More pictures than you could ever want… December 29, 2007

I spent a bit of time today updating my Flickr account with pictures from our trip South, the first snowfall of the season, and the Christmas pictures. There are a bunch of other ones in there as well.  I’ll pull out a few of my favorites to post on the blog in the next day or so. I’m muddling with a migraine today. Not. fun. at. all.

 OH! And if you’re looking for a GREAT batch editor for making your photos smaller so you can upload them (my new camera takes all of the pictures so they are like 3mb each), I HIGHLY recommend Visualizer Photo Resize.  It’s FREE and super easy to use! I was able to set it to resize about 230 pictures and walked away for 5 minutes and came back and it was DONE!!!  Did I mention that it’s FREE?!?

Merry Christmas… December 22, 2007

LOVE it… December 13, 2007

Adventures in journeying… December 11, 2007

After we picked up the car on Tuesday, we decided that we would drive down to the Gulf of Mexico via Galveston. We got out and walked along the seawall just as the tide was rolling in. In wonderful 60 degree weather! The only thing that could have made the day any better would have been a grande brew with room from Starbucks. The palm trees and the gulf and the smell of saltwater…  BEAUTIFUL! We definitely want to go back and bring the kids!

The next day, we completely changed up our plans. The original plan had been to go to Memphis via Little Rock, but after looking at the map and deciding to take an extra day to get home, we drove over to Shreveport, Louisiana. While there we stopped at a HUGE Bass Pro Shops right on the riverwalk (which we walked along for a while) that had alligators outside of it. We took pictures for the kids - which they thought was great! (I think the real highlight of the trip was being able to connect with our kids not only via phone, but also by text, email and instant messenger).

Our next stop was Vicksburg, Mississippi. Chip is a HUGE Civil War buff and it was the one stop he really wanted to make while we were on the road. I called my Gram from Vicksburg. She’s a Mississippi native - my dad was actually born in Jackson.  We entered the park and didn’t have to pay because it was 4:30 and they closed at 5. It’s a 16 mile drive so we knew we wouldn’t be able to see it all. But we certainly didn’t expect to get LOCKED in the park at 4:50. We had turned to go back to the entrance via the marked signs and the gate was LOCKED! Fortunately, it’s a hot spot for jogging and a good samartian told us how to turn around and continue down the road and where to turn to get out. She just kept saying how she couldn’t believe they’d locked the gates already. But we were able to see where many of the Illinois troops fought in one of the most important battles in the Civil War. We are starting to make plans to go back. Elijah’s excited because he’s a Civil War buff like his dad (we’re actually studying it right now in school) and he keeps saying, “But we could make it a SCHOOL trip…”

When in Memphis, like any good tourist, we drove past Graceland and looked for Elvis in the upper windows of the mansion. We followed signs and tried to find the Pink Palace - which we had no idea what it was so we had no idea what we were looking for (it’s a mansion owned by Clarence Saunders who is the founder of the Piggly Wiggly and headquarters for the Pink Palace Museums). We ended up eventually getting downtown to Beale Street for lunch. Enjoyed the amibiance of great Blues music and soaked in a bit of the culture and history.

Before leaving Texas, we looked for a palm tree to bring home with us for our Christmas tree for this year, but they were either outrageously priced or just not what we were looking for. I guess for our kids to see a real palm tree, we’re just going to have to take them South sometime.

Adventures in the airport… December 11, 2007

Ok, so I don’t have the pictures on the computer yet. But I need to get this started or it’s never going to get done. I’m in a writing kind of mood this afternoon, so grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy…

Last week Monday, Chip and I flew to Houston, Texas.  We had bought a van on eBay. Lots of people were skeptical about it all. We were confident. I’m been eBaying for so long, that there was never even a doubt that this would anything less than the ideal way to go.

We left early on Monday morning and our dear friend Kevin, who pastors another church here in our small town, drove us over to Indianapolis to the airport.  It’s the first time we’ve flown post-September 11th, so we weren’t sure what exactly to expect. Especially when the guy in line next to us was “flagged” by his airline for special inspection. YIKES!

But we boarded the plane without incident, sent some pics from our phone (which are over there —–&gt to the kids before takeoff, and sat back while we waited to takeoff.

That’s when the *real* fun started! It wasn’t the turbulence that bothered me. We had plenty of that. What really got me was the takeoff and landing. I thought my ears were going to EXPLODE at one point. I told Chip that if we ever fly again, we’ll pay the extra money for a direct flight. I’m only going up and coming back down ONE TIME!

We got to Atlanta with no problem, got ourselves some coffee and waited an hour for the connecting flight. I found myself some DayQuil upon suggestion from my mom (she actually said Benedryl, but that makes my heart race and I figured that a heart attack at 3500 feet wasn’t a good idea), which greatly relieved the pressure in my head but didn’t really help the pain a whole lot.

I think the “scariest” thing that happened was when we were sitting on the plane waiting to pull away from the gate in Atlanta. The pilot came on and said that we were waiting for baggage from a connecting flight because they didn’t want someone to be without their luggage. YIKES! Thankfully our bag made it through all the way to Houston without any problems.

Would I fly again? Absolutely!

