What's up March?

So here we are again. Lots of time has gone by. I'm so bad at filling you all in on our lives. There has been a lot that has happened in the Hofer's life. Where should we begin? Our Senior pastor at Linwood Wesleyan has resigned and will be leaving in July. We have to resign as well since we are on staff. What does this mean for us? We have no idea. If you do, please let us know. We are looking at all our options right now and hope to make a decision on whether to stay or go in the next few weeks.
Alex turns 5 next week. What????? I can't believe it's been that long since we lived in the deep south. I miss it. Maybe that is just the bitterness in my heart for the snow right now. Tym turns 8 next month and he is turning into such a great young man. Wow. Mom and dad you will appreciate this one...Tym asked Mike, "Why do we have to go shopping again, dad? All it does is waste time and take your money." Mike says "Do you have pants on and shoes on your feet?" Tym said "I NEEDED these. U don't NEED 2 go shopping do u?" He is sooooooo DUTCH, just like me.

So, I am working on my graduate credits for teacher certification and also studying for the next Praxis test that I have to pass. We are almost there, I can taste it.

Keep praying for us please. We need guidance and shown our door to walk through soon.

Let it STOP Snowing!!!

Wow look at all this snow that we have. We don't know what to do with ourselves at this moment. Mike is in California thawing out and we are freezing our tooshies off. The kids and I again have no school. This is a miracle that we don't have to go since Sioux Falls never closes school. Although we are thankful that we don't have to go out in the -30 or so windchill temperature. These pics are of our side door which we just got shoveled out this past weekend from the last blizzard. It's actually taller than that right now due to the wind. It has grown by the hour.

This is from inside that door you just saw above.

This is the really big pile of snow outside of our window from the driveways of our neighbors. Since we live in the end unit we get all the access snow. The plows don't know where to put it all now so we may have a bigger pile to post for you later.

This is that drift from the kitchen window. Pretty cool right? I don't think so. I would go shovel it out but I'm afraid I will lose my fingers, toes and nose.

Mike and I are already praying if this was the right move for us. We know that God is laughing right now but I believe there is a lesson in all this. We love the southland so much now that we can't feel the warm air. Where does this lead us?????? Who knows. ALASKA? We would be good at it...just kidding.

We hope this post finds you all warm and snuggled in your beds. Pray for us when you get a chance. Pray that we will keep our sense of humor and that we will continue to seek what God has for us in this tundra of a place.

KRS

Holy lots of time has gone by...

Yes, we are still alive and going strong. We are awaiting a huge snow storm here in Sioux Falls, SD and will be stuck at home for a few days. At least our fridge is full of stuff for Christmas dinner and we have lots of presents to open. We just got a new camera so here are a few pics for you to see. Yesterday we had "Emergency get a new tree" goin' on. Our other tree fell over with a broken leg. We were able to find one on sale thank goodness. As for the pink hair...Mike lost a bet with his high school students. He told them that if they had 100 students at our last 11:11 service of the year then he would dye his hair pink. Well, obviously we had that many, and more.

We will post more later.

K

Wow, it's been a while!

We are getting closer to the light. We have finished the winter and are now onto the Springish type weather every now and then. So, today it was beautiful and they say it is here to stay except for rain. The rain I can take, it is the snow that disturbs me. Here are a few pics of us from the last few months. Sis had a birthday so she is now a big girl, 4. My hair is now red, not as red now like in the pics. Sorry it has taken so long. I will put a few more on there later when I get the camera out of the car. We hope all of you are doing well. Much love...

Promised pics

Alex and Tym were talking on the phones while we were waiting for dad.

This is the body surfing part of the Waterpark of America that we went to on Sunday.

So we went to Aquire the Fire last weekend in Minneapolis and we had a blast.

The top picture is Alex hanging with us Kristen's. The bottom is Tym and Alex at the Mall of America's Lego Land.

Next is Tym showing his award from his basketball season. Tymothy was awarded the Great Character award. He was thrilled with that.

Mike and I visited Mt. Rushmore a few weeks ago on the other side of the state. Man, it was a boring ride to get to Rapid City but the trip up the hills was great. The pics don't do it justice.

Well we hope you are all doing well. We'll try to keep you updated. We started a new service at The Filling Station called 11:11. The senior high students get together on Friday nights at 11:11pm and have a service. I went to the first preview service (I don't have to go, the students are taking over the worship area) and they had 39 students there. Wow, it was just an idea that I think may have reached a few students. Hopefully this gets infectious and we can reach even more. We will have another one on March 20th so be praying for us about that.

We miss you all and love you...

The last month

I'll be posting new pics soon...I keep leaving the camera bag in the car that Mike drives. I have some new pics of our life lately. Stay tuned for further info............

