!) and twisted my ankle. It was sore at first but I didn't think it was that bad until I felt like I was about to pass out. After that passed, I moved to a spot to sit out and watch and felt nauseated again. I knew something was wrong, the ankle was immediately swelling and bruising. So, we went to Care Now to get it looked at and after an x-ray (and a few more waves of nausea) it was not broken or fractured. They wrapped it and sent me home with instructions, crutches and drugs! I was a very good patient on Wednesday - doing everything I was told in hopes that the next day everything would be back to normal - didn't happen. It is getting better but I still can't step down on it so I am still on crutches which is a HUGE pain! I guess that's one way of getting out of doing the laundry. Kelsie and Wayne have been great - they have been spoiling me! I think the plan is to see an ortho if it's not better by Monday but I think it's getting better every day - even though it looks pretty UGLY right now.

On a more positive note - the house is coming along. This week we got a port-o-potty on the property, which means that it's now suitable for working on. Today was the day we did our initial selections. We still have a few more things to decide on but it was super fun to pick from all those choices. Also today the forms were there today for the foundation so progress is being made! YAY! It's so nice to live close and watch the progress every day.

This Saturday is Serve Prosper (see link on sidebar if you want to know more). We are excited about how many people and sponsors have gotten involved. How exciting to see our community coming together to serve each other. Should be fun.

Thankful list for the week:

1. That my husband and daughter love me enough to tend to me with mercy and compassion (that is not my strong thing so I appreciate it in them, even if it is hard to receive).
2. My little 3 and 4 year olds singing "Yes Lord, Yes Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord" - they are so cute and I love that they are so willing to sing out to God at such a young age.
3. The celebration choir we had last week (we did a choir last week for something fun and new - we sang "Cover the Earth"). It was truly worshipful and lots of fun!
4. Good friends - we loved having the Kemners last weekend even if for a short time. We love catching up with life long friends.
5. God's healing grace - several friends came through surgeries this week with flying colors. Thank you God for being our Great Physician.

I hope you have experienced the presence of God this week. Love to hear from you! More later.

Progress is Being Made

Well, progress on the house has officially been made with the arrival of the construction port-o-potty today.  I guess that means that the site is now fit to be worked on!  We meet with the designer next Friday to make our first round of selections, still no builders meeting which should happen here pretty soon.  Since Monday was President's Day, many furniture stores around had sales so Patti and Emily took me to Weir's Furniture while Wayne and the guys were playing golf.  I had never been there before but heard several people saying they had good stuff.  We had a fun day shopping for furniture (we were all looking for different things) and running around town, finishing up with lunch at Lucy's before school pick up.  When Wayne got home, we all 3 went back so I could show him what I found that day and ended up buying a couch with matching chair and a half that was on sale.  I did find 2 accent chairs as well but they were on back order and so we put 25% down to order them but the next day I had buyer's remorse because they weren't on sale and I wanted to live with the other pieces for a while first so I called to cancel.  The other things will be delivered this Saturday.  Let the decorating plan begin!

Basketball - Saturday was Kelsie's team day to play 2 games back to back.  They won the first game 14-6 but lost the second game 12-4.  They all played so well as a team but just ran out of steam in the second game and it got away from them.  We were proud of them - they played hard.  Saturday was Valentine's Day but we had already officially celebrated so we did a little shopping and out to eat after the games.

Not much else to report - just normal life going on here.  So, on to the thankful list.....  1.  The yellow daffodils blooming all over the property - they are so cheery and pretty to look at every day.  2. We have all stayed relatively healthy, no flu - YAY!  3.  Our life connection group - we love them!   4. Electric blanket we got for Christmas (thanks Mawmaw), I love crawling in a warm bed on a cold night.  5. Chocolate - I have to be thankful for chocolate in the month of February, right? 

Also - on the book list update.  I finished Karen Kingsbury's new 911 book, "Every Now and Then" that I got for Christmas and I look forward to her new series coming out - "Above the Line"  I also just finished this week John Grisham's "The Appeal."  While VERY different, they were both good reads.  Better go for now.  More soon.

