Dinner and a Show!

So tonight we made Tacos for dinner and it felt amazing outside so we decided to eat out on the back porch. I got a patio table for my birthday and I think we put it together in July but it has been so hot we haven't ever used it. So tonight we decided to sit out there and enjoy the weather. Jonathan came over and ran schaad road with aspen and then he stayed and ate with us.

We had finished dinner and were sitting there talking and the next thing we know a little old lady ramped the bank behind our house. The guys took off down to make sure she was ok. We called 911 and they came and took her in the ambulance. I am not sure how she didn't see that the road deadended but sadly she is not the only one. She said she was doing about 45mph and never slowed down because she never saw that the road was ending. She seemed to be ok, she said that her back hurt and none of her air bags went off and we don't know why. I talked to the neighbor and Zane talked to the EMT and both of them said she was the FOURTH driver in the last month to crash. One was a guy that was high and another was a teenage girl that was flying and ramp well beyond the bank. Crazy people!

  

Switching Jobs...

So I gave a two weeks notice at the church. Monday, September 19th was my last day. I am sad because I did like the job but also I am excited to see what God has in store for us now.  I started working full time at the car wash on September 21st . So far it is going well. I help with the bookwork and taking care of the office (using my degree!). I prayed a lot about it and I know this is where God wants us to be right now! I have enjoyed getting more involved with what Zane is up too. :) Life is good!

GO Vols!!

This Saturday we went downtown to Volunteer Village before the game. We had 10,000 coupons to pass out! We passed out coupons for 3 hours and then it was time for the game to start. Since we had passed out coupons for the car wash Time To Shine treated us to tickets to the game to watch UT and Buffalo play. We had bought a hat for both Zane and I but we left them in the car while we passed out coupons because we thought we would go back to the car before the game. Well we didn't go back to the car and we went into the stadium and sat down and the sun was directly above us. The weather was amazing it would get a little toasty when the sun was out but then it would cool off when it went behind a cloud.We decided Zane needed a hat so he would burn the top of his head. So we went and bought him a hat. It wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. We had amazing seats. 30 yard line, 11 rows up... We have never been that close to the field! UT beat Buffalo!! :)

  

Tulips!!

It is now fall! I went to the store and bought 100 tulip bulbs to plant. We finally had a chance to plant them on Sunday. We bought this cool tool that attaches to Zane's drill and digs the holes for us! Which made it even more fun for Zane! So the three of us went outside to plant the tulips! Aspen had to stick her nose into each hole to figure out what we were doing. She even put her ball in one of the holes and couldn't get it out!

  

I also pulled out my fall wreath and scarecrows!!

 

   

FINISHED :)

So last year I went to a girl's night and one of them (who is just awesome) taught us how to crochet. I bought one small thing of yarn because I figured I wouldn't finish it. Well I loved to do it and I finished the hat I started that week. Then I started another hat and since I have made 3 hats, 2 bags, and a blanket. :) I finally finished my blanket this evening! I am super excited to finish it. So I figured I would post the pictures of all my projects that I have finished.

This was the first hat I made.

This one was for me. 

This one is alittle big.

This one had a cute flower button on it until Aspen took it off for me.... I haven't put a new one on it yet.

This one I used as my purse forever!

Here is my finished blanket!!! It is on our couch to see how big it is. It keeps you warm too!

Atlanta Mission Trip 2011

So I was asked to go on the Atlanta Mission Trip with our high school students. I drove one of the 15 passenger vans down and we get to the church we stayed at and I was a little nervous. It was at an exit I would not have stopped at, much less stayed. We parked and go inside to find out that there is no central air conditioning. They have fans and some of the rooms had window units. It was the beginning of August in Atlanta, I don't even have to tell you how hot it was! We made the most of it and everyone had a glow about them....ok maybe it was just sweat. 3

