Celebrate Freedom 2008

We started off our July 4th celebration with a trip to Busch Gardens. They offered an all-you-can-eat BBQ with prime seats for the fireworks. We took them up on it and had a great time. We have actually not been to the Gardens in a few weeks, so we had fun reintroducing ourselves to our old favorites and some newly found ones. We settled in at 8:30 for our supper. It was great! I grabbed some cotton candy and we found our seats along with the other dinner guests. Trevor and I found a great spot and laid down. Literally the fireworks were directly overhead!! They always set their display to patriotic music, and we could actually see both firework displays in the park launch from where we were seated. Although Grayson covered his ears the whole time he enjoyed them this year!

We then went to Lynchburg for the weekend. Trevor's parents were also in town, so my Dad and Mom had everyone over for a pool day and Trevor and I hosted the 4th foods! What a great time just relaxing together, letting the boy cousins get caught up with each other, finding out that Trevor's sister Tania is going to have another baby (WAHOO!!), pool volleyball, and an endless table of food.

We ended the night with an early twilight fireworks display, for the families that had to get their kids in bed before 10:00pm. Trevor and Grayson picked out some good ones, and it was a really good show for the backyard!!

What a great way to celebrate the freedom we are afforded here in the USA!! Thanks to our troops here and abroad who fight to keep our country safe and free! God Bless America!

"Magical" Days Gone By

We've been home for about a month now, but I've just got to get these pics and a few stories posted. After our family wedding, we stayed in Orando for the rest of the week. Grayson was a little under the weather for a few days, so it didn't make for the most memorable time. Nevertheless, we got to Disney one day, a visit to Great-Grandmas one day, and a few mornings at the pool. We're dying to go again with healthy bodies, less crowds, and less heat for a truly Magical Experience!!

Okay...I had fun making this slideshow, but it is a little crazy. I didn't realize it would take work on your part to see it. Click the "Play" below and it will transport you to the site so you can view the show I made. You will have to click "Next" on each screen to go to the next slide. I'm sure if I worked on it a little more I could get it to do it automatically, but I am done sitting here behind the computer. Enjoy just the same!! Didn't realize there was so much to put in for our basically uneventful week!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Big Chill

I think I have mentioned it before, but I have the privelege of serving alongside a really great bunch of people at church. We all serve in "the theater" in our children's ministry department. We for sure have crazy and wild times and hard to control, but we are also a really close-knit family! Over the years, we have all shared a lot together and that just makes our bond grow even more. I am so lucky to be a part of this great team!!

Yesterday was our summer wrap-up program. We had everyone on stage (except for you, Preston!) and it was the best! Janita wrote an amazing script that was funny and thoughtful and wrapped things up really nicely with our characters. The end product was fabulous. For having 13-15 people in our "green room", no one missed their cues, props, or mics. Thanks Laura for making things run so smooth back there! Jeremy, ya'll didn't miss a beat in the Booth either-WAHOO!!

So enjoy your summer break guys and don't even think about not coming back in the Fall!!! We'll definitely need you. Be thinking about someone you can bring alongside you to join our team too! We need more crazy, wild, willing to act-it-up-and-let-it-out-for-Jesus-and-the-kids people!! Love all you guys to pieces!

A Pirate "First"

Thanks to Katy, I found out about the free family movie days at the Regal Cinema. It is on Tuesdays and Wednesdays all summer! Today was the first movie I knew he would love! Trevor was supposed to come with us to experience this "first" with us, but had to work at the last minute. The movies start at 10:00am and seating is free until the theater is full. With never having done this before, we left home to be there at 9:15. We got out of the car and walked to the door to find that there were only 3 families in front of us! We waited for about 5 minutes and then they came and opened the doors and started letting people in.

I was so excited for Grayson!! His first theater experience! He wasn't so sure. He looked around at everything with those big brown eyes and a blank stare. I let him bring his blankie into the theater in my purse to help with the experience. We found the perfect seats and then went to get our snacks. With a free movie ticket, you can afford to pay the outrageous price for the snacks!!! We went back to our seats, and I continued to coax Grayson and explain everything to him that would happen so nothing would be a surprise. I let him watch the Pirates music video that we have at home so he would become familair with some of things he would be seeing on the screen.

