Christmas in Michigan... if you can get there!

Hello from White Michigan... I mean West Michigan!

We would have greeted you earlier.. but we've been holding up in Casnovia - which hasn't quite yet found the highway to the internet. Perhaps some day!

Michigan put all it's natural beauty and wonder on display as we arrived. We literally blew into Grand Rapids airport after a few hours delay in Chicago and a windy (55 mph), bumpy ride in a blizzard across Lake Michigan. To put it into perspective... when I called my brother in law as we taxied into the tarmac.. he questioned me incredulously.. "they let you land in this weather? don't they know there's a BLIZZARD?" He was certain we were being delayed!

As a matter of fact - we landed in such intense weather.. that it took out most of the electricity - including the radar and radio communications with the tower... a fact the pilots let us know AFTER we landed. That was right before he also mentioned that power was out at the terminal and that we could not use the jet-way to enter the building. Instead, they parked in the middle of the tarmac, rolled some stairs up to our plane.. and Welcome to Michigan! 15 degrees.... 50 mph winds... just your run of the mill blizzard! Oh... so how do you get your bags when the baggage claim carousels are all out of power? They had to hand walk in each bag from the plane.

We were really excited to be treated to such different weather! What a welcome. It couldn't have been any better. We laughed all the way to the terminal (with Hannah in her flip-flops) ... and all the way driving back to grandma and grandpa's house with visibility measured by feet.

The week has been a ball. We've enjoyed lots of family time - tons of card playing - two PHASE 10 extravaganzas, lots and lots of wonderful food and some great after Christmas shopping.

And.. we spent time yesterday getting a long-awaited family picture. It was a kick as 15 of us went in for various individual, family, and group pictures. You will be so proud of us. We SET THE RECORD for most pictures ordered at this studio! The previous record was a very sissy 62 sheets. We went for 79 sheets between all the families! SCORE!

So.. now we are in Plainwell, Michigan; at my sister's place. And ahhhhhhhh - connected to a high speed wireless network. For now I have officially quit picking on my sister in honor of her internet connection.

Hello to all our friends in California. We miss you and hope you are well and enjoying a great break! We look forward to returning to sunny California (heard it was getting all the rain out of it's system while we are gone) in the near future to enjoy New Years.

We love you all.

Cold Team Henderson

Princess Jasmine 1992-2007

Very sad day yesterday as we had to put Jasmine down. She so enjoyed plain Happy Meals, going to Fort Funston dog park and running wild with Gina. This last month has been very hard on her. She developed Hepatosubcutaneous Syndrome. She baciscally had liver disease, foot ulcers and diabetes.

I remember being the midwife at her birth 15 1/2 years ago with Jim and Gayle Moyer. I got to pick her from the litter and was so excited to be getting a yellow lab. She was a great puppy. The kids used to love to sleep in the dog crate with her. I quickly made her the watch dog while Tod was traveling on business and felt safer. One of our best cross country trips was when I decided to drive both kids and both dogs to Michigan. Going thru a drive-thru was a riot because we would order food for the dogs and after a while they knew what "can I take your order" meant. Swimming at the lake in Michigan was a highlight of her vacation.

The best gift she gave us was having 6 puppies on November 15, 1998. She was the greatest mom and we have Gina to show for it. Together all the time, Jamine and Gina became quite a team. Taking them to Fort Funston with the kids was great adventure every time. Fort Funston is a state park in CA that is open to dogs off leash and you can go all the way to the ocean. They loved to run on the beach and fetch anything Joel would throw. A few month ago just Gina and I went and it was just not the same. Jasmine's ashes will be sprinkled there.

I miss her so much. If dogs get to go to heaven Jasmine is doing her part sleeping by the gate now.

Peace, Love and Harmony

For some reason this Christmas the Michigan dude's head was falling apart. Thanks to my craft skills and lots of glue we are back on the tree. Wow that was close. I hope the other U of M ornaments stay healthy.

Good Luck Andrea! *** Updated

If you'd like to know a truly crazy person - please allow me to introduce you to Andrea Rogers!

Andrea is a colleague of Julie's, a family friend, and more importantly - an 8 time marathon runner! You don't necessarily have to be crazy to work with Julie or to be our friend (ok... maybe..) - but you do have to be crazy to run 8 marathons.

Or.. make that 9! Because Andrea is off to Honolulu to run her 9th marathon this weekend.

***** We heard from Andrea Sunday and she finished in about 5:50!! Congratulations Andrea! *****

Andrea was also a part of Team Tod 2007 and I really wish we could return the favor. How fun would it be to be darting around Oahu encouraging her. I think Joel and Hannah would be down with a trip to Hawaii!

