Aquarium Mania

It's probably not the most traditional way to spend Memorial Day weekend, but we visited two aquariums (Chattanooga, Atlanta) and a fish hatchery last weekend. Oh, and I ate at Long John Silver's on the way home.

What are the chances?

A nice stranger we met on our flight home sent us a cd of her pictures from our cruise last month. I had already looked at her online photo album and saw the pictures were beautiful. I was so excited to have any pictures at all since we lost our camera. On the cd, she added all of her pictures of Coki Beach, because I had told her we were there. And guess what- we are in her pictures. These two of us are crops from her bigger pictures. 2800 passengers on our cruise and what are the chances I would meet someone on the way home that actually had pictures of us?

If you want to see more of the scenic ones and a few we did take with Dave's phone, I've posted them on Facebook.

Last day of School!

Here are the boys with their teachers. They will miss them (and so will I). We celebrated by getting a movie from Redbox (Scooby Doo of course) and Cherry Limeades from Sonic. Now it's time for some summer fun!

Hiding Out

Yesterday Wesley decided to hide in the garage and it was NOT funny. I was sitting on the driveway talking with my friend Alicia who had stopped by, and I knew he was in the garage. But when he didn't come out, I looked inside and called his name. There was no answer. I doubted myself. What if he was in the yard and I hadn't seen him walk by us? So the search began.

My neighbor (the crazy one) had a bunch of Mexicans (yes, illegal immigrants, she hires them) sitting outside her house in her car. I made the mistake of thinking they understood me completely (they didn't) and they said they saw a little boy walking down the street. So we expanded our search. My neighbor Vicki helped us look. Strangely, I was not panicked at all, because it just didn't make sense that Wesley would leave our yard or our street without an adult.

Just as I was getting in my van to drive around and Alicia was taking Daniel inside to search the house, I heard Wesley crying in the garage, hiding behind a box, with his head on the ground. Poor pitiful thing. He still won't tell me why he hid for so long when I was yelling his name. I doubt he understands his own feelings at this point. We think he might have been upset Alicia's little girl was sitting in his prized red jeep.

Alicia and I decided we needed to learn some valuable lessons from this incident. It is important to tell kids it is NOT good to hide and be quiet unless we have said we are really playing "hide and seek". Daniel and I had a good chat about what it means to "run away" and why it is a scary thing. And Alicia's presence was invaluable, she prayed with Daniel and kept me calm. We had just been talking about trusting God "moment by moment". I didn't think I needed an immediate illustration, but I guess God did.

Speaker: Dave Ramsey

Our speaker at our last Moms Together meeting was Dave Ramsey. He's a member of our church so I get to hear him speak quite often. I don't take that for granted. He always blows me away with something interesting and new. Here are some of my notes from Wednesday:

• In order to succeed in any area of life (dieting, exercise, financial goals, business goals), self- control is the key. Self control builds the foundation for success in every area of life. Dave discussed how the #1 cause of death in America is obesity. People with a lack of self control seem to attract all kinds of additional problems. If you have self- control, it provides a firm foundation to eventual financial success.
  

• Malachi 3:10- " Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house and test me now in this", says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open for you the window s of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows" - This verse is not talking about receiving financial reward for tithing, the word "blessing" in this verse means something else- peace.
  

• Impulsiveness- the lack of self control in spending- is folly, and folly is a verb for a fool in action. Watch out, don't be a fool! After this, Dave discussed how "fool" is very derogatory word throughout scripture.
  

• My favorite: If you leave your kids money and no character, they will lose the money. If you leave your kids character and no money, they will find their way to money. If you leave them both, you have built an empire.

On a side note, Dave is going to be our neighbor in September. No kidding- he is moving into a huge mansion on top of a hill you can clearly see as you drive to our house. I briefly told his wife Sharon how much she is going to love our Publix and I hope to see her there. She invited me to come look at the house- anyone want to go with??

The end of a long food journey.....

Wednesday was our last Moms Together meeting for the year, and the last meeting for which I am responsible for food preparation. It's been a fun two years serving the moms, bonding with the steering team, and working with my faithful co-hospitality chair, Hanna (1st picture above). It's all been such a blessing, but it's time to move on. It is nice to know I can plan and serve breakfast to 120 people - a good skill to have.

School Program

Twice a year, our preschool puts on an adorable program. Each class has a little performance and in May the Pre-K children "graduate". I loved that when the graduating kids walk across the stage, they are each asked what they want to be when they grow up. "Power Ranger", "doctor for dogs", "a dancer who kicks really high", and "fireman" were some of the answers. I asked Daniel what his answer will be next year and he says he wants to be a "dentist".
As you can tell from the pictures, the boys aren't thrilled with being on stage. Yes, that is Wesley with his head on the ground. And Daniel looked annoyed the entire time with a few smiles. Pretty funny, actually. Maybe next year they'll warm up to the spotlight.

Loving the Horses

It was our first time at Steeplechase yesterday- our only regret- we didn't wear boots! They were "the" fashion accessory with 2-6 inches of mud everywhere. Next year we hope we can stay longer, but the boys did love the horses for the few races we saw. I loved the people watching. Check out the "swan hat" in the last picture.

Spring Rearranging

This weekend we moved Wesley to a big boy bed. Our plan is for brothers to share a room at night by the end of the summer. Right now we have implemented phase one, in which Daniel will temporarily sleep in the new play room across the hall, until Wesley gets used to being in a twin bed. Everything is going well, so far!

Since we swapped two bedrooms, I had two closets to completely clean out. I have a lot of sorting to do. The last pic is the huge pile of toy and baby items for July's consignment sale (and this does not even include the big gear or clothes). I think it might take 2 months to tag and price everything, so I'm glad we went ahead with our rearranging plan.

31 Cent Scoop night

One of our favorite Spring activities is 31 cent scoop night at Baskin Robbins. It's usually the last week of April and it benefits the Firefighters Association. Daddy was out of town, so we invited Erin to join us instead. I think is the first time I've let Wesley have a cone instead of a cup and it got a little messy. Immediately after this picture was taken we went straight to bathtime!