Living According to God's Will...

Boy, I didn't realize that it has been so long since I posted last.  I guess I am good about staying caught up in the lives of others, but not so much about keeping people updated about our lives.  The school year has come to an end; therefore, beginning yet another summer vacation for our family.  I have come to the conclusion that there was nobody more ready for the summer break than myself.  This school year has been filled with challenges from our principal resigning in October, two teachers leaving in the middle of the school year, and Doug not enjoying his teaching position at South Side too much.  During all of these challenges, we have really turned to our faith in Jesus about how to live according to his will.  Doug and I have really been challenged with what is God's will for our lives.  We have hit our knees all the while praying to give us guidance as we look for a new direction in our jobs, our family, and our personal use of time.  During this time period, I have felt a real calling to go on a mission trip to serve other people that are less fortunate than ourselves.  We tend so often to get caught up in ourselves and our pride and forget how lucky we are to live the life that we have been blessed with.  Therefore, in July I will be traveling to Haiti for about 9 days with a group of 25 people/kids.  All aspects of our too familiar life will be out the window as we travel to a poverty stricken country with limited water, food, shelter, and clothing.  Our mission will be to provide Vacation Bible School to children at Mission of Hope and travel to villages and do some building projects.  As a group, everyone is at very different stages of their relationships with Jesus.  It is going to be great to see what Jesus has planned for us.  I have no doubt that our lives are going to be rocked by what we will encounter on this trip.  Please be in prayer for us prior to us traveling and while we are there.  We ask God to surround us with safety and guidance as we set out to minister to others.  My hope is to update while in Haiti, but I am pretty sure that we will have very limited access to internet service.  I have already been praying as I will have to go 8 days without communicating with Doug and McKenna.  This will be my biggest challenge as I am so used to having access to them all the time.  I ask that you pray for me as this is a long time to go without talking to the ones that you love.

A quick update about our lives...McKenna just finished her 4th grade year at McKenney Harrison Elementary.  She got all A+'s and I couldn't be more proud of her.  She definitely works really hard at everything that she does.  She is playing softball on her travel Krush team and loves it.  This has taken a lot of our weekend time as we have traveled to Warsaw, Wabash, Monticello, etc. to go to tournaments.  Her team has made tremendous improvement over the last year and finally won their first tournament last weekend.  The team will be traveling to Peoria, IL for the World Series at the end of July.  She has been going to many different camps, as well.

God has answered a couple of prayers in the way of Doug and his teaching job.  He has spent the past three years teaching at South Side and has been unable to ask for an internal change in FWCS because he signed a contract as teacher at a LEAD school.  However, that three year contract is up this year and he applied for a position at Northrop and GOT IT!  Therefore, he is very excited to be heading back to where he originally started at the beginning of next school year.  However, he did apply for a teaching position at Leo back in February and never heard anything until last week.  He got an interview last Thursday and we are hoping to hear by tomorrow whether or not he gets that job.  We believe, from what we have heard from his three references, that it sounds very promising.  This would be a very welcome change for Doug.  So, we again, pray and wait to see what God's will is for Doug and his teaching career.  

Below are just a few pictures from our tournament win last weekend.  I need to get better about taking pictures again...I have been slacking.

God's Blessings,

The Curtis Family

Boiler Up!!!

This weekend we headed to West Lafayette to hang out with Doug's sister and her family and his parents.  Each year, as a family, we attend a Purdue football game together and then go to Arnie's for dinner.  We had a great time and always enjoy going to the games!  It also helps that they killed Eastern Michigan.  We got there at the perfect time as the girls got to get their picture taken with Purdue Pete.  Following the game, we headed to the bookstores and then Emma, Doug's niece, had a soccer game which we were able to watch.  She did a great job!  With it being my birthday on Saturday, my only request was that we get ice cream, so we made a stop at the Urban Swirl. (It is just like YoYo's!  Yum Yum!!)  What a fun weekend! We always look forward to going back to Purdue events and visiting family!  Boiler up!!

 

Emma and McKenna with Purdue Pete

Emma and McKenna posing in front of Mackey Arena

Again, the girls watching the game

 

Doug and McKenna at Emma's soccer game

Oh the Memories...

