We didn’t have an extremely eventful week, except for on Friday, when we celebrated Jeremy’s Birthday.  It was really fun.  We had already bought his gift(s) & card.  Katrina made a nice picture on the envelope & signed both her & Alyssa’s names to it, even!  She also helped decorate the cake.  We attempted making him a “filled cake”, which we’ve done successfully in the past, using some special Betty Crocker pans we’ve got.  This time, we decided to try filling it with ice cream, which is one of the options mentioned in the booklet that the pan set came with.  We followed the directions perfectly.  We kept it frozen, except when we were decorating it, of course.  Once decorated, it looked wonderful.  However, when we cut into it, somehow the ice cream had all melted into the bottom layer of the cake!  That was strange… however, it thankfully didn’t alter the taste of the cake & was therefore still pretty delicious!

Our best friend came over that evening, too.  We all went out to dinner, prior to giving Jeremy his gifts & having the cake.  Although we’re not into sports at all, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings, a local “sports grill”-type place, because their food is pretty good.  They also give you a *lot* on your plate.  I think we all ordered more than we could actually eat that evening, but it was still yummy.  Once home, Jeremy got to open his card & PlayStation 3.  It sounds funny, but we didn’t get him any games to go with it, because he mainly wanted it for the Blu-Ray DVD player.  Besides, we already have plenty of video games to keep us busy!  But, he’s pretty glad to have the “latest, greatest” in home-theater technology, I guess you could say…  He also got a couple of movies to play on it.  So, we all had fun celebrating his Birthday, even though it’s technically not until tomorrow – we didn’t want him to have to wait that long, and it’s much more fun when you don’t have to go to bed early!

We had a nice week & things seemed to work out all for the best for us, thankfully!  First of all, we’d been having a problem with our cable box intermittently restarting itself & when it did, it would stop displaying the time.  It wasn’t a big deal, but it was beginning to get annoying, since it seemed like it was progressively doing it more often.  We even had a cable rep. come out a couple of weeks ago, to see if he could boost the signal strength (that’s what another rep. had boiled the problem down to, over the phone) & he only found some small issues with the outside connection, which he fixed.  However, the box did the same thing again & when we called this time, they said we could go ahead & bring it in for a replacement.  So, we have a nice, new cable box/DVR combo (like we had before, just this one is the updated version) & it’s been working well for us, since we got it.  Now, if the T.V. writer’s strike would just come to an end, so we can begin recording our favorite shows once more… ha-ha!

For a different form of entertainment, we decided to take the girls to Chuck-E-Cheese’s on Tuesday.  It was a blast!  Katrina is big enough that she can enjoy most of the rides & games, now.  And, Alyssa even rode a kiddie car, with her Mommy holding her in place, for safety!  Last time we went, she was too little to get out & “explore”, but this time, she drug us around the toddler area, walking while holding on to our fingers.  Her favorite thing seemed to be pushing buttons on a little, play, pay telephone, since it was just the right height for her to hold her balance on, while punching the keys – so cute!  Katrina has a blast just doing the “free” stuff – there is an indoor playground piece that has a slide & some tubes to climb in & through.  She must’ve slid down at least a dozen or so times.  But, of course we got the girls tokens, as well.  Her Daddy helped her play some ski ball, which she is beginning to get the hang of, now.  She also thinks the games where you win tickets are cool.  She wound up with about 63 at the end of the night, which not too surprisingly didn’t get her much in prizes.  But, it’s all about the experience, really & she’s happy with what she got, so it’s all good!

Our week was pretty uneventful, however, we seemed to *keep* having problems with restaurants, which is leading us to wonder where all the good help went…?  As mentioned last week, there was an excessively long wait at The Cheesecake Factory, when it seemed there were tables available all over the place, that no one was being seated at…  Well, this week, we thought we’d “play it smart” & call in an order for some food to go from Ron’s Hamburgers, only here’s the thing: they have no website & therefore, no menu posted online, that we could find, at least.  Since we hadn’t been there in a while, I was unsure of what I wanted.  Jeremy had somewhat an idea, although he wasn’t sure the exact name.  So, I offered to go & order carryout, rather than all of us having to stand around & wait.  Well, there were no parking spaces to start out.  Then, there were no paper menus to take home, for future reference.  They were all just laminated placards!  Prior to placing orders, all customers, myself included, were told that they were “very busy, so it could take about 30-40 minutes”.  Well, at this point, I was stuck, so I agreed to wait.  Fortunately, it only took 20 minutes & when I got the food home, it was pretty good – but I don’t know if we’ll be returning very soon, or not…

On a totally different note, something we’ve really been enjoying lately is our Journey Group from our church.  Previously called “Care Groups”, these are typically a small group of people who have something in common & get together to study the Bible, share views and support one another through fellowship & prayer.  Our group consists of a handful of couples & some “singles” also (although, they may be “spoken for”, for all we know) that are in their 20s.  We meet at our gracious hosts’ home once a week, on late Sunday afternoons.  They have a little girl who’s just 10 days younger than Alyssa, so the girls play quietly, while we do our lesson/study & Katrina even likes to help/contribute, when she can.  Once the lesson is finished, we typically end in prayer & then, stick around for a while & just hang out with everyone for a bit.  It’s something we all enjoy & look forward to!  We feel blessed to know each & every one of the people in our group & are happy to share & get to know them all more!

