So much has happened...

Wow - so much has happened since I last REALLY posted (other than our anniversary post, that is!) Here is the (hopefully) short and sweet run-down of what we've been doing since our vacation in June!
But first, I just want to say HAPPY 33rd BIRTHDAY, CHRIS!!! I am so thankful that God brought Chris into my life, and I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful husband! :-) God knew I needed Chris in my life!

OK - here's the history to go with the pics: 06-20-08
Our pastor and his wife (who are THE BEST!) attended a Bat's game with us! They are such fun "old people!" We love them to death and are so glad that God brought us here to our church and that we can be so close to a pastor of such a large church! (sorry, the pic is a little dark!) They had fireworks after the game, which was pretty cool, too.

06-22-08 - Between Sunday morning and evening services, we had a 9th & 10th grade SS activity. We had pizza and brownies, then the girls went swimming at one house, and the boys played video games then went swimming at a different house (no mixed swimming here!)
:-)
The guys playing video games...
Some of the girls in the van... (I didn't take pics while we were swimming!) :-)

07-12-08 Chris played in our church's softball league. Not really too competitive, but it was nice to get out and fellowship outside of the church and play some ball. Here's a pic of Chris at the plate (and I think he's pretty good, too!) :-)

07-13~16-08 We had our Kids Krusade at church (our version of VBS.) There were over 200 salvation decisions made during the Krusade, and 82 baptisms, PRAISE THE LORD! 3 or 4 of our bus kids got saved during the week... it's so awesome to see elementary aged kids respond to the gospel. The pic is of the drawing for a PS2 for the best behaved child from every bus route. Our little boy is the 3rd one from the left... and HE WON! We were so excited! (as was he!) I love that our church loves the kids and teens!
07-16-08 CHRIS GOT PROMOTED!!! (Sorry, no pic of that - I KNOW... it's a SHOCK!) I am SO PROUD of him! After only 19&1/2 months in the auto industry as a car salesman, Chris got promoted to Business/Sales manager! It's not totally unheard of to be promoted so quickly, but it is VERY rare, especially when your degree is not in business or business management AT ALL! I just thought it was so cool that the guys that work with him on a daily basis, including his boss, really pushed the upper management to promote Chris. What a great testimony! He is doing very well at the new job. Also, this job allows his paycheck to be a lot more stable (as opposed to comission only!), and also allows him to actually TAKE his days off. I'm so excited to be able to spend more time together with him! YEAH!!

07-17-08 I took a day trip to Indianapolis to visit some college friends of mine. I hadn't seen them in over 8 years, I think, and had totally lost track of them until Jess found me on Facebook (LOVE IT!) about 2 weeks before that! I went up and spent the day visiting with Jess, then we met Kelly and her kiddos at the pool, then spent the evening at Kelly's house visiting together. It was great to see them again, and I am always so amazed when friendships pick up right where they left off! It was like I had seen them the day before, and we just picked up the conversation again! God is so good to give friends like that!Kelly, me, and Jess

Jess' daughter, Abby

Kelly's daughter, Jenna

Kelly's daughter, Olivia

07-27-08 Good friends of ours, the George's, came down to go to Sunday AM services with us. They are missionaries to Romania on deputation. They live about an hour from us, so we have been able to visit with them I think 3 times in the past year. We love getting together with them. Here's a pic of their family:

Noah, Sara, David, Bethany, Brent, and Danae

Oh, a side note here... everyone thinks that Brent and Chris look so much alike, they are always asking if they are related. Sara and I don't think they look that much alike at all! :-)

I have to run now... Chris is on his way home, and it is his birthday, so I should probably make dinner for him! :-) I'll post more on Youth Conference and other goings on later. Thanks for "listening" to what's going on in our lives! :-)

Bat's Game

OK - I'm a little behind in my blogging again, so I'll post each event separately (so you don't have to read FOREVER!) Fri, May 16, Chris got us tickets to the Louisville Bats Game. This is the minor league team for the Cincinatti Reds, and the mascot is Bats - like the animal - not like the Louisville Slugger bats (which is what I originally thought!) :-) Just wanted to clarify that for you! The game ended up being a double header that night, due to another game being rained out earlier in the week. The Bats played the Scranton Yankees (NY Yankees minor league team.) Chris' boss has season tickets, and we can just sign up for them and get them free. It's a cheap weekend date for us! (You may be seeing a few posts about games in July... we have tickets for 4 games!)

