The Earnhardt Gazette: Earnhardts

Sunday, December 28, 2008

More Christmas Festivities!

We got together with Greg, Stephanie and the kids on Friday to celebrate Christmas, and what a great night it was! We hung out, played foosball, ate pizza and snacks, played Disney Trivial Pursuit while the kids were watching a movie (the kids watched MANY movies that night, while playing of course!), and topped the night off by getting Stephanie on Facebook finally! (that just may have been my favorite part, as the dads had all six kids on the other side of the SHUT door that Stephanie & I were behind while getting her started on Facebook!) (ahhh...) :-) All in all, a GREAT night!

The boys playing a game of foosball...IT'S ON!

Jacob very excited about his new fishing game!

Juliana LOVES her gifts!

Jenna opening her gift from Uncle Greg and Aunt Stephanie.

A super cute picture of Aunt Stephanie and Jenna!

The Earnhardt cousins! (we're so glad they're back!!!)

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Then on Saturday night the Wagners came over for OUR annual Christmas get-together! Another night of hanging out, talking, yummy food, playing games, and kids watching movies! I tell ya, I love holidays!!!!! My parents had bought me the game "Would You Rather...?" for Christmas, so we broke that open and played it for the first time with the Wagners. A GREAT GAME! We had such a good time playing it!

The "surrogate family", the kids and Gabe!

Jenna with her new book! I love Veggie Tales books!!!

Juliana loving her new ballerina toy!

Gabe was excited to get a Hulk toy!

Jacob and his huge floor puzzle!

Jenna reading her book...she's VERY advanced ;-D

Aunt Lisa reading the book to the girls :-)

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THEN, on Sunday morning Jacob was in his first Kids Praise Christmas performance!!! He did SO great doing all the hand motions and singing the songs! (as did all the kids!) It's neat having him up there with so many close friends and family, like James, Austin, Ryan, and many others. He did the hand motions moreso during the 1st Service performance, but the 2nd Service performance was just too good to pass up! So that's the one I choose to upload right now. My favorite part is around the 1 minute and 40 second mark (or so), when Jacob loses his balance. :-) I am SO sorry, Ryan! But Ryan sure recovered well and kept right on goin'!

Jacob and other Kids Praise kids in the Christmas performance.

Great job with the hand motions!

2nd Service Kids Praise Christmas Performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxzoqKKR6Mw

(Jacob is front row, 2nd from the left)

(If you have high speed connection, you can choose the "View In High Quality in the lower right corner of the YouTube video screen)

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I believe that concludes our Christmas festivities for 2008!!! I just asked Jacob if we should start taking down our Christmas decorations, which he PROMPTLY told me NO! So I think they'll be up for a few more days :-) My goodness, it's almost 2009, can you believe it?!?!?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

15 Years Of Blessings

15 years ago today Matt & I began dating! But lets go back further... 29 years ago our moms met at a bible study my mom was holding at her house (I was 2 and Matt was 5). They quickly became best friends, even worked together for a while! The best friends took notice of how close two of Marie's boys and two of my mom's girls were in age, and thus decided that Matt & Karen should get married, and Greg & I should get married. Well, as you know, Matt & I shattered that dream! (but as Jimmy & Karen and Greg & Stephanie would agree, it was for the best!) :-)

In the summer of 1993, we went on our every-other-year trip to Sun Cove. We were sitting around the campfire one night, and Matt mentioned that I deserved better than the person I was dating at the time (which happened to be his best friend). All of a sudden Matt & I began to see each other in a different light, we were no longer brother/sister, we were a boy and a girl. We spent many nights at Sun Cove laying on blankets together while staring up at the bazillion bright stars in the sky, and counting the MANY shooting stars that passed overhead.

Upon return back to reality, I quickly broke up with "the other guy" to make room for "what could be." Matt gave me a tape to play, it was Sammy Kershaw's "She Don't Know She's Beautiful." Well as you can imagine, my heart soared and I fell madly in love with him. :-)

On October 2nd, Matt and I stood next to my car outside his house for HOURS making small talk and watching what seemed like about a thousand cars drive by (he lived on a well-traveled street), all the while both wondering who was going to make the first move. Finally at 5:00 in the morning, he pulled me close and kissed me. It was wonderful, I was on cloud nine! I slipped into my car, drove the half-mile home with a humungous smile plastered on my face, looked at my clock and quickly was SCARED OUT OF MY MIND when I realized I was 5 hours past my curfew and knew my dad would be getting up at ANY moment! Well God must have had mercy on me because I slipped in the house and into bed without hearing anything from any room, but man alive you better believe I was staring at my door in horror of getting caught! :o)

We were in youth group together so we went on many excursions together, ferry rides, bike rides, etc. We spent one of our anniversaries going on the Victoria Clipper (which I promptly threw up on!), walked around "Beautiful BC" while I tried to get the puke-taste out of my mouth, and enjoyed a much better boat ride home.

Two days before Christmas of 1996, Matt brought me to Dash Point, carved my initial in a tree, and proposed to me in the rain! It was very memorable :-) [a quick journey back to explain: when he was a kid, he, Greg and some friends carved their initials with a heart in a tree, saying that one day they'd carve the initials of their future spouse in the empty spot - so that's how he proposed!] The rain just made my engagement ring sparkle all the more! :-)

As you can imagine, our moms were ELATED to learn of our engagement! The best friend girlfriends were about to be RELATED!!! They giggled through the entire next nine months until our wedding day. We got married at Faith Baptist on September 20th, 1997 and celebrated our honeymoon at Disneyland and Ocean Shores.

We have spent MANY more vacations at Sun Cove, that destination will always hold a special place in our hearts as that's "where it all began."

We are so thankful for all of the close family and friends we've shared our journey with, both old and new. God has placed them all in our lives and we are so grateful. Thank you all for adding to our 15 years, I can't wait to see what will hapen with us all over the next 15 years! Below are some pictures of our journey :-)