Our 10th Anniversary

This year marks 10 years of marriage for me and David.  I can't believe how the time has flown and how much our lives have completely changes since that day!  We are so blessed beyond measure to still not only love but also truly like each other, have three precious girls (two here with us and one in heaven), jobs we enjoy and also pay the bills, loving family and friends, and on and on.  Are we where we thought we would be 10 years ago - not exactly, but praise GOD for being our third cord in our rope of three strands through everything!  I look forward to our next 10 - 20 - 30 years with anticipation of what is to come.

We were not able to do a "big" thing for our 10 year this year because David was leading a mission trip to Peru the week of our anniversary, so we will try and work something up next year.  The girls and I did get to go to Tennessee to see David's sister and her family who had been stationed in Germany and were finally home!  It was a great weekend and all the kids had a blast playing together.  It was so great to have ALL the cousins together.

David's Aunt Darlene that live in Tampa was even able to make the trip up, she was awesome with all the crazy kiddo's running everywhere.  She even got some snuggle time with a very busy 15 month old!

I got to talk to David and he was roughing it for the Lord - this was his view in Peru that day!  Really it was a great trip and many lives were changed, all in all not a bad way to spend a special day.

We ended up leaving on Sunday after the family had gone to church because David was getting back to Pelham around noon.  So, this picture was really to say "hey we are packed up and leaving - love you".  Little did I know SK was super pooped from the busy weekend so here is a nice before and after of my tired girl in the car!

Our Back Yard Addition

Last year David got a "big" pool to go in the back yard that was large enough to float around in but still small enough for SK to touch.  It was about 10' in diameter and 3' deep.  We stored it over the winter and got it out this year.  David worked and worked to get it all set up and had it all filled up, then we got up the next morning and found out the darn thing split on one side during the night and dumped out all the water!  So, off he goes to the store to get a replacement.  This time an 11' in diameter and 3' deep pool.  Again he works and works to get it set up and all is good for about a week.  Then we start to notice water seeping out because the tarp below the pool was too small (it was for the 10' pool we had last year), so little bits of grass were growing through the pool and made little holes.  So, David drains it, marks the holes he sees, patches them, lays out two layers of 16' in diameter tartps, then sets us up again.  Again - we go to sleep and the next day the water is GONE!  Someone easily deterred would say, maybe we don't need a giant pool in the back yard and give up... not my husband.  He then went out and bought a 15' diameter, 3.5' deep pool.  He double checked the tarps laid out past the pool, got it all put together and leveled, and filled her up one more time.  So, this one seems to be the winner.  It has been up and functional for over 2 months now and we are loving it!  I'm intrigued to see how winter storage is going to work though!!!

4th of July

We started off the 4th of July with grand plans to go to this great FREE event in Hoover with fireworks and live music and a car show, but then it rained and rained and rained.  So our big night out turned into a night in.  We grilled (of course) and had a yummy dinner.  Afterward SK and I slipped out to go see Despicable Me 2 while David and Charlotte Anne snoozed.

When we got home from the movie we lit some sparklers in the driveway and watched the fireworks on TV.

The next morning I got the girls up and we watched the Washington DC fireworks special I recorded the night before and Charlotte Anne was getting down to some Neil Diamond!  Who knew?!

When she was all boogied out, we got ready and loaded up to go to the McWane Center.  It was Charlotte Anne's first time there and she had a blast!  She was able to run around and touch everything - pushing any and all buttons!  

 

Since it was the day after a holiday I let SK pick out her own outfit, so notice the hot pink fluffy skirt, hot pink tights, and hot pink sandles - all to match her Ariel shirt, sassy lady!

VBS 2013

Vacation Bible School's theme this year was "Kingdom Chronicles" - knights and armor, good kingdom and bad kingdom, dressing up, ...  Needless to say Sarah Katherine came home every day with great stories of how much fun she had and what she had learned.  What was so wonderful is this year I think she is starting to put everything together because the evening after they presented the gospel to the kids, we spent about 30 minutes talking about Jesus and how he is God's son and he loves us so much that he died for each and every one of us.  I don't think SK has quite put all the pieces together, but she's starting to really listen and retain.  Just this morning she asked me when I asked Jesus in my Heart and became part of his "kingdom".  I love, love, love that my baby girl is learning all of this at such a young age and I pray she listens to the call of God on her heart.  I also pray that David and are given divine wisdom for how to teach our girls and how to reflect the life that we should to our girls.  What an awesome responsibility and opportunity!

 All the kids singing at family night.  Sarah Katherine and our buddy Jackson are on the front row just to the left of the lady with her hand up.  Sassy girl loved dancing and singing in big church!

After the kids showed us all their songs the church had ice cream and inflatables for the kids - we had a blast!

Mommy and Daddy go to Orlando

David had a conference in Orlando, so we saw a great opportunity to do an inexpensive mini-vacation and we made the call for it to be grown up's only (not nice to do since it was Orlando, I know - but we had a blast!).  We flew out a day before the conference began so we had one full day off, so what better to do in that one day than hit up all 4 Disney parks in one day for free?!  David knows a lady that works at Disney so she was able to get us a one park hopper for free, so we started at MGM, then worked over to Magic Kingdom, then Epcot, then Animal Kingdom, then back to MGM for the late fireworks and home to the hotel - trust me, much more high impact than that little list sounds!  We made a plan and worked the plan so we got to do and see everything we wanted in our one day.  So fun!

While David was in conference the next few days I sat by the pool, went shopping, saw a movie - all these amazing calm things I NEVER get to do. :)  One night we went to Medievel Times for dinner (Dixie Stampede in Gatlinberg totally ripped off their entire show, but it was still fun).

 The day we were leaving, we scheduled our flight for late afternoon so that we would have that morning to head over to Universal and hit up Universal and Islands of Adventure to round out our whirlwind of theme parks!  We were there when the gates opened and hustled straight back to Harry Potter.  We still had to wait for about 30 minutes, but it was awesome!  We finished the day with lunch at Emeril's and were so tired we couldn't have done anything else if we wanted to.

We did souvenir shopping for the girls through out the week and when we gave SK hers she went to her room for like 5 minutes and came back with literally wearing every since souvenir we just gave her all at one time - can you tell she was excited?!

Family Photo's

After rescheduling about 3 times and telling my husband that he MUST be present that day and be smiling, we finally got family pictures taken by a sweet young lady in our college Sunday School class that we teach.  She is very talented and offered up her time for us, which we eagerly accepted!  These were taken at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens - Sarah Katherine is 4.5, Charlotte Anne is 14 months.

Visiting Gram

We went to visit my grandmother in Anniston for the day and my mom, her sister, and her sister's grandkids got to come also.  We had such a great time celebrating my Gram's birthday and enjoying time together.  Life is always so crazy, I love it when we carve out the time to purposefully see family and spend time together.  The kids had a blast and didn't bother too many residents at the place where my Gram lives!  I think they enjoyed watching the kids - I know I will when I get that age.