Our schedule consisted of:
Eating breakfast at 7
making lunch
devotions
going to our working sites - we were broken up into 6 teams and we all had different chores and then we would split up during the day to go to our different sites. My group did the same thing all week and it was INSIDE with air conditioning! I was super excited about that. We went to a place called the Frazier Center and it is a place where adults who can't take care of themselves go to live. They also have a daycare. We were the morning crew so we were able to go play with the kids every morning. I LOVED it! Then we would go eat lunch and head to a place called Open Hands. They serve meals to people. We were on a assembly line of food.
showering - some people took showers on site and some off site. My group was one of the ones that took the showers off site.
Free time - Maybe 15 min... Depending on how long showers took
leader meeting - really neat to be on the Leader side of a mission trip. I had always gone as a student and you do get some more perks when you are a leader ;)
Dinner - taco night was my favorite!
Evening Activity - We got there Sunday night, Monday night we went to Centennial Olympic Park (the fountains were turned off) so we played ultimate frisbee and ate ice cream. Tuesday night we went to Martin Luther King's Memorial (we were def the minority but was fun and interesting). Wednesday night we went to another local church that was super fun and the pastor was great! Thursday night we had a cook out for the community at the church.
Club - This was our time to worship God and give our "Hotlantas" and "Praise God" moments. We sang (the old school songs from when I was in youth group), played games, and had a lesson.
Church group time - This was a time for our church group to get together and talk about our days. We did High's and low's and it was awesome! It was so great to hear the student genuinely concerned and praying for each other.
BED - I think we were so worn out that the fact it was 85 in our room didn't bother us at all.

It is so hard to put everything that happened that week in one blog! When I was first going I really didn't know what to think. I wasn't a leader in high school, still not really a leader, and I was worried about having to get onto the kids. I show up and we have an amazing group of kids. I was so proud to be a leader that was able to just hang out with them and be one of them and I didn't have to tell them to stop or talk to any of them about what they were wearing. There were 3 church groups there together and we soon realized that some of the other people on the trip may have not known Jesus. So the first night we were all pretty discouraged about the other groups but we prayed about it. By the end of the week we figured we were there for the other church groups maybe more than we were for the Atlanta community!

The last night we were there Thursday night the youthworks staff wash the leaders feet and then the leaders wash the students feet. I was really uncomfortable with this idea at first. Then the lady comes and washes my feet first out of all the leaders and so I can't even watch how it is done before she does mine. I was really nervous and it was extremely hard to relax and enjoy the moment. Then after they washed the leader's feet I started going around the room to wash the girls feet. It was such an awesome experience. Everyone was in tears and it was just really sweet to be able to encourage all the girls.

It was an excellent week to see God work in my life and all the students. Here are a couple of pictures of the week.

The whole West Park group before we left!

This is a picture of my group at Open Hands!

Sherry and I!

All the church groups together!

Here is the link for some of the pictures that Derek put in a Picture Slideshow.

Christi's House...

So Christi's sister, Brittany, is having a baby and I was invited to her baby shower. It was a saturday morning and the theme was scrapbook. I had been planning on going for about a month and I first thought I would leave on Friday stop in Murfreesboro and eat dinner with an amazing family I miss. (The dinner plans didn't work out because they decided to come to Knoxville for the weekend. So we completely missed each other.) Then I would continue on and stay at Christi's house Friday and saturday night and come back Sunday afternoon. Well a week before, I was asked to go on a mission trip with our highschoolers here at church. That is awesome I would love to go then I realized the date, we left on sunday afternoon. So I had to cut my weekend short at christi's but we crammed as much in it as we could! :) I got there friday night and we decided to go eat applebees half off apps. Then we got home and hung out to the wee hours of the night and finally went to sleep. I haven't had a sleep over in forever! It was alot of fun to just talk for a while. Then we got up the next morning and some other people came over for the scrapbooking shower. We each got a theme and were told to make a page for Abigail Grace's baby book. It was the neatest idea. We had papers and stickers everywhere!

Then after the party christi and i got to help watch her neice and nephew. They are so cute! Then that night Christi's Dad (Jimmy) was honored at the ice cream party for his years of service. I was super excited to be there for that! They gave him the golden ax. It was a very sweet ceremony.

