It's freezing outside!

 Wow!!!  Two weeks ago we welcomed Spring with warm temperatures and I planted pansies and lettuce and mowed the yard!  Today, we are back to feeling like winter outside!  As we were leaving church on Sunday, it was snowing!  Snowing ... Oh my!  It's not what we really want to see but that's what it is.

The weekend was mostly spent inside because the weather turned so cold!  Like freezing cold and in the 20's!!!!  Crazy!  Ashlyn was so happy with how her over light egg turned out and she very much enjoyed her avocado toast!  She's a lot like me and healthy choices are high on her priorities.  Mostly though, she's not afraid to try new foods.  Many times she ends up really liking them!  Like avocados!  She raved about her toast, avocado mash and egg that she made the second one and ate it!  She's good in the kitchen!

Friday night Ashlyn played well at her basketball game and scored a basket!  This is a blast to watch!

And this Little Man was all about visiting Bird-in-Hand Market on Saturday.  Meleah was staying at our house and the girls were begging to go to Target.  I wasn't really into that route but I knew the market sold cinnamon swirl bread and and so Ashlyn, Meleah and Austin went with me to the market and we strolled the isles!  Look what Austin tried on!!!  We bought some bread, the kids picked out some candy and we watched fudge being made!  

And then we came home and I covered up my lettuce plants!  The radishes are just popping through and I hope they will be ok with this cold weather!  When the label says "cold tolerant" does that mean freezing cold????

Last week, we planned a sisters day out and I always look forward to these days!  They are fun, we eat, we shop and we laugh!  The main purpose was to celebrate Jody and Fannie because they had March birthdays but Jody ended up having a funeral to attend and Fannie had to work because her house cleaning driver was sick.  We decided to still go and have fun!  First stop was at The Daily Grind.  We grabbed warm drinks and breakfast there!  Then we visited Hill Top Nursery in Quarryville!  They have such beautiful plants!  I loved these geraniums!!!!

Saturday morning, Matt called Mike and said that he has his boys out fishing and there's no one around.  He invited Matthew, Austin and Mike to join them!  It didn't take long for the boys to jump out of bed and grab their fishing gear and lunch and head to the pond and streams!  It was so cute to see Mike hop in Matthew's truck and drive the boys off to fish!  Mike likes to drive Matthew's truck now and then because it's stick shift and fun to drive.

They caught their limit.  They filleted the fish right on the spot and cooked in over Matt's tiny grill he had along.  Making memories like this are awesome!  Mike does such a good job at dropping his Saturday plans to have fun with the boys!  They all had a blast!

Ashlyn and I were watching it snow while Mike and Austin ran in for some pizza after church.  Let's have the warm tempts come back soon!!!!

We ate pizza and then wrapped up in blankets for a Sunday afternoon nap.  I always grab a cookbook and my calendar on Sunday afternoons because that's when I plan out my dinner menu for the upcoming week.  There's no pressure to follow my meal planning every day but I use it for guide.  I grocery shop every Monday and buy the things I need for our meals. Sometimes, if the weather is really cold and I had soup written down for Wednesday, maybe Ill switch it to Monday if I'm thinking soup would taste good.  I love to have my menus written out so I'm not wondering at 4 PM what I am making for supper that night!  It's a great way to actually try new recipes too because I jot down the things I need, grocery shop on Monday and then follow through the meal plans!  

We are so into March Madness right now too!  Basketball has really taken on a higher level in our family since the Warriors played so well this year!  Watching college basketball is now so fun!!!!  Usually it's Mike and I watching and then Matthew and the littles join our little party!  We play word scapes in between periods and half time.  Even though we are all ready for warmer weather and for winter tempts to be over with, there's something relaxing about a cold Sunday afternoon being all wrapped up in a blanket and being with your family!  I love it!!!!  We did end up visiting Matt and Lena and playing two rounds of Rummy O!  The kids always have fun when we go to their house!

Monday came around and Austin asked me to stick his school clothes in the dryer for a few minutes to warm them up before he gets dressed into them!  Spoiled kid!!!!  The kids are back in school and Austin can't wait for chapel on Wednesday because first grade is in charge.  I'm sure it will be inspiring!  Linville has the best chapel services!!!  Ashlyn has basketball games this week and a birthday!  We will be celebrating her special day!  And even though basketball is over for this season, Matthew and his friends are still meeting to shot around a lot!!!!  

