This week we bought this 2006 Pontiac Vibe! So far we love it and feel like we made a good purchase. We traded in our Montana minivan, and it feels good to not have to worry about it anymore. We had the Montana nearly three years and overall we were a little disappointed with it. I got to where I just did not like to drive it. The handling was terrible, it was not great on gas, and all the aggravation that we were having with the electrical problems such as the fuel gauge being defective, and the power locks not working properly. It also had a terrible heating and cooling system....ugh!! The Vibe is nice, though....I feel like we got a good deal on it from National Car Sales. I had been researching cars in this class for awhile, looking at the Toyota Matrix, Ford Focus wagons, and such....We decided that we liked the Vibe. We visited three different dealerships and test drive three different Vibes and the one that you see above was the one for us. You hate to sign up for a car that you will have to pay on for so long when you are on the verge of paying off the van, but the van was not a long term vehicle, whereas the Vibe is.

We went through a couple of lousy experiences at the two other dealerships. The first place we went to was Westgate in Plainfield right beside Kohls. That place is terrible - we wasted alot of time because we had to fill out a credit request and test drive the Vibe before we even had any kind of clue what they wanted for it. Then the dude who was the "sales boss" was basically a slimeball and was not straight up with us at any point whatsoever after he came in the "close the deal". Then was went to Hare on the Westside off of 38th street to see their advertised Vibe specials of "11,900".....well, that was with 2000 down, which we were going to do anyway. But that means the actual list price was 13900 and the 2000 down "made" it 11900, according to the salesman. I said: "Ummm, doesn't that make the price of the vehicle 13,900?" He says, well, actually, yes.....Then I said "Then why was it advertised for 11,900?". After the test drive, Kim noticed that the front bumper was messed up in three places, so that was the end of that since I was ticked anyway about the deceit that had occurred. So we went to National and bought the one we wanted, straight up, no deception, no games, no pressure.

For all these people that make a living selling cars: Do everyone a favor and avoid the deceit. It ticks people off. Tricks and small print games simply tick people off. Just be straight up and don't waste your time and the customer's time.

Winter Wonderland

I took the above picture while driving to work on February 14. This is 231 between our house and Spencer, heading south. We got a bunch of ice and then ended up getting about 7-8 inches of snow over that. Schools were canceled pretty much all week and we were concerned about losing our power, but that fortunately never happened.

Then we got another 4 inches on Saturday the 17th, and decided that it was time to take Jackson and Carson sledding for the first time...here are shot shots from this adventure. He had a great time. Jackson couldn't get enough of it, and Carson mainly wanted to eat the snow.

Here is a Valentine's Day card Jackson made for us.





Here is the card I chose to give to Kim today. I'm such an idiot.

And here is one of the first pictures of Lisa and Dan's litttle guy, Brennen.
Congratulations! What an amazing blessing from God!

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.