Deeper Still!

WOW!!!! That pretty much says how I felt after the incredible teaching of God's word that I was blessed with hearing this past weekend!!! I went with some friends to the Deeper Still womens conference this weekend. It was held in downtown Atlanta at Philips Arena and it was Sold Out! They said there were 19,000 women there! My friend Libby and I drove down together each day and another friend, Cindy, was kind enough to save us some great seats (on the floor, we felt up close and personal)! This event is awesome, Libby and I drove to Nashville last year to see it and both think it was just as good this year. The three teachers are Kay Arthur, Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer. They are all wonderful and gifted. I came away with a renewed spirit and desire to go "deeper still" myself.

The Great Smoky Mountains!

We just spent a long weekend with my family (Grandma, Gramps, Uncle Chad, Aunt Tammy, Uncle Lance, Aunt Brandee, John Paul and Kaydee) in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee! This is the second year that we have gone to a wonderful cabin in Wear's Valley outside of Pigeon Forge for a fun family trip. It is only a 4 hour drive from our house to the cabin which makes the trip quick and easy. The area is absolutely beautiful and even though it was hot it wasn't unbearable. We all had such a fun, relaxing weekend just hanging out together. Walker and Michael love hanging out with their cousins. They play so hard....I wish I could have 1/2 of their energy!!On Friday most of us went horseback riding. The boys had to ride double so Walker rode with me and Michael rode with John, they both really enjoyed it. Of course it was a really slow easy ride, the place we rode lets you go without a guide which kind of lets you know how slow and easy the ride was!! The trail basically went up the mountain and back down....it was pretty steep and rocky. John felt bad for his horse b/c he thought he and Michael weighed too much for him. :( I'm sad b/c I don't have any pictures from this outing other than the one that Michael took out the window when we passed by the place a couple of days later! We went back to the cabin after our ride and had a home-cooked meal, thanks Brandee! After dinner we did jump in the hot tub for just a few minutes before getting ready for bed.
On Saturday we got up to a yummy breakfast made every morning by my sweet Mom, including her famous cheese biscuits! We went for a nice hike on a trail that leads right out the back of the cabin. It's so much fun seeing how much the kids love doing that kind of thing. We found out that Uncle Chad actually got a little touch of either poison oak or sumac while we were hiking....I'm normally very sensitive when exposed to that too so I'm super thankful that I didn't break out!

After our hike we loaded up and went tubing on Little River. We went to River Rat Tubing to get our tubes and they told us that there were 2 trips that we could do, the family trip and the adventure trip. The adventure trip was a little faster paced with a few more little rapids. We did the family trip first and it was painfully slow (I think it took 1 hour and 40 min.)! We had a lot of fun but there were a lot of really shallow spots so we kept getting stuck on our rafts and either had to keep getting off the tubes to go faster or use a stick or something to push. As you can imagine though the kids thought it was super fun no matter how slow it was! We did see several snakes on the way down! After successfully tackling the family portion we went for the adventure one. It did move a little faster with some little rapids. Going down one of the rapids I was heading for a big rock and couldn't move around so I flipped out and in doing so I tried to catch myself and jammed my finger on a rock! I really thought that I had broken it but I it ended up just being jammed really bad, it was all black and blue and swollen! :( After making it back in one piece John and Michael wanted to try a Bayou A Snowball which is a snowcone in a cup. I don't know if anyone else thinks they are as disgusting as I do but oh my gosh!! I could barely get down one bite of Michael's Cotton Candy flavored one, it was like pure syrup...yuck!! John & Michael just thought they were the bomb and had one cotton candy and one bubble gum flavored one (there were over 24 flavors to choose from including peanut butter which doesn't seem right at all for a snow cone)!! I unfortunately knew we would make a return trip to the snowball stand before the trip was over!We went back for another home cooked meal, thanks Tammy! After dinner we made smores in the fire pit and then relaxed and played games until bedtime.
Sunday we went to a place on the river near the Chimney Tops trail. It is a really neat part of the river that has lots of huge rocks for the kids to climb all over. They had a blast! When we came up last year Michael didn't get to go there with everyone else b/c he fell and cut his eye and John & I spent the whole day with him in the emergency room, he was very excited about getting to go this time.
On the way back to the cabin we went through Gatlinburg so that we could stop and play Hillbilly Golf. It is a really neat miniature golf course that is built on the side of the mountain. You have to ride on a tram to get to the top. The boys went there last year too and were excited about going back. I have to say that I stink at golf (miniature is the only one I've ever tried) so I was thrilled when my brother beat me by only 2 strokes (or is it shots?)!