Alas, since we can't be there.. we will just wish her great success here! Have a great run Andrea and know that we will all be thinking about you on your big day. Oh yeah, and don't die.

PS.. did you know? the Honolulu Marathon is one of the largest in the world? in 2006 there were over 28,000 entrants! also.. do you know which country has the most entrants? No way - USA. Nooo Canada! China - my heina! Japan? hai. (that means yes). Over 62% of entrants in 2006 were from Japan!

Irish 2-0 in California!

When you are having your worse season in history that's the kind of stat you look for. Yes, sports fans - the Irish of Notre Dame are undefeated, 2-0, in the state of California. They were successful in beating UCLA earlier this year and now have taken down the proud Stanford Cardinal 21-14! So, they have that going for them.

As a representative of the Great State of California I formally and humbly apologize to the remaining 49 states for this tragedy.

It's hard to describe the actual game. Let's just say it was an appropriate kind of game for two teams trying to be the best '3 win' team in America. I guess Notre Dame took the crown. Woo-wee.

I think officially there were 112 turnovers in the game. Maybe 113. We're not sure because the statistician gave up and started drinking in the 4th quarter. My friend Ramon went along with me to the game. He is a famous algebra teacher and even he was getting confused trying to add all those negative numbers. So, he just gave up and started staring at Jennifer Montana. That's the wife of Joe Montana - a famous Notre Dame alum and SF 49er. Okay, I don't think he was really staring at Jennifer so much as trying to figure out if his figure was as good as Joe's. I decided to stay out of that discussion altogether. I just know he had two orders of garlic fries. You decide.

You're also probably aware that the TV writers guild is on strike. In most cases you can actually view that as a good thing that California is doing for the country. Being the socially conscious people that we are - part of the Stanford band decided to strike during the pre-game show. You have to love the Stanford band. I think they may be the only college band that has ever been put on probation by the NCAA! That's quite an achievement. We, of course, are very proud!

It was fun to have Dean Smith and Matt, his son, along for the game. I think we all went home entertained.. but not exactly sure what the heck just happened. It was one of those games!

It's Raining Js!

The day before Thanksgiving is the traditional King's Academy (TKA) Alumni basketball game. On that evening alumni from all around the country return to take on the varsity womens and mens teams.

This year the Alumni women's team featured some of last year's varsity stars including our own #12 - Hannah '5 ft of fury' Henderson. Did the varsity stand a chance? I don't THINK SO!

The alumni OWNED the varsity women's team. And who led the ownage? Let's just say Hannah was UNCONSCIOUS. She was raining Js (that's making jumpshots for those of you in Michigan!) from all over the court. Official statistics were not available.. but Hannah was dropping 3-pointers like crazy. She had 6 for the night - and a couple other baskets and free throws.

The next morning she came out of her bedroom hunched over, limping and moaning. Being a superstar definitely hurts the next morning - especially when you've been off to college and studying instead of playing ball!

It was so fun to watch the games.. (the alumni boys won as well!). And it was fun to see Hannah dominate! She's still got it!

Can't wait for next year!

Spanking vs Time Out?

I received the following funny email today:

Spanking vs. Time Out... (a psychological conundrum)...

Most of America thinks it's either wrong or bad to spank children. So, I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have 'one of those moments'.

One that I found effective is for me to just take a child for a car ride and talk. They usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together.

I've included a photo of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique!

Sweet Victory!!

Ahhhh... sometimes victory is soooo sweet!

Saturday was the big rematch between the Knights of The King's Academy (TKA - yeah!) and the Sacred Heart Prep Gators (SHP - booo!).

A little history might be helpful here. You see, last year's game led to the 'curses heard round the world'! In the waning moments of last year's classic football game against SHP.. TKA was barely leading and SHP was lined up to kick a field goal in order to take 'the meat off our fork' as we say in Michigan. With seconds left SHP kicked the ball... it appeared good.. then was called wide left by the referees (that we paid!! - oops.. did I say that?). Let's just say those weren't a chorus of 'praise the Lords' coming out of those mouths. It made me misty remembering living in Michigan and watching fans getting into fistfights in the stands at hockey games. Seriously. Misty!

Anyways, being the 2000's.. this led to the 'blog wars'.. where the arguments (or whining as viewed by the WINNERS) continued for days and weeks. We even made the local papers (Christian Schools In Verbal Slugfest!). Loads of fun listening to the crazy rantings of kids and parents and trying to guess who was who (I think I figured it out.. generally speaking the kid's posts looked more like text messages and made more sense). Exciting - at least for a Christian school.