Anyway, our friend (and bus captain) J.R. came with us, bringing his girlfriend, Abby (now fiancee as of Sunday May 25th!) We are enjoying getting to know this couple better, and are super excited about their engagement and upcoming marriage. Here's some pics:

Louisville Slugger Field
Chris&I and the field
Chris, Heather, Abby & JR Chris and I
Chris and I in the cool glove chairs in the lobby!

By the way, the Bats won the first game, and then they had fireworks between the games. Abby was still living in our college dorm, so she had a curfew, so we left before the second game ended. :-) It was a good night of fun with good friends!

Busy, busy, busy...

Wow - our lives have been busy the past couple weeks. So - here's the rundown of what has been happening here, and I have just linked words to pics so I don't have to download them...

The first week of April, D (the little one I take care of) was in Cincinnati, OH, for pre-surgical testing. Thanks to all of you who prayed for him. Thankfully, he does not require throat reconstruction surgery. He only needs his tonsils/adenoids removed, and some minor eye surgery to correct a muscle condition resulting from prematurity. This condition causes his left eye to drift in toward his nose when looking at things close to him. Other than that, things are going pretty well for him. His mom is hoping to get her doctor to authorize him for nursing at least through the surgeries, and hopefully for another 4 months until he can get his feeding tube out and recover from surgery. We'll see...

Anyway, in the few days that he was gone, I was able to visit 2 of my good friends here. I spent over 5 hours at my friend, Beth's house. She is such a blessing to me. Her hubby, Luke, was teasing me when he came home... asking me if I was working on another calendar. I printed out the date pages for the family photo calendars at their house since we didn't have ink in our printer. (We now have ink for our printer... we've gone without it since we lived in MD)! I worked on it for several hours I think 3 or 4 different days, so now it's a standing joke that I only visit when I have to work on the computer. It was nice change to be able to spend a few hours visiting and not having anything else to do.

Tuesday of that week, I stayed home all day waiting for an overnight package that was supposed to arrive at 10:30am. Apparently all the FedEx planes coming here from Memphis were grounded due to severe thunder storms. Chris called them around noon, and the person he spoke to assured him that the packages were being trucked here, and would get there sometime in the afternoon. When the package STILL wasn't here by 6pm, Chris called again, only to be informed that the earlier person had misinformed him, and the package would be here 10:30 am the NEXT day! I did get a bunch of stamping done, though! It's just difficult to be waiting all day, and thinking of all these things that you could do if you could just run down to the ___!!

Wednesday, the package showed up at 10:15 am! YEAH! I then went and visited another friend who had been having a difficult time the past few months. I was glad to be a blessing, and amazed at how I could share with her what God has been doing in my heart & life through IVF, even though her circumstances are completely different - God's word still applies! :-) (DUH!)

I then got to take Chris' package to him and we ate lunch together. That's always a nice surprise. He got a new watch... it's REALLY nice! He was going to resell it on Ebay, but he liked it so much that I told him that he really should keep it. It's not very often that Chris finds something that he REALLY likes/wants, so I was glad that he found that and I believe he is keeping it. Now, if only he could have waited until his birthday... :-)

I also joined the gym again! My chiropractor finally OK'd me to do cardio workouts again, as long as I don't over do it! I'm excited to be able to be active again!