Happy Valentine's Day

As you can see by my blog, I am wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day. Hope you feel loved today by your family and friends but more importantly, think of it as a day to thank God for the love He has expressed to us and keeps showing us through His grace. We celebrated tonight by going to Outback with Kelsie - we didn't want to brave Saturday night, yikes! Kelsie has a party at school tomorrow so that should we interesting. Valentine's Day, co-ed 4th graders don't mix too well. EEEwwww boys, eeeewwww girls......you get the picture.

House news - not much is happening right now. They are in the process of permits, etc. We have our first meeting to pick stuff in 2 weeks. That will be fun, we have been driving around looking at brick choices. They all start to look the same after a while.

Basketball - Kelsie is doing great. Last week they won their game 12-6 and she had 2 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists. Great team player!!! They all played so great as a team. We were very proud.

We have had a busy few weeks (the reason for the late post). Kelsie didn't have a game weekend before last which worked out b/c she went to Fort Worth to spend the weekend with Morgan for her birthday. She got to go watch Morgan play bball and then to her party and as tradition dictates, to the rodeo with the McLelland family. Sunday night was the Superbowl and we had a GREAT time with our life connection group at the Alfords. We had so much food - fried cajun turkey, ribs (smoked by Wayne, they were fabulous), smoked brisket and lots and lots of snack food and desserts. The party was made complete with a visit by the police. One of the kids accidentally called 911. Pretty funny but embarassing for him - the kids were going crazy. This last weekend was eventful too. Friday night was girls night out for our class so we went to see "Bride Wars" a definite chick flick and we had fun. Kelsie and Wayne went to bball practice and then home to eat pizza and watch "Space Buddies" (her valentine's gift). Saturday was K's basketball game and then we had a wonderful dinner with the Marshall's. We had such a good time and Kelsie LOVES their dogs (golden retrievers) and enjoyed sitting in the hot tub after working so hard at the game. After that we had a late night appointment at the Kennedy's house. The middle school girls wrapped our houses last summer so this was pay back. It was D-Now weekend and we got word that the girls were planning to wrap the Kennedy house. We were prepared and waiting with shaving cream, water buckets, water guns, and water hose. We got them GOOD!!! They were not expecting that at all but unfortunately they came back and wrapped their house even later. I guess we're too old to stay up that late. Sunday was a great day. We had our family mission trip info meeting and had lots of families there - we hope to take 15-20 families. Exciting! Then, our life connection class did our service project - which was to collect food for the local food bank, Bethlehem Place, and we delivered it after lunch. The cool part was that our kids were carrying in the food, stocking shelves. They were so excited to help, really into it. It was such a good picture of WORSHIP. Our kids really understood I John 3:16-18 and we were blessed that day!

Hope you are having a blessed week. Happy Valentine's Day! Love from the Bartleys

We Have A House!!!

Yes, you read right - we FINALLY found a house. Actually, we will not move into it until July because it has to be built first. We had such a hard time finding a house that was a good size for us. Mostly everything we looked at was too big and since we are just 3 people we didn't feel like we needed 4,000+ square feet. So, we ended up with a new build from Highland Homes. The really fabulous part is that we thought we were going to have to settle for a neighborhood that was just okay and they gave us such a great deal in a neighborhood (Willow Ridge) we LOVE and have looked in for months but couldn't afford. They agreed to build this smaller (3122 ft) house on a lot they still had in phase 2 (they are currently finishing that phase up and going to phase 3) they needed to finish out. We have some modifications to make to the floorplan to make it work but they are doing those too. We have already met our neighbors - they seem super nice. Hopefully we will be able to share the process with you as we take photos of the progress. The projected date is July 1st. So, it looks like we will be in the farm house for the Spring which should be fun to see everything bloom again and we will hopefully be in the new house before school starts so we can get settled and enjoy the community pool. We are excited and thank God for His provision for us in the interim and giving us this new house.