let the season begin

tomorrow is the official start to my first varsity volleyball coaching season. i am expecting as many as 20 girls to tryout, and with only 15 uniforms in my posession (and wanting to only have a 12-14 person team), i have my work cut out for me. i already forewarned matt that he may need to have an super listening ear and extra amount of patience for me in the next 3 days. and to his credit, he has been a wonderful husband so far as i throw out scenarios and volleyball jargon that probably interests him about as much as i understand his twins strategy talks.

school meetings start for matt next monday with school starting next wednesday. so before our lives get really busy once again, we decided to go to a kane county cougars game. the game was a great and it was a beautiful summer night, complete with a magic show and fireworks after the game. but only at a minor league game will an ottoman empire band be featured as the pre-game show......wouldn't this get you excited for a baseball game?

christoffels camping

about 1 1/2 weeks ago, matt and i headed out to minnesota/south dakota for a little summer vacation for the christoffels family camping in yankton, sd and then made a short visit to edgerton. i never grew up doing much camping - we were always the family that visited those who were camping, sat around the campfire for a good long time, and then headed back to our own beds. but i thouroughly enjoyed being outside for 3 straight days and managed to come away with only 10 bug bites, a peeling nose, and probably a few extra pounds from all the great food.

i don't have many pictures, but here's matt trying to get tucker to play baseball with him.

and donna and i showing off our bean bag tournament trophy. you can't see it, but there's a spinning elephant on top that lights up - it's quite the trophy.

before camping we made a stop in sioux falls to visit tim, chels, jeremiah, and my south dakota parents, jerry and glady gerdes. it's so nice that we can still meet up, since chicago and zuni are quite a few miles apart! we also got to meet up with a bj and jill and kyle and bri for supper - it's always good to catch up with old friends.

and even before we got to sioux falls, we made a stop that i've been waiting to make for 6 years now. if you've ever taken interstate 680 west, you know what i'm talking about. it's that scenic view that always seems to be open when i'm not driving past or the weather's too bad to make it worthwhile. but this time it was open and the weather was beautiful and we made a little visit to the top of the tower. it was just a small pleasure to break up our trip a little....

all in all it was a great trip - very relaxing and exactly what i needed! life is back to norm in chicagoland now and volleyball tryouts start in less than 2 weeks!

happy birthday to matt

matt's birthday was on thursday + i didn't work on friday = a birthday trip to the field of dreams

matt couldn't believe that i had lived in iowa my whole life and never been to the field of dreams. actually, no one in our family has. so we all piled into the car and took a leisurely drive to dyersville. it was an absolutely beautiful day to play ball. while we were there we also saw a bride a groom come take pictures...needless to say, once matt saw that, he was a little jealous.


i couldn't believe how tall the corn was already - i don't have it as my gauge of seasons passing anymore.

one thing in particular stuck out to me this weekend....color. after spending so much time surrounded by buildings and cars, i forget how beautiful the country is. miles and miles of the deepest green fields and trees, flowing up and down the hills and valleys....bright blue skys after finally making it out of a huge storm....a full sunset with only a barn or tree in the background. God's beauty truly amazes me.


and on a totally random note....as i was coming back from the grocery store today, i was about to pull onto our street when a momma duck jetted into the intersection, lagging behind her babies that had already crossed (i always thought she lead...but who knows). anyway, i found it so ironic that this small bird held up 4 lanes of impatient traffic for quite some time.......and they say tractors cause traffic jams. :)

summer time

with the 4th of july, i guess summer has officially reached it's midpoint. it's hard to believe but we've definitely kept ourselves busy! after nate and nicole's wedding, we had minnesota visitors the past 3 weekends. it was so great to see everyone spend time together again. we love to have visitors!



one of those weekends we met up with friends and family at the twins vs. brewers game. it was a great game...pretty entertaining....but so were a few twins fans a couple rows up with a sign that read "thanks, wisconsin, for brent farve." now i know that favre can be easily misspelled but c'mon now, if you're going to talk smack about wisconsin IN wisconsin, at least get your grammar correct.

