Journey to Altus, OK

First, we visited my mom in Atlanta.
Then we visited my cousin, Stacey, and her boyfriend, Kevin, in Birmingham, AL.
Next, we traveled to Loretto, TN to visit my old roommate, Adea, and her parents. Adea actually lives in Nashville, but she came home for the weekend. Here, she and Paul are racing cows on her Wii (really cool video game system!).
We also visited Adea's uncle's farm, complete with a lake, cows, lots of land and trees.
I thought this would make a nice rustic pic.
Adea and I pose with her parents, Dan and Debbie. By the way, Debbie and Adea are wonderful cooks! We ate soooo good while we were there!
Maybe I'm weird, but I find some weeds very pretty! Or maybe they're wildflowers.
Cows! Real cows! Paul was so happy! He and Adea didn't race any of these though.
There was even a little baby!
Paul lost my camera case somewhere along the way as we were walking, so he had to ride a 4-wheeler back to find it. He told me later that if he had known he would get to ride that thing, he would have dropped the camera case on purpose! Apparently, it was a lot of fun.
Our last visit was with friends in Columbus, MS. Here we saw Heather and Rich. Rich and Paul were in the same pilot training class several years ago. We've kept in touch with them over the years and just wish we were closer. They are great folks! We couldn't believe they still wanted to see us after JUST having a baby! Heather got out of the hospital on Saturday and we showed up on Sunday! The only change in our plans was that we stayed at the base hotel. They still insisted that we come for dinner and breakfast the next morning!
This is their newborn baby girl, Elizabeth Grace. Isn't she precious?
We had a really fun time catching up and witnessing them settling into their new roles as parents.
We would just like to thank all of you who were kind enough to share your guest bedrooms, time, and food with us while we journeyed to Altus. We had so much fun seeing each and every one of you!

Happy Fall!

World Card Making Day

If you didn't know, the second annual World Card Making Day is tomorrow! I'm celebrating by having people over to my house to make cards. It will be a fun time to create some Christmas and holiday cards for all the special people in your life. It's going to be a 5 for 5 deal: make 5 cards and learn 5 new stamping techniques for $5. If you live in the Charleston area and want to participate, E-mail me at creativecardsncrafts@hotmail.com and I'll give you more details!

Seasonal Delights

I'm sorry I'm just now posting this, but I wanted to let you all know of a great online magazine. It's called "Seasonal Delights" and it's a magazine "primarily designed for young ladies and their mothers, but can be enjoyed by anyone who loves celebrating the joys of each passing season." Earlier this month I signed up for it, since they are offering free subscriptions for a year. But tomorrow, Sunday the 30th, is the last day to sign up!

Gonna make you laugh

I guess I'm on a video kick. My mom sent this to me a few weeks ago and I thought it was soooo funny! Mom said maybe this guy is a future pilot. I don't know how old the video is, so maybe y'all have seen it before, but I hadn't. What really gets me is the music...brings me back to middle school! Enjoy!

glumbert - Dance, White Boy, Dance

Farmer's Market

Hey y'all! Tomorrow I'm going to be at the Summerville Farmer's Market selling my Stampin' Up! products. I'll be there with several other ladies from a group I'm in called Lowcountry Lady Entrepreneurs. If you live in the area, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Tug-o-war

The dogs were playing today, so I got my camera out and shot some footage. Daisy annoys Beau much less now, and they play together often. They're our pride and joy right now...until we have kids.

Day with the Harbins

On Saturday I drove down to Bluffton to see Heather, Brent, and the babies. It had been way too long since I saw them, and they're changing so fast! Heather cooked up some really good food too! She made this terrific Kona Salad and scrumptious Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Soup. The recipes are on her blog. Maybe I'll post them on my BigOven favorites page. Poor Callie was sick, but she still was pretty active and happy. Callie and Wyatt are so incredibly cute, you just have to see them!I'm so happy that Heath and I are living close now and can see each other whenever we want. She's a great friend and I love her dearly!

Awesome video

My friend Allison posted this on her blog a little over a week ago and I was sooooo moved by it. I was sobbing by the time I got done watching it. Two days ago my cousin, Stacey, sent me an email with a link to the same video. Once again I watched it, and once again tears streamed down my face. I absolutely love it and have to share it with you.

Our Beau Boy

I haven't posted a picture of our sweet Beau dog in a while, so here is one I took in Atlanta when I was visiting my mom. Isn't he handsome? What a good boy he is!

10 Year HS Reunion

I've been meaning to finish the end of my story for a while. After I kidnapped my mom, I brought her back down to Atlanta the following weekend. It was perfect, since that was the weekend of my 10 year high school reunion (August 18). I hadn't planned on going, but just hanging out with some old high school friends downtown. We all thought the reunion was too expensive, and there was no way of knowing who would be there, if anyone at all. However, when my friend Andrea said that there were 3 other people from our graduating class on her plane from Denver, we reconsidered. So, the last minute decision was to attend the reunion. It was actually pretty fun! I couldn't believe I remembered some people's names. It helped that we had name tags, for sure, but for a few people, their names just popped right back in my head like it had only been a few months! Weird! For the most part, I thought the girls hadn't changed much, but the guys had changed a bunch! They were almost un-identifiable without their name tags...to me anyway. Andrea, Leigh, Steve, and I left early and went to hang out with some other friends at Rock Bottom Brewery. The picture above was taken there. Click here to see other photos of the night.

