Birthday Boys...

We just got back from Scott and John's surprise party. Scott's birthday was this past Tuesday, and John's was Thursday. John's wife, Sandy and I decided to put together a surprise party for them a couple weeks ago. We had all sorts of grand ideas, but when it came down to the last few days nothing was working out so we went back to our original idea of a simple dinner out with all our friends waiting at the restaurant. (Just like I planned for my birthday back in April.)

Anyway, we totally got them. They had NO CLUE!!! Those poor boys were so confused. Sandy and I had been telling all sorts of fibs and stories to keep them from knowing anything and it worked. We walked in and they were so dumb-founded. I actually turned to them and said this is a surprise party for your birthdays and then they were like, "ohhhhhh." The light bulb finally went on. It was great.

We went to Woody's, this great crab shack in our little town of Northeast. (Scott and I split the Net Buster which was a little bit of everything: lobster tails, clams (ewww), shrimp, crab legs, crab cakes, crab imperial, flounder, and then two sides. Scott ate it all pretty much. I was too busy laughing and talking and before I knew it the plate was empty. I got most of the lobster and cab legs though, which I think is the best anyway!) Of course I had my camera and we had to take the blog shots. We did couple shots this time instead of the "boys" and the "girls." Here's everybody...

Tim and Suzie

Pastor Alan and Donna

John and Sandy (other birthday boy)

Jeff and Debby

Us

This is Tim with his million dollar bill that he tried to pay with. I'm not even kidding. It was hilarious. The waiter really played into it too, which made it even funnier. By this time though I think I was punch drunk, so I was laughing at everything.

John and Scott with the cow outside of the ice cream shack. They just have T-R-O-U-B-L-E written all over their faces.

And here's the whole gang before we left.

We had so much fun. We love hanging out and it was wonderful to be able to surprise Scott and John. They really were genuinely surprised. That can be hard to do sometimes.

UPDATED: We Bought an Island

Ok so it's not in the Bahamas...it's just in our kitchen, but my sister (she's here for a visit) and I were contemplating buying our own island in the Bahamas. We found one for only $358,000. I don't think that's bad for an island in the Bahamas. Hmmm...maybe someday soon.

But anyway, we really did buy an island for our kitchen. A friend of ours saw it Sunday afternoon on Craig's List and called Scott right away. He emailed the lady and asked her some questions and set up to look at it last night. So on our way home from the beach (AGAIN!!! I know...it's a rough life!), we met Scott and went to look at it. Well, let's just say we couldn't pass it up. It's beautiful and big, which is more than I can say for most of the islands I've looked at. It has a granite top, knife block, towel rod, roll out drawer in the cabinet side and two open shelves on the other side. Here are some pictures of our new island...







So as I said, we couldn't pass it up. The price was too right. Yeah, it was only $50. Yes, you read correctly...I said 50 Bucks, 5-0 dollars, 50 smackeroos, etc. Can you even believe that? I'm still a bit in shock over the whole thing. I've priced similar islands with the granite top and they start around $400-$500 and go way up from there. That's why we couldn't pass it up. God literally droppped it into our laps. He is so good and so faithful. Thank you Jesus!!!

UPDATE: For those of you who have never heard of Craig' List, it's like an international classifieds for anything and everything. You can look for things locally or post want ads. You can look for jobs, sell a car, basically anything. I just found out about it on Friday, but you can guaruntee that it is now in my bookmarks! The web address is craigslist.com. Check it out. If you find any amazing deals of your own, be sure to let me know about them.

50,000 Mile Beach Trip

I was supposed to be at the beach for a couple days this week with some friends from our from church, but I was still not feeling the "beach vibe," so we came home early. But while we were there we had a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of our trip.

Natalie loved playing with the other kids. In this case, though, the kids are not so much kids as they are teenagers. Believe it or not--last year they were kids! Anyway, they built a sand castle and Natalie had so much fun helping them dig.




Here's poor Ethan caught in a hair-catastophe. It was like watching a flashback of myself when I was in junior high. The girls flirting with the boys and the boys pretending to hate every second of it. Ah, to be 14 again!


