Blogger Spies - Identify Self Please

Recently I have heard this comment by several friends, "Oh, I saw . . . this or that . . . on your blog!" To which I reply, "Why didn't you leave a comment so that I know you were checking up on us?" The answer to this question varies from my dog ate my homework to I had to wash my hair. I know that I struggle with the same thing; however, I am trying very hard to improve my spying ways. So if I stop by someone's blog (that I know), I attempt to leave a quick (no matter how dull) comment to let them know I was there spying on them. So, if you are spying on the Hines Herald, we are simply asking for a brief hello to cut down on all the stalking in the blogging realm. We have even made this easier by opening up our blog for anonymous comments to those of the "non-blogging persuasion" (quote taken from Don Hines).

When looking up the spy idea, I stumbled upon a huge website with all kinds of magnifying glass clip-art. They had bowling balls to paint brushes holding magnifying glasses. Since there has been an influx of toilet stories on friends blogs (Carissa and Shannon) I thought I would salute you with the plunger holding the magnifying glass!

Happy Commenting!

Green Day Friday!

Our fundraiser kick-off began with a great amount of green. Green - I think for GO, and also for the golf green (since it's a golfing tournament) as well as green for grass (since it is also a walk-a-thon), but probably not for boogers - even though you might see a few in this picture!

Last Friday, we were able to dress down as long as we had GREEN to wear. And so our creation of green, interesting outfits came about. My whole class participated and we were awarded "the class with the most green" for the K5 - 2nd grade classes and had to putt for a pizza party. Unfortunately, I was unable to produce the party for my class, but I'm happy to announce my partner in the "pretty club" at school, Sarah Joungblood, won it for her class (Check out her hair below!!).

To get the kids excited about this fundraiser, we were also suppose to create a door advertisement for the tournament. There were awards for the first door complete and the most creative doors. I'll give my props to Miss Kristen Varner who came out on top for her age group. My door, although highly creative, apparently paled in comparison to a Kindergarten class that will remain unnamed (Still resolving with my bitterness!). Who were those judges anyway!?! Check out these doors with their fabulous teachers!



Mrs. Dillard and her incredibly awesome door, assisted by Pastor Dillard!



Sarah, the hair, Joungblood and her incredibly punctual door (just completed the night before the judging!)



Mrs. Berry and her "tacky" door. She debated upon changing her door when she saw all the other ones being created. However, she followed the rules and allowed the KIDS to complete the door!



My great look and great looking door. Still thought we had a chance!








A better look at the fantabulously fantastic door!

The Loot!

I have been desiring to go "Thrifting" for quite some time now. Don currently has Friday's off and when I got home last Friday he gave me the options of some things to do that night for our "date night". One of the options was to go to a few of the local Goodwills or Salvation Army stores and to see if we could find any treasure! I gladly accepted this offer and away we went. We only had time to visit two stores in the area before our bellies were calling for dinner, but it was so much fun rummaging through a few stores and got a few steals.

Don picked up a FM tuner for his IPOD for $5 and a cable to connect our laptop to the printer for $3. I found a cute book for $.75 that Don decided he would read to me when we got home (much funnier with his expressions). I also found a cute purse for $3. We are going to be having a Golf/Walk - A - Thon as a fundraiser for school this year and one of the things we're doing to get the kids excited is having a door decorating contest. We are currently still in the "planning" stage and I picked up an old golf club for $.90 (yeah, tax deductable!!) for a little more inspiration.

I love my husband and I am so thankful for a guy who is willing to put aside his desires so that I could have a little bit of fun. Although, he would admit that he had good time as well (especially getting an extra-long cheesy coney at Sonic afterwards!!). Thanks Sweetie! Your the Best!

P.S. Sarah - Not as great of deals as those super-cool chairs, but our Thrifting days aren't over yet!!

Counseling Conference in Indiana

Don and I had the great privilege of being able to attend the Faith Biblical Counseling Conference in Lafayette, Indiana this past week. We were richly blessed with the teaching and preaching of this past week. We heard the challenging statement over and over again, "In order to be a good Biblical counselor you must first be a good counselee". Don and I took that challenge and really looked at our lives through the filter of the Scripture and found many things that the Bible may not clearly talk about or may even permit, but just is not best to fill up our time and energy. We had been focusing on the desire to fulfill things that we want to do and looking for the permission from Scripture to be able to do those things, without thinking about edifying the whole body of Christ. Through God's grace we are establishing a few guidelines for our home to solidify what we are learning about ourselves. If you ever have the chance to attend this conference - it is a MUST!

