'for those who care'

eric and i just got back from an amazing missions trip to st. louis with our youth group. i do have some pictures of the trip to share with you all later on, but first i had to show you my favorite part of the trip...

okay, maybe not my favorite, but hilarious nonetheless.

eric and i stayed at a couple's house and this beautiful 'memory park' was right by their house. since eric and i are fans of cemetaries anyway, we had to check it out...i must say this one is right up there on the list of 'cemetaries you just have to visit'.

blueberry pickin time

it's blueberry picking time and we took advantage of the summer weather to pick pounds of blueberries.


6 of us decided to head out to persimmon hill farm where there are tons of blueberries and pick our fair share of blueberries to last us at least through the summer.

even maya came to enjoy the pickin...of course she slept in her little carrier most of the time, but thats okay, cy and nolan made up for maya not getting to eat any blueberries by eating her share as well as their own.

mom enjoyed her fair share as well... alright, if the truth be told we all kind of nibbled a little as we picked them.

the boys had lots of fun following kathleen around the blueberry patch... cy kept saying, "kathleen, where are you?" and nolan was calling her 'kath-uh-leen'. pretty funny.

for the most part it was kind of cloudy, not too hot, but we did have to take a quick break to get some water to drink.

cy came all decked out ready to pick some berries. by the end, adrian was carrying his bucket...and cy was just walking around eating all the green berries. we kept telling him that the blue ones were the good ones. he didn't seem to care to much, even though the green ones were so sour.

that was the extent of our long day pickin berries...join us next year for the 3rd annual berry picking day!

2 years

wow! i can't believe that this guy and i have been married for two years now. this year it was my turn to plan our anniversary celebration. i will admit, it took me a while to come up with something to do. finally it hit me! a nights stay in a cabin and biking in a beautiful park afterwards.

we rented a cabin at dogwood canyon, a nature park about 30 minutes from our house. it was wonderful. we got there and the first thing eric did was to fire up the grill. i had to go out and take pictures of the process. neither one of us really thought about it until i started to go back inside the cabin to check on the boiling pot of water on the stove. i started to open the door and realized it was locked. lovely...so what do you do when both of your cell phones are inside, it isn't a hotel where you can just walk down to the front desk...so my charming hero, whose shoes were locked inside, went to the other two cabins close by and tried to knock on their doors to see if they would let him use their phones to call security to unlock our door. since that plan didn't work he took our bikes off the bike rack and proceeded to ride his bike, while barefoot, to try and find someone to unlock our door. he finally found someone and they were there in just a few minutes to let us inside.

the next morning i was going to make muffins so we would have lots of energy for our bike ride. i was sad to discover that there was no oven...hmmm...again, my charming husband had a brilliant idea. use the gas grill to cook the muffins. i had my doubts, but they were awesome! they turned out just perfectly.

as you can see our cabin was deep in the woods...not really 'deep', but definitely secluded.

we started our bike ride in the park...it was GORGEOUS!! there were so many waterfalls and ponds and a few caves

the pictures are worth a thousand words so i don't think i really need to explain them...that, and my mind has started to wander a little and i can't think of anything else to write about them.

me, ma, and our day at the spa

i don't remember if i mentioned it or not, but through january and february i helped at our local rec center with the youth cheerleading. we had about 30 girls total in both groups. i really enjoyed it and would love to do something like that again sometime.
anyway, the wonderful head coach gave me a gift certificate at the end of the season for helping her out. it was a gift card to the Chateau Spa. i hadn't used it yet, and wasn't too sure when i was acutally going to use it. the only thing i did know was that i was so excited to go and also that i didn't want to go by myself. after all, it isn't any fun to do that kind of thing by yourself.
so i made up my mind, what a wonderful mother's day gift. so on the saturday of mothers day weekend mom and i went to the Chateau and began our spa day.
(just for the record, alot of places won't give women massages who are in their first trimester. thankfully i was almost 12 weeks and one of the massage therapists agreed to give me a massage)
one of the great things about Chateau is that if you make an appointment with them they also allow you to use all the rest of their facilities which includes a steam room, sauna, and whirlpool. the only thing i could use was really the whirlpool, but couldn't stay in there very long either. i am not complaining mind you, mom and i had the most relaxing time.
after our thirty minute massages we got some snacks from the lounge then headed to the outdoor whirlpool for about 2 hours outside soaking up some sun.
it was so wonderful. we both agreed that we should do it every week.
anyone want to join us next time?

