I am finally uploading pictures, and they are really out of order!  Oh, well, I never claimed to be a professional at this stuff!  Enjoy the pictures!  I don’t have soccer pictures on the computer yet, but I’ll post them as soon as I remember to put batteries in the camera…

 

My sister Katrina with Creed and Natalie on one of the horses, I think it’s Toy.  

My dad out in the arena taking pictures.  Notice the babies sneaking food out of the gator in the background!

Creed at T-ball this summer

 

Natalie out at the field where Bryan was combining that day.  It was VERY hot. 

 

Bryan combining wheat and loading the grain cart.  Joy is driving the tractor and cart.

 

Jenna, Creed and Gavin, having lunch in the car at the fields.  Pretty classic picture of them, really.  

 

Dumping grain out of the cart into the semi for Joel to drive to the elevator.  

 

Tractor and Grain cart.  I can’t remember who is driving in this picture.  

 

Bryan and Bill switching places.  Harvest doesn’t slow down for anything, so they eat meals one person at a time so the others can keep the work progressing.  

 

Back at the house, the kids love going to ride on the four wheeler!  I love this picture of Brandon, Jenna, and Ellie.

 

Jenna and Creed climbing around on the semi at the farm.  

 

Bryan, Jenna, and Creed driving the tractor and grain cart.  

 

Jenna and Creed climbing out of the tractor.

 

Creed at T-ball again!  Is this the second time this picture is in here?  It seems familiar.  

 

Creed driving the gator with Katrina and Truett.  

 

Two blondies, Truett and Natalie on the trampoline together.  

 

Circus party at Kerry and Michelle’s house!  Michelle dressed as a clown, Kerry did a magic show, and we played lots of circus games!  Very fun!

 

Creed and Natalie are tired after all of these adventures!  Jenna, on the other hand is somewhere else, organizing something or generally trying to find something she can be in charge of…

So, that’s our summer in pictures!  

 

Has this much time really passed?  Things have been really crazy here, so I’ll try to do the quick update!  

Let’s see…my last post is dated July 19.  A lot has happened since then.  July and August were consumed with three things:   Bryan’s furlough, when he helped our friends Bill and Joy with harvest, and then we traveled a little bit; Relay for Life; and the start of volleyball season.  Harvest and Relay were both new experiences, but were very rewarding and fun!  

I was the Event Chair for the Relay for Life here in our little town, and we feel like it was very successful for a first time event.  We had aver 400 people in attendance, and we raised just over $24,000!  The committee that I worked with was great, and everyone worked hard to make the event a success.  We had a great DJ, a really great car show, a big softball tournament, a live auction, and many more activities.  We walked from 7 PM until 7 AM, and it was really a wonderful experience.  We’re planning an even bigger and better event for next year, so I’m very excited about that.  

Volleyball started August 1, so we had a couple of weeks of Relay/volleyball overlap, and it was BUSY!  But, we made it, the kids were real troopers, and it’s been a good season.  I have a large team this year, 15 junior high girls!  They are all wonderful, and contribute to the team in a positive way.  My prayer for this team has been unity, and I believe I’ve seen the Lord work on this, which has been good.  The kids come along to practices and games, and it’s really fun!  Our organization is full of great families, and they always have someone to play with, and they seem to enjoy their time there.  

Both Jenna and Creed are playing soccer with an organization called Upwards.  It’s been really fun.  It’s a good outlet for them to learn something new, and be a part of a group.  They both have great coaches, and fun teammates, and it is so much FUN to get to be on the sidelines and just watch and enjoy!  It doesn’t matter how they play, it’s just fun to be able to watch them have a great time and play hard.  They both have a good time, and have learned a lot.  

Work has been going well for Bryan, he stays busy, and that’s good!  He likes to be busy.  

Here at home, laundry is still piled on the couch, school stuff is scattered in different rooms, and I’m still making up recipes and hoping they turn out alright. But everyone is happy, growing, and fairly healthy (other than the fall allergies that have invaded), so I guess we’re doing alright!  