Also this past week, we were caught in the snowstorm that hit Indiana pretty hard. In fact, we had a record-breaking snow fall on Tuesday. I believe the final total of snow fall was around 15 inches in a 24-hour period; they were calling it the worst blizzard since 1978. Because of this fact, one day we were snowed in and had a snow day at the home of the family we were staying with. We began the morning with a puzzle . . .



and had a few hours to relax and do some reading, and being the Michiganders we are, we couldn't help going out in it. Linda, our host, found us some snowmobile boots, some Target bags, and some hats and gloves for her adopted "children" to go and play for a while.





We also had another person staying in the same home as us. She had come all the way from Israel to be at the conference. Joanna was originally from the States, but is now a missionary to the Jews around the Sea of Galilee. It was a joy to get to know her and a little bit more about the modern day "Holy Land". Thanks again Joanna for the pictures. (We forgot our digital camera!! - I know this was a huge arrow right through the heart of all those blogging junkies out there!)

I'm going to Walmart today to get our disposable camera pictures put on a CD. More pictures of Indiana Blizzard 2007 to follow . . .

Tah Dah!!!


BBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!! YEAH! BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

What Time of Year is It?

While we are not into this whole global warming thing, it has been an extremely mild winter this year. The whole "Michigander" part of us is still longing to get at least one good snowfall in this year -- fingers crossed! But until then we will keep enjoying what the Lord has blessed us with.
This past weekend was another beaut, so Katrina, Godiva and I decided to held to a local park. It then turned out to be even more fun when a couple frineds of ours (the Branines) were able to join us as well as their dog Cali (Godivas bestest friend in the whole wide world).



The two of them were able to explore the park together which included some pretty great exploration and even a mid-January swim.



Meanwhile, Ma and Pa were able to chat with friends and enjoy the outdoors which we love almost as much as Godiva. By the end of the evening though, we were pretty tuckered out, but as you can see . . . she was still ready to GO!



All in all it was a wonderful time. We are so thankful to the Lord for His undeserved grace which can be seen all around us when we take the time to notice it.

Remodeling - Pardon Our Mess

Welcome One . . . Welcome All . . . to the newly remodeled Hines Herald website. We have been under construction here for a few weeks which has severely hampered our sweet bloggin' skills. Blogger (which hosts our website) has throw off our blogging groove as it offered a much needed upgrade. In doing so, however, we are proud to annouce that our website is no longer prejudice against readers of a non-blogger persuasion. Therefore, we now accept comments from EVERYONE!!!!

We are still trying to work out some kinks in the system (currently Katrina does not exist as a user), but for the most part we are up and running better than ever. We appreiciate your patience and look forward to hearing from you ALL!!!!

Happy New Year

I know that it is actually 1/2 month after our big celebration for the new year; however, we still wanted to share our fun for that evening. We were able to have over a few couples for some snacks, games (not as many as Don had planned), and to watch the famous ball drop. Thanks to all who were able to come! We were glad to share the beginning of our new year with you. Also as you look through these pictures, you may notice a change in our living room! Don and I decided to add an accent wall to our living room and change the layout. You may be able to catch a glimpsese of it in these pictures.

Stephen & Sarah Branine

Anand Raj (and Christy in spirit) - Who made it just in time for the food and photo session!

T.J. & Shannon Logsdon

Stephen & Shannon Conley (Esther in guest bedroom - fast asleep!)

The Happy Hosts - Notice the new NYC caricature behind us!


The only game we played all night, to Don's dismay. He had a stack of games to get through and we spent much of our time talking, laughing, and eating! Don will be inviting more of you over again soon, so he can get the itch of game playing scratched!

FOOD!

The Guys!

The Girls!

The Twins! - Even down the headband! Planned? No!

The "Everyone" picture including Godiva (who had a great night being spoiled by our guests, especially Sarah)

We pray that your new year is full of growing in the grace and knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ!

P.S. Sarah and Shannon, Please let me know if you cannot get the group picture off of my blog and I'll e-mail it to you!

Christmas Time in the City

Christmas of 2006 for the Hines' was spent in the city that never sleeps - New York. This was the first time either one of us had been to this incredible city. There was so much to see and do; which lends itself to the monumental task of blogging a huge amount of information. Because of this seemingly unsurmountable task, we have neglected to blog for a while. Our deepest apologies to those who faithfully check The Herald and find it just as they have left it a month ago. I am going to attempt to give you a brief summary of the events that took place over the course of four days in a way that you won't have to read every interesting tid-bit, but give you an overview of what happened.

Friday, December 22
* Began our trip to the city. Drove to NJ and parked car at the Lee's residence (Garrett and Amanda Lee's parents), jumped on the NJ Transit and entered NYC via train
*Arrived at our Hotel - The Hudson - and finally sat down to get our barrings
*Decided to venture out to see Times Square and find some dinner down there. We ate at ESPN Zone.