The Friday night of that week, I was at the gym just getting ready to work out when Chris called me. After he asked me about 20 questions, he asked me if I could get changed back into my normal clothes so that we could meet Jeremy, Misha, Tommy & Corey Frazor for dinner! They are close friends of ours that travel in evangelism, and we don't get to see them very often. However, they manage to travel through Louisville every once in a while, so they usually call and we meet up for a meal or something. Anyway, we were able to meet them for supper and then they came over to see our house for a little bit. Although the time was WAY too SHORT, we enjoyed seeing them again. Last time we saw them they came through on Chris' birthday last August. They are great "iron-sharpeneth-iron" type friends, and they are also the type of friends that no matter how long it's been since you've seen them, you pick up the friendship like you saw them yesterday! What a blessing to have friends like that!

The following week (the 7th - 10th) our church hosted the Revival Fires conference. With that, the choir sang every night for the services, so it was a busy week! I was busting my tail just to get home from work and then rush off to church in order to sing and attend the services. It was a blessing, though.

Early that Friday morning (the 11th) Chris and I headed north. We stopped in Indianapolis to visit some friends of ours... Jeff & Colleen McQueary (and kids, Cole & Sage). We were able to enjoy breakfast with them before our friends, Steve & Joy Francis met up with us. They came over from Cincinnati, and we left one of our vehicles at the McQueary's house. Steve, Joy, Chris and I then drove up to Chicago for an overnight "double date." Steve is a big Chicago Bulls fan, so for his birthday, Joy bought him tickets to a Bulls game (vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers). Well, they bought the tickets in October... and put them in a safe place. So safe, in fact, that they couldn't find them for that weekend! We all decided to go ahead and go up there anyway.

For lunch, we went to a Brazilian steakhouse called Brazazz. It's all you can eat - meat! It was SO DELICIOUS! They had little discs sitting beside each plate. One side is orange and says, "Yes, Please." The other side is black and says, "No, thank you." The waiters, all dressed in authentic Brazilian outfits, come around with these long skewers of all different kinds of meat (and roasted pineapple). If you want some, they cut you a slice and lay it over toward you. You then take a little pair of tongs, and put it on your plate. Joy is a missionary kid and she grew up in Brazil, so she was talking to the waiters in Portugese and stuff. It was pretty cool. I felt like I didn't have to eat for about 3 days after that! We enjoyed it immensely!

From there, we went to the John Hancock Building, and went up to the Observatory. We had fun with some of the photo ops (Window washers, & construction workers)! Of course, Chris and Steve were being silly. It was pretty cool. When we got on the elevators to go down, Chris and I were by the doors that would open when we got to the bottom. Just before the doors opened, we stood really close to the doors and made funny faces. The doors opened, and there was a man and his family sitting on the floor facing us, waiting for the rest of the family. He cracked up laughing when he saw us, and we were laughing hysterically! I wish we could have gotten a picture of his face when he saw us... Priceless!

From there, we wandered down Michigan Ave. for a little bit. I was extremely tired and not wearing the best shoes for walking, so I'm afraid I wasn't super good company! I tried not to complain, though! It was really cold and windy, too, so not a GREAT day to be wandering outside in the city. Chris had a little fun in the Disney Store... I think he'd make a GREAT Pirate! On the way back to the car, we had to stop and take some more silly pictures with a statue of a man with an umbrella hailing a cab in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. The placard on the statue said, "Allow Me!" Chris took a little too much liberty with that statement, see the pics here and here! Joy figured she could get up close, too, but not that close! :-)

We left after that and headed down to the United Center to see if we could get tickets to the game... again! We did, and got pretty good seats! It ended up being a good game... the Bulls actually WON! The highlight of the game, though, **insert sarcasm**was the Swinging Seniors!
Actually, Chris and Steve both got free T-shirts, and since the Bulls scored 100 points and won, we all got free Big Macs! Chris also got a free coffee at Dunkin' Donuts since his character won the race on the JumboTron! All in all, it was a good game (even though I was so tired, I almost fell asleep!) We even got to see a BUNCH of dunks, and Joy even managed to get a great picture of one of them!

