Rook Tournament

Saturday night the Lambert's hosted a Rook Tournament at their house in Helena. Matt and Jen had a great set-up - 3 card tables, a big screen TV, pizza, wings, and plenty of desserts. I encourage them to host more Rook tournaments. Amy and I finished a grueling game with the Horton's, during which both teams battled to very large negative scores early on. We managed to come out on top about an hour later, about the time everyone else was finishing their second game. We played Jon and Danya next. They edged us by a mere 10 points, which was a moral victory for us. This didn't appear to be their first Rook tournament.
Kevin and Rachel Horton in good spirits after taking it on the chin from the Prickett's. I think they enjoyed a little time away from sweet Shelby, even though she is beautiful. Playing with Shelby at the Seahorn's a few weeks ago got me even more excited about becoming a Dad.








Courtney Whisenant and David Couch. David is holding up pretty well after his Bulldogs suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tulane Green Wave. Courtney has been very supportive during this tough time, being very careful not to gloat as her Alma Mater took care of the Bayou Bengals earlier in the day. What pass interference?






Curt and Anna Atkinson. Another MSU grad, Curt looks pretty exhausted after taking his frustrations out on a few dove earlier in the day, Anna, thanks for keeping your eyes open for this picture. I think we took 3 or 4! Evidently this is pretty rare. Curt says she's asleep 20 minutes in to their drive up from Lake Charles, La.







Jon and Danya Wright, worthy adversaries. We shall meet again. We will take down the card shark and his wife, who by the way, like Jen, is also a great hostess.


Thanks again to Matt and Jen for having us all over!

Hanna and Emma on Auburn's big win...

Saturday was the Auburn/LSU game at the Bearden's. In case you missed the game, here's Emma and Hanna to bring you up to speed. As Emma is saying, the game was very intense from the beginning. I have to say, we were all a bit on edge the entire game. We all stared in disbelief as John Vaughn missed a 26-yard field goal that would have
given Auburn an early lead. But when Vaughn came in and nailed that extra point after Cox's 1-yd touchdown, we were all relieved; some were even pleasantly surprised. We knew that we were going to have to play some good D the rest of the way if we were going to have a chance to win. When Brock made that final tackle at the 4-yard line as time expired, we realized that we had survived. Auburn 7, LSU 3. Emma and Hanna say, War Eagle! Or at least they will soon.

New Church Building!

Sunday, September 10th, marked the first service in our new sanctuary. The new sanctuary has seating for 1,300, and approached capacity Sunday morning. Click on the link for the Birmingham News article:
http://www.al.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/1157880712260920.xml?birminghamnews?nmet&coll=2
Amy worked in the nursery where she and 5 others took care of 15 infants. I worked in the audiovisual booth as is usual on Sunday mornings. In addition to a new church building, we're also beginning a family ministry that will focus on topics such as parenting, family finances, etc. Pastors Terry and Lisa Moore have joined us from California to help lead this new ministry. Pastor Terry is an Auburn grad and played football with Bo Jackson. Our first teaching series will be Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. It begins Sunday night, October 1st and will last 13 weeks. I'm a big Dave Ramsey fan, so I'm pretty excited.

By the way, Amy is now 5 months pregnant and she's in a registering mood! She has registered at Babies"R"Us, Target, and Wal-Mart. Links to the registries are on the side bar. Please buy us stuff :)

Gameday...

During our trip to Auburn this weekend we stopped by the Loden's new house and introduced ourselves to the newest member of their family, Nathaniel McKay Loden. Nathaniel is just over 7 weeks old in this picture with his mom and dad, Nathan and Raquelle.

Nate has taught me some swaddling techniques that are sure to come in handy when Emily comes in January. Check out their tightly wrapped bundle of joy. Nathaniel also agreed to let me hold him long enough for Nate to snap his picture with me and Amy.


I'll be sure to hold on to this picture as it may be worth some money when Nathaniel becomes the youngest American to be potty trained. It seems Nate has happened across some secret Japanese potty training techniques. I'm probably not even supposed to be telling you this, but if it works, look for little Emily to be flushing her own by this time next year ;)

Emily either slept through much of the Auburn/Washington St. game, or was just very quiet like many of the tailgaters we saw across campus on Saturday. It didn't appear that many of the fans had forgotten the opening week loss to Georgia Tech last year and/or the loss to USC in 2003, which was the last time the Tigers were ranked this high to begin the season. Hopefully the big win this weekend will ease the nerves somewhat, but LSU is less than 2 weeks away.

An eagle and two cranes. Both very symbolic of Auburn University.