the holiday

So this past weekend was a busy one! We ventured to Ohio, to my brothers place, where the entire family gathered (except one brother). There was a whole gob of people there. Three of my brothers, their wives. Eight kids. My parents. Ed and I. We all gathered to help build a retaining wall out of railroad ties in the back yard. The menfolk worked from 10 in the morning until 8:30 at night on Saturday and got it all done. Do you think I took any pictures? I sure did! They're on my mom's camera! :) Maybe she'll send them to me. It was a hot weekend. All kids (and Ed) slept outside in tents. I got the bottom bunk in my nephews' room and Alina slept on the floor. The 2nd night she had her first taste of "camping in the tent" and Ed said she slept through the whole night. I was able to have an excellent chat with one of my sister-in-laws about what has happened in life in the past 9 months. And I was finally able to meet her very close friend Kristen (who has a blog...go visit her!!) and her kids I left feeling very encouraged. We headed back Sunday after church and a yummy lunch. Yesterday was errands in the morning, nap in the afternoon and bbq picnic in the evening. It was a great weekend. I'm glad we were able to get away and spend time with family and meet new friends, come home and spend time with family and gather with friends :).

Blah

I'm procrastinating. I don't want to clean. I need to leave in 40 minutes to go pick up my hubby and I need to clean. As you can see, it has not happened yet since I'm sitting here typing to all of you out there about how much I don't want to clean. Why is it so HARD? I'd rather weed the garden (which I did b/c I didn't want to clean!). I know I need to take care of my house that I have been blessed with. I know once I start I'll be absolutely fine and will enjoy it. Sam came down from his room and found me on the couch eating my lunch and asked why I wasn't cleaning. Blah. So here I go. I go to clean. I'm going now. Here I go. My legs aren't listening to me. Ah well. Annnndddddddd go. :)

Another year

Today is a day that is marked in history in our marriage. Our anniversary. 11 years ago today, we tied the knot. I was 20. Ed was 25. Oh what a day that was. We watched our wedding video last week and was shocked to see how YOUNG we were!! I was still in college and had 5 more years to go. Ed was working at the YMCA in the before and after school program. Our first year of marraige was crazy with me being in school full time, working a 2nd shift part time job and he working an early 1st shift job. We rarely saw each other. We were travelling to Lansing every weekend and living in married housing above a couple that played their music so loud it shook the pictures on our wall and who also had two small kids in a tiny, tiny two bedroom apartment. Ahhhh...wedded bliss. :)

Fast forward 11 years of lots of tears, arguments, backpacking adventures, moves, kids, and lots and lots of love. Here we are today. I thanked Ed this morning for sticking by me through the past years. He's my best friend. My confident. My encourager. He makes me laugh until tears come out. He calls me beautiful even when I have morning breath and messy hair and crust filled eyes. He loves me unconditionally. He wipes away my tears. He prays with me. He loves me to the depths of his soul. 11 years ago, I had no clue as to what I was going to go through. God blessed me with a man who fit me to the core, even though I was looking through starry eyed, love struck eyes. It has not been easy, these years, but we have come out stronger together than when we started, thanks to our Maker who brought us together.

I love you Ed. With all of my being. Thank you for the most wonderful, growth filled, full of love years that any girl would dream of. You are my best friend and living life with you is one of the best adventures I could ever ask for. I thank the Lord for you. What a blessing you are to me.

Pics

If you go here
you will find a bunch of pictures. If you scroll down to #107, that's me. I had just free fallen off my bike. I was trying to flip my lanyard around to my back, my bike stopped and I didn't get my feet out of my clips in time and just fell right over. #108 shows me sitting there like a goof who just fell off her bike and realized someone took a picture it. Then the next one I'm safely on my bike riding into the sunset. Ok...not really...just getting ready for some butt-numbing bumps and tree hugging corners. It's sad when you fall off your bike and haven't even gotten on the trail yet!

More pics to come.

slacker

I'm becoming quite the slacker when it comes to my blog. Crazy how life has just sped up and nothing has really changed! I should be fast asleep in bed sawing logs, but am not quite there yet. Maybe I need to start counting sheep!

