If you want to see an evil tree, a giant snowman, Snow Bowl II, and some really cute pictures, you've definitely come to the right place! Okay, that was a little epic... but at least it was different.

Rachel and Rebecca digging out some gardens in the backyard. Notice how they are doing the digging... and I'm taking a picture. It technically should be the other way around... but it's not!

Along with the gardens being dug, there was also a dead tree taken out. It was lying out across the patio waiting for its fate, when lo and behold, my mom met her fate first. She tripped over the tree and fractured her arm. Ok, that sounds cliche, but it really did happen.

We then had to call in Paul Bunyan to get rid of the evil little tree. I figured you would all want to see a picture of justice being done. Makes you feel a little better, doesn't it?

We had a big storm blow in last week, which was nice. We need as much rain as we can get right now. Oh, and no, that picture wasn't taken at my house. We had a Men's Retreat this last weekend, and there was a fresh layer of snow on Friday morning. We usually have the retreat in November, but we wanted to have snow for this retreat, so we moved it to January. It snowed on Thursday night, so it was just perfect for Friday. The Lord really blessed with that.

A picturesque bridge across a stream. How is that for a caption?

Another scenery shot. It was very pretty out, and it was very enjoyable walking around and taking pictures.

Here is the lodge that we stay in every year, this year being no exception.

Some stairs leading up to the back side of the lodge.

After some snowball fights where I think we all got decently pasted, we started to build a giant snowman.

The original snowballs were too big to pick up, so the top two got downsized.

Here the snowman is getting his head implanted. It was really quite the project getting him all together. Took a lot of teamwork.

And then the ultimate height test. Compare him to Kevin O!

Playing football in the snow is a whole lot different than normal. Talk about traction! Half of the plays in our playbook had a slip written in. I think I neutralized myself in the game on Saturday. I threw a long interception to Justin (which eventually led to a score), and I threw a long touchdown to Jonathan.

Here is our group on Sunday morning before we left for home. We had a great time, and there were a lot of good sessions on Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday morning. The majority of the videos were part of Vision Forum's "History of the World" DVD set, but we also had one from John MacArthur which was really good. It was a great learning time, and was fun to be with all the guys.

I didn't really get too many pictures with people in them. A lot of the pictures on here Kevin O took. It didn't really seem quite as necessary for me to take a lot of pictures, as it seemed like a lot of other people were taking pictures. I still need to aquire those pictures, though, so I can't post them.

Here Michael is getting a firsthand view on what it is like to be a trombone player.

Julianna was constantly sticking out her tongue on Sunday night. I'm guessing it is her latest pastime. She is still absolutely adorable when she does it.

And here is Bethany with her million dollar smile. Too cute, really.

That was a good ending picture. Till next time!