Weekend Fun

This weekend was our Annual Family Picnic plus a welcome home party for my cousin, Chris, who just got back from a 15 month deployment. Any bystander would find us standing around talking, eating lots of food, playing horseshoes, or drooling over Chris' new corvette! Fun times!

Update on Travis

Apparently four vertebrae in the lumbar region were broken. They took him into surgery around 8:00 pm last night to do an eight vertebrae fusion. The surgery was successful and he continues to do well. Praise the Lord, he does have some movement in both legs!

Thank you for all your prayers. Please continue to keep them before the Father's throne.

Also, they have asked that no one calls or visits them right now.

Prayer Request

Some of my reader's know who Travis & Joy are. Well, today a log fell on Travis crushing 3 of his vertebrae. The doctors say that he probably won't walk again. I ask that you join us in prayer for this family. They have a son who is only about 2 years old and Joy is expecting their second child. Please pray for the grace to get through this time, and healing if it be the Lord's will. The doctors have no hope, but God can work miracles.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day as we remember those who laid down their lives for our freedom. May it also be a day to remember the most important sacrifice of all...that of Christ laying down His life for us.

John 15:13 ~ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Garden

We finally got our plants in the ground about a week or so ago. Planting was done on a separate day, and unfortunately the only pictures I have are of the garden after we were done. Since these pictures there are also some tires with potatoes, red & blue! I'll see about getting some pictures of those up soon.

Just Hanging Around

This was alot easier as a child!

New Blog

As some of you may know, Alyssa & I have been learning cake decorating. So far we have made the Sweetheart Banquet cake, Shannon's Birthday cake & will be making the graduation cake. I decided to start a blog solely dedicated to our cake decorating experiences. You'll find it on my sidebar under 'other blogs'. It's called AK creations.

Flute

For those of you who may not have figured out the "Math" post, I'm learning to play the flute. In fact, I'm teaching myself! It will be 3 weeks tomorrow since I've started. I have been borrowing a friends flute, but am happy to announce that I'm the proud owner of a flute as of today! I had the winning bid on a flute on E-bay this afternoon. I'm so excited!

Practicing "Sawmill Creek," which will be posted as soon as it's ready. :)

Happy Holland Happenings!

It's that time again...Holland Happenings. Our town was founded by the Dutch so during the spring there's a weekend dedicated to celebrating. If you happen to be here during such a weekend, you'll find that the traffic is exceptionally crazy on Friday because the streets downtown have been closed in order for booths to be setup. You can spend your Saturday strolling the streets of downtown OH looking at all the various booths, you can try to find a spot to watch the parade and you can go to the carnival if you want.

If you were to follow me around this weekend here's what you would find:

~FRIDAY~

After work, I hurried home to pick up my mom and the few things that I would need for the evening. We then went to go pick up Sandi, managed to park close enough (shh...don't tell anyone I ignored 'closed road' signs...Sherri told me to!) to the Candy Bouquet to pick up not only a candy bouquet but 31 balloons. After stopping at the bank and then Albertsons to pick up a previously ordered cake, we made our way to El Cazador. Hmmm...can you guess what may have been going on? Perhaps a party?! Why, yes! What a good guess! In fact, it was a surprise party for none other than Carolyn in honor of her 30th birthday. Many ladies gathered for the occasion and we had a wonderful time of surprising Carolyn, fellowshipping and giving her the present we all pitched in for...a skydiving trip! Much thanks to Sandi who reminded us that Carolyn's birthday was coming up quickly, Sherri who helped with all the party planning and got the birthday girl to the party, as well as to all who came! The evening was a success!!

~SATURDAY~

I slept in! Then we made our way down town, tried to find a parking spot (which is VERY difficult if you don't want to walk a ways) and then passed out special Holland Happening church invitations. After walking around a bit and visiting a couple booths, Nicki and I went to Albertsons to pick up some stuff for the SPG meeting. We got to Tim & Katie's and I made the best thing in the world...GUACAMOLE! I love guacamole. I could eat it forever. Tim braved the grill and cooked us some brats and then after everyone ate we all went down to the beach and some played while others golfed. It was fun!

My post would not be complete without showing you what our plants look like. We have a jungle growing in our kitchen. We hope to get them transplanted Monday.

Math

PLUS

EQUALS

Family Pics

As a Christmas present to my parents, the 3 of us kids pitched in and had family pictures taken. They've recently been put up on his website. Go here to see them! Go to Gallery and then Family. There are 3...family, parents, kids. Enjoy!

And they're off!

Maggie and I planted our seeds on Saturday and they're already sprouting up! It's been so neat to watch them grow. It seems that just about every time I go look, something new has come up. We've planted green beans, lettuce, carrots, spinach, bell peppers, peas, basil, parsley, rosemary, sunflowers, zinneas and cucumbers. So far, the rosemary, parsley, carrots and bell peppers are the only ones that haven't sprouted. We also got a blueberry bush. We've also adopted Sandi's tomato plants.

This was Saturday, after we planted. (I must confess the gloves were not used...but they will be soon enough.)

Snowboarding

For Andy's birthday, he wanted to go snowboarding. So a couple of Saturday's ago, we headed up to the mountains. I think I did more snowfalling than snowboarding. :) Here are a couple of pics. We couldn't seem to get a picture of all of us without someone's eyes closed. Also, Maggie & I on the ski lift....my favorite part!

Oh...did I mention we got sun burnt? Really bad! I was sportin' the raccoon look for a few days!

Don't Worry...

I'm still here. I've just been very busy. I need to get some pictures together and then I'll have a couple new posts hopefully by tomorrow.