After dinner I decided it was time for me to head home so I started making the drive home and finally got there at like 11:30. Maybe one day I will be able to get some sleep before I go on a trip! I had a fun time with Flowers even though it was cut short.

August Blur..

Wow where do I begin! I have to keep checking my phone and can not believe it is the middle of August already! We have been crazy busy! Thought I would record it all together and then go into more detail later about each one!

July 22nd - 24th ~ Jennifer and Brian's house in Atlanta, GA

July 29th - 30th ~ Christi's house in Middle Tennessee

July 31st - August 5th ~ Atlanta, GA on a mission trip with the High schoolers.

August 11th - 15th ~ Mom & Dad's place in Juno Beach, FL.

We are ready for a weekend here that we don't have to work! Aspen is ready to relax also! :)



Visiting Jenn & Brian..

A couple of weekends ago we didn't have anything going on so I called Jenn to see if they were busy or if we could go see them and the new house. We decided that we wanted a relaxing weekend for all of us so we really didn't have a ton of sight seeing. Instead we explored their surrounding area and went swimming on Saturday. They have a neighbor hood pool that as a huge slide so Zane and I went down several times! It was alot of fun. We then went to a church with them on Sunday morning and really enjoyed the church. Aspen loved seeing all Jenn and Brian's dogs (especially River). We have to make the two of them stop because they get a little rowdy in the house. Zane and I  decided we should probably head home a little early on Sunday (we never do that, we always wait till the last possible minute before we leave and head home). So we ate lunch after church and then headed home about 2:30. About an hour into our trip Zane starts noticing the tire pressure on the left front is saying low. So he starts watching it and finally after it continues to go down he stops at an exit that has a lot of stuff at it. We get gas in the truck and check the left front it is fine, nothing wrong with it. He starts checking all the other tires and realizes that it is the left back tire that is getting low. He goes inside the gas station and buys one of those tire pressure checkers (we never have one when we need it). All the tires are fine except the back left so we go put air in it. Then we start looking for a tire place to get it fixed. We soon figure out there is one right next to the gas station that was just a little sketchy looking so we see a GOODYEAR sign across the street. Now it is Sunday afternoon at 3:40 by this time and we are praying they are still open. We pull up and see they close at 4:00!! Awesome! Zane goes inside and talks to the owner and they can look at the truck and see what they can do. He explains that we have a dog in the truck and so we will just stay outside (in the heat) with her. The owner said no to bring her inside with us, he has his dog come into the office most of the time anyway. So we took her kennal inside and sat in the air conditioning waiting on the truck. We find out that there is a nail in the side wall of the tire that is not leaking but they can't pull the nail out and fix it. Our problem was a hole in the tread that they could fix. We decided to buy a new tire so that we didn't fix the part that was leaking and then the nail come out and us be in the same boat again. After about 1 1/2 hours we are back on the road headed home and what an adventure it was. It so cool to see how God takes care of us even in not so great situations. We left early so the business was still open. We were able to get off at an exit and not be on the side of the interstate. We stopped at the exit with a place to fix it. God definitely took care of us!

Puppies all have a home!

Well this is like two weeks late. The saying goes "better late than never" right? :) We sold the last pup, little guy, on July 12th. I had the hardest time with him going to his new home. However, I cried the first day for the little one that didn't make it and I cried the for the last puppy we sold. I would take that as a victory... :)  cause I didn't cry 9 times!  We had the one we called chewy until July 17th. It was fun to go out and play with him. He had gotten out of chewy on everything. One day his ears were like wings, kinda sticking up, and the next day his ears were sticking up with no problem. He was so cute and playful. I am super excited for his family. We have actually heard back from her also she had taken him to the vet and was really excited he was doing pretty good potty training. Here is a picture of all the puppies and their new lovable homes in order of when they went home! Parentheses is what we called the puppies or how we told them apart and the name outside of parentheses are the ones that we know what the owners are calling them.