another flower post

yes, another post about my wonderful husband and more flowers. he is constantly surprising me with flowers and other small gifts.

this one, however is a little different than all the rest.

he brought this one to me about 6 months ago. on the small card that goes in the flowers...it read something like this... 'i love you babe, just wanted to give you a little something...this is a fertility bouquet.'

yep, isn't he cute! well it must have worked since we are now pregnant.

i am usually a saver when it comes to flowers and things. i hang them upside down and keep the dried flowers. i must admit though, i usually end up getting rid of them eventually just because i only have so much space for things like that. i must also admit, that this one will not be going in the trash anytime soon. in fact, it is hanging upside down in our living room right now and everytime i look at it i think of my husband and how he thought to give me a fertility bouquet.

inside the gates

we finally went to Silver Dollar City again and this time we made it inside the gates. this time we got to go with r, a, n, c, and m.

one of the first things we did once we got into the city was to see the entertainers from trinidad and tabago. they explained that one of the festivals they have is the limbo. towards the end of their dance they had a bunch of people go on stage and do the limbo. they, of course, got eric up there, and believe me it didn't take much convincing. he is such a ham. he absolutely loves the attention and he was doing a great job of making people laugh. he got up there danced a little jig and when it came his turn to do the limbo he kept telling them to go lower and lower. by the time he went it was so close to the ground there was no way he could have made it through. they were kind enough to raise it back up once he actually went.

we then made our way to the main street where there was a small performance with guns and shooting. by the time we got there the fighting part was over, but n and c still really enjoyed watching.

after the main street performance the boys found a fun water park with water guns and squirters. it wasn't exactly a hot day, so the boys were a little cold and wet after their escapade.

in the city there is a section that has rides just for kids. this was perfect for n and c. i must admit that it was fun for the rest of us as well.

n and eric rode together. c and r rode together and a rode by herself. i stayed with m and took pictures of everyone.

they had a blast. and it was so fun to be able to watch their faces when they were up in the air. by the end, however, c's head was laying over on r's lap. i think he might have not had that much fun. he's not the biggest fan of being up high. if you look close i got all of them in the picture at the same time...now that was quite a feat.

another ride they had were the giant elephants.

n and eric were in the elephant right in front of c and a. here is c waving at n while he was up in the air. c preferred to stay closer to the ground.

by the time we left the city we all had a great time, but were a little tired after a long day of walking around. can't wait to do it again sometime.

almost

eric and i were finally going on a date. it had been a while and we were so looking forward to having a fun afternoon/evening together. Silver Dollar City was having an area appreciation for those who work at certain places here in town.
we decided to take every advantage of this and go to SDC on Thursday night and Sunday afternoon. So off we went, Thursday afternoon after we were both off work. we got to the city about 6:15...perfect time, it looked like the city was going to be just perfect, not too many people and not too hot since it was almost evening.
eric and i started to notice that something wasn't quite right when we got to the ticket booths and noone was in them for us to purchase a ticket. Our second clue that something was wrong was when there was absolutely no one going into the city. Our third and final clue was at the front entrance there were no workers checking tickets.
we finally found someone who worked there and asked them what was going on. She said they closed at 6PM. WHAT!
of course, we just missed it. we couldn't believe it. oh well, at least we could go on Sunday afternoon, which we did and we had an incredible time! Needless to say the only picture i got this date night was of the sign.
i will post some pics of the fun time we had on sunday.