Mark and Sarah's Family Blog

2012-03-01 16:20:18

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:20:18 -0500

First entry in almost a year. If you still subscribe to our blog or check it on occasion I wanted to add this to let you know we are primarily sharing all our updates on twitter and facebook. Hopefully if you want to be in touch with us we are already connected on those sites.

Perhaps in the future we will get back to updating this blog. I do make updates on this site to the boys pages on occasion as well as the Travels page. If you want to see new pictures and videos our Picasa/Google+ and YouTube pages always have that material.

2011-04-28 09:32:05

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:32:05 -0400

Just a short entry today. I wanted to remind everyone that we are putting all of our new videos of the Kids on our social media sites. This means if you have friended us on facebook you'll be included. And just as important, almost all videos we uploaded will go onto my Youtube channel. If you subscribe to my Youtube channel it should e-mail you anytime we had a new video uploaded. You can subscribe here:

2011-03-24 17:16:44

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:16:44 -0400

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what life seems like at the moment, it never slows down. The boys (all 4 of them) have delved deep into "Star Wars" - so much so that Seth will lay with his head sticking out of the pew on Sunday. He uses his "blaster" to shoot the pastors or anyone up front. I've tried explaining that we don't play Star Wars in church but he just doesn't care. Luke brings home a new piece of art concerning Star Wars everyday. One of these days I'm going to post a picture of his SW art. He's pretty good. Jonah is Jonah. He likes SW because Luke likes it. He's getting better at playing on the Wii. They are all very anxious to get outside. Only in MI is the weather colder the first week of Spring than it was the last week of winter. I just finished "Alice in Wonderland" at LHS. The show was amazing! Next up is "The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf" at Trinity starting with rehearsals on April 4th. That show will be May 14th. Boy, is summer filling up fast. We are excited about starting it off with Lisa's (my sister) graduation in May. Then off to our annual "Sister's Trip" in Florida. In June we have 2 family weddings. And to round it off we just found out that David (Mark's brother) and Megan are expecting their first baby in Sept/Oct. Super exciting news! Mark has already cleared our weekends for a possible baptism.

2011-02-14 08:12:25

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:12:25 -0500

Wow, has it been awhile since we've blogged anything. Crazy! Anyway, life goes on as usual. Luke is doing great in kindergarten. All the little girls love him. He can never remember anything he does during the day except for playing. He and his friends like to build Star Wars ships out of Legos. Jonah is loving preschool. He and his best friend Jack are the only boys in the class of six. He is also popular with the ladies. Jonah is also a puzzle whiz. He can put together a 6--100 piece puzzle in less than 10 minutes. Seth is, well, Seth. He's the cutest mischief maker there is. And he knows he's cute. And uses it. He loves trucks and trains and chasing his brothers around. Mark is doing well. He enjoys teaching at Lutheran High South. Grace has been keeping him busy as well. Of course, he always makes time for his mountains. Lately our house has been total Star Wars - Mark playing on his computer, Luke on the Wii, and Star Wars Legos EVERYWHERE. Me? I've been keeping busy as well. Aside from the Grace Youth Group, I've been working with Trinity's Youth Group. It's always exciting to see a group grow. I also direct drama at Lutheran High South. We do 2 shows a year and are currently in production for "Alice in Wonderland". I also recently got permission to create a "traveling" drama group from LHS. Much like "Fish Out of Water" at CUC, we would go to area churches and share the gospel message through drama. I'm exciting to start this new endeavor. Oh yeah, and I'm going to direct a drama production at Trinity when "Alice" is finished. So life is busy. We'd love to hear how you are doing. We didn't get Christmas cards out this year but I will try to keep the blog more updated. Keep in touch!

2010-09-08 00:38:04

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:38:04 -0400

Today was a most exciting day for our family. It was the first day of school in 2010 for Luke and Jonah. We were all up before 7 this morning getting ready, even Seth. My class for teaching starts at 7:55 and Luke's kindergarten class also starts as early. Sarah managed all 3 boys overall to Trinity and Luke was actually the first in his class to get there. He was excited about it and was fine staying for the day and letting Sarah go. We hear from his teacher the kindergarten thing is actually harder in the parents than the kids. Luke even got to pack his own lunch for his first day.

