Easter and Spring Break

In the past month, not much has changed here in DeVries town. Last week was Spring Break, and everybody enjoyed the time off. Noel's real estate business is keeping her very busy, Ivy's soccer is keeping her very busy, and Michael's baseball is keeping him very busy. Dennae and Jami are keeping busy with friends, schooling and work. I'm staying busy with planting a church. All in all, things are progressing nicely here and we thank you for your prayers for us.

Yesterday morning, we celebrated Easter at my Mom and Dad's house (which hasn't sold yet), and we enjoyed a great brunch, a fun egg/candy hunt and just hanging out as a family. We invited a couple of our Korean families over to give them a small dose of American culture a la DeVries style. Matt and Simone still have a 21-year old German girl living with them for a couple more weeks, and she was there as well. Afterward, we went down to watch Ivy's soccer team lose a game 2-1; Ivy scored the goal for her team. Fun to watch. This coming weekend, Michael will have his first baseball games; it's a tournament down in Littleton.

Please look at the pictures at the bottom of the blog. Let us know what's going on in your lives as well.

Have a great day for Christ's sake,

MJD,Sr.

Valentine Madness

Since our last blog, we've enjoyed getting to know Brett a lot better (that's Dennae's boyfriend) as we've seen the new year already pass into it's 2nd month. It's been a DeVries tradition for some time to get together as an extended family at my brother's house and eat spaghetti without utensils to celebrate Valentine's Day. You'll see which pictures are from that annual fiasco. It's always a mess as well as a lot of fun. Matt and Simone are hosting a girl from Germany for a couple of months in their house, so the girls have enjoyed getting to know Jasmine. We also began a tradition for Northern Ridge Baptist Church this year and had our first annual Valentine's Banquet. It was a lot of fun, a real blessing to get to know some people in some unique and profitable ways.

Everybody is doing well. The kids are well into their 2nd semester of this school year. Noel still enjoys selling real estate. Dennae is still home schooling, enjoying her job and having fun with Brett, and I'm getting older and fatter by the day!

Hope you all are doing well for Christ's sake,

MJD,Sr.

Boyfriends and Sports

Well, we are entering a new phase of life. First, the new year started with the second semester of school and all its busy-ness, including basketball for Michael and... Ivy. This is her first time to play basketball ever, and she had her first game today. She did pretty well for a rookie. Scored a couple of points, dished out a few assists, hacked more than her fair share. Noel is helping to coach the team, so this will be a fun season. Michael also had his first game of the year. It was extremely exciting; they won 26-23. It's the 5-6th grade boys league, and Monk's in 5th grade. So he's at the younger end of the group, but as always, he is at the bigger end of the group too.

But the newest phase of the DeVries household is the fact that Dennae has a regular boyfriend. This is a first for us. We've held them off as long as we could telling our girls that there is no sense in having a boyfriend unless you find one nice enough to be a potential husband. Well, we have no idea what God is in store for Dennae and Brett, but we really like Brett a lot and are thankful that he and Dennae have struck up a friendship. It has been a pleasant experience for all of us. Brett met with me and asked me what my "expectations" were for him and Dennae in how they should conduct themselves. I told him, "You tell me what your standards are for how you should treat a Christian young lady, and I'll tell you whether or not you can date my daughter." So he spent a week in the Scriptures and came back to me and Noel and presented his plan. He passed with flying colors, so we told the two of them that they could start seeing each other at appropriate times in the days to come. Brett comes from a Christian family so that is a big plus in our opinion. Please pray for them.

And I trust you will have a great day for Christ's sake. Don't forget to look at the pictures at the bottom of the blog.

MJD,Sr.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday

This past week, we celebrated Christmas with the rest of the world. We were blessed to wake up and find that we were going to celebrate a Colorado White Christmas. There was an inch of snow on the ground and it came down hard all day. It was a traditional DeVries Christmas celebration. Wake up and open stockings, eat cinnamon rolls, read the Christmas story, open presents, eat Christmas dinner, go out to Mom and Dad's and have the family gift exchange, eat another Christmas dinner, lay around in misery, etc.! Oh yeah; Dad DeVries hooked up the sleds to the back of the truck and pulled everybody around out in the pasture for a good time of sledding. The kids were freezing by the time it was over but wanted go out and hit it again. Ah Christmas!!! As usual, it was all great!! Matt's in laws were in from Germany so we had a lot of fun with them. Everybody got what they wanted for the most part; we definitely all got way more than we need. One significant gift was our family gift to ourselves that I mentioned on last week's blog. We chose not to get individual gifts for the kids (even though they are now at the stage where they get substantial gifts for each other!) or for each other. Instead, we had a home theater installed in our basement. 52" plasma TV, surround sound, powered sub woofer, etc. We've really enjoyed watching the Nuggets and Broncos in High Definition TV and we've enjoyed watching movies together as a family on the big screen. When you have teenagers, you think of ways to give them reasons to stay at home as much as possible; this is what we came up with. We hope to enjoy this for a long time.

