A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer...

This weekend was spent almost entirely in Corvallis. Our usual routine includes Friday night youth group and then church on Sunday, but this weekend, we had two lunch/dinner meetings with groups of people in Corvallis, so we were pretty much just sleeping in Salem. On Saturday we met with the guys who will be taking over worship team when Danny leaves for China. They are two brothers and another friend (who attend OSU) and they are seriously an answer to prayer. Every time we have our worship leader leave, God provides us with new people right in the nick of time. We are really blessed to have these guys serving with us! On Sunday, we had church, and then went to watch Steven Kim play basketball at Crescent Valley High School. His team did great, and won! We took Sun and Daniel with us and Jae showed up to cheer along. The kids had a great time, and Steven did great, scoring four points, and lots of assists. It was pretty funny (and embarrassing for him) because Sun and Daniel wouldn...

We had game night last night at Alicia and Ben's, and we had a great time rocking the boys at Cranium WOW. We normally play guys against girls, and we won the first game handily (with the help of Isla jinxing the guys by blowing on their dice every time). The next game, we drew for teams, but the only difference was Mallory got moved to the boys' team. We whooped them even worse that time. Here are some funny photos of the night. Can anyone guess what Bryan is trying to make Kyle do? Square dance. Needless to say, no one guessed that. This is a picture of our girl peice leaving their guy peice in the dust!

While Bryan was gone, I took on the puzzle he got me for Christmas. I just finished it this morning. I didn't get a chance to work on it, but the days that I did make it, I took pictures of my progress, as seen below. Also included is a cute photo of Isla from game night. I couldn't resist.

Because I am such a good friend (and might have been coerced), I went over to Alicia's house yesterday to help her construct her prized Black Friday purchase: a carport of all things. They heat their house with a wood stove, and apparently they have a lot of wood to keep dry. I don't think she anticipated how large this carport is, but there was no turning back once the boxes were opened. Supposedly this was an hour-long job (according to the box). I got there around 3:15 and we didn't quit until around 7 p.m. One of the problems was the instructions, which were wrong. I know most of you are thinking, "Stupid girls don't know how to read instructions," but I will let you know that we are very handy girls, and the instructions were WRONG! This fatal mistake in the instructions cost us an extra hour of undoing half of the bolts we had just put in (16 to be exact), flipping the bar around and re-bolting them. We managed to complete the top of the carport, the tru...

I've had to find babysitters for Macie since her surgery and yesterday she was at my parents' house. When I drove up to get her after work, I knew something had gone awry. The back yeard was covered in white chicken feathers. My mom met me at the door, and I asked her what happened. I knew by her look it was Macie. Apparently, my mom went to pick up my brother from school and left Macie on a rope in the backyard, where my mom's chickens and dog Ryeleigh also were. When she came home 15 minutes later, Macie and Ryeleigh were yanking the rooster back and forth and one of the other chickens was already dead. My mom found the alive chickens hiding in different places, one had even gotten into the house through the basement door to escape the evil dogs! This is my guess of what happened: Macie saw the chickens and wanted to play, so she pulled hard enough at her rope and it broke. She then started pouncing on and biting the chicken. The rooster probably saw this happen and came ...

So Macie got spayed on Tuesday...what an experience. I had to be at work before her appointment, and since Bryan is out of town, I dropped her off at the inlaws so Bryan's mom could drop her off. That afternoon, I picked her up. I walked into the vet clinic and all I hear is the saddest moaning coming from the back kennels. Of course, I recognize the howls as Macie. Turns out Macie decided to breach the 50-pound mark...which is a bummer because it costs $20 extra if your dog is over 50 pounds. She weighed in at 52. If I would have known she was so close to the mark, I would have put her in a sweatsuit and some garbage bags and taken her for a run to make weight - wrestling style. Oh well, I ended up paying $10 per pound extra....what a joke! I took Macie home and she was the definition of pathetic. About a mile away from the vet, we were driving and she starts to throw up all over the place. Not much I could do but watch her. It was pretty nasty. I drove home fast and left her outs...

New Year's was spent with friends at Mallory and Josh's new place. Not all our usual crowd could make it, but we had some new additions (Jason, Lauren, Isla and Josh) and a great time playing Wii, Imagine If, and eating plenty of food. We had our first baby girl join in our tradition, which was fun. The boys made a new tradition of shooting off bottle rockets in the backyard...one of which hit Alicia and Ben's car parked out front...Oops! We didn't have TV (Mal and Josh just moved in), so we watched the ball drop online and hung out for a while longer. We had a great time. Also included are photos from another visit to the puppies. There are only four left, and Macie loves playing with them...sometimes a little too rough.

There are many perks that come with the house we rent. If I ever need an egg or some cupcake paper holders, I can run (literally) over to my aunt's house up the hill and borrow some. If we want to take Macie for a walk, she never needs a leash and has a lake to swim in around the corner. Bryan gets to be a kid every now and then when he gets roped in to one of my cousins' games of Airsoft. No garbage bill. No water bill. Free internet. Quiet, dark nights where you can see stars from horizon to horizon. Those are a few of the perks, and recently, we added another one. I always knew there was a small indoor basketball court in the upstairs of the old barn out back, but we'd never been able to get up there since we moved in because it was locked. My cousins recently told us where the key was hidden, and to our surprise (and especially Bryan's delight), the court had been redone and they even have an automatic ball returner! This bball court is in the most unlikliest of pl...