Home Life

Today was a crazy day.  We got up early, got ready, and went to the funeral of our friend.  The services were very positive, and the priest gave many encouraging words to the family.  This is the first funeral mass that any of our daughters had been to so they were a little confused as to what was going on, but we explained it to them as best we could.  We paid our respects and then we were off to the picnic that followed.  Sarah stayed the entire time with her friend again to be there for support.  The rest of us grabbed something to eat and then took off to get Zachary to his football game.

Today Zach got to be a captain and go out for the coin toss.  He was pretty excited, although we’re not quite sure he knows exactly what that means!  🙂  He played pretty good today (one of his better games) but they still lost.  He is still doing great at starting Center.

After the football game, we went back over to the picnic and hung out with the family pretty much until it was over.

After we got home from football and the picnic, Angela and I took off and drove to Lyons for a 40th birthday party for Tracy Raketic.  We had a great, relaxing time, sitting outside around a blazing fire and enjoying talking with people we have gotten to know but only see when we visit the Raketic family.  🙂  After the hour drive home, however, we were totally exhausted and fell into bed.

Tonight we attended the visitation for our friend, Lonny Greenwald.  Sarah went over and spent the whole time with her friend, trying to comfort and help her out.  When we got there, we saw many other people that we knew and also met some that we didn’t know before.  Their neighborhood (near ours) is so much more friendly and outgoing than ours is.   Everyone seems pretty close.  Sarah’s friend Taylor printed out a copy of one of the pictures that we took together at homecoming with the dads and daughters and displayed it in a frame there at the visitation (Lonny is in the blue shirt in the front).  It was very surreal.

We wish our very best to the Greenwald family and hope that you will find peace and comfort in the days, weeks, and months to come.

Zach got his football pictures the other day and I just got around to posting them today.  He is such a cute little football player.  He has a great team and really nice and helpful coaches.  Even though they have yet to win a game, they sure have a lot of fun!

Zach loves playing too and can’t wait for next season to play again (even though they still have 3 more games left!  🙂

On MUCH better news than on yesterday’s post, today was Sarah’s Birthday!!!  SWEET 17!  Yikes!  It is amazing how fast time flies.   Just yesterday, we were in Provo bathing Sarah in the kitchen sink!  🙂

We celebrated a little but with Zach’s football practice and Young Women/Young Men activites, we were pretty swamped!  We’ll celebrate with cheesecake (what Sarah really wants for her cake) tomorrow.  For her birthday, Sarah got about 20 homemade gifts from Zach which was really cute.  She also got her Letter Jacket from us!  🙂  She’s really excited about that!  Unfortunately it didn’t come in on time, but that’s OK.  She’ll just have to be patient!

It’s also hard to believe that Sarah has already been driving for almost a year (4 months by herself with her own license)!  We really love it because she doesn’t have to depend on us to cart her everywhere she goes!  What’s even better is that Brittany and the other kids don’t have to rely on us 100% to cart them around either!  🙂

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Today we received some terrible news…  The dad of one of Sarah’s best friends and friend of our family passed away.  Lonny Greenwald left behind his wife Jackie, and 2 daughters, Rebecca and Emily.  It was quite a shock.  We just chaperoned with him at the Homecoming Dance on Saturday, and he ran and finished the Chicago Marathon yesterday.

Lonny is in the front in the blue shirt with Rebecca, Sarah’s friend.  This picture was taken right before the Homecoming Dance on Saturday.

It really makes you sit back and realize how short and precious life is.  When I came home from work, Brittany gave me a long big hug and told me how much she appreciates me.  I wish it was that way all the time with the kids, but I’ll take what I can get.  🙂

Angela went over and visited Jackie and talked with her about what our family could do.  Sarah went over and spent some time with Rebecca to console and comfort her.  We were a little worried for Sarah because she found out the bad news right before she went to a job interview at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.  True to Sarah’s personality, she compartmentalized the sadness and didn’t let it affect her at all until after she was done with the interview.  She said it went really well, however, so we’re hopeful that soon Sarah will have her first job.

We wish the Greenwald Family the best are praying daily for them in their time of loss.

Tonight was the final Metea Marching Mustangs performance on the field.  🙁  On a good note, they had their best halftime show of the season and did a wonderful job!  I absolutely loved being part of the pit crew and will miss hanging out with the pit dads at games.  We had a great time!  We also had our best pit cleanup after the show today as well!  🙂

Unfortunately, the football team got cremated by 40+ points for not only the last home game of the season, but for the homecoming game.  Oh well, next year they’ll do VERY well because of the experience they’ve had this year.  They’ll also be playing kids their own age!  🙂

Go Mustangs!

Last night, Mom and Dad Hobbs were set apart as missionaries, and today they finally went into the MTC after weeks of preparing and getting excited!  Jeremy (Angela’s Brother) took them down and dropped them off.  They were just like two little kids on Christmas morning!  🙂

They only get to spend a week in the MTC and then fly out to Tokyo a week from today!  Crazy how that works.  They have been taking language lessons via the phone 3 times per week and have been doing well.  Dad’s Japanese has been coming back quickly from his mission days, and Mom is learning well too!  🙂

Good luck on your mission!  We wish you well and much success!  🙂

Today, Sarah and Brittany participated in a REALLY cool Billy Joel Tribute concert at the high school as part of their marching band season and show.  They played all the music in their marching show and a Billy Joel cover band was there and played a bunch of music as well.  Angela and Kirstyn went to support them in this effort.  They said it was absolutely AWESOME and the girls had a great time dancing on stage with their friends and having a great time!

Angela said that the attendance wasn’t as high as she had hoped, and this was probably due to the fact that it was on a Saturday and they didn’t market it very well.

Meanwhile, I was with Ben at  Zachary’s football game.  He did a GREAT job!  It was very cold and we forgot to bring gloves.  The coach taped up his hands in the middle so it would help him a bit.  Fortunately, after the first series, some friends lent us a pair of gloves that he used the rest of the game and was MUCH happier!  He did a GREAT job at center and didn’t even mess up one snap!  🙂

It is so much fun to see our kids participate in all the activities that they do.  We just love it!