As he continued to tell me he was scared and that he wanted to go, I talked to him about the first time he rode a new ride with me at Busch Gardens. He screamed for me to let him off the ride, but I proceeded to buckle him in so he couldn't leave and instructed the attendant that he would be fine to please go ahead and lock our door. I prayed he would enjoy the ride, and that he did! So I knew this experience would be the same. I'm sure the people around me were thinking, "Lady, please take him out now before it gets started and we have to listen to that later!" The lights went down and a preview began that scared him to death. Thankfully, they brought the lights up a little and then slowly turned them down as the movie progressed. I think it was because the theater was packed with small daycare kids who probably couldn't see their snacks to eat them without spilling them all over the floor!

The Veggie Tales Pirates Who Don't Do Anything was a huge hit!!! I let Grayson sit on my lap and we ate popcorn, drank root beer, and had some Raisinettes together. We laughed and enjoyed this really cute movie together. Sad that Daddy couldn't be there to join us for this momumental "first", but relished the fact that I shared a movie with my little guy, cuddling and giggling with him for and hour and a half!!! What movie is next week!!!

A-"MAZE"-ing

Trevor really needed a nap this afternoon. So Grayson and I just chilled out and did some quiet table activities. He's just not a colorer (if that's even a word), but I know it's something he needs to learn to do well as it will inevitably come up in his school years. I knew very few boys in my years of teaching that actually enjoyed coloring with crayons/markers, but it is a necessary evil. So we practiced for a while "learning" to enjoy it a little more and hone in on his fine motor skills.

As I flipped the pages of the color/activity book, I passed by a "maze" page. Grayson excitedly told me to stop and go back. I have never done mazes with him before. He quickly got from the "Start" to the "Finish". I flipped through the pages of 2 different books and proceeded to let him do each and every maze puzzle. He even accomplished some really difficult ones. There was no frustration, no crying when it got too difficult, no giving up and asking for help. He simply started over again if he got to a roadblock. The funniest thing I saw was when he was in the middle of a really hard puzzle and he stopped and looked at the puzzle. Then, just as his mommy does, he went to the "Finish" and proceeded to complete the maze backwards!!!

We had a great time going through the puzzle/activity books this afternoon! Although recent conversations about pre-school have not gone very well, my smart little man will do very well and will love every minute of it I am convinced!! (As long as the teacher doesn't require a lot of coloring)

White "Stems"

I wanted to get some sun on my white legs before going to FL for vacation, and I had run out of time to go to the tanning bed. Well, we live in VA and had been expereincing record temps the week before we left. Where else to go on a hot day anyways: the YMCA!!! After a good workout, Grayson and I went several days. We met up with our friends Miss Heidi and Bradley and Alayna several days. It was great to chat and catch up!

Bradley is quite the swimmer compared to my tentative Grayson. Grayson was content to throw his rings in the deep water and watch Bradley swim down to get them. Hopefully you're right Heidi, and the more we expose Grayson to the pool this summer, he'll end up the summer miles ahead of where we began. If only I could get him to wear a lifejacket, he might be able to experience some of the freedom that being a swimmer can bring!!

Wedded Bliss

Trevor is one of only 2 male cousins on his Dad's side, and TJ was the junior groomsman in our wedding 12 years ago. Well, TJ grew up and married his own beautiful bride (who also shares the same initials as me now JEH!!) last week while we were in Florida. Weddings are always fun, and this one was 2 days of great fun visiting with family and friends that we had not seen in quite a while. The bigger families get, the less time is spent with the extended-extended family. Minus one or 2, everyone was there!!

There was a really special moment when they brought out a hat that had been worn by an ancestor of the family on their wedding day back in the 1800's. It has quite a story! All of the living descendants sharing the family name were there at the wedding, all the way down to our little Grayson. It was a great moment and they all got their picture taken together. Grayson is the only carrier of the family name in his generation in the family--that is until TJ and Julie have a boy to carry the family name too (or we have another boy).

It was a great day! Many blessings to you Trent and Julie as you begin your life together. God will bless your marriage if you keep Him a part of it!