Christmas 2005--Tennessee

So we left for TN after the Christmas Eve Service and drove through the night. We saw two, maybe three, cars the whole trip. Everyone was in their beds waiting for Santa Claus, I guess. We arrived at 530 am. I called my parents from their driveway and old them that we had yet to go to bed. My mom, still half asleep, was confused. So I explained that we were sitting in her driveway. Ha! That was so much fun surprising them. They thought that we were coming the next day. I love surprises like that. Here are a few highlights of the week we were with them. Check out all the pictures from our many Christmas celebrations at out family website, The Ball Room.
www.homepage.mac.com/pastorscott78
(The pictures will be posted by this weekend.)

Christmas 2005--Josh and Anissa

Here are some pictures of when my parents went to Indiana before Christmas. They took Josh and Anissa's gifts to them and then took Alethia from them for a couple of days with the great granparents.

A few steps with Papa...


Josh and Anissa (with baby boy in the belly) and Lei Lei


Reindeer ears from Aunt Jecca


Lei Lei and Nana (Nana made Alethia and Natalie matching dresses for Christmas. Unfortunately they weren't able to be together to show them off.)


Martins, Papa, Nana, and Lethy, and Becks

Telemarketers are back at it again!

Ok, so you remember a while back everyone was calling that 800 number and having their telephone addresses added to "do not call" lists. We all did it so that those pesky telemarketers would stop calling us during dinner. I don't know about you, but shortly after registering our home phone we went all cellular. We were totally free from those annoying phone calls (except for this one company that was just down right dirty about their tactics, but that's a whole other story). Well, I guess a lot of people went land line free like we did. Telemarketers got wise to that and have found a way to get our cell numbers. Here's the deal...call this number 888-382-1222 and register your number for five years to prevent annoying phone calls during your dinner discusion of Sunday's sermon. You have to call from the phone you are registering. You can check out the website for more info as well. Sorry that I can't provide you with a link to their website. It just recently dawned on me that because I am a Mac user there are certain limits to my abilities. One being I can't insert hyperlinks into my text nor do the links to the right work. So anyway, just type it in and check it out.
www.DoNotCall.gov

Check ya later.

The Air Force Museum

While we were in Dayton over New Year's Weekend, we went to the Air Force Museum with Scott's parents, his brother, and his brother's grand daughter. Scott and I have been to the museum many, many times before. It is kinda a tradition and one our favorite things to do when we visit. This was the first time, though, that his family joined us. We had a fantastic time together. Here are a few pictures Tony took of our day...


Here are McKinley (Tony's granddaughter) and Natalie in the little green wagon. McKinley is 8 months, almost to the day, younger than Natalie. I know it was fun for Natalie to have a friend her age to play with. I hope McKinley had fun with Natalie too.



There they are, the famous Ball Family. You may have heard of them...



Scott has a picture of me in this cockpit from the very first time he ever took me to the Air Force Museum. At that time we weren't officially engaged. His family just thought I was his next girlfriend. Little did they know that I would be joining this crazy clan! Anyway, that picture of me is Scott's favorite picture of me ever taken. He has had it on his desk at work every since it the film was developed. We decided to add another one to his collection with this picture of Natalie and me in the cockpit.



This is Scott, his dad, Terry, and Tony--The Ball Men--they are greatly outnumbered at family get togethers! Hopefully we'll have some boys someday to help even out the score.

Any time you are ever in the Dayton/Cincinatti area you should make the Ait Force Museum one of your stops.

Our New Old Website

Ok, so Scott, in his technological genious, has totally re-done our family website. He got a whole bunch of new software and has been playing with it for days. I'm not sure what everything is or even how to use it all, but here's what I do know. The "podcast" is still under construction. The photocast is a pretty cool addition, but you have to have a Mac to use. (Sorry PC folks, you really are missing out on this one!!! You really should have bought a Mac to begin with. Next time...) BUT...if you do have a Mac, when you click on "photocast" it will ask you to subscribe (click subscribe), and then it will automatically upload all our photos from the website into iPhoto on your computer. Everytime we upload our website with more photos it will automatically notify you and upload the new photos into your iPhoto. (Mom, you are going to flip over this!!!) The File Sharing thing is for Scott's work, but you are all welcome to download any of the music or chord charts you see there. Well, anyway, I just thought I would let you all know about the update.

Let me know what you think.
Click on the link ("The Ball Room") to the right of your screen. --->

Oh, and by the way...there is a brand spankin' new video of Natalie on the website. It's called "Natalie's Musical Debut." It was taken this afternoon. She is a natural!

New York, New York!

Ok, so on Tuesday, December 13, Scott and I went to NYC for the first time ever! We went with the other pastors and their spouses as well as the church staff. Every year they go up there to see the Christmas Spectacular (the Rockettes).

Our day began early! We had Natalie over at Suzie's by 630am. We met everyone else at the church, got our Starbucks fix, and hit the road. We drove about 2 hours to the train station where we hopped the 1040 train into the City. We arrived at Penn Station around 1115 or so. What a fun way to travel! Once above ground we walked around for a while, spent some time shopping in Macy's.






