Friday, August 29, 2008

My Summer Vacation



Just click the button above to be directed to all the fun!  Kristen has been planing and planing for this fun party for months!  She has door prizes and you will have fun just checking out all the vacation memories of all our blog friends.

I wanted to share a few of our summer travel memories with you today, I will start with Fort Lauderdale.

We woke up to this beautiful sunrise each and every morning!  It was around 85 degrees out side at 6am when we woke up.


Luke enjoyed covering Daisy in sand.


Reese wasn't sure about the sand.

Tate was sure, sure he didn't like it!


Bo was very happy to be on vacation!

We went to a Polynesian Dinner Theater, it is was not as fun as we had thought it would be, it was very loud and Luke got a really bad head ache.  And for a family of 5 it cost over $250, which made me about choke to death....



Here is a lovely picture of our children in the belly of a shark.  This is at Cabala's.  My sweet husband, bless his heart, thinks that we have to go to every major hunting store in the country.

HD made friends with the Pool Guy and he gave us fresh coconuts daily to drink.

My 3 guys looking for shells


I would love to tell you that I was fishing, but I was just posing for this picture with HD's new fishing pole.

Luke loved the fish that HD caught



This is the kids trying not to get dirty

Our last day in Ft Lauderdale 




Then after the gas prices never came down we decided to have a Staycation which means that we stayed home for vacation and we had our whole family come for the 4th of July.




My mother


My niece C and Daisy


This is HD's Mama

This is my Father-in-law 

This is my sister-in-law Jess

Look at the look on my nephew R and Luke's face after hours of the WII


My Grandpa and Grandma


Ruby Wife and her husband and children joined us for a lovely 4th



This is HD and his baby brother Zack



My mom with Bo and Daisy


Here is our soldier girl Regan with her nieces and nephews





Here I am with Jess, we stayed up until about 2 am talking


All the kids



TBM and TBD with their babies at their first family bonfire

Oh Marshmallows are so good with the ones you love!

I hope you have enjoyed my a walk through my summer!  Don't forget to go check out all the fun at We Are THAT Family.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Fro Me to You~ swim lessons

For today's blog fun at We Are THAT Family I am going to share pictures of swim lessons.  We went to a state park, for our swim lessons.  We had a great camp counselor named Super Star!  The boys loved each minute of their lessons!  Daisy is still a little to young for swim lessons but she enjoyed watching her big brothers learn.















On the last day the students were able to jump off the diving board.  Bo did a screw driver while jumping in!  Luke loved this part of swim lessons the most!  I found out that this state park also hosts a family camp like the one Kristen went to this year, I am going to do some checking into the possibility of camp for our family next year.  Head over to We Are THAT Family for more Fro Me To You.




Wednesday, August 27, 2008

The Soldier Girl


I went and picked up our Soldier girl Regan, yesterday.  She was in training 2 hours from us and she graduated to the next phase in the Army.  
It's so hard to believe that she is all grown up a woman.  A woman in the Army.  A woman willing to fight for our country.  I can remember when she was coming home from Kindergarten.  I can remember how we would play hair do, while I had her brush my hair for hours.  I used to have Regan spend the summers with us, and I would dress us alike, people thought she was our daughter, I let them go on thinking it.  Regan was only 7 when HD and I got married and as long as she remembers I have been a part of the family.  I have watched this girl grow into a woman right before my eyes.  We have always been so proud of her accomplishments, she was an excellent student, a journalist for the school paper, rookie of the year in high school.  She is a super star to us.
We have her for the next few days, we will be going to TBM's house for the weekend.  We are also going to Celebrate Luke's birthday while we are there.  We are going to an amusement park,  I am very glad Regan gets to be with us this week and we are very grateful for our time together.
Happy Wednesday!
Stay tuned for tomorrow's Fro me to you and Friday's big Vacation party over at We Are THAT Family!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Have I ever told you all...

