Four Unique Women.....One Fun Weekend

This title is better than the original that Tonya and I came up with: Four TROUBLED women.....LOL!! We decided that sounded too weird.

Can I just say that I HAD A BLAST THIS WEEKEND? OHMYWORD. Seriously, I had so much fun that I truly detest the fact that I'm at work this morning. I laughed so hard and screamed so much (on the water slide) and shopped until I was so happy and content that I almost went willingly into the car for the ride home.


Let me just say a few things about the trip.

I think Marthanna and I will agree that we've never been with two women who like to eat more than Tonya and Melinda. What's maddening about it is that I could eat like that and be big as a cow and they are so little! Argh.


If you're ever having stomach problems, give Tonya or Melinda a call. They have some interesting suggestions! LOL.

"If my _____ aren't gonna move, I wish they'd just go to sleep!" This was said by Melinda and if you know her, you can ask her what the rest of the sentence is. It was so stinkin' funny that I'm still smiling about it!


We walked the streets of Gatlinburg Friday night after we checked into the hotel and there were like, seriously, FIVE purse stores. They are obviously owned by the same family or group of people because they were all alike. All the purses in the store were 50% off but the prices were anywhere from $60 to $120. Are you kidding me? So these sales people (they were indian....not like teepee indians but India indians) inside the stores would follow you around and ask if you wanted to buy whatever purse you were looking at. Then they would say (insert a foreign accent) "If you rillly like it you can have an extra 10% off" to which I'd say "If you'll give it to me for $20, I'll take it" to which they would say "Nah nah nah.....$25." I said "Nah nah nah" back at them every time. :) It was hilarious.

We went up to Ober Gatlinburg and I'm serious when I say that as I was gazing UP HIGH at the water slide and watching people come down that I got a bad case of nerves. With a bad case of nerves comes a visit to the bathroom for me.


I'm going to say, and the girls will have to agree, that they FORCED me to ride the thing. I got to the top of the very tall tower thingy and decided that I couldn't do it. The guy that was helping push our raft down the slide was like "oh, you've already paid now so you have to ride it" to which I replied "Nope, you can have my $3.50. Seriously, I don't mind."

I know he thought I was some kind of nut from a faraway country like Kentucky or something. But Melinda and I rode down together, me in the back of the raft, and oh the screaming and the laughing and the prayers. Just blogging about it makes my hands sweaty. Friends, I can say I've done it once and that's good for me for the rest of my life. I'm not cut out for "fun" such as that.

My kids stayed with my mom and sister and mom said Kari didn't hardly mention my name. In a way that made me really sad but I'm so thrilled that they had a good weekend too and weren't crying for mommy. That would have broke my heart.


Thank you, Tonya, for sharing on the way home. I'm sure the other girls were so glad someone else was talking beside me. LOL! No, seriously, you have no idea how much you encouraged me just by talking about sweet Brooklyn. I needed the reminder that we have heaven to look forward to and that IT IS REAL.

Thanks to all 3 of you....Melinda, Marthanna and Tonya for asking me to go. God knew I needed to get away this weekend even before I knew it. Can't wait to do it again! :)

Happy Friday!

Well, folks, I don't have a lot to say today.
I can just see the shock on all of your lovely faces. :) I have two pieces of news to share and then I'm signing off until Monday.

1. Despite the blueberry streusel french toast and the massive piece of meat loaf I consumed Tuesday night I have lost another pound!! Yahoooooo!!!

That's a total of 27 pounds and I'm very excited because I haven't lost anything in approximately 33 days. It's getting a little too toasty outside to be walking 3 miles with Lacey and the kids every night and that, coupled with the aforementioned food, isn't conducive to a good weight loss plan. (how do you like those big words all in ONE sentence?)
Have I mentioned lately that Lacey has lost 55 pounds? She looks FAB-U-LOUS.

2. I was invited on a trip to Tennessee with my buds Melinda, Tonya and Marthanna. All they had to say to convince me to go was water slide, shopping and food and I was in! Or maybe it was the fact that I said I wasn't going unless we could ride go-carts and they said okay.....hmmm.