The sun is shining.  It's freezing outside and we are blessed!  So very blessed!

Have a good week friends! 

IT'S SPRING!!!!

 We made it through Winter and entered lovely Spring!!!!  I absolutely love Spring time ... seeing all the new sprouts, tulips pushing through the ground and planting the garden!!!!

We had the WARRIORS basketball banquet Thursday night and now we enter the Junior League!!!!  😂. This is a much shorter season and Ashlyn was nervous and excited!!!!  I just love to see how families come out and cheer for their kids!  The gym was packed and older and younger siblings were there to watch and cheer.

The first game was against Veritas and Linville did really well and scored a lot more!!!!  We are feeling it this year aren't we???!!!!!

It's now Spring and we celebrated at Ritas!!!!

And we had beautiful weather last week!  It's so hard to believe that when Mike left for Arizona, we ended up having six inches of snow blow through our town and give us one last winter day.  Then the weather went from snow to 70 degrees!  The gardens dried out nice and we got seeds and some plants in the ground!!!!  Ashlyn helped me plant carrots, sugar peas, onions and red beets!

And it's time to start swinging bats for these two now that basketball is over for this season!  

With Mike being out of town all last week, and having a lot planned each day, the weather was too nice to get some projects done around here!  Matthew helped me trim the roses and some shrubs!  I did a lot of raking and blowing!  The flower beds all got cleaned up and I even hopped on the mower on Saturday!  I put it down one notch and even though it didn't cut much grass, it's amazing how it cleans up the winter look in the lawn and it put fresh marks in the grass!  All the tiny sticks, pieces of corn husks from the fields and just yuk from the past few months that lay on the grass, all got mowed over and it now just needs to turn green and grow!

We were SO VERY HAPPY to have Mike back home safe and sound Saturday night!!!!  He had a great time golfing and came home with a fresh new tan!  I missed him SO MUCH!!!  We love you BABE!!!!

HAPPY SPRING!

Basketball Banquet ~ 2022

We had a crazy busy week with Mike leaving on Saturday to go on his week long golf trip to Arizona, a bridal shower to attend Sunday, another away game on Tuesday night, meetings and then the basketball banquet Thursday night.  Mike was again so bummed to miss this event but I had him on FaceTime for over an hour so he could watch the awards and hear the speeches!!!

The banquet started with some good food and then awards.  The girls basketball team also joined the banquet and awards and they went first.

So much could be said about the Warriors this year!  The girls did a lot better than last year!  And the boys team was incredible!!!!  Here are the accomplishments they brought to Linville Hill Christian School this year:

They had one win after the next in the season and took us to our first ever to the CCAC Basketball Championship!!!!  Our family was in Florida on vacation, except for Matthew.  He stayed home and focused on basketball!  Mike flew home for this game and won't have missed it for nothing!  Even though the Warriors lost this game, they finished in second place in the CCAC!!!  That's to be celebrated!

Then they qualified for the Districts 3 Playoffs as the second seed.  We hosted this game in our home gym and packed the house out!  This win took us to HERSHEY, PA!!!!

At the Giant Center, the Warriors won again and it was our first District 111 Championship for Linville Hill!!!!  This was such a fun day!  To play at the Giant Center is a huge honor and the boys did so well!  Plus we got some Hershey chocolate and hung out with the team all day long!

After the District 111 wins, the Warriors were not finished yet!  No, no!  We moved further in the States Tournament and faced the Quarter Finals, securing a position in the elite 8!!!  This topped us within the top eight 1A schools in Pennsylvania!  We lost playing in the Martz Hall Gymnasium and it was another HUGE honor to play here and met our match!  The Warriors were voted as Best Sportsmanship within the CCAC East!

Look how proud these boys are!!!!  Tim Fisher, Matthew Lapp and Jesse Landis all received team awards. Matthew got the MVP!

And one thing the coaches all said was how it takes a whole team of boys to get where they did this year!!!!  Such a good group of young men and Waltz said, "There are two words to finish this season with .. UNFINISHED BUISNESS!!!"  We will be back next year, ready and strong to play again!

