Va-Ca!

YEA!! We had an awesome vacation.

Come along and see all we did:

We drove to Tennessee to spend the day with GeeGaw.

We picked honeysuckles, ate pancakes and had a wonderful visit.

Jason and GeeGaw even had time for a chat out back in the evening.
On our way out the next morning, we stopped at MeeMaw's gravesite.
We travelled all day. It was really obvious when we reached Texas:
When we got to Houston, the first thing everyone wanted to do is hug Grandma!
And then, of course, we all had to hug Jazzy!
The cousins-looking cute!
And Uncle Jake-the Baby Guru!
I am afraid we wore Charlie out:

Auntie Jenn brought presents which the kids loved:
We took a drive downtown-it's just amazing!
And we went to the Houston Zoo with Grandma
We saw some wonderful animals

And we had a great time together
Isn't he cute? We couldn't fit him in the van, so he had to stay
Eric loved the meercats:
Aunt Laurie was so much fun!

And the cousins had a blast together, especially boxing with the Spidey Aunt Jenn brought

On Friday, we met our dear friends, the Greens-missionaries to the deaf in Merida, Mexico. These are their kids: Caitlin and Dallas
We met at the Transco Tower (which someone had the audacity to rename the Williams Tower) and Water Wall. The Water Wall is on one end of the field, and the Tower is on the other.
Here is a view of the tower looking straight up. It's a monster:
We then went to the Galleria and had cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory!

Say "amen" right there!

Dallas and Kenton
Goofy kids...
Bill and Jennifer Green
Eric

This is my dear friend Chelly, who I have known since the 10th grade
Grandma and Jazzy
Jason and Jazzy
Chelly and Allyson

Eric and Jazzy
At Uncle Jeremy's house, an arm-wrestling contest broke out...

between the ladies! Here, Aunt Laurie shows off her "mommy guns"!

The cousins: (l-r: Eric, Adriana, Allyson, Kaitlynn, and Kenton)

One of my favorite pictures of the trip:

The Bruces

We went to Laurie's for bbq. Dude, the girl can cook!
The kids swam in the pool
Aunt Chelly was able to get us two tickets to the Astro's game...

in the second row!! Jason and I had a blast!
Can you believe these seats?!?

Auntie Jenn and Eric
Our last night-the three Little Kids, all grown up

Jeremy, Jennifer, and Jason

I haven't even scratched the surface of all the fun we had, and all the friends and family we saw. One of the best parts of the trip was having everyone together to hear Jason preach at Bruce and Marti's church, Christchurch Baptist Fellowship. What a wonderful church! The people were so sweet and friendly. The pastor, Dr. Johnny Pope, is a wonderful man, a great preacher, and he was so kind to us. Jason and I got to have a great meal with Dr. Pope and his wife before the service on Wednesday. The Popes were great fun to hang out with, and they are Godly examples for anyone to look up to.

We left early Thursday morning, sooner than any of us wanted to, and drove to Tenessee. We spent the night again with GeeGaw, woke up at 4 a.m. and drove back to Michigan, where everything is in bloom.

We had such a wonderful time, but man, now we are pooped!
Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for us as we traveled, loved on us while we were in Houston, and missed us while we were gone. We love you all!

I Got Tagged...

It didn't hurt, really!

(BTW...the kid's b-day blogs are below this, and they are way more interesting!)

Marianne, my wonderful sis-in-law, tagged me from her blog, and now I am duty bound to respond (do the Internet Police enforce this stuff?), so here goes:

I must tell all of you seven weird things about myself. Shrinking the list to seven will be tough, but not as tough as listing seven normal things about myself...

Weird Thing #1. When I was a kid, I thought the absolute yummiest thing in the wide world was a piece of white bread slathered in French's Classic Yellow Mustard. Delish!

Weird Thing #2. I have almost non-existant little-toe toenails. There ain't enough toenail there to even try to paint. I have gone from believeing I was completely deformed to now just being plain weird. Sigh...

Weird Thing #3. If I love a book, I will read it roughly ten times. Certain books I have read so often, I can quote entire portions of them off the top of my head, like "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother, Jem, got his arm badly broken at the elbow...." oops..sorry...like I said, weird. (Two extra credit points if any of you know what book that is!)

Weird thing #4. I can't stand Nickolodeon cartoons. I have serious issues with them. I could actually rant and rave about how completely awful they are. Seriously, do not get me started!

Weird Thing #5. I secretly long to be an Interior Designer. I actually have a binder full of pictures and clippings from old magazines of tons of beautiful homes and yards and rooms. Not only do I own this ridiculous thing, but I look at it frequently, and add to it from time to time.

Weird Thing #6. I would love to write a book. I sit down and start books all the time, but I can never get past the first few paragraphs-the planning and structure of the plot gets me every time. I just want to sit down and write the Great American Novel with no research, planning, or forethought whatsoever. Weird.

Weird Thing #7. When I was young, I always knew I would marry a preacher. I love being a preacher's wife. How weird is that??

And now, I am supposed to Tag some other folks...lol...I don't actually know seven other bloggers, so I will tag just a couple...

Jeanene, a wonderful friend and new mommy
Jeremy, Marianne's very witty husband, and my bro. in law.

I'd also like to tag the candidates in this year's presidential election, but they never answer the question that was actually asked anyway, so I won't waste my time...lol...sigh...

Birthday Girl

Well, guess who had a birthday...I know, I can't believe it either: our little Allyson is twelve! Twelve! She is really growing up good-I am so proud of her.

We opened presents on Friday afternoon...
Allyson loves scrapbooking!
Mom and Dad thought it would be hilarious to give her a bag full of hangers.

She thinks we are a little weird.
So, we had to give her the clothes, too.
Isn't she beautiful?
She's as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
Oh, yeah-we had to give her some black olives-they are her favorite!

Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Birthday Boy

Kenton is seven. I can't believe it either. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday by having a few friends over for a Backwards Party. We had a wonderful time, although we were unsuccessful in reversing the age process in the children.

This is Kenton and his good friend Jonah, sporting the very finest in Backward attire for the party. Yes, their jeans are on backwards, too.
The syrup bottle is on the table because we obviously had to serve breakfast for our dinner guests!
Kenton is now the proud owner of a Spidey skateboard. Watch out!
I love seeing them grow. Kenton has such a sweet spirit, and a loving heart (unless he and dad are wrestling, then he's fearless, and he has no mercy!). Sigh...