Ignition

1 Pole Barn in Dryden.

100 Youth (3 of them mine).

Driven Youth Ministries.

= Awesome

Me and My Boyfriend

This time of the year makes me remember being a 14 year old girl (yes, I said FOURTEEN) and laying my eyes on a boy named John. It was the fall of 1982. Middle school. I would see this boy, always surrounded by girls in the halls at school. I definitely thought he was cute. Didn't know anything about him. At the end of October I was at my best friend Laurie's house. She lived two houses down and we became fast friends when she moved in about five years before that. That night I looked at her cork board that she had behind her bedroom door, checking to see if anything was new. There HE was! A picture on her cork board was of John with his arm around some girl. I had no idea she knew of him. She told me that she thought that his name was John Williams (close...) and that the picture was taken at the end of the previous school year. That was his girlfriend in the picture at that time, she didn't know too much about him. She had an art class with both John and "Wendi" and snapped their picture together.

I HAD to find out more about him and MEET him. Soon. Then I found out that my very close cousin Todd also had a class with him and would "help me out". Long story short, he found out I liked him, we met, we got to know each other, started liking each other, started going out, broke up, went back out, broke up, went back out, dated for quite a while (especially 15 - 18). Then we broke up after graduation (shortly after prom, which this picture is from) (I was DEVASTATED) and stayed broke up for several months. For six weeks we lost communication altogether. We both dated others. At the end of those six weeks I really started missing him and wondering what he was doing. What IF he was seeing someone else and REALLY liked her? Did he think about me? I panicked. I called him. He was kind of cold at first and then we began talking on the phone again. Started seeing each other again. That summer in July (1987) we got engaged. WOW! Set the date for April 9, 1988. I was SO excited.

And...the rest is history. We will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary next April. We've known each other TWENTY FIVE YEARS this month!

Yay us!

Good Ole Dwight

Do I really need to say anything along with this?

If you don't watch "The Office", watch it. Ha-lar-ious.

The Sweet Life of Shari Lynn & Kristie Marie

In this picture I was about five years old, which would make my sister Kristie three or four and my Dad around twenty five? Now thats a long time ago. Those truly were the sweet times. Living at home. Your own room. Your own stuff. No worries. Life was about having fun. I can remember my pink and orange shag carpet that I had in my room! My Mom enjoyed taking care of us girls. Always fixing our hair and clothing us with the cutest (sometimes matching) outfits. Standing barely above the bathroom counter, I can remember getting my hair put up in pig tails or braids every morning.

My Mom was a "stay at home Mom", something that was pretty common back in those days. She took pride in her clean decorated home along with her clean decorated girls (ha ha). She worked at the elementary school in the library when were were in lower elementary. I remember being so excited to see her when it was library time.

My Dad enjoyed having fun with us. He took us girls ice skating down at the pond that was at the end of our road. I remember that being such a big deal. My Mom would make us a thermos of hot cocoa and we would go down to the pond, skating for hours. That and us also having a snowmobile made for fun times in the winter. Well, except for the winter I got a new pair of ice skates, put them on to skate on the icey road and fell in such a way that my right leg was fractured in three places! I was in first grade. My Mom was watching from the kitchen window. She motioned for me to get up, not realizing the severity of my injury. I lay there screaming. Long story short, she got me, my Dad came home from work and we went to St. Joe's in Pontiac for repair.

My sister and I had so much fun growing up together. Especially when we were little and played with all of our baby dolls and kitchen stuff (which included the refrigerator, stove, table, baby doll high chair, dishes...ect). Super fun. I remember being sent to our rooms for fighting and we would end up with half of our bodies out in the hallway playing barbies together after a little while.

We had a pretty sweet life.

Babies No More

I'm afraid its happening. Look at them! They are too grown up looking!

I know, I know, kids don't stay little forever.

Before my very own eyes. Babies no more.