Last Wednesday Michael turned 11 years old. He's doing great, and we are all proud of him. We went snow shoeing with Matt, Dad, Jason and Connie (Matt's Dad-in-law). Michael and Jason got ahead of us on the trail and almost got lost; we were all very relieved to find them walking out in the middle of a frozen mountain lake. They both received the lecture of their lives, believe me!!! Michael had 2 of his friends over for the night and had a good time with them as well.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas! Don't forget to look at the pictures at the bottom of the blog.

Your servant for Christ's sake,

MJD,Sr.

A baby, a concert, a birthday and another driver

This past month has been a very busy one. First, we welcomed little Lily LeeAnn Esch to our church family. Lily was born just five hours after her grandfather, Bill, passed away. Ryan and Krista decided to induce Krista's labor so Lily could be born before Ryan's father passed away, but God saw fit to give Bill the chance to see Lily's birth from heaven instead. We will miss Bill but welcome little Lily to this world. She is a cutie!

The kids wrapped up their fall semester of school. Dennae and Ivy had their recital with their teacher, Malia. Dennae played an arrangement of "It Is Well" on the piano. Jami played in the orchestra concert, Ivy in the band concert, and Michael played his tuba in the 5th grace band concert. They did really well. I forgot to take the camera for Jami's concert and for the recital so I don't have any pictures. We are having Michael's tuba chem-cleaned over the Christmas break. It will cost $150! Who said raising kids ain't expensive!!!!? It's a very special tuba we recieved from Noel's grandpa who played it in his church orchestra. He is excelling at playing it (so are the girls on their instruments as well).

Noel turned 43 on December 8th. She's really enjoying real estate and is doing quite a good job. She was "salesman of the month" for the month of December. Dennae got her driver's license this past Thursday and hasn't quit driving since she got it. We were able to purchase a nice Mazda Protege for her to drive. It has some hail damage so we got it pretty cheap! Now, we have three cars! Who said raising kids ain't expensive!!!!?

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I'll update the blog with more pictures after the New Year. There will be pictures of Christmas, the New Year and Monk's 11th birthday celebration. Don't forget to check out the pictures at the bottom of the blog.

Hoping Christ is at the center of your Christmas!

Clay pigeons and Goof balls!

Since the last blog entry, we've begun the holiday season. We enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal out at my Mom and Dad's; it was bittersweet since it will probably be the last one we'll have at the house in which I and my siblings grew up. They have their house on the market and are hoping to downsize within the next year. So, it was a good memory making moment for us. We had the traditional turkey dinner (my favorite part is the crispy skin - help explains my thick girth!) and thoroughly enjoyed everybody's company in the DeVries family. The cousins really love getting together; never a dull moment with our crew. Anyway, I brought my camera, but the battery was dead. Sheesh!

The Monday night before Thanksgiving, Noel and I were given box seats to a Denver Broncos Monday Night Football game versus the Tennessee Titans. The Broncos won; it was Noel's first Bronco game ever. It was great! But, I forgot to bring my camera to capture the moment! Idiot!

I did remember to bring my camera to the 2nd annual Northern Ridge Baptist Church skeet shoot, so there's some pictures of guys taking their best shots at flying clay pigeons. That was a lot of fun even though it was in the mid 20s for a temperature.

The other pictures at the bottom of the page are some goofy candids of Ivy and Dennae trying to be creative and funny! I'll let you be the judge of that!

Hope you all are having a Happy Holiday season and trust you will have a very Merry Christmas! I'm sure I'll update this blog once more before Christmas.

For Christ's sake,

MJD,Sr.

Friday night: pizza and a movie

At the DeVries household, we have family night each Friday night. Actually, we go out to eat every Tuesday night, have pizza and a movie each Friday night, have a barbecue each Saturday night, have sweet rolls and frappucinos each Sunday morning, and go out for ice cream each Sunday night after church. This blog's pictures are primarily from this past week's Friday night pizza/movie night. We got Shrek the 3rd and Amazing Grace. We are beginning the movie as I type. Hopefully they'll be worth watching.

This past week, Michael and I went with Michael's tuba teacher to a Boston Brass concert. Michael's teacher was roommates in college with Andrew Hitz, the tuba player for the Boston Brass. We had a chance to meet him and speak with him. He is an excellent tuba player and the Boston Brass put on an excellent concert. Michael was truly inspired as could be seen by his intensified practice sessions the days following. (The picture was taken on my cell phone since I forgot my camera; sorry it's not too clear.)

(So far, Shrek the 3rd is pretty good!)

I also had the chance to go down to Fort Logan National Cemetery on Veteran's Day in South Denver and visit the graves of my Grandma and Grandpa Norden; these were my Mom's parents who passed away in the late 1990s. My Grandfather was a WWII veteran; I have his WWII army jacket framed on my study wall. Anyway, both Noel and I have great and fond memories of our grandparents; it was a privilege to down and pay mine some respect in retrospect.

Hope you are doing well and that you are growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ! Don't forget to look at the pictures at the bottom of the blog!

MJD,Sr.