Wanna relive the drama? Yeah, you know you want to see it! Okay.. go to youtube and take a look for yourself and read the comments (FOUL LANGUAGE ALERT.. the comments are a bit... spicy!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMOSKsJLWqU

Now, with that history in mind - you can imagine the level of excitement that built for the rematch. SHP parents studiously preparing new swear words in various foreign languages so as to let us believe they were speaking in tongues. TKA parents doing whatever they do (hey, how would we know??? we're NOT TKA parents anymore!). SHP football coaches and staff planning on how to loose in the last few seconds.. and TKA coaches and staff preparing their victory speeches.

The rematch was worthy of the budding rivalry! (Did I mention that Kings just beat SHP for the CCS soccer championship?) The game itself was pure excitement. The number of TKA fans pretty much matched or exceeded SHP fans - even though the game was played at SHP. Alumni from as far away as Cal (Go Bears!), Redlands, USC(boo!), Gonzaga, and various other places streamed into the bay area to show their support!

TKA fans were LOUD and PROUD and helped push the team on. The game itself was a classic back and forth slugfest! When SHP scored with seconds remaining on the clock they were down by one with a choice to go for the tie or the win. They chose to go for two and the win. I give them a lot of credit for that. That took some sack! However, let's just say when several of our defenders met their running back at the 2 yard line and escorted his face into the ground back at the 5 yard line with time running out.. it was flippin SWEEET! TKA 28 - SHP 27.

Congratulations to TKA for a great game. You played with heart and determination and skill. And.. you finished STRONG! (LOL).

Huskies Rock!

Saturday afternoon we had a great time attending the Washington vs Stanford game at Stanford stadium. One of my best friends.. and a person you will hear about often on this blog..is Tim Logan. Tim is a Washington Alum and a big fan so it was great to be able to go. Joel, Julie, Tim, Auntie and I attended.

Don't ask me why.. but I THOUGHT Tim was really more interested in the football team and their efforts... but we found Tim over in the cheerleader area - with some of his close friends. Then, he was was hanging out with the Washington mascot. As you can see, Tim is tight with his Washington peeps.

It was a great game. The game time temperature was near 80 (perfection - since we sit on the shady side of the stadium! Our seats are 3 rows up from the field (behind the visitor bench) on the 38 yd line! So, we were able to chat up the football players as well and Julie had something funky going with Ty Willingham - Washinton's head coach.

And, you'll be happy to hear.. with Tim in attendance and rooting for his alma mater... they defeated the Cardinal!

Okay - technically, I think Stanford would prefer if we would rout for them - since we are season ticket holders! But - well, Team Henderson doesn't roll that way! We stay with our wingman! It is such a blessing to be able to experience great times with good friends.

Go Huskies!

Jasmine's early halloween costume

Jasmine and Gina are the two best dogs in the whole wide world. It is very sad that Jasmine is getting older (15 years) and slowly losing her mind. I can feel her pain!! She rubs her face and causes her eye to become infected. The collar seems to be the only thing that helps. I leave it on for a week and the eye heals and she is good for a few months. Most of the time she uses the collar as a weapon and runs into the back of your leg.

Some day I will miss her terribly.

julie

I am the Pack Leader!!

Today I was a superstar.

Thanks to the Stouffers - I went to hear a seminar by Cesar Millan, the "Dog Whisperer."

I had a great time and afterwards got to have a hug and my picture with him. I was encouraged to find my inner calm assertive state.

Jasmine and Gina are in for a real treat now. At least my dogs know I am the pack leader.

ATV'ing is for Girls Too!

Hey, Buckners!... ATV'ing ain't just for 'men'! Check out Julie! After almost rolling it.. she finally started using the helmet!

This is us on Kipu ranch in Kauai - where a lot of the outdoor scenes from Jurassic Park were filmed. The rolling hills just behind her (bottom picture) are the hills that the scientists just arriving to the island are driving on when they first see the dinosaurs.

Okay - not quite like the adventures that you are having... but just wanted you to know Team Henderson is trying to keep up with you!

Have a great weekend.

Julie will Post This Weekend!

Hey - thanks to the Buckners for checking out our (nearly empty) blog and leaving comments. We LOVE comments.

Just so you know - our goal is to have Julie blogging away by this weekend! She loves to take pictures, tell stories and share her life with you all... so she is eager to figure out how this all works. The good news is it's easy. So, I have total confidence she will be up and running in little time.

Our love to all our friends and family!

Tod

Welcome to our blog!

It's great you took a minute to check out our blog. We hope that this is a fun and powerful way to share our lives with family and friends. We love checking out other people's blogs.. and thought it's about time to get one of our own up and running.

So.. here it is. Team Henderson's blog.

Please feel free to provide feedback and comments. It is wonderful to hear from everyone. We look forward to interacting with you here.

Have a great day and a great week.

Tod