I'm a little nervous about this trip to Tennessee because
a.) I've not been on a water slide in years (like 20 years) and the one in Ober Gatlinburg is probably huge. I might be skeered (that's a redneck word for you northerners that aren't familiar)
b.) my kids are staying with my mom and sister for the night so let's say prayers for all FOUR of them and
c.) I'm going somewhere without my kids. That alone is nerve-wracking.

(By the way....if you look up that word nerve-wracking on google like I did to find the correct spelling, you will find that there is an ongoing debate on whether it's spelled nerve-wracking, nerve-wrecking or nerve-racking. I chose nerve-wracking just in case you didn't notice so if you think it's spelled wrong it's actually up for debate.)

This entire post is kind of weird. Hope you all have a great weekend.
:)

The Return of the Deer

Last night we were all meeting at Gammy and Pappy's house to pick beans and work in the garden and the AWESOME thing is when we work in the garden we get to enjoy the benefits of Gammy's cooking. (Davy, you will LOVE this) We had meat loaf, green beans and taters, fried zucchini, squash (in butter and sugar) and cornbread. All the veggies were fresh from the garden. I mean, does it get any better than that?


I said all that to say this: while Gammy was fixing that awesome dinner, I was outside on the porch reading books to the kids while they were swinging. I was getting sooo sleepy sitting there and mentioned to Kari that we needed to go in out of the heat or mommy was going to fall asleep! Of course she said "Why?" To which I replied, "Because mommy has been working all day and between reading these books and it being so hot outside, it makes mommy sleepy." To which she replied with her hands up in the air as if trying to quiet loud children:

"Evewybody listen to me. It is NOT hot out heah! It is sine (fine) and you should not be hot. Thewe is no weason to go inside because it is NOT hot out heah."

So I picked up another book to read (since I was reprimanded and had to stay outside). It was about a little beaver named Beaver Boy. The first page said this:

Beaver Boy is brown.
Beaver Boy is toothy.

Right after I said Beaver Boy is toothy Kari says:
"MOMMY! Beava Boy is NOT toosy (toothy). I will ask Gammy and if she says Beava Boy is not toosy than Beava Boy is NOT toosy."

Okay.

Then after we got home she was playing in the living room while I was putting some clothes away in the bedroom. She came flying through the hallway to me and said, "Oh, mommy. There's a deah in the hallway!"

The return of the deer. I fear it shall never leave the child's memory.

After trying to reassure her that there were no deer in the hallway because deer don't like to be in people's houses she says, "But, mommy.....will that deah hit us and bwake our headlight in the hallway?"

She just doesn't get it. LOL! Pray for her, people. The "deah" is forever etched in her mind.

Ohio and Family Pictures

Well....I had this really long post yesterday with all kinds of pictures ready to be downloaded on here. I tried to download pictures, seriously, like 5 times. Finally I got frustrated and copied the text I had written and had intentions of saving it somewhere so I could try again today. But somehow I forgot to save it and now I have to write a whole new post and I'm not really feeling it today like I did yesterday. Here goes anyway!

My mom, the kids and I left at 6:30 AM (yes, on a saturday) for Ohio. Malachi was awake for a short period of time but when it started raining he fell fast asleep. They slept until we got to Dry Ridge!! Wow. It was such a nice trip and me and mom got lots of talking in! Imagine that. They also slept from the time we left Ohio Sunday morning at 7:30 until we got to Georgetown!! Heavens.

Kari and Malachi got to meet a lot of cousins and family that they had never met before. Kari especially took up with my cousin Steven's three girls.....Cameron, Samantha and Casey. They are the cutest things EVER!

My dear Aunt Ellie

Ellie's son, Steven and his wife, Christy

This is my uncle Richard and his daughter, Shelley


and his son, Richie with his new wife and his son, Clay


We stayed all night with my aunt Geraldine and Uncle Andy but I didn't get any pictures of them! ARGH!
My cousin, Becky and her youngest son, Joshua.
She also has Jeremy and Jacob. They are cuties!
Becky and I braved the pool with my two kids, her three kids and my cousin Brandon. We had a blast but what chaos we had in there with SIX kids! We swam for 3 hours and had to absolutely drag those kids out of the pool.

