Darlene's Graduation

Darlene had her 8th grade dance on June 8th and then graduated on June 10th. We decided to go to the park the day before graduation to take pictures of her in her gown. The school collected the gowns as the kids walked off the field so we would not have an opportunity to get pictures with the grandparents. After graduation we went to a Japanese steak house. The chef did all kinds of fun tricks while cooking the food on a grill in front of us. He threw food at all of us hoping we would catch it in our mouths. Dad and Tom were able to catch the food. The rest of us were not as fortunate. You can see more pictures here.

Mud hole Fun

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Does anybody recognize these children? Who are their parents?

Dad, you would have loved it!

While in SC over the weekend, I had the opportunity to meet with a friend of RMI. He is an amazing taxidermist.  Deer are up there in terms of my loves. God, Family and Deer! What else is there?

This guy, Dave Strafford is an award winning hunting guide, speaker and taxidermist. He had animals (mostly deer) from all over the US. And they were huge!!! He probably had 100 deer mounts.  I saw some animals that were way up there in Boone and Crockett points. He had both typical and non-typical.

This guy was truly a deer enthusiast. He currently has 6 deer in a pen behind his house so he can watch them, learn, and grow in his ability to mount them. He used to have more than 20. I had the opportunity watch these deer for awhile. What a great time we had. It was great to meet this guy that is using his passion to serve the Lord. Not only is he amazing at what he does, but he travels around sharing his 2 passions, Christ and deer, at sportsmen's banquets, camps, and seminars. Very cool.

In an earlier post, I mentioned SC is different? Well, we drove 20 miles to Laird's BBQ. the BBQ sauce wasn't BBQ sauce as I knew it. They just didn't have the typical sauce. It was this amazingly good mustard based sauce. yum! The buffet included hash, fried chicken, fried gizzards, fried Liver, fried Okra, hush puppies, and some other stuff I didn't recognize. A truly great, but very different experience. I think I fit right in with the guys wearing their mossy oak camo hats and denim overalls. (I can at least pretend I fit in, right?).

Rob

We're Home Owners

These are the pictures we've taken of our new house. We had settlement yesterday (Wed. 6/13/07) at 3pm. Thanks for the prayers, it couldn't have gone any smoother. Who knew getting into debt would be so easy! (Tongue slightly in cheek) We are very excited about our home. We have a month to move in all of my stuff from the apt. I am currently living in, and the Massanari's would love us to get Becca's mountains of "stuff" out of their basement. In all seriousness, both sets of parents have been very gracious through this stressful and exciting process.

Last night, Becca's parents and Sarah and Johnny came over. We had pizza and sat on our floor. Although we don't have anything moved in, I slept there last night. I'd brought over the air mattress. I just felt like I had to claim it or something.

Becca and I are very excited about making a home together. We want to make this a place of hospitality, graciousness, kindness, friendship, love, and care. That was our prayer last night.

Come Visit Soon!

Old House, New House

Our house was built in the 1870's. It was sided (at least some of it) in the 1880's... and we have the newspaper to prove it. In early April, we started to have our house re-sided. As the old cedar and pine clapboard siding was removed, it revealed the original wide plank sheathing... not plywood. And it was all dry. Not only that, but as part of the vapor barrier, our contractor found a piece of newspaper with the date of 1881 on it. Unbelievable, huh? The siding job took forever, but it has now been replaced. It's a little sad to think that we just tore off 130 year old siding to replace it with vinyl, but then I think about the former owner who used to re-paint the house EVERY fall... all of a sudden, I'm not as sad anymore.

The siding job is now complete! Next up... landscaping!

Happy Birthday, Zach!

Thursday, June 7th, was Zach's 1st birthday! We celebrated by having Dad take the day off of work and making a day of it. We had our pictures taken as a family, turned Zach's carseat around (which he found very entertaining), went to the park, played in the back yard, and finished off the day with some ice cream.

Oddly enough... we bought our house on the day Chase was born, just over 3 years ago. On Zachary's first birthday, our siding project came to a completion. I'm not sure Zach appreciated the new gutters for his birthday, but his parents did!

Happy Birthdays!

On Saturday, May 26th, Chase turned 3! Since it happened to be Memorial Day Weekend, Grandmom & Grandpop Thompson came up to visit and we had a birthday party for both Chase and Zach (Zach turned 1 a week and a half later). It was a Sesame Street themed party and the boys had a great time! Happy Birthday Chase and Zach!

Tessa's Standing

Tessa stood up, let go and did a free stand that lasted 5 seconds yesterday-- twice! She's growing up too fast.

Rob took this picture yesterday as well. Her hair is messier than her Mom would like, but it was too cute of an expression!