When I returned home the Tuesday after, there was a nice surprise from my dear husband! He had a bouquet of roses for me! But not just any roses...candy roses! One dozen milk chocolate roses! Yummy! I'm still enjoying them. Did you know they are solid chocolate?

Mom - Kidnapped!!!

After the Women of Faith conference, Allison, her mom, and I kidnapped my mom and brought her back to S'Ville with us. Mom stayed with me for about a week, which was really nice...especially since Paul was on a trip. The 4 of us, and our friend Ali and her mom, went to a cute tea room in downtown Summerville, called This Whole House. WOW! We ate good that afternoon!


Here is my tea:
And my Greek tortellini salad with fruit:
And my dessert (I think it was a lemon cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate shavings):
This is what my mom ordered for dessert (chocolate cake):
Ali, Allison, and me. Ali has been such a good friend these past few months. She was my small group leader when I attended Thursday morning Bible study, and then this summer she led the Beth Moore Bible study we did. She's expecting her second baby boy in November, so keep her in your prayers!

Women of Faith Conference

On August 9, Allison, her mom, and I drove down to Atlanta to spend the weekend with my mom and attend the Women of Faith conference (Aug. 10-11). Let me just tell you that it was awesome! Allison and I went to the Beth Moore pre-conference during the day on Friday, then our moms joined us for the main conference that night and all day Saturday. My favorite part, by far, was listening to Beth Moore - what an amazing, humble, humorous, godly, engaging, encouraging, energetic speaker she is! It was even more exciting since Allison and I were just finishing up the Beth Moore Bible study entitled "Living Beyond Yourself - Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit" which was incredible and enlightening. What was really special for me was what she spoke about. I had just said during dinner the night before that I am waiting for some good to come out of what I've been through losing my father. I said that I want to live out 2 Corinthians 1 and comfort others the way the Lord has comforted me. Well, would you know it, but Beth spoke all day about COMFORT and 2 Cor. 1:3-11!!!!! I couldn't believe how relevant it was to me! I ended up in tears at the end just because everything was touching me so deeply.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the conference.
Denise Jackson (Alan Jackson's wife)
Anita Renfroe. View her website here and her MySpace page here. Her latest comedy video "Total Momsense" was taped in January and Allison, her mom, and me and my mom are shown in the audience about 11 times!
Anita Renfroe in the middle of her comedy sketch
Allison and me
Havin' a good time!

Teal...A Swanky Boutique

This is my friend Jessica's store. She lives 4 houses down from us, and her husband flies C-17s like Paul does. Her store is super trendy with really cute stuff! Check it out next time you're in Summerville, and tell her I sent you!

9 Years Later

Jen, Mir, Mem, and I visited Charleston back when we were in college and took this picture at Waterfront Park.Here were are in front of the same fountain, about 9 years later. Since Jen wasn't there, T$ stepped in for her.

Girl Week

About 3 weeks ago, my good friends Mem and Mir came to visit. Mir brought her daughter too, and we had "Girl Week", as Mir calls it. We all met at Furman University in Greenville, SC and have remanined the best of friends since then. Our other friend, Jen, couldn't make it for Girl Week.
We had so much fun, hanging out, going to Folly Beach, shopping in downtown Charleston and downtown Summerville, going out to eat, and just acting silly! I miss those girls and I miss being in college (the social aspect...I could do without the classes). Mir's daughter was absolutely fabulous...so cute, well behaved, and just a perfect little angel. Anyway, we had fun and hope to make "Girl Week" an annual tradition. You can read what Mir had to say about our time together on her blog. She also posted a recipe I made while they were here (it's in my BigOven account as well, under "recipes I've posted"). Here are some pictures of our week.We ate dinner one night at Fleet Landing, which is a restaurant right on the water. It used to be a Navy building in the 1940s. This is where I tried my first Shrimp and Grits...tasty!
Mir and T$
Mem and me in our classic pose!
Allison came downtown with us. We enjoyed her company and her photography skills! Thanks for taking all those pics of us, Allison.
Awesome fabric store in Summerville! They offer classes too.
Amy Butler fabrics...eye candy!
Mem's neice came shopping with us in Summerville. She and T$ were so cute together.

Sneaky Snake

A few weeks ago I had a surprise when I went to cut back my marigolds...a snake popped out of my flower box! I must have jumped back about 10 feet! Then, of course, I went inside to grab my camera. Paul was on a trip at the time, so I really didn't know what to do. Was it just a garter snake that would do no harm? Or was it something dangerous? So I poked and prodded the snake out of my flower box and snapped a few portraits. Then I went online and started searching "snakes in SC." I figured out it was a yellow rat snake, a non-venomous, constricting snake.
Well, later in the day I went back outside on my front porch and lo and behold - there he was again! Back in my flower box! I really didn't know what to do, so I went over to my neighbor's and asked if any of their boys liked snakes. Jonathan, their father, came over and looked at the critter. We tried to get it into a garbage bag (me holding the bag...ahhhhh!) to take it out back, but the snake scurried off down the foundation of my house. Jonathan hates snakes, so he said "that's it, I'm just gonna kill it," and went to get a shovel out of the garage. A few moments later, the snake was killed and my problem was solved. I really don't like snakes and worried about it getting into the house, the garage, or the dogs messing with it. Now I am very cautious about sticking my hands in any flowers boxes or containers!