I moved in with HD when I was only 17....  He was 21, and he had a good job, he took good care of me although neither of us lead Godly lives at the time.  HD and I both have a very colored past, we were involved with drugs and we drank alot, to say the least.  I am trying to paint a picture here, but its not looking very pretty.
HD had to travel almost every week with his job, that left me at 17 all alone, most of the time.  I would have some of my girl friends come and spend the night with me from time to time.  After my 18th birthday and 6 months of living together, there was this evening it was Oct 25, 1996, I spoke with HD on the phone he was headed out to a local bar in the town he was in and he would call me after he had a few drinks and dinner.  HD and I talked every evening, not one night ever past without our saying goodnight to one another, despite the bad things in our life we were always a good thing, always in love and loved each other.  Hours past, 10pm, 11pm, 2am and still no call, by this point, I was sure he was in grave danger.  I was simply sick to death with fear.
I grew up going to church, I had accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 9 years old but for may years I had not prayed, I had not attended church, God was totally on the back burner of my mind and until that night I never gave God a second thought except to take his name in vain.
I was scared to death, and I got down on my knee's and I prayed for my boyfriend.  I cried, I begged God, I made lots of promises, no more drugs, no sex, I even promised God we would go to church if only HD would be ok, I plead from the bottom of my heart.
Around 4 am I called my mother, I told her out right HD has either been in a horrible accident or is with another woman!  I asked her to pray.  I then called the police department in the town that he was working it was over 4 hours away, I told them that I was worried he had been in an accident they reported that he had not.  I then started calling the hospitals, still nothing.
At 5 am, I got a call from the police department that HD had just been stopped on the on ramp of a major highway going the wrong way, 5 times over the legal limit....
Minutes later I received a call from the hospital HD is very sick, alcohol poisoning.  He had given them our number,even saying that I was his wife.  I will never forget the fear I felt that night, or the realization that God had saved his life.  It was  a very shaky situation.  I drove the 4 hours to go and get him.  HD didn't even realize that he had been arrested or that he had been drinking that much, I will also never forget the look on his face when he saw me, he was scared,  he was so greatful I had come to help him.
A lot of things happened at this point,  HD got a really good lawyer and he paid a lot of money and he kept his driving privileges for work.  But the most important thing that happened is when we got back home, I can even remember the ugly table we were sitting at, I told HD that I had promised God that if he came home safe we would go to church, I explained that I had prayed for him all night and that I believed God answered my prayers and saved his life that Thursday night because he was heading on to the highway the wrong way and someone would have been killed.  To my surprise he suggested we pray together so  HD and I prayed together for the first time that God would protect his job, we joined hands sitting in the kitchen of our rental home and we asked God to fix this mess. We got up early on Sunday morning and we went to church together.  It was a small Baptist Church in Miamisburg Ohio, it was so close to our house that we walked.  I remember feeling scared, feeling ashamed sitting their with my boyfriend who I lived with feeling like something big was going to happen, something was going to change, something had to change.
We didn't even make it all the way up the steps to our front door before HD asked me to marry him!  I told him don't you kid me like that, and he assured me that he loved me and that God made it very clear at church that day that we were to me married, he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife, forever.  I said yes and we were married 2 days later on October 29th, 1996, we drove to Tenn. and eloped, it was one of the best decisions we have ever made.  HD is my best friend he has been for the last 14 years and he always will be!
Our whole life changed at that point, we started going to church, we stopped doing drugs and drinking we started praying together daily.  We still do pray together everyday which is why I am sure we have such a strong marriage, we try really hard to keep God in the center of it.
Let me tell you God has changed us so much we are truly a redeemed couple.  I am thankful that Gods plans are better than ours!  I am thankful I know deep down who to call on in my time of need.  I am thankful that HD and I have taken our journey with Christ together.
I have wanted to share this story with you all for a while now but was a bit fearful of how you all would feel after you found out that I didn't always live a Godly life, or that you would stop reading my blog if I used the word drugs...  After a few days of mulling it over I realized this  really isn't my story anymore but the story of what God can do, and how he can change us.
HD and I both lead small groups in our church now, we both have a heart to help married couples.  