Three more weeks of volleyball season, four more of soccer, and by that time, we’ll be dangerously close to the holiday season, won’t we?  It’s funny how quickly time seems to pass.  You know, when we’re kids, we can’t wait for things to change, and the days seem to drag on…but as adults, we hope that a week comes, just one week, where nothing changes, and we wish that time would pass a little more slowly.  

Well, a two year old is crying, so I need to go.  I’ll try to get pictures up soon!

I just read over my previous post, and realized that I forgot to mention that Bryan’s parents came to visit for part of the week that Bryan was harvesting!  So that was a lot of fun!  Dean got to ride in the tractor with Bryan for a while, which was nice.  Otherwise, they would have hardly seen each other!  Although it did rain for part of the weekend, and Bryan was home for a a day or two…I’m having a hard time remembering now!  Anyway, we had a nice Father’s Day together, and also celebrated Rozetta’s, Creed’s, and Natalie’s birthdays.  

On the night that Bryan and Dean were driving the tractor, Rozetta and I just came home, put the kids to bed, and sat on the couch, eating popcorn and watching HGTV, which is one of my favorite ways to relax.  We had a good time!

It was a very nice visit, I thought, and I just can’t believe that it all slipped my mind in my first post!

Good grief!  I can’t believe it’s been more than a month since I blogged.  Sorry for the long absence.  Things around here have been really, really busy!  I’ll try to do a nutshell recap.  

In June, Cessna announced a four week furlough that affected almost everyone in the company.  So, the last week of June, instead of working at Cessna, Bryan was free to help our friends Bill and Joy with harvest.  So, that was super fun!  He learned a lot, which he always loves, and he got to hang out with Bill, which is always fun, and it was just overall a really interesting thing to be involved in, and we hope that we get to do it again sometime.  

That week, our air conditioner went out, and we thought we could nurse it along, but, as it turned out, we couldn’t.  So, we scheduled to have a new one installed, and it was perfect, because their first open day was the day after we were planning to be back from our trip to Texas!  So, the day after we decided on which company to go with, we packed up and headed for the Panhandle, still one of my very favorite places in the world!  Someday, I want to just spend a day taking pictures of the landscape, it is too beautiful for words.  

We had a great time with everybody. The kids got to ride horses every day, help Papa drive the tractor doing dirt work in the arena, and play all day with cousins!  We had a Fourth of July celebration for which Trent and Katrina cooked three different types of kebabs, and the table was fairly heaping with them.  But, we managed to eat most of them, along with Mom’s delicious chocolate cake and Blue Bell ice cream.  After that we had a good time playing with sparklers, and then we watched Trent and Zachary put on a pretty good fireworks show.  It was a really fun evening.  

We also got to go to church with Mom and Dad and see everyone there who I haven’t seen in ages, and that was really nice.  I love the people from Westcliff so much, and it is always nice to see everyone, and hug people I’ve been hugging since I was 12.  

Bryan also got to help Dad try to fix Katrina’s manure spreader, and they worked a little on the big tractor.  While they did that, I played with all the kids, and got out my favorite horse, Spirit, who is a miniature pony.  He and I love to take walks in the field together, and he kind of enjoyed playing in the kids pool, too!  I would bring him home with me if I had a place to put him.  

On Thursday night, Dad and I headed out to Austin, because we had some business to take care of, and it was a really nice trip!  We left Amarillo at 6 PM and arrived in Austin at 3:00 AM, so it wasn’t too bad, and it was a nice chance to just visit about things we don’t get a chance to visit about very often.  We had our business taken care of by 10:30 Friday morning, so then we headed to Denton, where Bryan, Mom, and the kids were coming.  We stayed the weekend there, hanging out with my brother and his wonderful family.  Michelle had planned a really fun circus party, which we all enjoyed, Kerry even did some magic tricks, and we had a great lunch afterwards.  We went to Denton Bible with them on Sunday, and bowled after that, which was very entertaining!  

On Monday, we headed home after being gone for 10 days, and it was nice to get home.  We did make a quick stop at a car dealership in Oklahoma, mostly to stretch our legs, but a little bit to look at suburbans.  We did not find a suburban for us, but we found the perfect truck for my sister, so we called and told her about it, since she was going to be in that area for a horse show in a few days, anyway.  So, she went and looked at it, and bought it!  We’re excited for her, and now I won’t worry about her as much, since she’s got a newer, more reliable truck.  