I took Scott's car because the trunk is bigger and going to the beach always means taking TONS of stuff!!! So, on our way down i noticed that the odometer was at 49,910 miles. I couldn't believe that Scott was going to miss this monumentous mile change. You see, Scott and I have never owned a car with that many miles on it before. His dad works for GM so we get a nice discount on new cars. We've actually had my car the longest--it's a 2002, but he drives so much more than I do, that he hit the big 5-0 first. (I just hit the big 3-0 earlier this summer.) It happened while we were sitting in traffic in Rehobeth. I had to document the moment or shall I say, BLOG-ument the moment! Here's everybody that was there to see the great change first hand.

Terri...

Natalie...

Ethan...

Me...

And of course here is the moment as it happened.

Off to the Beach...Again

It seems like we are always going to or coming home from the beach. I know that sounds like such a rough life, right?

Tonight after church I'm taking Natalie, Terri, and Kara Franklin down to the beach. We're meeting up with the Benickis and McDowells. They go every year to the same place for beach week. Maybe you remember our trip last year.

Well, anyway, this year it has not worked out so that Scott could go. I was so excited to go until I found out that he wasn't going. We had already committed to taking Kara down and so I didn't feel as though I could gracefully back out. Believe or not, I actually would rather stay home this time than go to the beach for a couple days. I can't say exactly why, but ever since getting back from my whirlwind trip across the nation, I haven't been too keen on traveling overnight. I like my new house and would like very much to stay put for a while yet.

I am looking forward to spending some time with Jackie and Debbie--they ALWAYS brighten my day and make me laugh, but it's the getting there, living out of a suitcase, being a single mom, and getting home that I'm not at all looking forward to. The last time I went to the beach I got a horrible migraine. I don't want any repeats of that. I know this trip will be fun, and I know that in the end I will be glad that I went, but I'm really not feeling it yet.

Seriously though, I have waited all my life to be a beach bum. I knew I had it in me, but living in Wisconsin doesn't really cultivate the beach bum gifting inside a person. I have only lived here for 15 months. Is it possible to loose all sense of where I came from in that short amount of time? To forget the long summers with a sprinkler as my only watery activity? Has it really been so easy to forget? Have I become so accustomed to living here, that I take a trip to the beach for granted? Am I so warped as to think I might prefer staying in my townhouse than burying my toes in the sand? Have I become desensitized to the gloriousness of the beach?

What horrors am I speaking!!! The beach is nothing to be trifled with. It holds the sound of God's heartbeat upon this earth. There you can feel the breath of God blowing through the air. You come face to face with the rhythm of this world. The tides keeping in time to the moon above. How could anything compare? How dare I prefer my cozy townhouse to the greatest creation God has given to us? I must be crazy!

Natalie's First Trip to the Movies

We are blessed to have a theater here that shows free kids' movies every Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. The other day I noticed that they were playing an Elmo movie (The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland) and since Natalie is the biggest Elmo fan, I decided it was time to go.

I told her about it when she woke up this morning and she was very excited. She thought we were just going downstairs to watch her Elmo goes to the doctor dvd. On the way to the theater she almost fell asleep. Poor girl gets up so early! We had gotten there really early (I had heard that it gets packd once daycare's start unloading their buses). About 10 minutes before it started, she told me she was ready to go home and take a nap. Ha! So she watched the movie from my lap mostly because she was so tired.

I couldn't believe how well behaved she was amidst the chaos of everyone else. I have never heard so many screaming children or seen so many mothers do nothing about it. I guess I'm just used to church where you take your kids to the nursery when they do that. (By the way, I didn't bring the camera and was KICKING myself for it all morning.) As the movie ended she started bawling. I don't know if the other screaming kids fnally got to her or she was just so tired but she didn't stop till we met Daddy at the Red Robin across the parking lot. The tears instantly dried up and she was non-stop, "Elmo got him blanket back, Daddy!" It was a really great morning. I took this one picture of her when we got home.
Right after that I put her down for a nap and came downstairs to my computer. Currently, she is playing in the living room. So I think I'll end this post and put us both to bed.