Well, we split up, so to speak, this Friday night.  Basically, we left the girls with their Grandma Linda & Grandpa Ken, so we could go out for a “date night”!  It was really nice, except for the difficulty at the restaurant we chose.  We planned on seeing the new movie, “Cloverfield”, which had just been released, so we went to the movie theater first & bought tickets for a later show time, to be sure that we would get in & it wouldn’t be sold out.  Then, we went & had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  When we got there, it was extremely busy – we could tell by just the parking lot, but we figured we had 3 hours until our movie show time, so we didn’t feel too pressed for time.  Well, when they put our name on the list, they told us the wait would be about 20 – 40 minutes.  After about 30, we started thinking, “Ok, not too much longer now”.  Boy, were we mistaken!  After about another 30 minutes (yes, a total wait time of an hour), we were *finally* seated.  Then, we ordered our food, which thankfully didn’t take that long to get to us.  The thing is, we had originally planned on eating dessert, too, since it *is* the *Cheesecake* Factory, after all…  But, once we had our meals, we realized there was no way we were going to be able to stuff a couple of slices of cheesecakes into our tummies, too – that would just be too much food to handle!  Since the theater was just down the street, Jeremy had the awesome idea of coming back after the movie & getting some slices “to go” on our way home, instead.  Agreeing that this was a wonderful way to do things, we went ahead & paid for our meal.  At this point, we had about ½ an hour until we wanted to be at the theater.  Our show time was around 9:30 & it was about 8:30 when we left the restaurant.  As we were walking out the door, we noticed the hours posted on it – they closed at 11 p.m.!  There was no way we were gonna make it, after the movie was out – but it was too late – the line for ordering cheesecake was extremely long & we were so tired of being there, that we just gave up.  We went to the mall for a bit & then, on to the theater.  The movie was interesting… not what we’d expected at all, though!  I don’t want to give any spoilers, but let’s just say that it was taken from a unique perspective.  Jeremy said it made him think of Godzilla & I thought it was somewhat like “The Blair Witch Project”, but those 2 movies don’t actually do it justice, since Cloverfield isn’t cheesy.  It’s well thought-out, having been produced by J.J. Abrams, the guy who co-created the T.V. show LOST, which we are completely addicted to.  But again, not to reveal too much, I’ll just stop there.  You’ll have to check it out yourself & make your own opinion of it.  Since our cheesecake dessert was a bust, we decided to drive thru Whataburger & get some apple pies – yeah, not nearly the same, but not a bad replacement, either.  We also bought some taquitos & micro waved them for breakfast the next morning – something I don’t think we’ve done since before we were married, so good stuff!  🙂

The girls had a great time at their Grandparents’ house, too.  Katrina loves helping & she got to make an art project with her Grandma – a cute Valentine that she brought home.  She also got to watch Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” & “Cars”.  While there, Alyssa played with a little, ride-on, toy car that used to be Katrina’s, before she grew out of it.  Kat played with her “Barbie big wheel”.  They each rode them while watching “Cars”, so it was kinda’ like they had their own little part(s) in the movie!  Grandma took some cute pictures, but we’ll have to share them in the photo gallery at a later date.  All in all, it was a nice time for the 4 of us.  Although we missed each other, you know what they say, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”!

Sometime last week our ceiling fan wouldn’t do anything, actually…  We had a power outage a couple of weeks ago & thought that it might have been due to that, but it didn’t actually stop running until recently…  Unfortunately, try as though he might, Jeremy just couldn’t seem to fix it.  He even successfully pulled the entire thing apart & put it back together, to no avail!  He is the one that installed the lighting unit on it several years ago, so we figured it was something simple, that he could adjust & that would cause it to work again.  However, it didn’t, so we ended up calling an Electrician.  Turns out, there was a simple short in one of the wires that Jeremy hadn’t gotten to – he didn’t even know that particular part of the electrical housing existed, previously!  So, thankfully, it was a “quick fix”, after all!  We recommend Harp Electric in Broken Arrow, OK for any small, electrical repair.  Although, you have to expect some expense, they are helpful, friendly & know what they are doing!

