a visit from sweet friends

Several weeks ago, our dear friends, the Riches, came to visit. We loved our time together talking late into the night, watching our boys play, crafting, and playing games. We always treasure our time with them and look forward to the next time we can be together. This is basically a repeat of Tara's blog post a couple of weeks ago. She's a much more on-the-ball blogger than I am:)

Our sweet boys are really close in age and had fun playing together. This is the third time they've been together, and I have a feeling it's going to continue to be more and more fun each time.

hanging with their sweet daddies:)

crafting!

ticket to ride on the ipad!

This photo captures a good bit of our time together: Carson attempting to attack Jaxon with hugs and kisses:) He's a lot bigger than Jaxon and sometimes knocked him down with his aggressive affection!

We are so thankful for these sweet friends!

Thanks for coming to visit, Mark, Tara, and Jaxon!

take me in to the ballgame

come on in, y'all. the rangers are in the world series again!

nope, you won't even need your sun screen or bug spray in our living room.

we'll have lots of fun cheering for ron washington,

michael young,

josh hamilton,

mike napoli, and more!

but beware, we might invite a cardinal fan

or two:)

thanks for another fun season, texas rangers! we had lots of fun cheering for you!

roby baby shower

Our dear friends in Roby threw us a grandma shower, since it's too far for me to travel at this point in the pregnancy. How sweet and thoughtful! My mom was the guest of honor and opened lots of sweet gifts for little Carson! I really wish I could have been there, but I was thankful to be able to talk to several sweet women on the phone! We're excited for Carson's first road trip to Texas to meet all of you!!

hostesses

I have so many special memories with these precious ladies from my years in Roby, and I'm thankful to have been able to keep in touch with them over the years.

the gift table

Thank you all for being so generous!!

Mama sent me pictures of all the sweet gifts!

sweet picture of Aunt Misty and Granny!!

church baby shower

Our sweet church family showered us with lots of love and thoughtful gifts for baby Carson! We were overwhelmed by their support and encouragement as we enter the exciting journey of parenthood! We are thankful to be part of such a special group of people and are anxious for our sweet boy to meet everyone soon!

the sweet hostesses and me

the beautiful cake!

the gift table

Keith joined me for the shower and helped open so many sweet gifts!

both of Carson's sweet grandmas were there!!

Aunt Misty was there, too!!

sweet Texas friends

Since moving to Tennessee, we've been blessed by sweet friends from Texas coming to visit!!! It has been so special to spend time with these sweet friends, introduce them to our church family, and show them our new home. We've had fun showing them around Music City, and our tour guide skills have improved a little bit each time!

January: Mark and Tara

Keith and Mark were roommates at ACU, and he and Tara have been dear friends of ours ever since. We always pick up right where we left off, stay up late, and have the best conversations with them! This visit was extra special because Tara and I were both pregnant, so we had lots of conversations about becoming parents:) We can't wait to meet sweet Jaxon!!

rockin' out!

waiting in line at Pancake Pantry on a cold winter morning....totally worth it:)

March: Spruce, Jacquie, Lynlee, and Kyndall

Jacquie and I were in club together at ACU and had lots of education classes together. We started hanging out with her and Spruce soon after we got married. We would hang out at least two or three times a week, playing games, watching TV, cooking, and sharing teaching and ministry ideas! They are such special friends. We've spent several spring breaks with them since they moved from Abilene a few years before we did. It was sweet of them to make the long drive to spend their spring break with us this year! We absolutely love their precious girls, Lynlee and Kyndall!!!

family pic at the Loveless Cafe...a Nashville hot spot with the most delicious biscuits ever!

the sweet girls were adorable in their matching coats:)

Jacquie and Kendall

Lynlee and me

May: Nick, Lauren, Emmy, and David

Keith and Lauren became friends when Keith's family moved to Jackson his freshman year of high school and have remained friends since then. Nick and I easily joined the friendship when we started dating the two of them:) During our last six months in Abilene, Nick, Lauren, and Emmy moved there!! It was such a blessing to have such good friends in town! We had lots of fun game nights and learned some great recipes from them. They were even sweet enough to help us with our home renovation!! Emmy was always such a joy, and after we left Abilene, they had sweet David! This is another precious family!!

family pic while David naps

Keith and Emmy

me with both precious kiddos!

July: Augie and Ashley

Ashley and I have been best friends since I moved to Roby in eighth grade and she invited the new girl to her slumber party:) We've remained friends since high school. We had fun working summers at BCEC together during college! Ashley and I have shared so many special parts of life together. We've had lots of serious conversations and had more than our share of silly moments, too:) We stood beside one another on our wedding days. Ashley and Augie got married last October. They make such a great couple! It was neat to spend more time getting to know Augie!

We picked them up at the airport and we matched:) Here we are at the factory in Franklin.

Ashley was brave and asked Waylon if we could have a picture with him at the Outlaws' game!