Jonah's special moment came later. His 3-year preschool doesn't start till 12:30 and is only Tuesday and Thursday. I came home early for lunch to help get Jonah ready. He was a bit lost doing lunch without Luke. But when it came to going to school, He was also ready and eager to start school. He and I rode back over to Trinity together and went straight for the toys. I spent a few minutes filling out a form and talking to other parents and Jonah minded himself playing away from me. When it came time for me to go he was cool about it and didn't seem worried at all, so off I went. We were very pleased at the end of the day that both boys had great days and look forward to many more.

Seth even enjoyed his day. He was worn out from the early wake-up and actually fell asleep on the kitchen floor while we were doing lunch. He slept till 1:30 givinf Sarah some long-awaited daytime quietness. When he awoke they had done fun time together.

This evening we celebrated their first day by going out and buying a new dishwasher. Yea, I know that sounds a bit random.

2010-07-11 23:26:06

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:26:06 -0400

Lots of updates to share. First of all I've made some basic changes here on the website. I basically removed old projects I now know I'll never get to. I simplified things to cover the most important stuff we'd like to share. You'll now see amongst the links at the top there are links for our Family Blog, Luke, Jonah, Seth, and now new ones to "Travels" and just "Links". Please enjoy the fun stuff we have to share!

Home Updates:Its been incredibly hot and humid here the last 2 weeks, but sadly our pool has been out of commission. The tube that runs from our yard solar heater and to the input to the pool is old, brittle and leaky. If we run our pump water leaks out under our deck. So we've had to shut down until we have a chance to get this replaced. In the meantime we've been using this extra time (since we're not soaking in the pool) to get caught up on all the massive amounts of yardwork we have to do in trimming bushes, mowing, and pulling weeds. But all in all, we are just absolutely loving our new house and neighborhood.

Seth: He is a real jabbermouth these days. He also has been having more fussy moments when he doesn't get his way. We are wondering if he's in a growth spurt as he spent the better part of today eating. We had a South party tonight and at one point just randomly found him having climbed up onto the snack counter and was eating chips from 3 different bags.

Jonah: Is loving being outside all summer. He was timid in the pool at first but has grown to like it. He is getting excited about starting preschool in 2 months.

Luke: Luke has been preparing this summer for his first 14er hike on Mt. Democrat in Colorado. He probably isn't fully aware yet what he's getting into, but that's good. He is also looking forward to starting kindergarten in the fall. He spent this summer playing his first year of t-ball and did very well with it. He was a good hitter and probably the best fielder on his team.

Mark and Sarah: We've been keeping our weekends full and busy all summer. In June Mark had his preaching weekend at Dieterich, Illinois. Sarah had a trip to Annapolis to see her sister at the Naval Academy and then a Sister's Trip to Buffalo, New York and Niagara Falls. Over July 4th weekend we enjoyed a long-awaited trip to Chicago. On Friday the 2nd Mark, Denny, and Matt Hein did a 118-mile bike ride to the Wisconsin border and back. This was Mark's second 100+ mile "century ride". Sarah and the boys went to Brookfield Zoo with Grandma for the day. On Saturday the 3rd, Mark, Sarah, and Papa took Luke to the Cubs game against the Reds (and they won 3-1).

Now we are setting our sights forward to the New Orleans trip for the National Youth Gathering and our annual Colorado trip. Its been a great summer so far.

2010-06-07 15:41:51

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 15:41:51 -0400

We finally made it in the pool over the weekend. Dad and I made a run to the pool place Saturday afternoon with a water sample figuring we'd have a ways to go (and technically we do). There is still cloudiness in the water and stuff to be vacuumed, but to our surprise, he said the water was fine to swim in while we finish cleaning. So Luke, Dad, and I hopped in for an hour on Saturday afternoon. It was a "cool" 70 degrees in the water. It felt awful cold when you got in but it got more comfortable as you got used to it. I've let things sit in it the last 2 days without the pump going and now the water on top is crystal clear with plenty of dirt/muck visible on the bottom to be vacuumed.

We've also been otherwise busy inside the house as well. We figured out today Jonah and Seth both have upper respiratory infections, and for Seth throw in an ear infection as well. They haven't been overly miserable with these but have been a little crankier than normal.

