Archive for Small Group

Weekend Getaway at the Cabin

// July 5th, 2008 // No Comments » // Brad's Life, Photography, Small Group, Travel

So I’m really behind on blogging, and this weekend I am going to catch up.

A few weekends ago we went with our small group to a cabin in rural Indiana on Shelby’s parents’ farm. It was amazing.  Such a great getaway.  We fished (and slayed some monster bass), played Wii, chilled in the hottub, played yard games and volleyball, grilled out, and did a whole lot of relaxing.   Here are some pictures from the weekend.

To view the full set on Flickr, click here.




March Madness

// March 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Bella, Brad's Life, Small Group, Travel, YouTube

Wait, March is almost over? Time sure is flying. I knew this weekend would be extra busy, thus the precap in my last post. Looking back, it was an awesome weekend full of basketball, friends, and buzzer beaters.

Here are the 7 great buzzer beaters I witnessed over the weekend. The first one we saw in person, as Gordon Hayward (a Butler recruit) made the shot to take Brownsburg over Marion in the 4A State Finals. The game before that was all Tyler Zellers (a North Carolina recruit), who dropped 43 points in his final high school game. The other 6 videos are from the NCAA tournament.

The IHSAA games were even better because there was a TV in our suite(image and image), so we could watch all of the NCAA games at the same time.

After a great Easter Sunday (very relaxing too, which was needed after the previous 2 days), we hosted a 80’s Murder Mystery with our Small Group on Monday night and it was a blast. There are some pictures below, or check them all out on Flickr.

Well that’s about it for now. My next post will come from somewhere much sunnier and warmer.

And if you didn’t hear, Matt and Heather got their Visa and will be flying to Myanmar on Saturday. Pretty bittersweet. Glad the paperwork has gotten through for them!

My wife, the big bracket winner?

// March 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // Brad's Life, Small Group

Last night we sat down to fill out out brackets for the contest at church.  Since the small group with the best average score gets a home-cooked meal from Phil, all the guys are making sure that our wives have entries too.  Now, this might actually hurt our average… but when you think about it, who has ever done THAT good at picking the wins and upsets?

So, while she was grading papers last night I figure we’d get her bracket filled out.  So, I would say 2 teams….. and she would pick one.   That’s all.  No seed, no rankings, no conferences, no scoring averages, nothing.  Just based on what she thought about the 2 schools.  (This coming from a girl who has watched approximately 8 NCAA Division I games in her life; 5 Illini games and 3 Butler games).

So how did she do?   I actually like her bracket better than mine (with the exception of Butler going to the championship… as much as I’d like, it’s not going to happen.)

Check out my wife’s bracket here!

http://mysideline.com/u/16104/collegebbmens/playerpicks72.htm

Life moves fast.

// March 10th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Bella, Brad's Life, Photography, Small Group

Every week goes by quicker and quicker, it seems. This weekend was nice and relaxing, but pretty busy.

We had a fondue party (pictures here) on Friday night with our small group, which was a blast. The guys ended up playing Madden ‘08 for a good 3-4 hours, and the girls chatted downstairs.

In preparation for the fondue party we had been looking for a white 42″ kitchen table with 2 chairs and flip down sides… not that we are ever specific. The cheapest we could find around town was $600, and the fastest it could get here was 4 weeks. No good. Instead, we went to Meijer and picked up a table and 2 chairs and sanded/painted them. We need to put another coat on the table, but it turned out good enough just in time for the party. (Pictures of the table here)

Yesterday was the beginning of the church league basketball tournament. We were the 9 seed out of 10 teams (2-6 baby!), so we had to play a buy-in game to actually get into the tournament. We were down as many as 16 with 6 minutes left, but fought back and won the game by 1. I played my worst game of the year, but hit a 3 down the stretch to tie it up, then proceeded to miss 4 straight free throws (what the heck?). We were up 51-50 and they had the ball with 19 seconds left. They brought it down, a guy drove to the hole, I slipped in behind him and blocked his layup, then proceeded to ROLL the ball down to the other end of the court so the clock would expire and I wouldn’t have to go to the free throw line again. Pretty heads up play, eh? SO, since we won at 2pm we had the extreme honor to come back and play the #1 seed at 6pm. We played our best half of the season and were only down 4 going into the last minute of the first half, but we just ran out of juice. With only 6 guys on the team, 4 quarters of ball is tough. I think we ended up losing by 35. Oh well, it was a good season and I don’t think many of us expected to pull off the upset.

To end the weekend, Jen’s glasses broke.. again. Since she’s getting new ones for her birthday on Wednesday (how exciting, huh?), we did what any smart person would do. We recycled them to a good cause….. Bella.

Sure they are missing 1 lens, and the other one makes her dizzy, but she really likes them. I need to fashion some sort of Croakies out of a rubber band for her. (More pictures here).

Have a good week, folks. Enjoy the weather and extra hour of sun!