4th of July Weekend

The 4th of July weekend was a very busy weekend for us! We attended a surprise 30th birthday party for our friend and small group leader, Zach. The party was at his in-laws' house, which is always a fun place to be! There were lots of Zach's friends and family there and we really enjoyed ourselves. Scott and I brought fireworks and stayed until it got dark and did fireworks with Karen, Bob, Zach, Lauren, Andy, and Caitlin. I think everyone had a good time!

Then, on Saturday, we went to visit with Meme for a little while and then to Daddy and Stephanie's house for a 4th of July celebration. We had barbecue (they ordered some special for me without that sauce), pasta salad, deviled eggs, and all kinds of other good stuff. We had a lot of fun. We were too tired to stay for fireworks in addition to the fact that we didn't want to be out that late and be too tired for church the next day. I took some pictures with my camera, but not very many. However, I am sure that Stephanie wondered who took so many pictures with her camera when she downloaded them! Heehee. I saw her camera sitting out while she was upstairs, so I took it upon myself to take pictures with it. I hope some of them turned out good! (I think I even took at least one picture of myself!)

Meme seems to be doing about the same. She seems less like her old self and more like someone that isn't all together. She didn't complain as much about us not coming to see her very often, but she did say that she eats the same thing all the time and does the same ole' thing every day. So, it seems like she has less than her usual spark. My great-great aunt Annie Lou is also there and it seems like she doesn't even recognize us any more, which is sad. I also found out that I have some other further-removed relative there at the nursing home that I had never met.

So, over all the weekend was a lot of fun and we were still pretty tired on Sunday. But, I was still able to pay attention to the preaching, so that's good. Right, Chris?!

Time Flies!

Can you believe that today is July 2...2008?!??!!!

I can't!

They say that time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. I think I have hit "old" because time seems to fly by.

We had a wedding shower for my sister, Wendy and her fiance, Paul this past Saturday. We had some friends and some family come. We ended up with 19 people, including Scott and I, at our house. I thought that was a good number. Wendy and Paul got lots of gifts, so that was really great!

After the party, Wendy and Paul and Emily and Kristyn (Paul's two girls) stayed and hung out and played Wii. The girls LOVED the Wii. They wanted to stay for the rest of the weekend to play! We would have let them, but they didn't have any extra clothes or toothbrushes!


Well, Friday is the 4th of July and we are off work. July 4th is a very important holiday for our country and I think that sometimes people get so caught up in fireworks, BBQs, and, for certain people, drinking, that they forget WHY we celebrate. We should always be mindful and thankful of our freedom.


Just as a side note, it sounds like someone that lives close to me is celebrating a little early. I think I'll open the blinds and check it out...I can hear it but I can't see it.

Speaking of the sky (well, I kind of was since I mentioned the blinds and fireworks...right?), on Sunday we had a really powerful thunderstorm (that really didn't bring that much rain, even though it seemed like it did). The storm happened right before dusk-ish. So, the sun had not started going down, but it was blocked by clouds. Well, the clouds started moving out of the way just as sunset started and everything was really still and...well, pink, outside. I was a little concerned that we may have a tornado, but there were no warnings. Scott went out side and got these pictures. I think they are beautiful!

This is a question for all you cat people out there: do your cats seem to get sweeter as they get older? Ours do. Maxwell won't drink water from the tub now until we pet him first. Sometimes, it isn't enough for just one of us to pet him, we both have to if we are here. Also, most days when I get home, Sampson talks to me really sweetly until I pet him for a few minutes. They didn't used to "ask" for attention like that. Sunday night, the reason I didn't take the pictures of the sky is because Sampson was curled up in my lap. That was probably because I was covered up in his favorite blanket, but I'll take it how I can get it. We just have the cutest, sweetest boys ever. I'd like to hear your cat stories!

Happy Birthday Melanie!

Scott's mom's birthday was Friday, October 5. After we visited Meme, we went to Tracy's house (Scott's sister) to celebrate her birthday. We had flying saucers and Tracy and SaraBeth had made an angelfood cake, which we had covered in strawberries and coolwhip. It was all very good. We gave Melanie her gifts, and played with SaraBeth and Sam. Scott, Robert, and I checked out Robert's XBox 360. Sam has grown up so fast and he is talking pretty well and walking. He also LOVES to have his picture taken. If he sees you with a camera he smiles really big and then squeals "Whoa!" after the flash goes off. So, I got a ton of cute pictures of Sam. SaraBeth is so grown up and she is such a sweet big sister. She really loves Sam and it shows. I know that Robert and Tracy feel blessed to have such sweet children. I think that the funniest part about the whole night was that I learned that Scott and Tracy's parents like to play Wii. SaraBeth was also taking advantage of having her great grandmother there and played with her a good bit. It was a good family get-together. I couldn't choose which pictures to post, so I just did a slide show.

Happy Birthday Callie!

Thursday, October 4 was Callie's birthday. Our ladies' Bible study group got together on Friday night to celebrate the occassion. We had a lot of fun. Lauren made tacos and I made frozen limeaid. Lauren also made brownies for the birthday celebration part of our gathering. We also had a "clothing exchange" which we do any time any of us cleans out our closet. We offer up our old clothes to each other before we take them to goodwill.

I just love all the ladies in our Bible study. It's great to have girlfriends and mine are such a blessing!

You know what they say, "girls just wanna have fun!" We can be silly with the best of them! Caitlin found this mask at the dollar store and couldn't resist surprising each of us as we got to Lauren's with it. It was pretty funny to see everyone's reaction. Then, when we were taking pictures, it was decided (I'm not sure how we decided this) that we should take some pictures with the mask. These are pretty stinking funny if I do say so myself!

Current Events

The last few weeks have been very busy. Scott is back in school taking information security classes at Gwinnett Tech. Soon he'll have a certificate in it. Then, he is planning to move onto Cisco training. We've both been reading the new Harry Potter book. I just finished it. I won't say anything so that I don't give anything away. Scott is still working on it.

This past Sunday, all the ladies from our small group plus Karen got together to do some scrapbooking. It was a lot of fun and Amy and Lauren know all sorts of tricks. I have only ever made one scrapbook, and that was for our wedding. I didn't really enjoy doing it as much as I had expected to. But, since I started blogging, I feel like my blog is kind of an online scrapbook, so I am inspired again. I did a few pages. I have never scapbooked all the stuff that I saved from the time Scott and I started dating to the time we got married. That is what I am working on now. It has been a lot of fun to get out all that stuff and look at it again. I only got three pages done at Lauren's and I haven't done any more since, but I am now motivated to do it. Shana had never done any scrapbooking and she is really good at it! Her first pages looked very professional!

Scott is about to start officiating for a flag football league and he was supposed to go and watch the game with the guy that runs the league and they got rained out. So, poor Scott had to sit at Lauren's and watch us scrapbook. Luckily, there was some good baseball on and Zach showed up to keep him entertained after a short period.

Here are some pictures from our scrapbooking party.