Camp Ne-O-Tez Annual Dinner

Friday night was the Camp Ne-O-Tez Annual Dinner. It was a great night for camp - $37,102 was raised for facility improvements. Steve Awtrey was a "scream" with mail call and then his leading the audience in "Alfalfa Hay"! I wish my picture of Jon Earnhart singing and acting out the motions for "I am A Little Teapot" wasn't blurry. It was a classic moment. Desiree Thompson received the 2008 Friend of Camp Award for sharing her awesome artistic talent with the Camp Capital Prints she drew. Thanks to everyone who attended and so generously donated to Ne-O-Tez!

Happy Birthday Carla!

3rd Grade Picture Fishing in Minnesota (about 11 yrs)

Today is Carla's birthday! We wish you a very Happy Birthday! We are going to celebrate with dinner out tonight!

Easter Egg Hunts!

We had a great Easter weekend. Saturday evening we gathered at Mom and Dad's for Easter Eve! We had an egg hunt in the dark for the 5 big guys! Each one could get 1 golden egg and a load of other eggs.

Sunday we had the whole family over for the afternoon. Marlin and Carolyn fixed a great Easter dinner. We had an egg hunt that afternoon for the Ward Kiddos. It was cold and snowy but we still snuck in just enough time to do the hunt outside! These are the "Henley" cousins minus Nick and Zoe who live in Denver!

We had a continental breakfast this morning at Maryland Heights - Marlin was the coffee guy. His Singers , children's singing group, performed before worship. Here they are getting warmed up. Carla does a great job directing them - Nancy is the head thumper, etc (not the singer)!

It is back to work tomorrow as spring break is over - bummer!

Spring Break Friday!

For the last several years Colton, Kyle , Eric and myself head downtown to get ourselves prepared for Cardinal baseball! We had planned to go Monday but the weather was yucky and Colton spent the afternoon at St Charles Community College for orientation. Colton then had his 4 wisdom teeth removed on Tuesday so we waited until today for our adventure. I picked the guys up and our 1st stop was Gus's pretzels - the pretzel sticks were warm and yummy. We got a few extra to bring home to JD and Carla.

From there our next stop was Busch Stadium. We checked out the new Stan Musial plaza - they better work fast. There were workers everywhere spreading mulch, sprucing up the grounds, etc. We saw a tour group and the boys had to check out and see if the guide was Ed Tritschler - they didn't think another guide would be nearly as good! (Side note - if you want to go on a stadium tour led by Ed come to the Camp Ne-O-tez dinner and bid on the stadium tour for 15 led by Ed that the Cardinals donated (Ed thanks for the connection!)

We picked up a few things at the Team Store (imagine that)! Then our next stop was Vashon High School - not sure why but Colton wanted to see Vashon. We called Grandpa and he got the address and we headed to Vashon. Nobody wanted to get out and pose for pics there. By this time, 3 teenage boys were ready for lunch. We headed to Blueberry Hill. The sun was shining and the U. City Loop was buzzing! We were late for lunch but the place was still packed.

We headed back home to watch some "hoop action"! In the family pool I was leading on Thursday but after today I have surely tumbled. The Kruse family will be in tomorrow and the Easter fun begins. We are having a "night" egg hunt for the 5 guys. Eggs filled with coins, cash, gift certificates, scratch offs , make for lots of fun! Sunday everyone is here and the 4 Ward kiddos will have an egg hunt! HAPPY EASTER!

Matt's Basket Ball Tourney - Nancy

Lori sent this info about Matthew's basketball tourney this past weekend. They played 2 games on Saturday and 3 games on Sunday. They beat 5 teams to win the championship game. They beat a team out of Pekin, IL for the win! Here's a picture of the team with their trophies. Matt is the tallest guy in the back row!

Youth Retreat at Camp Ne-O-Tez

This weekend Colton, Kyle and Eric went to a "Do Nothing" Retreat at Camp Ne-O-Tez! Marlin and Nancy went down on Saturday morning to deliver some new lights for the "old" bathhouse and pick up some items for the camp dinner (coming up on March 28th)! Here a few shots of the guys at breakfast time!

You Won't Believe What Marlin Did! (Nancy)

This is such a classic story that I can't not share it with our friends! Today Mom and Dad went downtown to visit a high school friend, Kay, of Mom's who is in the hospital here. On the way home they decided to stop at Crown Candy and pick up some Easter treats. Since it wasn't a horrendous line they thought they should also enjoy lunch (I would have made the same decision). After eating lunch and coming out of Crown Candy Dad couldn't find his car keys. He was frantically searching for them in and outside Crown Candy. Outside Mother and him saw a "meter man" and he noticed them looking around for keys. The meter man then said you don't know about that black small SUV that is down there do you - Dad said yes that is mine - the meter man then told him, Sir, we have noticed that car has been sitting there for awhile (at least 45 minutes) and it has been RUNNING! Dad quickly sprinted down the block to claim Mother's vehicle. Now if you know where Crown Candy is on St. Louis Avenue ( in St. Louis city) it is quite surprising that the car was still there! They are doing construction across the street (a small shopping mall) and we guess that anyone who might have come along would have thought it belonged to someone at the job site. Dad's defense was that he got out to put money in the meter and was distracted. We have had quite a chuckle tonight! The best is Kyle asked Grandpa if he knew how much gas was a gallon!?!

Family Picture from Marlin's Tribute

Rod and Lori's family, JD and Carla's family, Aunt Joyce and Uncle Don (Carolyn's sister), Susan and Mark (Marlin's niece) and their family(the 4 kiddos in front). Dad was so shocked to discover all of us there! What a day!

SCW is in State FINAL FOUR!

UPDATE FROM COLUMBIA - ST CHARLES WEST 62 - WEBB CITY 53 SCW WILL PLAY IN STATE FINAL GAME SATURDAY AT 2 PM! The game was won in overtime. There were about 800 students at the game! GO WARRIORS!
St. Charles West High School is in the State Final Four in boys basketball! Colton and Kyle are fired up for the semi-final game on Friday at 2:00 pm. The game is played in Columbia at Mizzou Arena. They are expecting 500 students from SCW to attend the game (they have about 950 enrollment)! Mom, Dad, JD and Eric are also headed to the game. Carla and Nancy just couldn't get their schedules arranged :( Good Luck to the Warriors!

Tribute to Marlin

Today there was a "Tribute To Marlin" at Maryland Heights. It was a HUGE surprise to Marlin and in his words he was "flabbergasted". It was put together by Steve Kloske. I will have more pics and thoughts to post later but here are a few. .

Marsha Kloske did this bulletin board and folks were able to post all types of messages, stories, etc. Steve Jones helped to emcee the event. There were a variety of speakers from all over. We had two former ministers, two former youth ministers, two former bus ministers, guys he used to serve as an elder with and scores of friends and family. He received a beautiful clock/plaque and another beautiful plaque. From Maryland Heights they are starting " A Marlin Henley Camp Ne-O-Tez scholarship fund" for a kid from Maryland Heights. They are also going to be working on a special plaque to go up at Ne-O-Tez. This was an emotional day for so many of us as we shared not only Dad but also our dearest friend, Gene Jones.

Dad Dad and Flo Jones Rowland

Taking it all in! David Smith sharing some special thoughts.