Everest (Evie)

 

Reno (Blacky, Black collar)

Ghost (Black with paws collar)

(Stumpy, Blue Collar )

 

(Gracie and Rolly, Pink collar and blue/brown poke a dot collar)

 

(Little Guy, Red Collar)

-This guy was buying him for his girlfriend in Mississippi-

Lightning (Chewy, Red with paws collar)

 

-when she picked him out-                                                                                       -when they picked him up-

Puppies going Home!

I wrote this awhile ago (July 6th) just never published it. :) I think I was waiting on pictures to post with it. Anyway I am just going to go ahead and post it.

Well the puppies are now 7 weeks old! That seems crazy to me! We took them to the vet last week on June 27th for their 6 weeks shots and my Brother took Evie home and then the guy who bought Blacky took him home that day! The next day the guy who bought the one with a black collar with paw prints picked up his puppy so then we were down to 5 puppies. We sold blue collar (the other puppy my brother thought about taking) on Friday, July 1st. So we had 4 puppies over the weekend. On Monday, July 4th a couple came to look at 1 puppy, I will repeat that 1 puppy! :) The lady liked our girl puppy, Gracie and the guy liked one of the males, Rolly (blue and brown poke a dot collar). My husband being the sales man he is sold them both puppies that day! :) So we are down to 2 puppies! I showed them last night and the lady bought the red collar with paw prints or as we like to call him, Chewy! :) His name fits him so well! Anyway she bought him but asked if we could keep him a little while longer until she got back from visiting her daughter. I don't mind doing that at all. He is a sold puppy I get to spend more time with. So we have sold 7 of the 8 puppies and the one that is left has been my favorite all along! He is smaller than all the others and very sweet. He loves to cuddle and be held and follow you around. I call him "little guy" and he has a red collar just like his parents. My brain tells me "I don't want another dog" but my heart says "give him a bath, bring him inside, potty train him, give him a real name, and if no one buys him soon, KEEP him." As of today we have 2 puppies in the garage left and 1 of them is sold! We have had a blast with all the puppies! I would do it again probably. We got our fence out of it plus more! Aspen is an amazing mommy, she knew what to do for each puppy and feed them on a regular basis. She definitely made my first experience a great one. Then I walk out into the garage and say there is no way I would ever do this again! :) I am ready to have my garage back to some what normal where I can park my car in it! I thought I would cry when the puppies went to different homes and Aspen would be so mad at me for letting her babies go away. It was crazy to watch her reaction, the Saturday before they left on Monday she didn't want to go into the garage. She would come inside before but always wanted to go back out and check on the puppies before she was in the house for maybe 15 minutes. That Saturday she decided it was time. I thought she would have problems with them going one at a time. Nope, we sell one and then she goes out in the garage and doesn't even look for the puppies. She is just fine with them going to new homes and it make it so much easier. I haven't even teared up once! I am super excited for the families and not even sad at all. Hopefully I can say that when Little Guy finds his perfect home and we don't have any puppies left!

4th of July Weekend!

This weekend was super busy but a lot of fun! My dad flew in and we spent a lot of time out on the lake. Friday I worked at the car wash and then got to spend an evening at the house with the hubby. Then saturday Zane went to work and I went to the lake with my family! It was a beautiful day and the lake was packed they were doing fireworks that night and we didn't stay cause it was way to busy and we had all seen it before and didn't want to deal with trying to get our boat out of the water. We had a blast with little miss Evie. She was not a fan of the water but she was a good sport. We went out on the lake all day Sunday and Zane and Jonathan were able to join us! Then Jen and Brian came up on Monday and we ate lunch with them and they picked up their pups and went back to Atlanta! We headed out to the lake that afternoon and on the way there we drove through a thunderstorm! So we stopped into Walmart so I could pick up some things for our church that is going on a Mission trip to Greece this afternoon. It had stopped raining when we got to the lake and everyone else had gone home so we pretty much had the lake to ourselves. The water was warming than the air temperture so I didn't get in but the guys all did and found them a cliff to jump off. Then we went to townsend and spent the evening with Zane's family we watched the townsend fireworks show.