We ended our weekend with Cracker and Barrel and oh, the blueberry french toast! If you haven't had it yet at CB, please make your way there at some point this week and try it. Blueberry Streusel pancakes with blueberry syrup....who can resist that? Yes, I threw the diet out the window and enjoyed EVERY bite. :)

Here's Malachi, Kari and Abby (she's part of our immediate family and we can't go ANYWHERE without her) at Cracker Barrel



Altogether we had a GREAT weekend and I was so glad to be able to spend some time with Aunt Ellie. GOOD NEWS: Aunt Ellie came through her surgery good and they removed the tumor. The tumor is POSSIBLY benign and if that's the case then she will just have to recover from the surgery with no treatments. If it is cancer they will start chemo and radiation. We will find out one way or the other within about a week. Keep praying!!

Our Garden...the 2nd Post

Friends....I didn't kill the garden. My hands touched the majority of the seeds and the dirt but everything still decided to grow anyway! Last night we had fresh ONIONS to go along with our supper that Gammy fixed. She fixed potatoes and green beans, tenderloin, mac and cheese, broccoli casserole and CORNBREAD!! Wow. I enjoyed every single bite! I may or may not have had a piece of Italian Creme cake for dessert. :)

We picked beans last night and also some squash and zucchini that's ready to eat! Woohoo. Can you all tell that I LOVE this garden stuff? I must admit that eating stuff that you've grown with your own hands makes you appreciate it much more.

My father in law must have thought that I was getting too hot trying to help him hoe the garden because he kept telling me that it was fine and we didn't need to hoe too much and blah blah blah. Finally I told him that I wasn't going to stop until the weeds were gone and that I was fine and that the sun wouldn't melt me although I'm sweet as sugar and it's possible that too much sun exposure could melt me eventually...ha! He finally just started telling me what to do. LOL. I LOVED LOVED LOVED working in the garden last night and I'm proud of what it looks like. I'll be honest and say that I haven't been able to work in it like everyone else has because I have two kids that obviously make my time a little more non-flexible. But I've done enough to be able to claim part ownership. :)

Pictures and More Pictures.....

Can anyone guess how many pictures I take in a week? Or better, can anyone guess how many pictures I have saved to my computer, flash drive and laptop that haven't been developed yet? We're talking in the 1000's. Multiples of 1000's.

In addition to that, last night I got to view the results from the photo shoot we did a few weeks ago. Heavens! Here's a peek....let me know what you think!














Please remember Aunt Ellie in your prayers. My mom, the kids and myself are going to see her Saturday. She will be having a very serious surgery/procedure on Monday the 21st and will probably be out of commission for quite a while from it. It's a risky, scary surgery! Please, please pray for her.
:)

The Great American Brass Band Festival

We had a HUGE weekend. Be prepared for LOTS of pictures. Friday night was the hot air balloon race to jump start the Brass Band Festival. Saturday morning was the parade and the brass bands started up Saturday afternoon. Kari and I were in line to ride the hot air balloon and the people shut it down EARLY! Me and Kari were sorely disappointed. She did get to enjoy the inflatable slides....until one kid got caught on the top when it started collapsing and I wouldn't let Kari get on it anymore. Heavens. People were running around everywhere!

The brass bands were AWESOME Saturday night and the food booths....OMW. Sooo good and sooo expensive. $2 for a plain hot dog? Really. But since I forgot the craziness of festival food prices, I had to pay it or my kids would have had a meltdown right in the middle of 5,000 people.




This band was awesome! They never stopped moving and dancing around while playing their instruments and keeping time. Notice the mouth of the tuba. LOL!

This is the hot air balloon that Kari and I DIDN'T get to ride. :(

Kari and Malachi getting ready for the parade.




At the parade.







Kari was momentarily distracted by the water puddle.


We saw this....


And this....


And all of this. (We saw LOTS more but I'm sure you all don't want to see 100 pictures of brass bands and Shriner cars)






This is the Centre College campus where the brass bands played. People EVERYWHERE.


Malachi and Trinity having a sweet moment before collapsing in exhaustion!

Poor little Malachi fell and received a HUGE pumpknot on his head. He will probably have a black eye at some point this week. You can kinda see the outline of it in this picture...



To top off our fun weekend, Gammy fixed LASAGNA Sunday for dinner. We had a blessed weekend and I'm thankful for my babies, my family, my church family and most of all for still being a child of God. :)