We ate lunch at Dean & Deluca's which is right around the corner from Rockefeller Center.


Here's most of our group... (L-R) Ellen and Tommy Tomlinson (our finacial lady), Stephanie Forrest (our Youth Pastor, Sean's wife, he's taking the picture), Donna and Pastor Alan Bosmeny, me and Scott.


We walked around a while longer as we headed to Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes. Here are some pics from the Spectacular.
This is the loby of Radio City Music Hall.

This is inside the Hall.





For dinner we went to the Carnagie Deli (not associated with Carnagie Hall). We've been told that this place is famous for making people famous. I guess more people have been discovered working here than any other place in New York. The meals are huge!! Our sandwich had a half of a head of lettuce on it!!!



After a very filling dinner we headed down to Times Square. Now I'll be totally honest with you. I had been afraid that all the hype about NYC being the "greatest city in the world" would somehow make my expectations higher than the reality of it all. I didn't want to be disappointed. While Rockefeller Center, Macy's, Empire State buiding, Radio City Music Hall and everything else was impressive, it wasn't all that my expectations were for them. BUT, when we rounded the corner and I saw Times Square it literally took my breath away. It is amazinhg. Pictures cannot do it justice and words certainly can't even come close to describing the sheer magnitude of the place. EVERY building in Times Square is COVERED in gigantic screens. It is something you HAVE to experience yourself. It's truely beyond description!





Before we headed home for the day we went back past Rockefeller Center for a few more pictures.


All in all it was a wonderful trip and we cannot wait to go back!

Bet you thought something happened...

So it has been over a month since I have written anything on this blog. Sorry about that. I had been trying to write as much as I could because I know how much my family loves to read the tales of my little family's life (especially you, Grandma and Grandpa Beck!! :) )

Since I wrote last so much has happened. The days preceding Christmas were filled to the brim with parties and gatherings. (Ok, so it sounds really cool, but we just were hanging out with friends really.) Then Christmas Eve we left right after church for TN. Yeah! We drove through the night---Dumb, dumb, dumb! We were in TN for a while and then headed to OH for a few days before coming back home. Our crazy life picked up right where it had left off when we left. God has been powerfully moving in our midst here in Elkton and so the new year started with nightly prayer meetings followed by 24 hours of worship on the 7th and 8th. This past week we had 3 nights of worship. We were blessed yesterday, to have Sam Rijfkokel join us for our weekend services.

So needless to say we have been very busy. It has been a good busy though, because we have been busy in the Lord. I only wrote tonight to let you know that I am still here and will be writing all about our trip to New York (Dec. 13), Christmas and New Years, as well as all that God has been doing in our midst. Praise the Lord, we are able to serve such a mighty, mighty God. I am the most blessed woman on earth!

Until later....

The Search for the Velcro Rollers

The other day Scott and I had a dinner party to go to. So I set my hair in my velcro rollers for a soft romantic look. As always, Natalie was watching me get ready and as I pulled out the rollers she took them one by one and tried putting them in her hair. She was fascinated by them. She played with them and the storage box I keep them in for the next couple days. I started to notice that there were fewer and fewer rollers ending up in the box each time we picked up her toys. I knew that she must have hidden them away somewhere, but I could not find them anywhere! On Monday I was making dinner and I needed my skillet, so I leaned down to get it. I opened the cupbaord and this is what I found...


Now why didn't I look there to begin with?

Natalie's First AND SECOND Christmas Dress

So last Christmas I decided that I wanted to make Natalie's Christmas dress, so I got the fabric and pattern. My mom helped me put it all together (I'm very much a beginner!), and it was beautiful. So Christmas Eve rolls around and I go to put it on her--The dress was HUGE!!! It covered her feet and fell off her shoulders. I was so bummed. I thought I'd just keep it for sentimental sake. I mean it was the first little dress I made for her. So I put another Christmas dress on her that her Mamaw had bought and she looked adorable in that!


So all along I have kept the little red dress hoping that someday I would have another daughter during the appropriate season so that the dress would get worn. It hung in Natalie's closet until a couple weeks ago when I decided to pull it out and just try it on her. You know what? It fit her perfect! She looked so cute in it. She's worn it a couple times already. I want to get all the wear I can in!

Let It Snow...

Well, it finally snowed last night. When I woke up there was 4 inches. So when Natalie woke up I bundled her up and we went out to play in the snow. It's the first she's seen that she is aware of. Here she is all bundles up and ready to go...

I looked everywhere for her mittens and couldn't find them anywhere, so being the resourceful mom that I am, I put two pairs of socks on her hands and we headed outside to play in the snow.

When I opened the garage door, she had the cutest look of confusion and awe.

She was pretty unsure of the whole idea of snow kinda like she was with sand this summer. She wouldn't move.



Once I put her back on the driveway, she began to warm up to the snow. (Ha ha! No pun intended.) She started dancing around and kicking the snow.


She ran over to the grass to dip her toes in, but tripped and landed on her bum. She wasn't too happy.


So after a while I noticed her nose was getting red. I asked her if she was cold and she said yes. We headed back inside. She seemed to really love her first snowfall. Let's just pray that there will be many more. The snow is almost completly melted already!