Spa Weekend at the Beach with the Girls...

What is it about a group of women than attracks the crazies? A couple weeks ago I was so blessed to be able to get away with the girls for a couple days. We went to the beach and had spa treatments. EVERY time we went out, we atracted some sort of attention. The owner of one of the restaurants even came over to our table and offered drinks on the house to us. You should have seen his face when we told him we didn't drink. Ha! We took desserts on the house instead.

All and all, I had a wonderful time! It was totally relaxing and a true blessing to be able to pamper myself. I had forgotten what it was like to wake up to something other than Natalie's chatter...I woke up to the sound of the waves crashing out my window. What a glorious thing. I do believe that I would live at the beach if I could. Here are some pics from our get away.





This is the beach house we stayed at. It's Sandy's sister's place. Just gorgeous!

Me and Suzie

Debby and Jackie

Amy, Jackie, Suzie, Debby, Me, Beth, Anita, Sandy

Christmas 2005--Cute Stories

Over Christmas I captured some precious moments with Natalie. I thought that you'd enjoy hearing the stories and seeing the pictures.

A couple weeks before Christmas, I heard Natalie playing by the christmas tree so I went over to see what she was doing. She was hugging the tree saying "aww, Baby." When i got a little closer I saw that she was hugging an ornament with a baby cradled in a moon. Here she had given the baby her burpie. Now for all of who do not know what a burpie is, let me explain. When Natalie was a baby, we would put her to sleep by putting a burp cloth lightly over her face to block out the noise and lighhts. She grew accostomed to having it around her face and eventually the burp cloth became the burpie. It's her security blanket and we don't go anywhere without one. When she was born we had 24 burpies. We are now down to 7. So it's a big deal that she shared her burpie with the baby in the ornament.


Daddy dressed Natalie...he's so creative. Her shoes....box filler from Scott's external hard drive. (Yes, thank you, that was my genious idea for a gift. He was floored when he opened it! Score one for Melis.)


Aunt jecca gave Natalie a Fisher Price doll house for Christmas and I love to watch her play with it. It makes all sorts of sounds and she just loves it.


And then of course, I found her in the cupboard on morning. She kept saying, "Hi Mom!" and waving. It was the cutest thing ever!

Christmas 2005--At Home

Because w knew that we weren't going to be around on Christmas day we were pretty laid back about opening presents. Scott and I opened ours late one night a day or two before Christmas Eve. We didn't take any pictures, but it was really nice. We had a fire lit and only the lights of the Christmas tree on. Very romantic and personal. With Natalie we opened her stocking and a couple gifts on the eve of Christmas Eve and then the rest on Christmas Eve morning.

She's digging in to the stocking...


Opening her first gift...


It's a ditty (kitty). She LOVES kittens...no, the kitty was not real..her dad's allergic, or so he says (wink wink).


And a few more...

Christmas 2005--Christmas Eve Service

So here is Natalie all dressed up and ready to go to the Christmas Eve Service. I insisted that she pose for some pictures before we left. It took me 20 minutes to do her hair. I used my curling iron to flip her ends up, but she wanted to do it herself--thus it took 20 minutes. I was not about to wait until after service to take pictures and risk the cute hair-do going flat, which it did by the way.

All was well at first...


But things started to go sour when Natalie's foot began to bother her...


She wanted to take her shoe off, but because we were already running late, I wouldn't let her...


Things went from bad to worse when she decided to throw a fit...


She finally had enough of pictures and walked off the set.

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!