Here a couple pictures I found from the movie, Just in case you were curious...

Preschool?

Ok, so I've been thinking about sending Natalie to some some sort of preschool for one day or a couple mornings a week this fall. I'm getting to the point where I need a break and I think she does too. I haven't even mentioned it to Scott yet, becasue I know he'll say we can't afford it or he'll want me to get a job. But I'm curious about it. It would also give me a chance to get into the office with Scott and help him with things. So for those of you who have any advice, I'd love to hear it--pros, cons and everything in between.

Scott's Man Shed and My "New" Fridge

Scott's parents came for a visit a couple weeks ago. The day after they got here, I found out that Pat died and left immediately to go back to Wisconsin for the funeral. While I was gone, Scott's dad decided that we needed a shed--Bless his generous heart!!! So he bought us a really great shed. I told Scook that I wasn't going to touch it--that it would be HIS territory and he could do anything he wanted with it. That's how we started calling it his "man shed." Well it wasn't long until he asked me to help him organize his man shed, so I guess I've made my influence there after all. But he loves his shed, and I do too. It's a wonderful addition to our little house. Thank you Terry Ball!!!


The same day I helped Scott with his shed, he helped me empty all my craft stuff from the boxes and organize it. Now I have it all out and sort of put together. I wanted our two old kitchen tables downstairs so that I would finally have some room to spread out. Our little table is home to my sewing maching and the other one has a leaf in it and will eventually be cleared off to make room for my projects. I still have alot of organizing, but at least it's not all stuffed in boxes anymore! It still looks like quite a mess in this picture.


Today was fun, because we swtched the hinges and handles on the fridge. It used t o open the inconvenient way--away from the kitchen. It was such a nuisance. I have been dying to get it switched around. Also, the lower cabinet door between the fridge and the stove was backwards. So while I was jabbering on the phone this afternoon, Scott switched that one too. There is only one misplaced cabinet left up in the bathroom, but I'm not as bothered by that one because I don't use it daily like I do the other one and the fridge. One more thing off the To-Do list.

The way it was...

The way it is now...
Call me crazy but it feels like I have a brand new fridge. I was so happy to have that done. What a good feeling to know that it's our fridge and we can do whatever we want to it. (Hopefully, soon we'll be demoting it to the basement so that my dream fridge can come home!!!)

Anyway...that's a tiny update on what we've been doing around the house. We had planned on installing some more shelving in our bedroom closets, but time just got away from us today. Soon, maybe--they've been sitting in our bedroom for a month now, just waiting to be put to use.

An Unexpected Family Reunion

So the other week, we were given a huge blow to our little world. Pat Shea, our beloved friend, passed away. It's still hard for me to think about, much less than write too much about, so for now, I will just highlight the fun part of the trip And that was getting to have a mini- improptu family reunion minus Scott. The last time our whole family was together was I think Thanksgiving 2004. Anissa was very pregnant with Alethia and Joshua wasn't even a twinkle in his mother's eyes yet. This was the first time we have seen Josh and Anissa and their kids since Alethia was 4 months old. She's 18 months old now, so it's been a very long time since we've been together. I was so excited to fianally get to meet my nephew too. He's already 4 months old. The funny thing is that I have really been having a hard time this summer because my parents and Jessica have seen Josh and Anissa a ton. It just worked out that way. I was really, really missing them and having a hard time with that. I began praying that God would make a way for me to spend some time with them. I wanted Natalie to be with her cousins and play with Lei Lei. I wasn't expecting Him to answer me in this way, but He did and I praise Him for knowing just what we ALL need. The girls had so much fun together!!! They instantly bonded. Natalie fell in love with Bubby too, as did I. They all three shared passifiers. Alethia and Natalie finally were able to wear their matching outfits together. Alethia and Bubby finaly were able to fall in love with their aunt Mimi (me). And most of all I got to fall in love with them. Here are a bunch of pictures of our time together as a family...