A little bit of Southern Comfort!!

We had a southern night at our house... Here I am enjoying the great food that my adoring husband made for us. He is an awesome cook for those of you who didn't know. The menu was seasoned salmon fillets-seared and baked, crawfish boiled in Cajun seasoning, rice, salad (for me), and noodles. Alex had her own comfort food, mac n cheese but it was special...scooby-doo.

Tym ate a whopping 12 or so crawfish on his own. He barely even touched his mac n cheese. He even shelled them himself and ate them without sauce.

This is the master piece before we ate it. Doesn't it look amazing?

If you want some we have more.....come and get it!!!

All of our snow is melting. The temp was 40 degrees today and that is above 0. We feel like it's spring around here. It is supposed to get cold again though. Well, we're hangin' in there. We still haven't found a car but we are looking very carefully. We have tried the auto auctions and places like that. We have to wait for them to call back because they look for you to see if they have anything that you would want. You can't just tell them that you want anything. It has to be specific.

I hope that you are all doing well. We miss you. Much love....

Prayer Request

Ok so I don't usually ask for much help. We are really in need of a car. We have been praying so hard but nothing has come up. We are just asking for you to pray with us about this. It sounds petty to ask about a car but we need it really bad. Mike and I work on seperate sides of the city and we are always having to compromise something because of the one vehicle. Just pray that we will find something affordable. We are saving money for a used car that will get us from here to there. If God brings us something else we would be greatful. We know that you will all pray with us. We love you all...

Mike made it home

I took a few pics of our weather today. The top pic is from our kitchen window out onto the street toward the west. Our wind has picked up to high of 50mph and the drifts are incredible. Our temp this am was 27 or so and it dropped down to 7 by the time I left school. Our temp during the night is supposed to be -7 with a -22 degree windchill. We are so excited about that. We are also to getting more snow. This is basically the same thing only from outside. The sunset was amazing tonight.

Just FYI: Mike finally made it home safely. It was about 9pm last night but we were all waiting for him. Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement while he was away.

Much Love...

Weekend without Dad

Here's some things that we did this weekend without dad. He's still gone...it's Sunday afternoon now. Hopefully he will be in the car on his way home from Minneapolis soon.
Thanks Nathan and Robbie for the awesome scarves. They are so great and kept us warm while we were out in the snow. They even matched too.

CHEESEBURGER!!! Literally, we went to McDonalds yesterday. What fun.

Tym had a basketball game at the YMCA. He is the one with his hands up. Yes, play that defense.

Alex was practicing taking her own picture.

This is a little bit of our snow. We had more last night and we are supposed to get a bunch tonight. This is out the backdoor. If you look real hard you can see the pee stain from joe joe.

Well, hope you are all doing well so far this new year. We miss you all.

Much love...

Grandpa Ramsey

For those of you who read this regularly... Mike's grandpa Ramsey (Sally's dad) passed away this past Monday. It was very shocking since we had just seen him at Christmas. I guess he has had heart trouble for years and it finally gave up, he died Monday at the hospital in Richmond of a heart attack. Please pray for Mike, he went home yesterday to be with the family. They asked him to do the Eulogy but not be too preachy. How do you do that? Anyway, we are all doing well. Just chugging on and handling things at home. Love you all...

The past

These are some of the cousins with our kids. Brian Michael, the tall one, was in our wedding. He has grown up. Justin and Brianna are behind Tym and Alex. They love playing together and spending the night at Aunt Julie's house.

This is my Hannah Montana want a be. Isn't she so cute?

Staring contest me and you. You win, you always do...Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live.

This is our dog Oddie. He can't live with us yet because he weighs more than my two kids put together. We love him very much and can't with to have him with us again. This is Big Mike for all of you that haven't seen him in a while. This is where he sits most of the time when he isn't driving truck all week long. Doesn't he look like Santa?

Teresa always keeps it in Indiana for Tymothy. He will not even think of rooting for the Patriots, only the Colts!!! Thanks a lot Teresa, Amy and David :)

Tym was reading his new books at Teresa's house.

So you all know that I lost all of our pics from October to December. We have been taking pictures like crazy so you can all see what we've been up to lately. As you can tell I am finishing up my Christmas vacation at home and I am working on a computer at home. My wonderful husband of 8 years has surprised the family with a brand new laptop. I had told you previously that our other computer literally died, it wouldn't even turn on anymore. We are excited and love being able to communicate with all of you. So here goes.