4th of July...everyone else went with blue and white, and I was the loner sportin' red and white...at least all three colors were represented:)

Loveless Cafe for some coouuntry ham and biscuits! We matched again without planning it:) I guess that's what happens when you're friends for SIXTEEN years!!!

sharing the big news

We debated about how best to share the good news with our parents and sisters. Since it was so close to Christmas and we would see everyone soon, we decided to wait until we could tell them in real life! Keith didn't think I could wait three whole weeks, and I did almost slip when talking to my mom and sister a couple of times...but I did it, and I'm so glad:)

The logical thing was to reveal it with an early Christmas gift, but what should it be??? So many of the things we saw were pink or blue, or they had a specific grandparent name.

We were excited when we found the book, The Gifts of Being Grand for our parents. Their delayed reaction was cute...."Does this mean what we think it means?!!"

For the sisters, we got picture frames with a note inside for Aunt Misty and Aunt Laura to reserve this frame from their future niece or nephew, scheduled to arrive August 2010.

All six of them were thrilled about the new addition to our family!

Telling our families our news was special and telling our friends has been too! Thank you all for being excited for us!! Your sweet hugs, phone calls, emails, kind thoughts on here, and comments on facebook have all made this experience one that we will always treasure!! We are thankful to be able to raise our little one along side such precious family and friends:)

summer

Our summer activities are winding down and I'm beginning to prepare for school. So, before summer is completely over, here's a little "summer"ary:) of what we've been up to.

Shortly after I returned home from Texas, we took middle-schoolers to Impact at Lipscomb. It had been a while since we'd used community showers and participated in all that is crazy/silly/fun about middle-school camp:) We enjoyed spending time with the kids and building relationships with them!

We had sweet friends, Andy and Carol, from Maryneal come visit. They came to Tennessee for a family reunion and made time to find us while they were somewhat close! It was a treat to visit with them and show them our home, town, and church.

Then, I got to go to Albuquerque for a couple of days of girl FUN with my mom, sister, aunt, and cousins. It was sooo fun!! We enjoyed time together visiting, eating, and walking around Santa Fe. We even took a tram ride over the mountains...so pretty and fun!

When I got home we had company. Jarrod and Lewis stayed with us and went with Keith to the Christian Scholars Conference, which they LOVED! I went and heard the last speaker and got to see several of Keith's ACU professors and their wives. They are always sweet and encouraging. Then we got to have lunch and good visiting with Dana Hood, my sweet professor/mentor/friend.

The next week was Summer Celebration at Lipscomb. It was beginning to feel like Lipscomb was our new home, but no worries we are still bleeding wildcat purple, not bison purple:) However, if we have to be far from ACU, there's no other college campus we'd rather spend time at. Anyway, summer celebration is their lectureship. We enjoyed worship and classes. Our favorite class was Earl Lavender's "Transformissional Friendship." It was the BEST class I've ever been in. ever. Maybe I'll blog more about it later. We enjoyed meals in the city and fireworks on Friday night too. But, the very best part of summer celebration was spending the night in Nashville with Ronnie and Angela (one of our elders and his wife). We always have the best late night conversations with them.

Then, one night we went with a big group from church to Faith Night at the Nashville Sounds baseball game with Jars of Clay! We got a concert, baseball game, hot dog and coke, all for $10!! Isn't that such a good deal?! We had a blast!

Last week, Keith and I went back to Nashville for a couple of days, but this time, there were no events, conferences, camps, or meetings, just FUN and RELAXING! It was a little vacation for just the two of us:) We slept in, read, snuggled, soaked up some poolside sun, and went out to eat.

Between and amongst all of that, I've done a little scrapbooking, read, slept in, worked on Sunday school lesson plans, and enjoyed meals and conversations with friends.

And, guess what?!!

My sweet husband has finally joined the world wide web of blogging!

You may have noticed that I went a little nuts with the links on this post:) There were probably more links on this post than the whole rest of the blog put together, but if you only click on one link, make it this one. I think you'll enjoy exploring apprenticeship!

Check it out:)

Pepperdine

Last week we got to go to Southern California to the Bible lectures at Pepperdine. 

Some of the highlights from our week in no particular order:

enjoying the beauty of God's creation

late night conversations with Keith, Bob, Lourene, and Laura

visiting with ACU ministry friends

visiting with ACU mentors and professors

lots of good food

playing in the ocean with Laura

thought provoking lectures and classes

time with aunt, uncle, and cousins

praising God through song

learning some awesome new songs from Zoe

and now for some pictures....

a day at the beach with my sweet SIL, Laura....soooo fun! it doesn't get any better than the ocean! WOW! I loved every bit of it...waves are one of my favorite parts of creation! All of the metaphors in scripture that compare God's love to the depths of the ocean came to life for me more than ever! 

a day in LA...fun and relaxing

and here's a glimpse at what we ate....yikes that's a lot of food! but it was all soooo yummy:)