Sunday, August 24, 2008

How was your weekend

I have been on a bloggy break not due to a fun vacation or a getaway but rather the fact that we took my mom to have her cataract surgery, while we were there Daisy had a major allergic reaction to the antibiotic the Doctor put her on because of her massive tonsillitis and ear infecting.  We had to give her a large dose of benadryl and she is still 3 days later fighting a horrible rash, she itches all over.
We did make it to the boys game yesterday while Daisy was doped up on benadryl.  Luke's team won 4 out of 5 of the scrimmages they played and Bo's team won one lost one and tied one.  
Yesterday was filled with itching and video games, the boys played video games all day while HD and I spent the next EIGHT yes 8 hours clean our children's playroom.  I could not start school with the playroom in mass chaos!  I need order for our school day to run smoothly.
I have neglected the playroom all summer and let the kids have a free for all.  Now in less than 2 weeks we will start our school, Luke in the second grade and Bo will start Kindergarten.
I know some of you home school and have shared with me the curriculum you will be using and I keep forgetting to share ours.
We are using Saxon Phonics for both boys, Saxon Math and manipulative's for both boys, Luke will be doing Bible and Social Studies by Alpha and Omega publications and I will do a Creationist Science curriculum by Apologia for both boys.
I am thinking about doing a Geography curriculum by Kreative Simplicity.  While we do school Daisy will be doing learning games.  I have found the most wonderful puzzles by Melissa and David that she loves as well as some wonderful games with pattern blocks for her and for Bo.
So that's what our school curriculum looks like this year.  And we will be joining a home school group that meets on Wednesday's.
Oh and as we woke up this morning Bo called to us crying, he said his throat hurt...  He has a 101.7 degree fever.  His tonsils are huge!  His head hurts. Are you all aware that it's only August, I can't believe this is happening already!
So today we lay around drinking orange juice and watching movies, while Daisy is itching and Bo is burning up.  I hope I really do that you all are having a better weekend than us!
Tomorrows another day!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Sincerely Fro Me To You ~ Bo



This is one of my favorite pictures of Bo!  We were peach picking at our favorite orchard.  And he decided to climb up for a juicy peach!  We spend a lot of time at this orchard in the fall also, for apple picking.







For more Fro Me To You go to We Are THAT Family.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Happy Birthday Luke

Today is my first babies Birthday!  I can not believe that 7 years have past since Luke changed my life forever!  He has been part of the happiest moments of my life and he is a blessing to our whole family!



This picture was taken just a few minutes after he was born.  Luke came into the world on Aug 20th 2001.  He was born at 11:31pm and he weighed 7 pounds and 2 ounces.  


This was taken on Luke's first birthday, he loved the cake.  We were visiting Ohio during the whole summer and so we had his party with our whole family.

Look how cute HD and Luke were in matching shirts for the party!


For Luke's Second Birthday we had a large party at Chuck E Cheese you know where a kid can be a kid!  And then we had a party at our house after the pizza and games.

We had a simple party for Luke when he turned 3, we had some friends come visit and we went to the zoo.

He had a great time at the zoo!

When Luke turned 4 we went to a large amusement park and we gave him gifts before the real party, I can't find any pictures of the park, maybe because we had a 5 week old baby who had an ear infection and I forgot to take pictures.


 For his 5th Birthday we went to the lake and we had a pizza party.




For Luke's 6th Birthday party we went to Washington DC and went to the Natural History Museum, we had a little party at TBM and TBD house Luke loved the whole day!

Luke, we love you so much!  Your Daddy and I are better people because of you!  You are a very smart boy and God had very big plans for your life!  You will be a leader!  You made me realize all my dreams, being a mom a teacher and I am so thankful for you!  We love you with all of our hearts Happy Birthday Sweet boy!