The Hofer's took a long trip to Indiana for Christmas. We stopped in Marion first and stayed with Mrs. Teresa and visited with old friends. We then moved on, which took 3 hours to get there because of an ice storm, to Richmond, IN. That is my in-laws. We spent Christmas there and then headed home. It doesn't sound like much but man were we ready to get home and sleep. We finally slept and then we had an all-nighter at the church on New Year's Eve. That was brilliant!!! Mike and I stayed up all night with the students and of course none of them slept either. We had fun though. We spent yesterday (Jan.1st) inside our house just sleeping and watching movies. It sounds like it was restful but it wasn't. So, today we are watching Phinneas and Ferb on Disney channel and getting ready to shower. We have some things to do, like go to the music store and get some new piano books for my students and get some supplies for school next week.

Since I had lost all of our recent pictures I did not send out Christmas cards this year. Sorry about that. I just usually write a letter of the year and then put in some recent pics. I was so distraught about the pics that I didn't even do it. Consider this your Christmas letter. We love you all so much.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. We love you all and wish you a Happy New Year!

WOW!

Ok Melissa you were right! I want the 1 degree temp back. Today we left the house and it was -13 degrees. I think it's warmed up a bit to -5 now. Bring out the shorts!!! Our windchill today is -36 and the kids are still going strong in school today. They will be antsy by Friday I'm sure. We love ya'll...

Oops

So I went to post all of our pics from the last few months and found that all of them have been deleted. I have no pictures of halloween, thanksgiving, or our Christmas programs. Sorry about that. Our kids have been playing with the camera and they must have hit the button. We are all excited to be almost done with school until next year. We are just living day by day in this cold tundra. It reached 1 degree last night when I was on my way home from church. Wow, I never thought I would be able to function in that cold temp but really you get used to it around here. The kids go out at recess except for when the windchill is below 0. Craziness!!! Well, I'll try to retake some of our Christmas pics that we took at church on Sunday. They were so nice and pretty. Hope you are all doing well. Much Love...

Posting

I am so sorry to those of you who read our blog on a daily basis. Please do not give up on us. We are extremely busy with Christmas programs and our computer died at home. We will be spending Thanksgiving here in SD alone with just the 5 of us (Joe Joe was included in that). Hopefully we will have a chance to blog some. We brought Mike's laptop home from the church and will try to get on the web to share some pics with you. We miss you all and wish we could be with you for the holidays.

Where's Fall?

I thought it was about time to blog for all of you that follow us. Our computer at home got a really bad virus and won't even turn on now so it has taken us a while to get back on here. We are now in the middle of winter it seems. I think I just blinked and Fall was over. Yesterday was Veteran's Day and we got snow. It got warm after that and started melting. I think that is it for a few days. Now we are enveloped in fog. We don't seem to be able to get out of it. We are all doing well. Alex has developed her annual nasty cough. Tym is excited to build his snowmen outside of your townhouse. Yesterday he built sissy. School is going well for him, grades are awesome, behavior we are working on. Mike is busy as always at the church, bowling, playing basketball etc... Kris is busy putting the finishing touches on the Christmas program at school. Only 4 weeks left AAHHH!!! Joe Joe is lonely, awaiting the arrival of his best friend Ottie. Someday they will be together again. We love and miss you all.

Halloween

Just a note to let you all know that I haven't forgotten to blog. I just don't have any new info to share. We are having some beautiful weather here and are gearing up for our Harvest Bash tomorrow night with the youth. The kids are going to trunk-or-treat tonight at one of the baptist churches here in Sioux Falls. That should be fun. We are going to be taking lots of pics for all of you. We love you so much...miss you

NO SNOW!

Well, everyone was really worried that it might snow today. No luck...so sorry. We had a lot of rain in the last few days. It didn't stop at all. I think they said we had 2 inches of rain. It got real cold yesterday at about 32 or so. Now we have to swim every where we go. Everyone here is doing well. Tym has finished up one semester already here at the school. If you are interested in raising money for our school here's some info on how to do it for free. Go to www.goodsearch.com. When you get there put Christian Center Elementary School in the charity box. Every time you use goodsearch.com it gives us money. It's just a search engine through yahoo. You can get to all of your regular sites on there it just gives us money when you do it. Thanks in advance...We love you all and miss you too.

Howdy

It's been a few days since I've updated you on the Hofer's. We have been trying to get back into the swing of things. Mike has been gone a lot in the last few weeks and that usually throws everything off. The big thing here in SD right now is that it's raining a lot and we have a chance of snow tonight. Wow, it's only October. That's what we get for moving to the real north. Winter coats, hats, gloves and scarfs have been found and have been used for the last few days. We are so thankful for a warm house to live in and a garage to put our jeep in. No scraping the windows this winter. PRAISE THE LORD!!! Hope you are all doing well.

Some pics of NY

Here's some random pics. The gram's and Sarah were waiting while we were making Melissa and David's grilled pizza. Here's the famous gram Liddick's snickerdoodes.











Papa with Nathan and Robbie. Unfortunately their mom likes the Jets.