Matthew and Tim both gave speeches and expressed their appreciation to the coaches and all those who made this possible for the team!  I love this kid so much!!!!

GOOD JOB MATTHEW!!!

Every coach shed tears at one point in their speeches.  I was touched by that!  They really did come to be like a family during this season!  They had practices almost every day!  They all worked so hard!  They have so much good to say about the boys and vice versa!  We are incredibly blessed to have these good, Godly leaders in our boys lives!

After the banquet, guess what the team did???  They all went back to Main Campus and played basketball!!!!  I'm telling you ... these boys are family!  

We are blessed!  I love this school, this community and all the good people that we are surrounded with so many of our days!

SO PROUD OF YOU WARRIORS!!!

Lost in the third round of States Basketball.

 What a rush!!!!  The Warriors went from one win after the next this entire season and we couldn't be more proud of how they respresented our school and the team!!!  These young men ALL deserve metals and trophies and a round of applause!!!!

Matthew and Tim were the team captains.  I loved watching them play the game together!  They really passed and shot well!

Mike was out of town all last week and he was so disappointed about having to miss this game!!!  We have learned to not plan any vacations during the month of February and March!!!!  The two months we have always loved to go south and get away from the winter cold.  Basketball has stolen our hearts though and we were at every game possible!!!!

Matthew made the newspaper a few times now.  The first time with golf.  And now basketball!  What a great athlete!!!!

This was the third round of STATES!!!!  We drove to Martz Hall in Pottsville to watch and cheer our little hearts out for the Warriors!  It was a heartbreaker when the game began and St. John Neumann scored right away and it took us a little bit to get a score on the board but the boys played so well!!!

They played such good defense!!!!  This opposing team was good and we were showing them just how good we were too!!!!

And the little fans joined the party once again!!!!  What a ride they will remember!

Love these little people!!!!

We caught up and the gymnasium went crazy!!!!  It was so loud in the there with the fans cheering so much!!!!

Matthew had a blast playing and he was really feeling the rush here when they took the lead!

So much pressure to play their best.  To play hard defense!!!  Every shot mattered at this point!!!!

Coach did so good with these boys and they learned a whole lot under his program!

Look at all the fans!!!!!

We lost the game at 60-50.  Only by ten points and even though we would have loved to win again and move on to the next two games, the boys were so proud of how far they got!!!!  This St. John Neumann is a fantastic team and they are fast, have energy to the end and we met our match!!!!

Good job Warriors!!!  I will forever be your fan!!!!!!

Such good spirit!!!  Our last two games were 1 1/2 hours away and both games were filled with fans!!!!

Hadassah and Jer gave Matthew a hockey jersey and he was so happy for it!  Matthew has had an incredible year of basketball and played really good!!!!  

We are so proud of you Matt!!!!

GO WARRIORS!!!!

See you all next year!

Second Round of States won!!!

 These boys are making us feel unbeatable these days!!!!  One game after the next is a huge win and we are advancing to more difficult teams!  Last night was so fun to cheer again and watch the Warriors in victory again!!!  

This game was played an hour and half away, in the hills of Minersville.  The gymnasium was spacious and nice!  It was a late night for us all but so fun!!!!

Here's the "little fans crew" once again!!!

Coach is doing great!  Really all the coaches are!  We have an incredible team!

He really taught these boys how to play good basketball!

We have been so blessed to only have minor injuries like scrapes and bruises but last might Tim made a crazy good basket and when he fell down, the wind got knocked right out of him.  He laid there for a bit and we held our breath hoping he would be fine!  It took a few minutes but soon he got up and before long, was back in the game!!!!  Way to go Tim!

Coach likes Matthew!  And Matthew likes coach!  And for good reasons!  Matthew is always early for practice!  He listens intently to every move and works so hard at each practice!  We are super proud of how Matthew is learning and showing good character on the court!

Ashlyn and Desi looked so small way on top!

The final score was 66-56!!!  We won again and now move on to round three of States!!!!

We all cheered so loud and just couldn't be more happy to move on to the next round!!!

Way to go Warriors!