On Sunday, February 4th 2007, The Indianapolis Colts won the Super Bowl.

They beat New New England Patriots, yeah that "dynasty", to get there. Of the twelve teams in the playoffs this year, the Colts defense allowed the fewest yards per game than any other. Including of course Baltimore, New England and Chicago. I looked it up, and these three teams I just mentioned ranked 1, 2 and 3 in the league in defense (lowest points allowed per game) during the course of the 2006 season. We beat them all.....defense wins championships? Yes it does, because this year in the playoffs, as I just mentioned, the Colts defense allowed fewer yards per game than any other team. We won with defense. We won with smashmouth football...line em up and run it down your throat. Remember when people said the Colts were a finesse team and dare we say "soft". I remember. Remember when people said Manning was a loser in the playoffs and could not win a "big game"? I remember. Remember when people said "oh the Colts are a dome team.....they will never win in the elements, especially not against a physical team." Well, let's see, it rained the entire Super Bowl and the wind was blowing at times. And I don't know abut you, but in my book the Bears qualify as a "physical team". I think all of these types of statements were absolutely, without question, proven false - as in very false. Oh it feels good. It felt good enough to go downtown when the temperature was 6 with a -8 wind chill to party with the Colts after they arrived back to Indianapolis from Miami. Judson and I went to rock out the dome and just say "Thanks" the only way we knew how.

I took this picture, without the zoom, from our seats in the upper level.

There are alot of things that are cool about this. First of all, the Colts won with class. This is a group of guys who are stand up men, Christian men, who you feel proud to cheer for. Their leader, Tony Dungy, is a guy who you cannot help but respect. A real team by every sense of the term. The first major professional championship ever by an Indianapolis team. All the adversity and tragedies faced...Dungy.....Wayne....Brackett. It teaches us to work through adversity towards our goals, with God there guiding us. He will take care of us if we follow Him. This season was orchestrated by the Lord, especially the last two games. Miracle comeback vs. New England. Then a come-back win against the Bears in the Super Bowl. The biggest play of the game was clearly the INT return for a touchdown by Kelvin Hayden. You cannot tell me God didn't have a hand in keeping Hayden's heel from being 1/4 inch farther out and onto the sideline. The replay and subsequent review of the play showed clearly that he did not step out.....but check out this picture and how close it was....God's work.

For the first time ever, the season is over and there is no disappointment with the result. That is a strange feeling, but I'll take it, because I may never experience that about my team again.

Are you kidding me? The Colts not only won the biggest game in the history of the Indianapolis Colts, but they were came back from a deep 21-3 hole. Manning had just thrown a pass that was picked off for an easy TD for New England and the whole world was thinking "Here we go again. The Colts just cannot beat this team in the playoffs. Manning can't do it - he choked again". I don't care what you say, everyone was thinking it at that point. But they came back....somehow.....It's hard to really even describe how....but they did. Addai scored a TD with a minute left, and then Marlin Jackson picked off Brady with 20 seconds left and they did it. This game was basically a miracle. The Hubers were over and we were going nuts...our phone was ringing off the hook. I remember tossing Jackson up in the air. I remember holding Emma up in the air....I remember running down the hallway...I remember shoving Judson Huber out of excitement. So the Colts are going to the Super Bowl. It's so crazy how it happened. I recorded it onto my hard drive, so if anyone wants a copy, let me know and I may be able to burn it once I edit out the commercials.

Check out this picture of offensive coordinator Tom Moore on the sidelines by himself after the game...What an awesome picture.

I had quite the scare this week. Good thing that I happened to be talking to God at the time, because He was right there with me and kept me safe.

I was heading to work Tuesday morning, and we had gotten a bit of a dusting of snow during the early hours of the morning. It was one of those deals where it was windy and the snow was swirling around on the roads. I was about 30 minutes into my 40 minute drive to work and was just getting ready to merge from 46-east to 37-south, right there in Bloomington. I was behind 2-3 other vehicles and nobody was immediately behind me. Suddenly, my back end swung out from behind me. I was going about 55 mph. I turned into the slide and it quickly swung back around to the right. From there, it’s kinda hard to remember exactly what happened but I ended up coming to a stop with my back wheels off the road and my front wheels on the shoulder of the road and it was stalled. Slowly 3-4 cars came up on me and checked to see it I was alright and I stuck my hand out the window and gave them a thumbs up. Then I went to work and changed my pants. I had kept putting off getting new tires for the Jeep and I think this was God’s way of letting me know that I had better get that taken care of immediately. Needless to say I get a new set of tires the next day on my lunch break. Honestly, that could have been pretty bad. Anytime you lose complete control of your vehicle going 55 mph on a highway during the morning rush and hit absolutely nothing – you must consider yourself blessed.

So we have the Colts and Patriots facing off tomorrow evening in the AFC championship. It is the first time that such a game has been played at the RCA (Hoosier) Dome. This is our time. It is the biggest Colts game ever. I have been excited all week. Manning vs. Brady. Dungy vs. Belicheck. We have heard for years (justifiably so) that the Colts cannot win the big game. Manning can’t do it. Dungy can’t do it. The Colts are soft. Defense wins championships. Can we please just shut everybody up….finally? It is amazing that as good as we have been over the last 4-5 years that we have never made it to the Super Bowl. It is time for that to change. Another disappointment would be devastating to the franchise.

Kim and I declared 2007 as the year we get our act together. By January 9, we felt like we were right back to reality and chaos in our home.