We headed home Monday and had to stop on the way out to get another on of those "yummy" snow cone things. This time Walker tried one (birthday cake flavored) and just as I suspected he only managed to eat a couple of bites before saying it was too sweet. Michael on the other hand ate Walker's and half of a grape one as well! We had a really nice relaxing, but busy, vacation with the fam! We are so blessed to have a family that enjoys being together!

Dad's Day!

I know I'm 4 days overdue but it's never too late to mention what a Great dad John is! We had a very nice day on Sunday. We got up and went to church and then Daddy got to pick where we went for lunch. I told him to pick anywhere and we ended up picking up cheesesteaks from Jersey Mike's b/c he had a hankering for one! After we got home the boys decided that they wanted us all to go to the gym to swim together. Michael was especially excited b/c they have 2 really big waterslides and he had just gone down them for the first time a couple days before and wanted his Daddy to see him do it. We got to swim for about an hour and then a storm rolled in and they closed the pool. Michael was excited though b/c they got to do the slide together! It doesn't matter what they are doing....projects around the house, playing robot, playing games or just simply hanging out, the boys just adore being with their Dad! It does my heart good to see how important it is to John to instill the love of Christ in their hearts and raise them to be men of great character. Walker and Michael definitely have a wonderful example in their Daddy. We are blessed, thank you John for all the hard work you do for us everyday. We know that there are times when you would rather stay home and hang out with us but you go anyway and always manage to keep a good balance between family time and work time. We love you!


We didn't see my Dad until Monday to wish him a Happy Father's Day in person. I took the boys to meet him for lunch at one of our favorite places, Cracker Barrel. We had a nice visit. Walker and Michael love to see Paw Paw driving up on his Harley....they think he is cool!

I wanted to share what took place yesterday morning b/c it never ceases to amaze me when God uses my children to teach me! Bedtime around here has gotten a little out of control lately....I know it is summer and all but we have been so bad about staying on any kind of schedule. The boys go to bed late so often that when they do get in bed on time they have a real hard time settling down and going to sleep. We have the constant up and down, up and down "can someone check on me in 10 min.?", "can I get some ice water?", "what are we doing tomorrow?", you get the point! Unfortunately the end results is usually us yelling and them crying...not exactly how we should be ending our day. So, we started a new bedtime plan and when I sat the boys down to explain what the new plan was they were very receptive and when I was finished Michael said "Mom, can we pray now?" and proceeded to pray that we would all have a good day together. The teaching part for me was in seeing my 4 year old remind me that that is how I should be starting each day with them, in prayer for the day! I will also be praying that our new bedtime routine will be effective....it has only been 2 nights....but so far, so good!

Pool, Pool and more Pool!

I LOVE Summer!!! We have had so much fun already and it's only been 2 weeks! It is so much fun being able to just hang out and have fun every day. I am having the boys do a little school work each day just to keep the minds going. With Walker I am doing a book called Summerbook, they have books that are set up for the grade the child is entering so Walker is doing one for kids entering the first grade and I also have him read some to me every day. With Michael I am just using some PreK and Kindergarten books. They both really like it when I set up a schedule for the day, we'll do something and then Michael will say "okay, what does it say next on the schedule?". It is amazing how much structure does for them!

So, we have hit the pool all but one day this week. Michael started swimming lessons for the first time and is doing great and loving it! Before the lessons, his idea of putting his head under water was leaning forward and touching his face to the water and after just 3 lessons he is swimming under water!! :) I am so proud of him and he's proud of himself too! Here's a little video of his first lesson.

Walker is taking lessons as well b/c although he can swim all day we really want him to learn more about how to properly do the strokes, etc. He likes it alright but sometimes has a hard time with having others tell him how to do things. He usually wants to do things his own way (I wonder where he got that from)?!

