Family by Birth... Friends by Choice

We had a good time this weekend at our family reunion in Alabama. The highlight for me was seeing the cousins that I got to spend two weeks every summer with growing up. We would play from sun up to sun down. Because they all lived within walking distance of one another, we would go from house to house to house. My Aunt & Uncle and my Grandparents also lived right there, so we had the perfect set-up to never be bored. That, combined with my Aunt's pool...

We lived the good life!

I'll have to find a vintage picture to post on here sometime of the six of us as young'uns.

This is a picture of five us. Ginger couldn't make it to the reunion. For some reason, she didn't want to carry her six kids there! Pictured here is my sister, Michelle, Calvin, me, Curtis and Amy. We have some terrific memories together! Oh, and we were t.r.o.u.b.l.e.

I know, it's hard to believe! ;) It was a fun kind of trouble though!

Here is Curtis with his crew. His wife, Amanda is so sweet and these are her two boys - Cousins - still friends after all these years.

What's up?

Hey, if you all want to see what we did yesterday, go on over to my sister's blog and take a look. Someone took their first swim and it was so cute!

Believe it or not, I'm leave in the morning to venture down to Alabama again.

I know.

It's a long drive and a short trip, but there is a family reunion and all five of the members of my family (dad, mom, two sisters and me) are going together. I'm thinking I'll be one tired mama by the time Monday rolls around!

On a side note, I was talking to Tasha this morning and something like this was said:

"Well, that was a real humdinger!"

That got us traveling down memory lane and we remembered the candy from Brach's with the bubblegum in the middle called Humdingers.

Does anyone else remember those? Ah, the days of no responsibilities!

A Must See

I think I know what we'll be doing on Sept. 26th. Click here to read what Lysa at Proverbs 31 has to say about the movie Fireproof.

One Word

I may have done this one already, but I can't remember. I think I might have done a portion of them at some point. :) So, humor me!

1. Where is your cell phone? table
2. Your significant other? work
3. Your hair? flat
4. Your mother? close
5. Your father? close
6. Your favorite thing? friendships
7. Your dream last night? none
8. Your favorite drink? Diet Dew
9. Your dream/goal? debtless
10. The room you’re in? living
11. Your church? smile :)
12. Your fear? loneliness
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? moved
14. Where were you last night? home
15. What you’re not? bold
16. Muffins? banana
17. One of your wish list items? house
18. Where you grew up? Indiana
19. The last thing you did? groceries
20. What are you wearing? capri's
21. Your TV? Full House
22. Your pets? Sally
23. Your computer? link
24. Your life? blessed
25. Your mood? content
26. Missing someone? family
27. Your car? mini-van
28. Something you’re not wearing? necklace
29. Favorite store? Gymboree
30. Your summer? fun
31. Like(love) someone? Friends
32. Your favorite color? purple
33. Last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? today

Alabama... It's HOT there.

Let me start out by saying that I took around 500 pictures on vacation.

I know. It's an illness. I'm sure there's some -itis out there for it.

Obviouisly, I didn't post ALL of them on here. I tried again to use Photobucket to make a slide show and well, we just aren't getting along right now. It's a sad situation.

And so, I give you the shortened version of our vacation...

We got to Aunt Mary's around 6pm, just in time for supper.

After supper we had to hit the pool. We waste NO time, people!
We spent a majority of our time in the pool. That southern sun will fry you up good!
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 JUMP! That's what Madison said every time she jumped. Every 150 times that she jumped!
A day at the pool is not complete without eating lunch on the deck. I sat on this very deck and ate lunch as a young'un. Aunt Mary always had ice cream cones in the afternoon. I have pictures, of course. I decided not to post those.
On Wednesday we went to a local park to have a picnic and play in the big fountain. We played on the playground until Madison and her mommy came. It was toasty. As you can see from the picture, I really don't want to grow up!

Neither does Aunt Mary!
Mom, it's hhhooootttt!
About the hot thing... this slide was burning! Can you tell that NO skin was touching?
We played a little ball...

After Madison got there, I had a photo shoot with her. These are some of the better shots that I took of her. She is a sweet little thing.

I did not pose her, she did this on her own! So cute.


I just love this shot. They were having a conversation about something.

Probably baby dolls or butterflies.

Lunchtime!
This is what the fountian looked like when we first got there.
Sweet
Group Pic

After our day in the park, we met some family for dinner at a local steakhouse. Yum!

Here, Madison is telling her D-Daddy (great grandpa) some story.

Checking out the peanuts
This is me with my cousins Calvin, Curtis and his wife Amanda, and Hunter. Thanks for dinner, Calvin! ;)
Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary
Sandra (my cousin)and Ben
Madison (my cousin) loved brushing my hair. She tried to brush Eric's and said, "I can't" with a long A, of course!

Eric and Maddie
Precious Picture. My favorite of the whole trip.
Sarah spent many hours on the diving board
This was the Forth of July. The kids were being goofy.

I found these matching shirt at the Lifeway Store in Franklin, TN.

Ben and Sarah watching the fireworks with about a million other people.
We have an actress on our hands!

Sarah's Baptism

Never fear, I do have vacation pictures but I wanted to get this posted first.

Sarah was baptized last night at church. This is something that she has been asking about for awhile now. We were so excited for her.

There is nothing like seeing your kids make the right decisions in following Christ.

This is Sarah with Pastor Brian. He is our youth pastor. We love him and his family and were so thankful that he was able to baptize Sarah. He is an awesome youth pastor.

On The Road Again...

Well, I was going to tell you about the guy that was going into Tar.get with at least 10 children hanging off of his cart, but then I decided that I would tell you about the minivan that just crossed 2 lanes of traffic in front of us to get to his off ramp. Talk about heart failure!

Now I'll tell you about how Ethan and Ben both had chocolate milk with their lunch and turned around and threw it all up in the bathroom at Chi.li's in Franklin.

And now they're fine. Hmmm?

Earlier today Eric and I were trying to remember the time that Ben started running down a hill and couldn't stop. His little legs were just a movin'! We couldn't remember where we were when he did that.

And then...out of nowhere...while I was taking a drink of water...I remembered.

And Eric got a shower in the driver's seat. :) I couldn't help it. All I could see were those little legs going too fast. I laughed until I cried. Only because Ben didn't get hurt, of course!
Then I got some paper towel and cleaned off the dashboard, seat, radio, my shoes.... you get the picture!

I just won a Mario Kart Wii off of ebay while riding up I-65. How cool is that?

One more thing, we got to pack the van in the pouring rain this morning. It was a blast.

Yes, our return trip has been somewhat of an event.

We had a great week. I hope you all did, too. How was your Fourth of July?

I can't wait to post some pictures when I get back. I have a few!