Life after my previous post has been a 180 degree turn. The next day Sam was so helpful and without being asked. He listened all day long and the little miss was just as helpful. No complaints here!

Mother's Day was great with having the moms up for dinner. I'm still full from all that food.

Tomorrow is the last day of MOPS. Wednesday is Sam's graduation from preschool. Haven't quite wrapped my head around him being done already. Pictures to come.

So speaking of busy-ness...here's a question for you (which comes from the sermons over the past couple of weeks at church.

How do you rest? Just to sit back and say, "There's nothing that I HAVE to do. There's nothing that is requiring my time".

One way for me to rest is to sit and just enjoy my family. To put laundry, house, dishes, work out of my mind and to be with my kids and husband. It's not easy to put my list aside, but so well worth it.

when's Friday?

Today my most adorable children have been at each others throats constantly. Arguing. Screaming. Roaring. Laughing. It's been one rollercoaster after another. One minute they're giving each other hugs and then next yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO I don't WAAAANTTTT TOOOOO" (my lovely daughter) and "I DON'T WANT HER TO FOLLOW MEEEEE!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!" (my handsome son). These are the days I say no more mini people allowed. Unless they are someone else's and I can give them back. I just sit here and watch it all. All my energy is spent. I let them scream and see what happens. I interveen only when bodily harm is becoming evident.

Alina found the little pepper grinder. Sam found pepper in his water. I ran out of diapers today. Alina's wearing a swimmy diaper with rubber underware training pants so she doesn't leak everywhere. The joys of having one vehicle and no diapers.

Oh....happy place..... How I love being there.

catsup

time to catsup. or catch up i mean. :)

This past weekend FLEW by. Saturday my hubby and I and our two friends did an adventure race. This particular race was a short one. Six hours. They can last up to 36 hours. I'm not at that level yet. Will I ever be able to last 36 hours on gu? um...probably not :) We left here Saturday morning at 4:40 am to drive to Ionia, MI (only 1/2 hour drive). We had to register and then take our bikes to a different drop off. One of our friends bikes had a bit of trouble and Ed worked on it for a good half hour. Thankfully it was fixable and we made it to pre-race instructions at 7:15. 8 am the horn blared and everyone went running. We started out orienteering (using map and compass to find the markers we needed to punch on our card...can't lose the card or else you're disqualified). After finding all three, we headed to get our bikes. I only fell off my bike once while trying to flip my lanyard over my neck and was "standing" still on my bike. Couldn't get my feet out of my toe holders in time and fell right over. No injuries..just my pride. :) Off on the bikes we went. Got to the next check point and hopped into canoes. Canoed upstream for about an hour to get our checkpoints, back downstream for another check point and then back up stream to drop our canoes off and hop on the bikes. The 2nd bike journey was a bit more hazardous as I ran into a tree, my friend gouged her knee into a tree then rammed her knee cap into her handle bars. We still had half the race and she was feeling the pain. We made it though. She was a HUGE trooper. Dropped our bikes off and headed into the woods back to the finish line. We ended up walking for an hour and a half to get back to the finish line and were dead last. It was SO nice to see that finish line that I didn't even care. It felt good to complete the race. Today, my body is not very happy with me. It's groaning every time I move. But it felt so GOOD to have that much adrenaline coursing through my veins for six straight hours. There's another race this weekend. Oh how I would love to do it, but I don't think my body will be healed in time. Ah well...hopefully soon.

Today we put together Alina's toddler bed, pray that the health department guy approves the cement job Ed did on the septic pipe that's busted and leaking down the hill, and it's sunny!! Yay for sunshine!

Oh and I had a spider crawling on my face last night in bed.

That was my weekend. Pictures to come

Who Am I?

So today, I decided to Google myself. I needed to let my mind rest from the things happening in life. Anne said she found lots of me, so I went in search for me. This is what I found.

I had a ballet studio in Portsmouth and lived upstairs above the studio with my husband. I was a renound ballet teacher whom people wrote articles on. The house I lived in was later sold and turned into a B&B.

I have a memorial endowment in my name.

I'm also on the list of the NC Extension Agents who Conducts Food Safety Programs.

I'm a County Extension Director (not sure what that is, but it sounds important).

Who knew!?!