September brings a whole new level of excitement to our house with birthdays, anniversaries, Purdue football games, fall weather (my favorite season), and, of course, Grabill Days.  How could you grow up in the Leo area and NOT attend Grabill Days as a kid?  However, that level of fascination isn't quite the same for me anymore, but it most definitely is in McKenna!  I remember going and walking around that same square for hours at a time and now I have a child that loves to go to the parade "that never ends."  Not to mention the fact it is so beyond loud and a enough candy is thrown out to make every dentist cringe.  A girlfriend and I took "the girls" this past Saturday and met my mom, sister-in-law, and nephew at the same corner that we have sat at for the past nine years.  Two of the girls had never been to a parade before and were in awe!  Not sure that they sat down for the whole hour and half that this parade was happening. They all walked away with bags full of candy and smiles that were priceless.  We had a lot of fun and look forward to returning next year. Below are a few pictures from not only the fair, but McKenna's softball team.

Kaleb, Karysa, Lexy, McKenna, Reece, and Ashley with their "cool" glasses!

Sport ONE Krush (10 and Under) Softball Team

Team with coaches after our last tournament for the summer

Just a little busy...

In the midst of our busy lives, I suppose that I have forgotten that I have a blog that I can post updates about our family within.  So...here goes.
This summer was relatively uneventful until the middle of July.  McKenna ended up in the hospital for four days with Salmonella poisoning and we have continued to fight the aftermath of this horrible illness for the past month and a half.  She has had three different cultures for this illness with the last one being ordered just last week.  Two of them have come back positive with the third one, much to our surprise, coming back negative.  It is apparent that the antibiotics that she was given the second time were extremely effective...maybe a little too effective as it cleaned out all of the good bacteria in the colon causing the same symptoms of Salmonella poisoning.  In order for her body to recover, we have been told she should be on a probiotic and  yogurt once a day.  This seems to be working.  At this time, we have no real idea where she may have gotten this illness, and, most likely, we never will know for sure.  We have a few ideas, but nothing substantial.  We feel extremely blessed that everything turned out the way it did and are thankful for all the prayers that were sent out way.
When we weren't involved with this disgusting illness, we were typically at the ball diamond with McKenna.  She played on a travel 10 and under softball team called Krush that was sponsored by Sport ONE and various other sponsors from the Leo Area.  While her team wasn't dynamite, they did improve drastically over the course of the summer.  As parents, we were very proud of the girls for their dedication and continued growth in this sport and definitely look forward to next year.  Our family has developed some wonderful friendships over the course of this team being put together and have spent many evenings with these new friends and their families around the corner in the cul-de-sac eating and socializing.
School is back in full swing for all of us.  Doug is back at South Side and resigned his coaching job at Northrop last spring.  While he looked for other opportunities, nothing really panned out for him until a couple of weeks ago.  He will be joining the girls basketball program at Leo High School for the upcoming school year.  He is very excited to be apart of this staff and this group of girls.  This will at least give him something to do this winter.
Dane and Allison have both started back at IPFW for the school year.  Dane is a senior and has been doing lots of different work in graphic design.  Allison is a sophomore and starting her second year on the golf team as the number one golfer for their team.  McKenna is in 4th grade this year and loving every minute of it up to this point.
I believe that brings us up to date for the most part.  I will try harder to remember to update the blog.  For those that have been interested, I am sorry!  Pictures coming later.

Pneumonia and Funerals...Not Fun!

This last week has been miserable to say the least! It started last Sunday when we found out that Mary's (my step-mom) mother, Dorothy, passed away. They lived in Iowa so I planned on making the trip with my dad and Max out to Iowa for the funeral services on Thursday and staying most of the weekend there. However, what I didn't realize was that I was going to get sick. I began feeling poorly on Monday, but suffered through work and everything else that I had going on for the week all the while just not feeling well. I took McKenna to school Thursday morning and left with my dad as soon as I returned home in the morning for our trek to Iowa. I decided to attempt a call to the doctor to see if he would call a prescription out to Iowa to hopefully help with the misery. He did call this prescription in, but it didn't help. I returned on Saturday evening and went to Redi-Med today. They did a chest x-ray and determined that there were spots on my lungs and I had the start of pneumonia. This explains why I have been feeling so exhausted and hurting in the chest area. So, I began three different antibiotics and an inhaler today. I have done nothing but sleep and take medicine today which is just what the doctor ordered! I hope to go back to school on Tuesday depending on how I am feeling.
Despite feeling poor, I manage to drag myself to the viewing and funeral. Such a sad event! Dorothy's humor and spunk will certainly be missed! We love and will miss you, Dorothy!
On a happy note, Doug got his 200th career girls victory on Friday evening! This is a great accomplishment. I, unfortunately, missed it as I was in Iowa. He is now only 10 games away from 300 wins with both boy and girls. Hopefully, he can get 10 more wins this year!

