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