Sarah is looking forward to flying out of town for a few days starting Wednesday. She heads out to Annapolis to meet up with her sister and parents who are at the Naval Academy.

2010-05-31 20:27:44

Mon, 31 May 2010 20:27:44 -0400

This weekend was a new adventure. We finally started working on the pool that came with our new house. When we first pulled the cover off Saturday morning we were shocked. It was green through and through with layers of leaves and algae. Gross indeed.

We spent the day Saturday making a pair of trips to the pool store with questions and parts. It was a day of vacuuming junk from the bottom of the pool and skimming it off the top. At about 7pm we finally gave that a rest and we started the chlorine step. We put 2 gallons in every hour for 4 hours. That night we couldn't see much difference but we checked in the morning and the water was the milky white color we were looking for.

We spent Sunday putting a settling agent in the water to get the dead algae and other particles to sink to the bottom. Monday we spent the day vacuuming the bottom and skimming again. Around 4pm we finallt started routing the water through the main pool filter system. This will hopefully be the last step in resurrecting the pool. Now its a matter of letting the filter do its work and testing the water to get the right chemical balance. We're looking forward to swimming in it possibly as soon as next weekend.

2010-05-23 00:08:09

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:08:09 -0400

Busy weekend already. On Friday night Sarah and I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the first annual Steak and Comedy Night for Lutheran High South. It was a most enjoyable evening with perhaps nearly 200 people. The food was great and the comedians they had were funny (though they had a few dirty moments). The boys enjoying an evening of babysitting with Melanie, and Gerry and her nephew.

Today Mark spent the morning getting our first service hours in for Trinity. He spent four hours at the fairgrounds helping to clean up Trinity's food service building. This afternoon we spent getting ready for the first evening of "Real Life". That's our new 20-something group at Grace. It actually includes our college students and everyone up to about our age. We had 5 show up (make it 8 with Kim, Sarah, and I). It was an enjoyable evening for all who made some new friends and made plans for other events during the summer.

Some website notes: There are new videos and Kid's Pics available. If you've tried any of the newest videos since February you may have had some errors. All of that should be fixed now. I also want to note that I'll be trying to put most of our new videos on facebook from now on. I'm hoping to still put links from here to those videos, but it works easier having facebook host them. And last but not least, I added a new twitter badge on the left-hand side which makes it easy for you to get up to the minute updates on what I'm up to and you're welcome to follow me on that.

2010-05-17 15:57:00

Mon, 17 May 2010 15:57:00 -0400

We are excited that summer vacation is about to arrive. Luke only has two weeks of school left. Mark only has three weeks of teaching left. This summer will be full of exciting events and travel for us and we can't wait to dive into it.

Mark is busy right now with his training for the Colorado trip. He has started much earlier than normal with the hopes of being in exceptional shape (and weight) for the first time in many years. With just a few weeks left of teaching he is enjoying the home stretch and the potential of a few extra hours of free time each week.

Sarah has been enjoying time with the boys while also fighting off headaches and the aches and pains of fibromyalgia. She has also joined Mark in the workouts and we also have been enjoying taking family walks in the evenings in our wonderful new neighborhood. She has kept herself busy with making plans with her sister Lisa for an exciting trip this summer.

Luke is now almost done with preschool-4's and looks forward to starting kindergarten next year. We'll be working heavily on helping him learn to read in the coming months. Mark has recently started reading The Hobbit to Luke as a means of exciting him to reading. Luke loves being outdoors and working in the garden (read: dirt) and watching the flowers around the house grow. He also starts his tee-ball league soon which will be an excitement for all of us.

Jonah is most excited to announce that he is now potty-trained. We've been working for quite some time with him on this to no avail, but he finally made it about two weeks ago and has done quite well since then including sleeping overnights without getting wet. This will make for an exciting summer of having less diapers to change. Jonah also loves the outdoors and he is our explorer. He loves getting into every little thing he can find around the house.

Seth is anxious to grow and keep up with his big brothers. He enjoys following them around outside and likes to ride on his giraffe toy. His most favorite thing right now is playing the Wii with Daddy. If we are anywhere near the family room while we're at home Seth has to be walking around with his Wii mote.