After a long week, we decided to take the girls out, for something different & fun to do.  So, Friday turned into “Zongker family night” – we all went out to the movies, then to dinner!  It was great!  We saw the new Veggie Tales movie, entitled, “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything”.  The girls loved it & we all had a nice time at the theater, too!  🙂  Alyssa got her first taste of popcorn, which she approved of & Katrina was a great, big helper, holding the popcorn for us, since she was in the middle.  Afterwards, we went out to dinner at Zio’s, a local Italian restaurant that’s pretty family-friendly.  Katrina got her own meal, since they are only $1.99 for kids & we each shared a bit of ours with Aly, as well.  She loves Italian food now, too!  So, we must also recommend these activities for anyone with young children, or well, anyone in general, who likes the Veggie Tales and/or Italian food!  Just had to share!

It’s been busy around here, lately, that’s for sure, but it’s also been fun!  The girls continue to grow & bring smiles to our faces every day!  They have so many similarities, and a few personality traits that set them apart from each other, as well.

Katrina is enjoying Kindergarten, as usual – she was extremely glad to be going back, after the looong (2 week) “Winter Break”.  We were happy when she was home, but are also glad that she gets to go & enjoy learning & seeing her friends each weekday.  Plus, it gives us time to get things done around here that are kind of difficult with a young child “underfoot”, if you know what I mean…

We re-arranged things inside today, for example.  Even though Alyssa was still here, we were able to let her eat, in her high chair, while watching us put away the Christmas tree & decorations.  We vacuumed, then brought our dining room table back in, from the garage (since we don’t have room for both & we rarely eat at it anyway, that’s where its “Holiday home” is, I guess you could say).

Aly seems to miss her big sister while Kat’s at school, but she also gets time to play on her own, work on walking & is back on her nap schedule, which is nice, as well.  All in all, things are going so much better, now that they are getting more “routine”.

We all have spent evenings having dinner & family time together – just playing & giggling & sharing each other’s company – something that used to sometimes get pushed aside, when there were more urgent things going on, at the time…  So, it’s been a nice year so far & things just seem to keep getting better!

The 4 of us had a year full of highs & lows, but thankfully we were able to rely on God to pull us through the rough patches & help us enjoy the good times even more!  All in all, it was a nice one though…  Here are some of the highlights:

It’s hard to remember the beginning of 2007, now that 2008 is upon us.  One thing that happened at the time was that Jeremy was able to change his job responsibilities at Winnercomm, in order to allow him to stay home one day a week & work on things for our business, Trilitech.  Trilitech began turning a decent profit & continued to grow exponentially, it seemed, just from the main website Jeremy had written, Creditor Web (http://www.creditorweb.com).  It is a site that allows anyone to make an educated decision on which credit card best suits their needs & when ready, they can apply via links that the site provides.  It has proven to be a successful business this past year & we are very grateful for that success.

In April, Katrina turned 5.  She had a nice party with family & friends & her interests have expanded from playing with toys based after cartoon characters like Dora the Explorer & Spongebob Squarepants to being more into games & imaginative play.  She especially loves art – coloring, painting, drawing & the like.

In the summer, we went on a nice family vacation, across several states, to the east side of our great nation.  We drove to Tennessee & stayed there for an evening, then went on to visit our relatives in North Carolina, the Hubbards.  Jeanette’s Half-Sister Angie & her family welcomed us & we had a wonderful weekend visit, there.  The girls loved meeting their Uncle Steve, Aunt Angie & cousins, Zachary & Elizabeth.  It was the first time we all got to meet in person & had been a long time coming.  We were all so happy & really enjoyed our time there.  It was especially nice noticing the family similarities & just being able to get to know one another all the more.  From there, we drove up north a bit, to Washington, D.C.  We were going to stay a week there & then drive to Indianapolis, IN & stay there a couple of days, on the way home…  However, after about 5 days of seeing the sights & having a good time in D.C., our vacation was cut short, due to a car wreck, in which a cab driver cut us off in traffic, totaling our car.  Thankfully, we were all fine, for the most part, just a bit shaken up.  The girls were a little scared, but within minutes were acting like their, sweet, happy selves & smiling, giggling & such.  Jeanette was also fine, just a bit sore where the seatbelt held her back in, against the seat of the car.  It wasn’t until later that same day that we realized Jeremy had something wrong with his right hand…  It was in pain & seemed to keep getting larger!  So, we took him to an E.R. & found that he had broken a bone in that wrist, as well as his thumb.  We flew home to Tulsa the same day we had originally planned on driving to Indianapolis.  Within the next couple of days, we were all looked at & although Jeanette & the girls were fine, Jeremy had to have his cast re-wrapped & go through several doctor visits, over a period of 6 weeks, before he was completely healed.  We purchased a new car, a minivan, which has more seating than our last one did, so there was a bit of good outcome from that whole incident & it also brought us closer, as a family, having to rely on each other in different ways than we had been used to.