The next morning we got up and went to Navy Pier. It was rainy, so we stayed indoors. We left around noon and headed back to Indianapolis to go our separate ways. Jeff & Colleen had an all-nighter youth activity Friday night, so we didn't get to see them. However, we did stop at the Edinburg outlets on the way home, and Chris let me get two pairs of shoes. I really needed them... the only real shoes I had were a pair of black, ankle high boots, and brown clogs. I got these two pairs of shoes for a really good deal:

I love them! I wear skirts or skorts most of the time, and they look really cute with them. Chris found some really nice basketball shorts, too, that he needed. It was a profitable stop! :-)

Oh, yeah...I mentioned here that I got new sunglasses... here's a pic of my new shades!

That Saturday night, we arrived home, bundled up, and headed out again to enjoy Thunder over Louisville. Thunder is the 5th largest fireworks display in the world, according to the travel channel. We missed most of the air show, since we didn't get home until after 7pm, but the planes were flying right over our house! We joined a bunch of our college kids and friends of ours to watch the fireworks. It was very cold out, but we were pretty well dressed for the weather. The only thing that we didn't like is that we were so far away, we could see the fireworks alright, but we didn't get the full affect with the sounds and vibrations of the fireworks as well. We enjoy that part, too! The other thing is that we had 4 or 5 rude kids that put their chairs up in front of us... so we moved to see around them. They then moved again, partially blocking our view. I was highly frustrated at this point. Then, on top of all of that, right in the middle of the show, 2 of the girls stood up right in front of us so we couldn't see at all. I had had enough, so I loudly said, "There are people behind you who would like to SEE the fireworks!" They turned around and gave me nasty looks, but I didn't care! People should be more considerate of those around them! You can see my pics of Thunder here.

Since then, it has pretty much been life back to normal for us. Chris let me buy these vases for our living room (I've been waiting to buy them since we bought our house last July, and they went on sale this week, so Chris let me get them):

It's hard to tell in the picture, but our paint color is beige, and the vases are red, but not as dark as they appear in the picture. I LOVE them, and they fit perfectly in those niches. I'm finally almost ready with the family photo wall, too, just waiting for pictures from a couple of family members still. I'll post pics when I get them up, too.

We got our lawn treated by company called Weed Man. The weather has been mostly beautiful lately, so I've been able to take D to the park, and the sunshine has also helped our grass to grow like crazy. Chris hasn't been able to mow it yet, so it's almost a jungle out there! Seriously, some of the grass is almost 2 feet tall! He was going to mow Sunday afternoon, but couldn't get the mower started. :-( He was rather frustrated, to say the least! Here's some pics:

Well, my hubby is home, and I think I've pretty much filled you in on everything recent that I can think of, so I gotta go! Hope you all are doing well!

Oh, wait, one more thing... another niece or nephew is on the way in our family... this makes the 3rd one that is expected this year! Two of my brothers & their wives are expecting babies, and we just found out that one of Chris' sisters is expecting a baby, too!

Thanksgiving...

I know this is rather late, but I wanted to post anyway. We had a very nice Thanksgiving this year. We were able to get together with some friends that we hadn't seen in over 5 years. We met them working at Northland Camp, and found out via Facebook that they had recently moved to Lexington, KY, which is about an hour&1/2 from us. We had a great time of fellowship and of course, good food... compliments of Beth. I didn't have to cook, other than a sweet potato casserole, so I was VERY happy! Here are some pics from the day:

Chris dishing out mashed potatoes
Beth sitting down to her meal

Chillin' out... Beth on the phone with her mom, and Chris and Kevin enjoying a football game and some fellowship
Chris and I
Beth, Silas & Kevin

Beth & Silas

Silas & Kevin
Chris & Silas playing hockey with golf clubs
Chris&Heather; Beth, Silas, & Kevin

Farewell, my friend... but not forever!