my summer nights have gotten a little bit more busy - i am now the varsity volleyball coach at timothy christian and i'm hurrying to try to get open gyms and league games arranged before the season starts. but i'm flying solo right now....we currently do not have a jv, freshman, or assistant varsity coach. so if anyone knows of someone in the western suburbs that would like to coach volleyball, call me! at least the numbers for my team won't be lacking - i think i have around 20 girls trying out for varsity alone in the fall. all in all, i'm really excited about it and hopefully my first season goes well.

i also decided to go back to school full time starting in september. i transferred schools and they had an opening for their full time schedule, so i'm excited to be able to get my teaching certificate even sooner. it may mean some changes with the job scene, but i'm still working those details out and praying everything works out well.

i hope everyone's having a great summer!

love and family

we're back home after a whirlwind wedding weekend and i'm finally getting the chance to sit down and write after getting a few friendly reminders that i haven't updated in quite some time. so first, congratulations nate and nicole! few things are so beautiful as a love that is true and it was an honor to be a part of your special day. here are just a few pictures of the day...




and the day after the wedding, matt and i celebrated our 1 year anniversary! the year went so fast and i'm even more blessed today than yesterday to have matt as my husband. sorry, no pictures from that...we celebrated by having nate and nicole's leftover cake (ours was a little too freezer burned to enjoy more than i finger lick of frosting!) and driving back to chicago.

so june was weddings but may was all babies. congratulations to all our friends and family whose families have now grown from 2 to 3 :) - welcome to the world benjamin lewicki, jeremiah eisenga, cole van drunen, ethan landon, kylee wielenga, james van wyk, and avalene vander plas!

we also moved into our new apartment at the end of may. we're pretty much all settled in...we don't forget where things are, so that's a good sign. nothing's really on the walls, but here's a few pictures of our new place...visitors welcome any time!!



well that's about it with us. i'll leave you with a tribute to bruiser, so affectionately named by nicole...

some pictures from the twins game

in the last month...

it's a rainy sunday here and i thought i'd finally take some time to write again....if anyone checks this at all anymore. quite a bit has happened in the last month and i really can't believe it's nearing the end of april....because the end of april means summer is almost here....and summer means...weddings, friends having babies, moving to a new apartment, matt being home more, and probably lots of baseball :).

we have been on the search for a new place to live b/c the owners of the condo we live in now want to put it back on the market. in the beginning it was fun to look with a friend of ours that also needs a new place to live. but i've decided that this is a perfect example of too many options makes everything more complicated. and then of course being dutch doesn't help....always gotta see if there's a little better deal out there.

matt's down to 6 weeks left of his first year and i'm down to 3 weeks left of my first semester. i'm actually in the process of applying to a different school...one that's a little closer to where we live and i like how they run their masters program a little better too. plus, they offer morning classes on tuesday and thursday, which would be great for coaching in the fall. hopefully this new school accepts my transfer credits and i can continue on my way to teaching....eventually.

and kudos to my wonderful husband who pulled off a great birthday surprise for me last weekend. saturday morning i get a phone call from my dad. he's calling to say happy birthday a day early b/c he doesn't want to forget, and asks what we have going on for the day. i say, the twins are in town playing the white sox so we're going to the game. he says, man i wish i could go with you. i say, me too! he says, well why don't you open up your door cause i'm really sick of standing outside! i was surprised...stumped...shocked. up until this point i think matt had yet to pull off a complete surprise on me...i usually am too nosy and spoil at least a little bit of it....not on purpose of course...but this time i had no clue at all. so off we went to the sox/twins game, sitting in the 8th row down the 1st base line. freezing cold but totally worth it. it was a great birthday weekend.

well, i thought i would have more to write about....but i also have a self-nagging reminder that i should probably be working on my end of the year projects instead of blogging. i hope everyone is enjoying the start to a long awaited spring!