I know… November 28, 2007

I’ve really been slacking in my blogging lately. Maybe because my days consist of little more right now than going to the chiropracter and looking for a new vehicle for our family. We’ve seen a couple that we liked, but there was just something wrong with them all. I know what God’s done in the past for us regarding our vehicles, and we’ve seen him provide abundantly in this instance even, so I know that I know that I know that He cares about even these small details regarding a new vehicle for us. That why, even when people say that we just need to get something, I can stand strong and say, “I will not settle for anything less than the best God has for our family!”

 Otherwise, we’ve been doing ok. Chip’s been sick with some sort of viral thing. I’ve got allergies and I’m determined to figure out what it is without allergy testing. The kids are all doing well.

Think I’ll do another month of blogging through December. Seems I have to do them every few months or so to get myself back on track.

Signage… November 20, 2007

The holiday season is upon us and that means that the party invitations are starting to arrive.  I love this time of year and I love parties, but I’ve got one major gripe about this time of year.

Lack of street addresses on houses.

And our house isn’t any better. The numbers are up high, they are on the top of the front of the porch, and they don’t have any light that reaches them. At night - which comes way too early in the winter if you ask me, which you didn’t but it’s my blog, so… - you can’t see our house number.  For us, it’s not that big of a problem.  We just say it’s next to the big brick church. You pull around back into the parking lot and that’s our house.

But I hate it when you’re going to a party and you get there early enough because you’ve never been there before, but they tell you the color of the house and the house number - neither of which you can see in the dark! (Can you tell we recently had this issue come up in our lives? We went to a party and knocked on the door hoping that it was the right house. Thankfully it was the only one right there that had 10 cars parked at it).

Enter Artificial Rocks Factory.

They’ve got some very decorative landscaping rocks (that don’t weight 1000 pounds) that light up by themselves (solar power) that will proudly display your address for all to see! They are pretty enough that they aren’t an eye sore for the neighbors (especially for those of you who live in a community with a co-op) and you really can’t tell them apart from the real rocks that are there for landscaping.

Looking for the perfect housewarming/Christmas gift to bring to that special party? This may very well be it! If you can find the right house…

Happy 8th Birthday, Kaitlyn!!! November 14, 2007

I can’t believe it’s finally here. She’s 8. EIGHT! How is that even possible?  That tiny little girl that I held in the hospital 8 years ago is now growing up unbelievably fast.  She’s so beautiful and smart. It scares me how smart she is. She’ll take over the world someday, I’m sure of it! Strong-willed and determined, I know she’s destined for greatness in whatever she decides to do in life. She’s my world!  Happy 8th birthday, baby girl!

Here’s Kait’s year in review…

Kaitlyn’s 7th birthday celebration (november 2006)…

Sleeping with her baby brother - December 2006…

Apparently I didn’t take too many pictures in Jan.  Here we all are at Granny’s for her birthday - January 2007…

This is probably one of my favorite pictures - February 2007…

Seems like so much longer ago than march that she learned to ride her bike, but it was only a few months ago - March 2007…

Playing with her friends - April 2007…

Teaching Noah how to ride his bike (apparently I didn’t take many pictures in May either) - May 2007

She lived in the pool this summer - June 2007…

It’s the first year she really enjoyed baseball. Next year she’ll be traveling with the softball team - July 2007…

Kait loves babies, especially her new cousin Wesley - August 2007…

School is starting and a bonus picture that we snapped on our way to bed one night - September 2007…

At a birthday party for the daughter of friends’ of ours - this baby *loves* her Kati - October 2007…

Kait’s 8th birthday - November 2007….

 Happy, happy 8th birthday, Kati-bear!

Why I can’t find babysitters… November 8, 2007

Ok, I really don’t have a problem finding babysitters.  My kids are good kids, but I do have four of them.  And they can be a bit of a handful from time to time.  Today we left them with a friend while we ran down to the chiropracter.  We walked back in the house and she said…

“I hope you know that your youngest (meaning Seth) set my rear on fire!”

Um, ok.  I know we don’t have any matches down where he can get them, so I had her explain.

Apparently she went to the bathroom.  And moments later her rear started to “feel kind of funny.”  Then it started BURNING!  She had smelled some methol something, but didn’t know what it was.

Well, she found out! (And this is exactly why we have LOCKS on the OUTSIDE of the bathroom door).  Seth had gotten hold of the Icy Hot.  And it’s not the blue kind - this is the cream kind that rubs in really easy.  It’s white. Our toilet seat is white.  He had smeared a thin layer all around the toilet seat - and then attempted to wipe it up with a washcloth. So it wasn’t visible.

I tried really hard not to laugh as she was telling me, but all I could think was that would make a GREAT April Fool’s joke for someone!

The Office is closed… November 8, 2007

This video should help most people understand the strike by the WGA a little bit more.  There are few shows that I really will miss on television, but no new episodes of The Office?  Someone needs to end this insanity and get the writers and actors back to work!  I will say that if NBC cancels The Office over this, I’m DONE with them. First they pull out of iTunes (because they won’t let them put ads into the episodes there) and now they don’t want to pay their writers what is rightfully due them?  It’s not exactly like NBC is hurting for money.  Stuff like this just makes me mad - I don’t like seeing the “little guy” messed with like this.  And while I know that the writers of The Office aren’t exactly struggling, I do know that they are taking a stand for all of those others who don’t get paid what they do.  And that I respect!