Saturday, December 23
* Attempted to get up to go to the TODAY Show, but overslept.
* Took a long subway ride down to Ground Zero and found this to be very interesting and almost surreal. It seems like such a long time ago already that this took place.
* Continued south on the subway and saw The Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, NYSE, and the famous "Bull" on Wall Street.
* Headed back uptown and went up the Empire State Building and listened to a audio tour at the observation deck that cost $6. Well worth the money!
* We also went to see TImes' Square in the daytime
* Took a LONG stroll through Central Park - figured that we had seen the entire thing, but in reality had only walked half of it!
* We headed back to our hotel for a little nap, so we were ready for the nightlife again!
* Went to a hole in the wall restaurant for dinner to get REAL NY Pizza. The pizza was great, the atmosphere - not so great. We did see an actual cat snoozing on the pizza boxes!
* Went to Times Square again to actually do some shopping this time. Bought $1.77 worth of M&M's from M&M World (basically to get the bag!). We also bought some dark chocolate from Hershey's Time Square store.
* Walked towards Rockafeller Center area to catch the Christmas feeling and got our Caricatures done for $10 by a street merchant.
*Hit the hay!











Sunday, December 24
* Woke up and went to a little breakfast place down the street from our hotel for coffee and bagels.
* Met Garrett and Amanda to go to a Presbyterian Church in the City.
* Went to Manhattan Mall for souvenirs.
* Ate some italian from a real Italian little Resturant.
* Continued to hang with the Lee's for the day and saw the big stores (Macy's, Saks Fifth Ave.) with their windows all decked out for the holidays. Saw THE TREE in Rockafeller Center in the light.
* Went and saw the FAO Schwarz Toy Store (Movie site of "Big" and "Home Alone 2")
* Lee's headed back for some family fun back in NJ.
* We headed back to Macy's to actually go inside! (Which we found closed at 6:00 on Christmas Eve!)
* Went to see the tree at night, could not push our way to the rink to even see them skating. It was crazy busy!
* Visited Trump Tower to see the waterfall and gold plated walls! Wow!
* Nite Nite Time!







Monday, December 25th - Merry Christmas!!
* Don and I wake up early again trying to make it to the Today Show. Arrive and find out that it is pre-recorded! Boo Hoo! Sorry to all who were ready to watch!
* Decided to get a snack at the coffee shop that WAS OPEN next to NBC studios.
* Decided to take a brief Seinfeld Tour.
* Went and saw the Munk's Restaurant (Actually Tom's Restaurant) where many of their deeply technical conversations take place.
* Also went to the famous "Soup Nazi" Soup Place where Elaine was told "No Soup For You".
* Find a nice little Breakfast place open to eat.
* Went back to the hotel to pack and prepare for our departure!
* Lee's pick us up from Train Station and we are insisted on staying for their Christmas dinner, which we readily accepted. Thank you Lee's for your hospitality!
* Head home!






Again, thanks for your patience! We owe a big THANK YOU to our families for allowing us to be absent from the normal hub-bub of the holidays to give us a chance to do this vacation. Thank you to the Lee Family - Mr. & Mrs. Lee, Garrett & Amanda, and the rest who included us in their special day (and busyness of the season!)! And also to Priceline that gave us the guts to go-for-it!

Happy New Year!

Oh Christmas Tree!

This weekend we continued our tradition of putting up the tree the first weekend of December. The festivities included homemade soup and bread, apple cider, and donuts for dessert. We bought one of our cheapest trees from Lowe's this year (doesn't quite compare to the northern experience of actually getting to use a saw to cut your own tree down, but it works). We brought her home and made her shine. I just love this time of year! I love the decor and the times with family and friends, and the cozy feeling it brings. But most importantly I love the fact that God demonstrated his love for me in sending His Son to be the payment for my sins. A gift that can never be repaid, but only accepted by His grace and through the faith He gives. Praise Him for His work in our lives!


Another tradition Don has begun in our household is a simple competition of who can buy the first Christmas present for the other; coupled with who can be the first to have a wrapped gift for the other under the tree. I have been the reigning champ for the past two years with a win in both categories. This year he stepped it up (even though it is the busiest semester of His seminary career) and beat me to the punch with buying the first present. I retaliated with a nice big present wrapped under the tree when he came home today! Evidence of this victory if found in the photo below!

To the right of the gifts for the best hubby ever, you will notice a stack of things that need to be dropped off at the post office tomorrow. Yes, that's right. The blessing of being home during Thanksgiving is that we can be finished Christmas shopping and be ready to ship our gifts the first week of December! Wah hoo! So, incoming family!!

I wanted to also stick Godiva in the shot since she is not a part of our annual Christmas Card Portrait. She was feeling a little left out, so here is an updated picture of her. No, Grandma Katie, she is not going to be shipped with your gift, although she would like to spend a few days with you again soon! Maybe this time you can make it down here and see her cage, water bowls, toys and where she goes potty! =)