Snow Day = Miserable Day for McKenna

The unexpected snow created an unexpected day off for McKenna and I today. However, as much as I only wanted that delay, the day off was much needed for McKenna. For the past few weeks she has had a nasty cough, so we started the ever dreaded breathing treatments stopping them about a week ago as she seemed much better. Much to my dismay, I have noticed the cough has been back for the past couple of days and much deeper than prior. To top it off, this morning she got her first ever bloody nose from all the coughing and dry air. It was everywhere and lasted for about an hour and half. Uhgg! So today has been back to breathing treatments every 3-4 hours. I made her afternoon much better by taking her to the orthodontist where they put a spring in her top braces in order to make room for a tooth. Now her mouth is really sore... Therefore, this snow day has not been a pleasant one for her. The only good news is she found out that she no longer has to wear her facemask at night. YEAH!!! We are certainly hoping for a better day tomorrow.

McKenna looking dreadful doing a breathing treatment

Playing Catch Up!!!

My camera has been found...no thanks to myself. I really need to work on cleaning out my pockets when I am finished wearing a coat/vest. Lesson may have been learned now...good thing I didn't wash it. As promised you will find some new pictures below, but in order to clarify my post from yesterday I thought I would elaborate on a few happenings in our lives.

Starting with McKenna... After much deliberation and plenty of tears shed, Doug and I made the decision to withdraw McKenna from Lakewood Park. This decision proved nothing short of one of the hardest things I have ever decided in the way of McKenna. Many factors weighed into our decision, but in the end we decided that she would attend McKenney Harrison Elementary in the same district that I teach within. My fears were relieved after her first day of school as she LOVED her new school. She has a tremendously talented teacher and she is forever trying to mimic her. The growth that I we have seen academically helps ease our minds knowing that we made the right decision. She just received her report card from the 1st trimester and got all A's. I am more than proud of her, but what is more rewarding is that she is so proud of herself!

As a family, we have been so blessed to meet a few families whom we have gotten to spend a great deal of time with through softball. This has been a great thing as McKenna will be playing for the Krush Softball team next summer with some of their daughters and I will be helping coach as well. These girls have become extremely close friends and they love spending any free time together. We, as adults, have enjoyed going to Friday night home football games and tailgating afterwards. Below are pictures of some of her friends from softball.

Allison had a pretty decent first semester of school and golf at IPFW. She seems to really have adjusted well to college life and her grades are great as usual. She is looking forward to spring arriving so she can get back to the golf course. Doug is jealous due to all of the nice gear she gets being a Division I athlete. I will say it is pretty sweet! Her and Chase are still dating and making the little bit of distance work as he is attending Manchester College playing soccer.

Dane is in his junior year of college and for lack of a better word is "done". He is getting down in the dumps with his classes as he feels like he already knows how to do everything he is suppose to be learning making college boring. However, his grades are good and he continues to attend much to our delight despite his lack luster attitude towards it. He and Brittany, too, are still together. There is a lot of traveling back and forth to Indianapolis to visit each other.

Doug has started yet another year at South Side and continues to coach at Northrop. The driving back and forth between schools wears on him, but he makes it work despite his frustration with it at times.

We celebrated our 5th anniversary at the end of September! While we didn't do anything special, life has been good for the two of us, and we just enjoyed each others company at home on that day. I am still enjoying my job even though our plates, as teachers, continue to fill up with all of the requirements being put on us by the state and federal government. As you can see, life continues to roll right on by and now you are caught up. I will do my best to stay on top of this from here on out.

McKenna and Kayrsa (softball friend) at the Buffalo Farm in Fremont

McKenna's first day of school in 3rd grade

Emma (Doug's niece) and McKenna at a Purdue Football game we attended
Halloween...Thing 1 (this is what she was dying to be)

Reece, McKenna, and Lexy getting ready for Trick or Treat (softball friends)