Please Consider Helping Matt King

Hi -- friends of ours son, Matt King, was found unconscious last week in his apartment and has a brain tumor. Matt is 26 years old and does not have health insurance. The doctors put a shunt in his brain to drain the spinal fluid that had collected. His 10 hour surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible is scheduled for April 6th. He has to pay the surgeon $8,000 up front by next week. Here is a link to his journey:

www.helpmattking.org

If you can help out by donating to his surgery, that would be great. Most importantly, though, would you please lift Matt and his family up in prayer, along with the doctors?

Thanks!

On to Nationals

Kelsie and I are back from a weekend in Statesboro GA. She competed in the Zone 4 Western riding competition -- riders from 5 states met for the weekend about 4.5 hours from here. Kelsie rode in the Junior Varsity Beginner Horsemanship class because she earned enough points during the regular riding season to advance to Zones. She took 2nd in her class and the top 3 riders go on to the National Competition. Nationals are pretty close to home this year, yay! So we'll travel about 1.25 hours to Conyers on April 23rd (I think).

Kenny and Cam had a good weekend too. Kenny and his doubles partner won their match yesterday and Cameron's baseball team won too. The weather was perfect on Saturday, rain AGAIN today. I better check my husband's blog and see what trouble he was up to this weekend.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

To my wonderful mother-in-law. I hope your day has been restful and special!!!

Time for a Quick Update

I hope everyone is doing well out there! Just a quick update on what's going on here in GA. Kelsie had her first high school golf match last Saturday - 18 holes, wow, without a cart? You know I could NEVER do that, but Kelsie did and after a long day away, she came home with a really good attitude about the whole thing. She was the only one in her group who got a par. Kenny was in the gallery ;-) the whole day -- what a dad!

Zones for the Western high school equestrian team are about 4 hours from here in GA the weekend of March 19th, so we will be heading there.

Cam's baseball team has their first tournament this weekend, should be fun, if it stops raining.

The Kotlarczyk's are coming for a visit starting on Saturday, we are looking forward to that.

Kenny and I started playing "T2" mixed doubles. I don't have time right now to rant about our first match which was Tuesday night.

This Saturday, the ALTA men's doubles team starts their spring season and Sunday the women's ALTA doubles start. Kenny is scheduled to play, the women's schedule hasn't come out yet.

My brother Alan has been in and out of the emergency room the past few days; had some kind of a scope today that showed some ulcers, more tests tomorrow, would appreciate prayers for him.

That pretty much covers it for tonight. Happy March 10th (oh, Happy Anniversary to my parents tomorrow -- let's see...must be 55 years, is that possible?????)

Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Jamaica

Here are some pix from the trip.

It was crazy for all of us getting to Miami, with the weather for my plane and mechanical problems for my sister's plane. They got to Miami at 1:30AM and I got there at 3:30AM; when we got to the hotel, they had one room left with 1 king bed...there were 4 of us who wanted to sleep...it wasn't pretty. One of the women trying to get to Miami from St. Louis didn't make it -- she had to fly into Cozumel on Monday.

Carnival Liberty...

Cozumel...

My sister snorkeling...

One of the pool areas...

One little snafu: the seas were too rough to tender near Georgetown Grand Cayman, so they took us to the other side of the island. It was a bit crazy getting off onto the tender boat, but it ended fine...we just missed out on some shopping in Georgetown...

My sister at stingray city, Grand Cayman -- see the stingray on her back?

Jamaica...Dunns River Falls. Kenny and I went here before we had the kids...I conquered it then, it was slippery, cold and dangerous then...

My sister, Cindy, Sharon...

Me....(I didn't feel a need to conquer it again, since it is still slippery, cold and dangerous...) so I was the official photographer...

Dolphin Cove, Jamaica...

Back on the ship....

On Friday, our last day, they announced that we had a medical emergency on board, so they cleared the front of the ship, waiting for the coast guard helicopter to come. It hovered above the ship and they lifted the person up and flew him/her to the Bahamas. All they told us was that it was life and death.

Breakfast the morning we left. We were about 2 hours late getting into Miami due to the medical emergency.

I'm Back....and Shoes

I made it back safely from the cruise, had a great time with my sister and friends. I'll write more about that after I get myself back in order. But...for any of you who saw my husband's blog before he took it down (in an attempt to hide it from me)...I found the pictures and he left them out for me to see. I just want to say...first, those are not all my shoes. Second, I am on a mission to develop a blog post just for him. ;-)

Cruising

Tomorrow night I am leaving for Miami to meet up with my sister and several of her friends -- there will be 8 of us women, if I am counting right. And then on Saturday we board the Carnival Liberty for our cruise. So have a happy week everyone and keep Kenny, the kids and my parents in your prayers -- and us girls too!

Kelsie Lyn Garnder Collins Hand

Happy 15th birthday Kelsie. I love you!!!!

The Dinky Little Serve, Part II

Ok, well, yesterday guess what? I won my first ever mixed doubles tennis match and the score was 6-3, 7-5!!! It was very exciting. Now I have to tell you that I had a different partner this time. Kenny, my normal partner, was moved up to "line 3", I remained at "line 5". Now, if you are like me, you have no idea what that means. Our team plays 5 matches each week, they are called lines 1-5, 1 having the best players, 5 having the less experienced (not worst) players. I brought Kenny down to line 5, but they had had enough of that and split us up and moved him to line 3, where he rightfully belongs. Anyway, the woman part of the team we played yesterday, had a less dinky serve than that other woman I wrote about, but it was still a little dinky. And... I started off doing the same thing yesterday, returning it once into the net and once hitting it out. So, I tried to remember what the line 3 player told me...just treat it like a volley and punch it back. It worked out pretty well. And, guess what? We won!!! Honestly the other team was a lot worse than the 2 other teams Kenny and I have played, so if we didn't win yesterday, that would have really been bad. But, it's still a win and I can now say I have tasted the thrill of victory ;-) Line 3 did not win yesterday, but they played well and it was a close match: 5-7, 5-7.

A Stone Goes Unturned

In order to understand the context of this post, please, I refer you to my husband's post from last night. I submit to you that he may have focused in the wrong area. I submit to you that he left a stone unturned. I submit to you photos of my closet. Yes, it's a mess, and I have been meaning to dig into it, clean it, but so far I have not brought myself to it. I submit to you that maybe he should have started his cleaning rampage in there...



Look....closer....


No, closer!!!!

Closer...you are almost there....

Hmmm, it's a miracle!!!! Now, let's wait to hear his explanation for this....