There are tears in my eyes as I type this, but thankfully, I as a Christian, can sorrow, but not as those who have no hope! Just a little while ago, a friend of mine called to tell me that another dear friend of mine slipped into eternity today after battling cancer that had come back. As difficult as it is to think of life without that person, she is no longer in a battle. She is sitting at the feet of her beloved Saviour, and I wouldn't wish her back here on earth for anything. What a blessing to know that she hung on long enough to see her newborn grandson (the first), and I know that will be a great memory for her son and daughter-in-law in the weeks ahead. My heart breaks for her husband (who has medical issues of his own) and her two boys, daughter-in-law, and grandson, who will have to go through this holiday season, and all those for years to come, without her. I know she will be greatly missed!

Carrie was an energetic, lively lady. She was constantly over-busy (is that a word?) because she was always wanting to help others. Every time I look at the curtains in my kitchen, I think of her. She came over a couple of days and sewed them with me. She and her husband helped us in the youth group when we lived in Maryland. They were such a blessing to us! Oh, yes, and she made FABULOUS brownies!

So, farewell, for now, my friend! I'm glad to know that you are with Jesus!

Please pray for the Bishop family: Steve (Carrie's husband); Jonathan, Sara, and their little baby boy (I'm not sure of his name); and Joshua, as well as the rest of the family and friends that are grieving Carrie's journey to Heaven.


1 Thessalonians 4:13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

WARNING: This could be a VERY long post!

Ay-yi-yi!!! It's been so long since I posted what's been going on, and so much has happened, it's a little overwhelming!
I guess I'll try to start where I left off (with our anniversary trip) and try to catch up from there. I'll also try to post pictures where appropriate.

After our anniversary trip, we have spent most of the time working like crazy to try to catch up from being gone so much the last few months. The first major thing that happened after we got back was that our church had their annual YOUTH CONFERENCE. They had, I think, around 1,400 teens come for the conference. The theme was Mission: Accomplished, and it had a space theme. Here are some pictures of the decorations:

It was awesome!! There were MANY decisions made by the teens to follow Christ in their lives, whether it was salvation or call to full-time ministry, or just allowing the Lord to have control. One of the things that I LOVE about our church is that they love children and teenagers.

On August 10th, a new niece was born into the Mitchell side of the family. She didn't want to come out, apparently, so her mom had a rough time (from what we hear.) They sent pictures, and she is adorable. We are always excited to have new members added to the family! Congrats to them!
Our next big events were our birthdays. Chris turned 32 on August 11. It is so amazing to me how God works in even the littlest ways in our lives, even we don't even know to ask Him to do so! A week or so before Chris' birthday, I had asked D's mom if she would care if I took D down to Chris' work on Chris' birthday in order to surprise him with a Dairy Queen cake. (I had to work that day, as did Chris.) D's mom thought it was a great idea, and readily agreed. I arranged to have the cake made and picked up that Saturday morning. (Chris knew nothing about this!)

I had already picked up the cake and was driving down to the dealership when Chris called me. He said, "You're never going to believe who just called me!" Come to find out, our good friends Jeremy and Misha Frazor were traveling through from Northland to Tennessee, and asked Chris if they could do lunch for his birthday. Chris had told them that I wouldn't be able to be there because I was working... little did he know!! :-) Of course, I had to fib a little bit and tell him, "That's really cool for you, but I'm so bummed that I won't be able to see them," while the whole time inside I was freaking out! I just kept thinking that only God could have planned all of this to work out perfectly at the right time!

So, Chris gets off the phone with me to give Jeremy directions to the dealership, and I call Misha to fill her in on what is going on, and to get them to stall for me until I arrive. They were able to stall, and I surprised Chris by showing up! We all went out for lunch, and D was SOOOOO GOOD the whole time! (He usually goes wild for his mom when they go out to eat!) After lunch, we went back to the dealership (this is almost 2 hours later) and had DQ Oreo Blizzard cake. Chris&Heather Mitchell; Misha, Corey, Jeremy, and Tommy Frazor

Corey & Tommy Frazor, and D - three blond-headed boys checking out the cars from the window!