Today is Saturday ("Family" day as we call weekend days here) and John went to the pool with us for about 3 hours this morning! I couldn't believe he lasted for so long. Walker and Michael had a blast having him there. He was great not only playing with them but with the other kids in the pool as well.....what a great Dad!!

Anyway, I feel like I have been on vacation ever since school got out (have I mentioned that I LOVE summer?) but now that I have a ton of laundry piling up and stacks of stuff on my desk I am realizing that I do need to take some time to actually be productive myself!

Our First Summer Trip!

Well...we took our first official summer trip to the beach last week! I think the worst part of the whole traveling thing for me is packing! I truly thought that as the kids got older I wouldn't get as stressed about it....I still do! We definitely don't have near as much junk that we feel like we need to take but I'm still stressed if I don't have 2 days to pack! :)

We left early last Wednesday for Wilmington, NC to visit John's Mom (GG). The boys love going up there to see her. They love the fact that every day with GG is a "beach day"! She lives right by the Cape Fear River in downtown Wilmington which makes it nice for strolling around town for dinner or ice cream after a long day at the beach. It is about a 15 minute ride to Wrightsville beach which is were we spend the days. It is so much fun with the boys at the beach, Walker has no fear at all and Michael is well on his way as well. Michael was definitely a lot more comfortable and more daring this year than last.


Thursday was our first day to try the beach and unfortunately it was cloudy, windy and pretty darn cold by the water! Of course that didn't stop the boys....I had long pants and a jacket on as my cover up and they never came off! We lasted about 2 hours then went back home, cleaned up and decided to go to Greenfield Park which is right down the street from GG's. The park is really cool, it has a lake with cypress trees growing all in it. You can rent paddleboats to check out the lake but you do so at your own risk (note the sign)!! We all got on the same boat and saw some turtles resting on the logs (Wendy, does this one look like he could be Little Timmy's cousin?) but the highlight to the paddleboat exploration was the alligators that we saw.....3 in all!! They have these things in the lake, I'm not sure what they do, I think it has something to do with trying to keep the algae down or something, anyway, we were paddling over to one of them and I thought I saw something on it. I look through the zoom on the camera and sure enough there was an alligator sun bathing on it! It wasn't until we were pretty close to it that we saw there was a baby one too! Walker of course wanted to get closer than I did....we watched them for a while and then started heading in a different direction. As we were moving along I turned around and saw one swimming across the lake! We had to turn around and see where he was going.....he swam over to where the others were and took his spot to sunbathe as well. I have to admit I was a little nervous on just a little paddleboat with my two little ones who could have been a snack for the big one! After the excitement at the park we had a nice evening in at GG's, playing games (the boys new favorite is Monopoly Jr.) and eating!



















Friday was the perfect beach day! We left early and stayed for about 6 hours!!! I think this has been one of my favorite times of just watching the boys have so much fun...it's nice not to constantly be on top of them and just letting them go! John is so cute, he has just as much fun in the water as they do and there is nothing they like more than going out in the waves with Daddy!! Walker has now perfected the art of swimming under the big waves and thinks that is really cool. Michael loves jumping the waves and pretending that he is fighting them! The wildlife spotting for this day was a big stingray that swim right up to the shore!!







After dinner John had his Mom make the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that he remembered from when he was little, they left the "secret family recipe" at the grocery store so they had to call his sister (Aunt Jen) for the recipe. Fortunately, Jen had it and the cookies will live on! Michael really enjoyed helping with the baking!

We have never gone to the beach at night to try to find crabs so we decided to give it a shot on Friday night.....it was a bust. We only managed to see one and forget about actually catching any! It was fun just running around with the flashlights though and we did see some men who had been fishing and caught a Dogfish. They were nice enough to show the boys and talk to them about it.

Saturday we spent about 4 hours on the beach, the wind had picked up quite a bit and made it a little less enjoyable (at least for me and GG). With all the wind, we got to see a guy kite surfing, it was incredible. We went in to town and got ice cream that afternoon and then cooked out at GG's that evening.

We headed back to GA around 8:30am Sunday. We had a great trip and the boys handle the 8 hour car ride really well. We are looking forward to going back for July 4th, thanks GG!