Maybe that is evident by my lack of recent postings. There has been alot to post about, but little time to do it. I am home with the boys right now, as they are both recovering from round 2 of the stomach bug that they experienced at Christmas time. Now that they have been back at school and daycare, they have picked it right back up Jackson woke up after going to bed last night and puked, luckily he made it to the torlet. Carson wakes up every night during the night at least once now. Not sure what the deal is with that. We took him to Dr. Schechter on Monday and NO EAR INFECTION. That is a foreign concept to us, so we were surprised, must have been some stomach aches or maybe his teeth coming in (molars).

Here is Carson on his actual 2nd birthday, January 1, 2007. He is enjoying the fact that we are singing happy birthday to him. He can't wait to get into that homemade cake that Mommy made for him.

Last Saturday we had Carson's 2nd birthday party. He got a bunch of cool stuff and more Thomas train stuff, which he thoroughly enjoys right now. Here are some pictures:


After the party, Tom & Alex and Mom & Dad stayed to watch the Colts defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first round of the playoffs. We we surprised by the absolutely amazing performance of the Colts defense, which stifled Larry Johnson for only 35 yards. The Chiefs did not get a first down until it was nearly the end of the third quarter. Here is a shot of Alex and Jackson with all of their Colts garb on. Notice the "Lucky Colts Beads".

Let me get this posted......more later.

Christmas is over. I probably should not be writing my first post in nearly three weeks at this particular time. I have a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth right now, so just be aware of this and take whatever comments I make with a grain of salt, alright?

We do not take elaborate trips for vacations. A big "vacation" for us is making the seven hour drive down to Gatlinburg for some time in a cabin in the Smokie Mountains. Alot of time we just stay home while on "vacation" and that's fine by me, honestly, as long as I do not even have to think about work the entire time. Having said that, supposedly I am on "vacation" right now. Now, I know good and well that a vacation for me at this time of year is not going to include a trip, and it is definitely not going to be a vacation where I do not have to worry about work. Why? Because it is the holidays. And that means that we are short staffed, everyone wants (expects) me to figure out a way for them to not have to work. This years holiday scheduling for me had been the most difficult of the 8 previous "holiday schedules" I have created since 1998. Unexpected personnel changes in the weeks just prior to Christmas have been the predominate reason why. I worked as the evening RC on December 23rd (while I was on vacation which supposedly started on Dec 20). And the entire time since I stepped out of the office on Dec 20, I have been worried about our schedule for at least on reason. I keep checking my YSB email (Kim says: "Why would you check your work email while you are on vacation?" - and of course I just think how I would love to not have to worry about it, but it is an absolute fact that I have to worry about it) and every time I do this while I am on vacation I just clinch my teeth because I just end up becoming aware of additional staffing/scheduling problems that I must deal with.

I just want (and i believe really NEED) a vacation where I am not constantly stressed. I mean, the holidays do that anyway, but add into it the constant worry about the shelter schedule and the only thing making it a vacation is that I am not physically in the office.

.......why am I putting all of this on here? I have no idea. I know that anyone reading this is probably on here because they want me to post how Christmas was and really has no interest in my aggravation with work issues. And that's fine, of course.....

Christmas....I have to be honest. This was the strangest Christmas I can remember. Do you want to know the first thing I did Christmas morning? Usually, I am woken by exclamations and announcements that Santa had indeed visited our home. Well, I slept absolutely terribly Christmas Eve night and when I finally did get out of bed first at 6:20am, the first thing I did walk walk quickly into our bathroom where I proceeded to puke my guts out. Kim and Jackson had already vomited on Christmas Eve, so it was my turn. Carson's bout with the illness was earlier in the week when he vomited an entire and intact McDonald's french fry on the living room floor. I could not for the life of me figure out how a 2 year old can swallow a 5 inch french fry without damaging the structure of it // Time out - I just had to take a few minute break from writing this because Jackson came out of his room with a worried look on his face and told me that he just had a bad dream. I picked him up and held him on the couch for a few minutes and then I asked him if he got scared about something and he said: "Well, Goldie and Marvin got shot. Some hunters broke into our house and shot them". (Goldie and Marvin are our goldfish). I look at him and was somehow able to keep from laughing and said to him:"Well, it was just a dream....Daddy's here and everything is alright, buddy."// Okay back to the story. So Carse was just recovering from his stomach flu and Jackson puked first thing Christmas Eve morning. Then Kim puked during the Day on Christmas Eve and then I hurled first thing Christmas morning. I'll tell you, for the first twelve hours of Christmas Day I felt like total crap...Nauseous, Headaches, no energy, no appetite, and of course not FESTIVE! That was awful for both Kim and I to feel terrible on Christmas and Jackson was better but not 100%. By the time we went over to mom and dad's in the evening, we both really started to feel better. It was also weird because for the first time in the 16 (total) years that Kim and I have been together we were not at Kim's mother's on Christmas eve, as she was in West Virginia.

So between the whole family being sick, not being with Kim's family at all, and me worrying the entire time about work issues, it really was a strange Christmas. Despite me feeling like dog-crap, I did get a couple of decent pictures from Christmas morning at our house, after the discovery that Santa had been there. Here they are:


Here is Carse running around after the great discovery. I love the expression. Notice how Santa knocked out one of the logs from the fireplace!

Carson enjoying the moment as we opened presents after S.C. had already come.


Here is Jackson checking out the stuff from Santa...I think he is looking at a treasure map from his "Pyrates" legos.


Here is Mr. Jackson sporting the new Spiderman robe we got him.

We took the boys to see Santa at Metropolis in Plainfield last night.