The Frazors had to leave, as did I, so Chris was left to go back to work! At this point, he had missed about 2&1/2 hours of work time since he had gone to get a haircut in the morning. As I drove away, I prayed and asked the Lord to please help Chris sell a car in spite of the fact that he had been gone so much time during the day. Not 2 hours later, Chris called me to tell me that he was filling up a car with gas that he had just sold. Thank you to the God who answers prayer!

That night we had a birthday party for him, combined with an open house party. We had 5 couples come, and we had a cookout. It was a lot of fun, and really only the 3rd time we've had company since we moved here last September. We enjoyed hosting the party, and it was a good time of food and fellowship!

Our pastor and his wife, Bro. Lonnie & Mrs. Nancy MattinglyLuke, Stella, Beth & Lacey Kendall, John&Heidi Winders (and baby on the way), our SS teachers, Bro. Ed & Mrs. Sheila Sneider, and Heather & Chris Mitchell

Our music pastor&wife, Gina & Bill Todd (it was their anniversary, so they came over after going out to eat by themselves!)

Chris&Heather - Happy Birthday, Chris!

The other little thing that God provided for Chris on his birthday was homemade apple pie. Now, I don't cook much, and I definitely don't make pies. (I mean, I had to work that day ~ you can't expect me to be Martha Stewart or anything!) I know that Chris loves apple pie, so I arranged with my dear friend, Beth, (who loves to cook and entertain) for her to make one for me. Well, Chris and I had been so busy that his party was in some ways a surprise, just because I didn't have a chance to tell him all the details. :-) Anyway, he didn't know about the pie. His mom called while we were all going through the line getting our food, and he stepped out to take her call. While he was on the phone with her, he told her that he REALLY wanted homemade apple pie for his birthday. WISH GRANTED! He had his apple pie and it was WONDERFUL! Beth made it with a crumb topping, then melted caramels and butter together and poured that over the top... (is this making your mouth water? Mine is!) It was fabulous. Chris got a hat from the 2000 PGA tour that was held here in Louisville, a gift certificate for 9 holes of golf at a really nice course, and we both got gift certificates to Cracker Barrel and a joint gift of a programmable thermostat for the house. All in all, it was a great day for BOTH of us!

The following Saturday, August 18th, was my birthday. I turned 30 years young! :-) Being 30 doesn't bother me, especially when most people guess that I'm 23-24 years old. Can't complain about that! Both Chris and I had to work again. Chris had tried to get a bunch of people to come over for a party, but no one could make it. However, some friends of ours from my former church in Hinckley, MN, brought their daughter down to attend our college that weekend. We wanted to get together with them anyway, so we had a party with them (and their 4 out of 8 kids that were with them!) They bought me a cake, and we had a cookout. It was SO good to catch up with them and spend time with them. Here are a couple of pictures:

Chris and I in front of our new house
My birthday cake
The rest of the party! :-)

My gifts...yes, I'm a convert... I am now a Red Sox fan, though not a fan-addict like my hubby. I've been brainwashed, it's true! :-) I still root for the Minnesota Twins, but know more about the Sox than the Twins. I was thrilled ot get a new phone - my old one was breaking and the battery was almost gone. My dear friend sent me the stamps... the bigger one says, "What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?" Cracked me up!

Since then, college and school have started up here. I've had the opportunity to go out with a few of the college girls a couple of times. It keeps me feeling young, though I am SO THANKFUL that I don't have to deal with college life anymore. Now, I do miss the comraderie of girlfriends and late night talk/giggle sessions, as well as the opportunity to just make time to get together with friends at a moment's notice if you haven't spent much time with them in the recent past. Now, all of my friends live far away from me! I DO NOT MISS getting passes to go to Walmart, rules :-), living in the dorm and trying to get along with roommates that you didn't like or had nothing in common, and dating! Well, I still feel like I'm dating my hubby, but we don't ever have to say goodnight and leave! Anyway, it's been nice to just hang out with them, and try to be a blessing to them. 3 of the girls came over Thursday night for dinner, then stayed and we watched Beauty and the Beast. Since Chris is gone until late most nights, it was nice to have the company. I enjoyed the opportunity to be a blessing to them just by allowing them to get off campus, eat real food, and relax at my home.