Anyway, it was nice to get home!  Our house was 102 degrees inside when we got here, though, so we opened the windows and went out to dinner.  By the time we got home, it was around 88 in the house, which felt much more liveable!  

Tuesday, our new air conditioner came, and it has been wonderful!  

Wednesday, I went out to do some more publicity for our Relay For Life, the fundraiser for the American Cancer Society that I am chairing.  It went really well, we are starting to get some real interest, sponsorships are coming in, and we actually already have over $8000 raised!  This event is going to be so much FUN, and I hope we get a large turnout to have fun as a community, and to help raise money that will go directly to the support of families dealing with cancer, and to cancer research.  We are having a car show, a softball tournament, a kids carnival, a guitar hero contest, a great DJ, a Boot Camp session, line dancing, great food, and more!  The event is August 21st, and I’ve still got a ton of work to do, but it’s all coming together, and it’s gonna be great! 

Thursday, I met my junior high volleyball team that I’ll be coaching this year, and they are all wonderful people, and seem to be pretty athletic, so I know it’s going to be a good season.  The other exciting thing is that they are all TALL!  This will be the first time I’ve coached a tall team, and I’m looking forward to it. 

And now, we’re finally getting back into a decent routine, just in time for furlough to be over!  Bryan goes back to work on Monday, and I think it’s good timing.  He’s excited to go back, and see what the future will bring.  I think it will also be good to get back into a normal routine, even though it’s going to be crazybusy for the next month!  

Oh, and tonight, Bryan and I have a date, and we’re going to watch the USA Men’s National Volleyball team play in Wichita!  I’m so excited, I can hardly stand it!  They’re playing the Netherlands, and I think it’s going to be about the coolest event I’ve been to in a long time.  

So, there’s the big update, I’ll try to get fun pictures loaded up pretty soon.  

I hope you all had a lovely June/July, and I promise I’ll try to keep up with the blog a little better!

Ten Years ago today, Bryan and I got married…can it really have been that long ago?  

We’ve seen a lot in these years…a lot of laughter, a few tears; a lot has changed, but so much remains the same.  

That beautiful day is still as vivid in my memory as it would be if it were yesterday.  In fact, sometimes I wonder if the memories of that day grow more vivid with each passing year.  I’m still married to my favorite person in the whole world, and he knows, even better than he did then, how to make me laugh.  We got married young, but not that young, yet we still feel like we have grown up together.  

The last ten years have held some surprises, and I’m sure the next ten will, too.  But what fun is life without some surprises?   One thing we know to be true is that our Lord has been with us through every moment, and we are looking forward to seeing where He takes us in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.  

I feel blessed beyond measure that Bryan is the one that I get to spend my days and years with, he makes my life fun!

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus – to the glory and praise of God.”

I want you when the shades of eve are falling

And purple shadows drift across the land,

When sleepy birds to loving mates are calling -

I want the soothing softness of your hand.

 

I want you when the stars shine up above me,

And Heanven’s flooded with the bright moonlight

I want you with your arms and lips to love me

Throughout the wonder watches of the night.

 

I want you when in dreams I still remember

The ling’ring of your kiss – for old times sake -

With all your gentle ways, so sweetly tender,

I want you in the morning when I wake.

 

I want you when the day is at its noontime,

Sun steeped and quiet, or drenched with sheets of rain

I want you when the roses bloom in June-time;

I want you when the violets come again.

 

I want you when my soul is thrilled with passion;

I want you when I’m weary and depressed;

I want you when in lazy, slumbrous fashion

 My senses need the haven of your breast.

 

I want you when through field and wood I’m roaming;

I want you when I ‘m standing on the shore;

I want you when the summer birds are homing  -

And when they’ve flown – I want you more and more.

 

I want you, dear through every changing season;

I want you with a tear or with a smile;

I want you more than any rhyme or reason -

I want you want you want you all the while.

 

— Arthur L. Gillom

 

I decided it would be fun to take this week to look back 10 years, and remember the way things were the year we got married.  I don’t think I have any digital pictures from back then, so I probably can’t post any of those.  But, here are some fun facts about the great year we got married, 1999!   

