summer snapshots

This summer before we transitioned from Tennessee to Georgia, we took some time to relax, unwind, and recharge. We traveled 5,000 miles in 5 weeks! It was quite an adventure! We found a house in Georgia, went to the beach, and visited some sweet family and friends. Here are a few summer snapshots. 

 

 

sister/cousin trip 2010

This year's annual sister/cousin trip was in Nashville!! Everyone was sweet to come my way from Texas and California this year, since I can't travel too far from my doctor at this point in the pregnancy.

My mom came a few days early. We had lots of fun hanging out, marking things off of my pre-baby to do list, cooking, washing Carson's clothes, and making homemade laundry detergent, thanks to Laura!! I'm excited to save money by only spending 14 cents a month on laundry detergent!!

We rented a house in Franklin for a few days, and my sister, Misty; aunt, Paula; cousin, Nicole; cousin, Staci; and Staci's two sweet kids, Wyatt and Raquel joined us!!! We had a wonderful time together. We talked, played games, saw the sights of Nashville, and ate some Tennessee favorites. They even got to come to church with us that Sunday and be here for my baby shower (shower pics coming soon!)

my sweet mama and me

I am blessed to have the best mama/friend ever!

I'm so thankful for her!

I hadn't seen my sweet sister since December, back when Carson was about the size of a bean:)!! It was so much fun to spend time with her!!

When we lived in Abilene, Misty and I hung out several times a week, so we did our best to soak up every minute of our sister time while she was here!! I love that girl!

me, Misty, Staci, Raquel, and Nicole before church Sunday morning

There were lots of funny photo ops in our tour of Nashville:)

cowgirls

biggest ice cream cone EVER!

Staci and I got matching sunglasses

Raquel and her grandma, Paula

could that sweet baby girl be any cuter?!!

cute big brother, Wyatt and his aunt, 'Cole

the whole group!!!

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:)

summer rewind #1...vacation

As you can see on Keith's arm, the spray on sunscreen is not all it's cracked up to be. We both had blotches of burn after day one at the beach:(

Back in July, Keith and I had a vacation! It. was. so. much. fun. We went to Gulf Shores, Alabama and we LOVED it! Here are a few pictures from our week of fun!

our nice, comfy, relaxing condo!

hanging at the beach!

our camp

big outlet mall!

date nights!

with lots of YUMMY seafood!

deep sea fishing

the serious fisherman...his less-serious fishing buddy got sea sick:(

before

after...we fried Freddy

and grilled Greta.

sporting our souvenir shirts for one last delicious blueberry biscuit at our fave place

If you ever get the opportunity to go on a beach vacation, GO! It was so much fun, so relaxing, so wonderful, we loved it!

Summertime....and the livin' is easy....

We've been enjoying summertime here in Clarksville.

Another school year ended with its usual craziness. This year was especially wild at my school, because our campus is being renovated and we had to pack EVERYTHING (54 boxes to be exact). Only elementary teachers save so many awkward to pack, fragile, heavy, bulky things, that we hope to remember to pull out once or twice a year to enhance the education of our future leaders!

Since then, Keith and I have both been working at ACU. Keith got a job as the campaign manager for the new enrollment marketing department. He gets brainstorm how to "sell" the ACU experience to highschoolers with a great group of people and "play" with spreadsheets. He's enjoying it. It is not the type of job we expected, but it has been a blessing. I'm working part time in the education department as the assistant director of the reading clinic, a class where senior education majors tutor children one on one. My job is a lot of fun too; I get to help the college students look at test results and decide how best to meet their client's reading needs, grade their lesson plans, and fill in when a tutor is absent. It's a fun, low-key summer job. I'm finished by lunch, so in the afternoons, I rotate napping, shopping, TV, laying out by the pool, and such....I know, I know it's a tough life:)

During the evenings and weekends we've spent time with each other and with friends. We started watching LOST and we LOVE it!! We're hooked. It's a great show--abc.com has them all for free online right now, so if you've ever thought about watching it, now's the time. You. will. love. it. It is not a show you can watch sporadically, because if you do, you'll be really confused. We've enjoyed a couple marathons already and have just finished season 2.

We're happy that our friends, Nick, Lauren, and sweet Emmy moved to Abilene! We've shared several meals and played lots of games with them! We've also had some fun visits from out of town friends like Whitney and Suzanne, two bffs from ACU that are lots of fun! Both of these girls are the kind of friends that I don't keep in touch with quite like I should, but every time I see either of them we're able to pick right up where we left off. I'm thankful special friends like that!

Last weekend we went to see Jacquie, Spruce, and Lynlee. We enjoyed getting to play games with them and some of their new friends on Friday night. You can't beat a good game night! Saturday we hung out and played with Lynlee; she is growing and learning so much! That night we celebrated Jacquie's b.day! We went and ate at one of those fun Japanese steak houses and then enjoyed a Rascal Flatts concert. You can read more about our history with Rascal Flatts here. It was so much fun! Such a better experience. Let me sum up the contrast for you....concert number #1--drunk teenagers falling on us and getting muddier than a pig pen full rooters, concert #2--Clay Walker wearing tight jeans, shaking his stuff, and thinking he's 15 years younger, concert #3--soft grass, shade, lots of fun songs to sing along to, sweet kids sitting behind Keith making shadow puppets on his back, funny families to observe, and last but not least, "Spike" (our term of endearment for the lead singer) got a haircut:) Although this was by far the best experience of the three, they all had good friends and lots of laughs in common! Sunday morning we joined them for chuch, met lots of friendly people, and heard a great sermon by Jarrod. Oh yeah, I can't forget to mention meeting precious Rylee, Jarrod and Lauren's sweet daughter!

Hope all of you fellow bloggers are enjoying your summer!