In August, Jeremy was able to quit his job at Winnercomm & focus on Trilitech full-time.  He continues to work, 5 days a week, from home.  The convenience is nice & the girls (including Jeanette) love having him more readily-available to do things together, as a family, too.  As the business continues to gain momentum, we have made a few plans for the future & pray that God will continue to allow the success that He has provided for us, so far in this venture.

Another thing that happened in August was that Katrina began Kindergarten.  She is such a little scholar, already!  She loves learning all about patterns, letters, pre-reading skills & math.  She never fails to make us proud, bringing home “perfect” scores on worksheets almost every day of the week!

Alyssa also makes us proud, of course!  She turned 1 in October & had a wonderful party with family & friends, as well.  She continues to babble, nearly constantly & can actually point out Mama, Dada & Sissy (when she wants to).  She blows kisses (in her own little way) & plays “peek-a-boo” with us, too.  We’re working on getting her to walk, as well.  She likes to stand & “cruise” along while holding on to something, but is slightly unsure of herself, when it comes to letting go, just yet…

Jeanette had a hard decision to make, recently, herself.  She just resigned from the chorus she’d been singing with for nearly 2 years.  Although she enjoyed it, she feels that there is a season for everything, and that it is time to focus on different aspects of her life, which she feels the Lord is leading her to, now.  She is going to use the extra time to dedicate to Jeremy & the girls, Trilitech, our church, and a different group of people who sing for shut-ins & such, around the Tulsa area, about once a month.  This opportunity has been one she has felt called to for a while, but was unable to commit to, previously.  It doesn’t require as much time & energy, but has a different cause & effect, which makes her swell with joy in her heart & gives her the understanding that more of God’s will & purpose is being fulfilled in her life…

Now that 2007 has come to a close, we feel blessed & thankful that we were able to spend Thanksgiving & Christmas with many of our family members, as well.  Of course, those that we were not able to see were also thought of dearly & remembered at these special times.

We look forward to seeing what 2008 will bring!  As we begin a new year, you’ll probably notice a few changes to this website, as well.  Jeremy & Jeanette would both like to focus a little more time to making sure it is updated more frequently, since it provides a way for us to share with those we don’t get a chance to see or talk to that often.  Our hope is that we can provide more frequent, shorter entries, throughout the year, instead of these lengthy ones, that we seem to write only occasionally.  Regardless, we wish you all the best & God’s blessings for the upcoming year & always!

Last year brought a lot of blessings our way & we are very grateful & happy.  Jeremy was hired on as a full-time employee at his company and our personal business started taking off pretty well, too!  Jeanette joined a local show chorus, to promote her gift of song & to be able to enjoy another creative outlet.  Katrina turned 4 & started preschool.  Later, she became a big sister when Alyssa was born.  There were many other Birthdays & Holidays that we celebrated, throughout the year & we enjoyed the company of our family & friends at each one.

And, 2007 seems like it’s going to be another promising year of happiness & prosperity in our lives.  We started off the year by attending a party at our church, which was the first time Katrina stayed up late enough to ring in the New Year!  Alyssa, on the other hand, was in & out of sleep the entire time, just like she was for her first Halloween, Thanksgiving & Christmas…  😉  It was wonderful, though!

We are all happy & excited to begin sharing again & hope that this year will be one where we will have more opportunities to keep this site, as well as our personal blogs updated more frequently…  We have plenty of pictures to add to our photo album from last year, as well, so please bear with us & wish us luck in getting everything we’d like to added here — we love being able to keep all of our friends & relatives informed on what our lil’ family is up to, these days & appreciate all of your love, patience & kindness.  We wish you all the best for the upcoming year!  As always, thanks for checking in & God bless!

As you can see, Zongker.net is finally back online and with a new website!  It has been down for the last few months because our host had a hard drive failure on the sever it was on, and afterwards realized that their backup program hadn’t been working, so they couldn’t restore it.  This site and all of our other business ones went completely down during the week we were in Chicago due to this, but fortunately I had brought the laptop with me, so I was able to get them all back online.  However, I too had failed to make a backup of the code for our old personal, family site, so it was lost.

With the new site, we wanted to do something a little differently.  Now, Jeanette, Katrina and I each have our own sub-domains for publishing personal stuff about us, in addition to the main, family site.  The main site contains all of the stories you’ll find on these sub-domains, as well as any general stories about the whole family (such as this one).  The photo gallery is the same as it was before.  I’ll eventually get around to making it look like the rest of the site, but I just haven’t had a chance to yet.

We hope you enjoy our new site.  It is a collaboration of ideas & we worked together quite extensively, to get it up & running again.  We are excited to have this “new & improved” home on the web.  It’s a great way to keep our family & friends updated on what is new in our lives!  Please feel free to check in as often as you’d like!