Last week, we had the annual regional Sword of the Lord conference at our church. Dr. Shelton Smith preached both services on Sunday, then Monday night, I was privileged to hear Dr. Raymond Barber speak. The amount of Scripture that he has memorized and utilizes is amazing! Tuesday night, Dr. Jack Schaap preached. What a great opportunity to hear great men of God preach God's Word. I'm so thankful I was able to attend. Also, the choir sang both nights, so I was able to do that as well. One of the things that I LOVE about our church is the music program. The songs that we sing are just a great testament to our Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done, and does for us. There's nothing like good, Godly music accompanying a powerful message in lyrics about God! I LOVE it! I also love the fact that there is a huge variety of music that is used. In previous ministries we've worked in, we've used mostly Majesty Music or the Wilds music. They both have great songs, but if that is all that you sing/play/hear, it all starts to sound the same.

Well, I think that's all for now. We don't have any big plans for the Labor Day weekend, since we both have to work Monday. Next weekend, I get to attend our Ladies' Retreat at our camp. I am excited. The weekend after that Chris and I are going away for a 2 day quick trip as well... more details to follow after we go!

There are a few other major things going on in our lives right now, but I just can't share them with you all yet. It is exciting to see what God has done and is doing in our lives.

Thanks for putting up with this super long post! Hopefully I will be able to keep it up to date more now that I'm finally caught up. Oh, yeah, I finally joined Facebook, so I've been spending way too much time on there getting back in touch with friends from years gone by.

Have a great holiday weekend!

A new friend in the blogging world....

Just in case any of you are interested, my dear friend, Shirley Reese, has started a blog. Check it out here: http://reesespiecesgang.blogspot.com/

I love the way blogs connect people and help us share in each other's lives in a way that we probably never would have done before!

We're Back...

Well, I don't have much time right now, but wanted to write a quick post. The above picture was taken at my bro's wedding, where my long lost acquaintance - turned - friend - through -blogs Karen was able to come and visit me and my family! The saddest thing was... I was trying to visit with her, but ended up either having to excuse myself to capture a photo opportunity, or was interrupted by someone else wanting to talk with her as well. All in all, I did get to visit with her a little, and had a good time talking with her 10 year old daughter who came along with her. Her daughter and my niece had a great time at the reception! :-)

Anyway, I will post more about the weekend with pictures (I took over 400 pictures... yeah, Karen, stop laughing!) later. Have a great Fourth of July!

More Baby Pics

Congratulations to my friends, Deb and Jennittia (and their husbands and families), on the recent arrival of their little ones. Both of them have given me permission to post their baby's pics, so here you go...

Mike and Deb's baby, Audrey:


Audrey was born February 23 at 11:28am. She was 8lbs 2oz and 20in. long.

Mommy and girls: Ava, Deb, Audrey

Sisters: Ava and Audrey... they are exactly 2&1/2 years apart

The family: Ava, Deb, Audrey, Mike

What a sweet big sister!

Daddy's girls

And now, Rodney and Jennittia's little one, Judson (and big sister and brothers):

Judson joined the family on Fri. Feb. 16, 2007 at 6:55 PM. He was 6 pounds 7 oz. and 19 inches. "His first 18 hours or so of life were pretty scary but things have leveled out beautifully. He just did not want to breathe on his own very much. He was hooked up to many wires and stuff for a while, but now he is fine. Praise God!! " ~ note from Jennittia

Judson

The Kiddos: Bryce, Tyler, Kristen, and Judson

Love the spiky hair! :-)

Judson