Top Ten Pop Songs

1.  Britney Spears – Hit Me Baby One More Time

2.  Santana/Rob Thomas – Smooth (excellent song, by the way)

3.  Cher – Believe

4.  Ricky Martin – Livin’ La Vida Loca

5.  Lauryn Hill – Doo Wop (That Thing)

6.  TLC – No Scrubs

7.  Whitney Houston – It’s Not Right But It’s Okay (which is how I feel about it being on the top ten list…)

8.  Backstreet Boys – I Want It That Way

9.  Marc Anthony – I Need To Know (still a favorite of mine for some reason)

10.  Sugar Ray – Every Morning

Comment me with how many you can still sing!   I honestly don’t remember the Cher one or the Whitney Houston one, I’m gonna have to youtube them.  

Ok, on with the second list of the day, heeeeeeeeeeeere’s

the 

Top Ten Movies of 1999

1.  Fight Club

2.  American Beauty (one of the more disturbing movies of the year, really)

3.  Run, Lola, Run (no idea)

4.  The Matrix (I never really got into these, but mostly because I was rebelling against the great Keanu Reeves frenzy until he showed up in Something’s Gotta Give, where I developed a secret crush on him.)

5.  The Talented Mr. Ripley

6.  Magnolia

7.  The Blair Witch Project

8.  The Sixth Sense (I really love M. Knight Shyamalan’s writing, but I have actually never seen this movie!  Do you like it?)

9. Arlington Road (Really good movie about how you never really know what’s going on around you.  Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges did a great job)  

10.  Trick 

So, does that bring back some memories?  1999 was a good year, and I have lots of fun memories from that year.  Here are a few:  

Bryan started his job at Cessna in January of 1999.  His first “real” job that paid more than beans.  It was an automatic fit, and he has loved working there all this time.  

We got married in June, and our whole wedding week was such a great week!  We hung out with friends, caught up with what had been going on in everyone’s life, and generally had a great time!  Nathan and Marcia came all the way from Michigan, and poor Marsh was studying for her Nursing Boards or some test associated with getting her license, and she spent most of the time studying, but she did hang out in the evenings, and it was fun!  We had a HUGE Panhandle hailstorm two nights before our wedding, which was funny and crazy, and I liked it.  Our wedding day was absolutely perfect, and we just couldn’t have had a better day for it.  My dad was so stressed out he was mowing for like 3 hours that morning, and he had just mowed the day before!  It was the best day EVER! 

We went to Michigan in July for our friends Nathan and Marcia to get married, and that was so much fun!  Hanging out at the Holland Beach, dancing at the wedding reception to a lot of the songs mentioned above in the Top Ten list, and my personal fave, Ice Ice Baby, and I don’t really know why I remember that, but it’s vivid!    

We went to Six Flags with Damien and Mashele, Dj and Natasha, and Tj, but Bryan and I wound up just taking everyone’s pictures because we don’t like rollercoasters!  We had a great time together, though, and there are good stories from that trip.  

We used to go pick up Todd Harkins, and we’d go from car dealership to car dealership until we all three had a Camaro, Trans Am, or Mustang to test drive and we’d go race them.  That was so much fun!  

We actually did a lot with Todd.  Mashele and I also helped him clean out the dump of a house that he bought that summer, while he was out in the yard shooting cats with his bow and arrow and going through all the ceramic mushrooms and frogs the previous owner had made and left behind.  Nice, right?

Oh, and then we bought firewood for our apartment, and Todd threw it, piece by piece, up to our third floor balcony, where Bryan caught it and stacked it!  Too much fun!   

Bryan and I felt like we were livin’ the high life – good job, good aparment, good friends, a three day weekend every other week.  We were pretty sure that life didn’t get much better than that!  It was a fun year, and I love the memories we have from that year.  

Share some of your great memories from ‘99 in the comments, I’d like to hear them!

Time is a funny thing.  It seems like just yesterday, we were in college, getting engaged, looking forward to whatever was to come.  Well, this coming Friday, we’ll celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary!  We’ve had a busy ten years, and it has been amazing to see the Lord work in our lives, and bring us to this place.  

So, the theme of the week being marriage, I thought this video was only appropriate!

Ok, but seriously, these ten years have been amazing, in lots of different ways.  Three moves, three kids, 2 degrees, and all the moments-in-between have created a depth in our marriage that we didn’t even know existed 10 years ago!  So I have to share our number one favorite love song EVER, and I hope you like it, too.  

Hi, well, it’s been a really long time since I blogged, and I have plenty of excuses, but, whatever.  It’s summertime, baby!  The computer is on the back burner until it gets too hot to be outside.  

However, I thought I’d throw an update on here, just for fun.  We’ve been crazy busy with lots of different things.  The biggest thing this week is that 3 of my sister’s 4 kids have been here staying with us, and it’s been fun!  I had grand plans to capture Cousins Week in pictures for posterity.  But my camera batteries have been dead, and when I try to charge them, they don’t charge.  The Amazing Bryan put them in to charge yesterday, though, and it worked beautifully.  Just one more proof that electronics don’t particularly like me.  So, no pictures of cousins week with a 15 year old, a 9 year old, a 6 year old, a 5 year old, and two 2 year olds.  

But, we’ve been to the zoo, we’ve gone on bike rides and walks to the park, we’ve been to Creed’s first two t-ball games, played on the slip’n’slide, swam in the neighbor’s pool, done crafts, woodworking (with Bryan), and generally had a great time!  Plus, by nothing less than the grace of God, I’ve kept us all fed and clothed.  

Creed’s t-ball games are too much fun!  Those kiddos are so cute.  Creed has on his game face pretty much the whole time, but does occasionally take time to wave and smile at his fans.  I’ll try to take some pictures and share them.  

Let’s see…what else?  Oh, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t share my latest blunders, would it?  So, here goes.  I spoke at a baby shower at church recently, and public speaking is not my gift at all.  So, I had scriptures to share, and my goal was to be encouraging – that the Lord is with us in happiness, hard work, easy days, and hard days.  But, I sat down and realized that I had just used different variants of the word “overwhelmed” like a thousand times.  ugh.  I felt like a heel, but as my friend Hannah said, I just have to trust the Lord for thing that have already happened as well as things that are still to come.  I hope I wasn’t as much of a downer as I fear I might have been.  

And now for the newest funny thing I’ve found.  There is a comedy troupe in New York called ImprovEverywhere, and they do some funny stuff!  So, I’m going to try to link two videos here that I’m pretty sure are going to make you laugh, so enjoy!  

 

Did it work?  Did you laugh?

Well, I just re-read my previous post, and I realized how disorganized it is.  So, this is my attempt to clean it up.  

First of all, one of my main purposes for that post was to share the things that have been helpful + encouraging to us as an official home-schooling family this year, and I totally missed the mark.  I apologize for that.  There were a number of interruptions during the post (including a quick abstract art lesson with the kids and a neighbor friend), and, quite honestly, I think I forgot what I was writing about!  So…

Let me just say that the Lord really knows how to encourage me, and these are just a few of the ways that He has accomplished that this year.  

1)  Susan Hunt books like My ABC Bible Verses and Big Truths for Little Kids.  These have been of tremendous value to us, and the kids love them!  

2)  Wee Lambs stories which are as instructional for me as they are for the kids, and they’re also stories that are easy to enjoy.  

3)  Philippians 1.

4) Five in a Row – I don’t use this whole curriculum, but I love it for the book list, and for the fun, creative ideas.  A great resource.  

5) Answers In Genesis is a magazine we look forward to every quarter, and the kids love the pull-out magazine that’s just for them.  

Most importantly…

6) Family and Friends – We are incredibly blessed with supportive and encouraging family and friends.  Our parents and my brother and sister have been so encouraging and supportive, helping me to lighten up and enjoy the moments even from so far away.  Our friends nearby have been kind and supportive, even though we probably seem kind of crazy!

So, we have truly loved this year, but only because of the Lord’s guiding hand and provision of resources that are helpful + people who enrich our lives with the simple act of being beside us as we walk this road.