Women of Faith 2011

This weekend was one that I will not soon forget. I went to Dallas with a group of beautiful Christian women to the Women of Faith conference at the American Airlines center. I feel like I just came back from a week at church camp. And if you ever went to church camp, you are familiar with the 'spiritual high' I'm talking about. I'm so thankful that these women talked me into going to this with them several months ago.

I went into this conference not knowing exactly what to expect. I knew that there would be some speakers and some singers, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. When I got there I heard stories from women that went through very hard times in their life, and they let go and let God lead them out of those times. It takes such a strong and courageous person to be willing to surrender it all and give it to God in the hardest season of life, and we had the privilege of listening to woman after woman talk about the journeys they have made it through because they leaned on God to get them through it.

Part of the gang at PF Chengs

I can only pray that when I'm faced with everyday problems, or even if I have some sort of tragedy in my life that I will be able to step out of the way and give it to the only One that can make it better. Bad things are going to happen. It's life. But it's how we choose to handle those things that says what kind of person we truly are. God knows our hearts and He knows our struggles, but He is holding us in His hands when everything in life seems to be falling apart. And even in those dark times, we need to praise Him, because He will get us through.

Kristie and I

I know that all of the women who were able to go to the conference this weekend were somehow affected by something that was said. But I was able to witness the power of God within my own circle of friends at church yesterday morning. One friend was asking for forgiveness, the other was making the choice to forgive. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. God has been working on these women's hearts for months, and lots of people have been praying about the situation. But for them to surrender it all to Him, it moved me to tears. God was right there in the middle of it all with a big 'ol smile on his face. It was absolutely amazing and I was blessed by just being a part of it. One of my favorite sayings of the conference was this: God created you with a will that is stronger than your emotions. It took a while for that to sink in for me, but it's so true! I love that!

 Kristi and I

Over the past few weeks, I have made some new friends and reconnected with some of my old friends, and I know that God has put them in my life for a purpose. I just feel overwhelmingly happy, blessed, and thankful for all that we have going on right now. One of the things that was talked about this weekend is that change is hard. But change can be good. And sometimes a change is needed in order to grow and be better people.

Melyssa, me, and Sara

I know that I am just one person in a world of billions, and I know that I am one little spec on earth compared to all of the stars, planets, and galaxies, but I know that I am important enough to God for Him to send His son just for me. And I know that He wants me to spend eternity with Him. And I know that His love for me is unlike any other love I've ever known. I know that God has a plan for me and I pray that I can stay out of His way and let Him do His thing.

Singers Sandy Patty, Amy Grant, and Mandisa

Because He certainly knows and understands the big picture waaay better than I ever will.

In the Dry





Well, we are officially what they call 'in the dry' with our new house! The framers have finished up their part, and we have electricial, plumbing, and heat & air going on now. In the first month of building, there were dramatic changes that could be seen daily. Now when I go out there, there may be some new wires running through the walls, but the changes are much less obvious. I've had several people getting on me for not posting house pictures lately, so here ya go!

Here, I am standing on the balcony at the top of the stairs looking down into the living room and kitchen

Wires wires everywhere

This is the front porch, partially painted. The wood around the bottom of the beams will be covered by stone when we get it in. We went with local cedar posts and I love how they look!

The front of the house

Front door from the outside

This is the back porch

So this is where we are now! This week, we will be getting the brick put on the sides and back, and the fireplace will be installed. Hopefully our stone will be in this week and we can get the stone put on around the fireplace, chimney, and outside beams. All of the wiring should be finished by next week, and then we will be ready for sheetrock. We are all just so ready to get into this house - it can't go fast enough!

Breasts. And I'm not talking about chicken.

Let me just start this by saying that I had no intention of blogging about this or even telling people about it, but Robbie asked me earlier if I was going to blog about it and I got to thinking that it may actually be helpful to someone. And most of my posts are not helpful, so I guess I'm going to go with it.

Or I will at least type it all out. It just may never actually get published onto my blog.

But if it didn't, you wouldn't be reading this right now trying to figure out when I'm going to get to the point.

Wow.

Anyway, I'm 35 years old, and apparently that is that magic number for when women should get their baseline mammogram. Get a baseline at 35, and then no more squishing until age 40 (which I cannot believe is only 5 years from now!).

So it was only about a month ago that I had my first mammogram appointment. I had not thought a lot about the appointment at all. I had spent the day out of town at a waterpark with friends, and then got back into town at 5:00 for my appointment. It was really just an inconvenience at that point. Nevertheless, I was there. Waiting to get squished.

I'm not going to go into the mammo in detail, but I will say that when the woman said "hold your breath', I realized I already was because IT HURT TOO MUCH TO BREATHE at the moment.

If men would only realize what we go through being a woman, I think they would fall down and worship the ground we walk on.

Ok, maybe not that, but they may at least unload the dishwasher every once in a while.

The week that I was in Washington, I got 2 letters in the mail. One was from my gyn. The other was from St. Michael. Both stating that my mammogram showed something that wasn't just right, and to call to get an appointment for further testing.

So I called my doctor and was told that I need to go back in for another mammogram, and this time I also had to get an ultrasound, and I would find out the results immediately.

She assured me that it was more than likely not breast cancer, but they needed a better look to be sure.

I told VERY few people about this for a few different reasons. I didn't want people to worry about me if there was really nothing to worry about. The handful of  people that I told were people I knew would pray about it. And if it did end up being cancer, I wanted to be able to deal with it on my own for a while before I had to answer questions about it.

Robbie has been so good to me with all of this too. He somehow just knew when I was thinking about it and would give me a hug and say "whatever it is, we'll get through this together'. He's been so so supportive through all of this.

So, today was my appointment. One of the dearest people in the world to me, Sara, came with me for support. She went through all of it with me today, and I've got tears in my eyes right now thinking about how much that means to me. She knew I was planning to go alone since Robbie had the kids, and she also knew that I could be told this very day that I had cancer. And she chose to be by my side for that so I wouldn't have to do it all alone. Thank you Sara. I am so thankful for your friendship.

I had the mammogram done first today. She only had to do one side, and it didn't hurt as bad as it did last time. I'm not sure if it's because she didn't squeeze as tight, or if it was because I had Sara there for support, but it wasn't too bad today.

After the mammogram part was done, they sent us to the ultrasound room. The ultrasound lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, and was a little uncomfortable, but not bad. The ultrasound lady said that she was going to show the results to the radiologist and would be back in a few minutes.

Another moment that I'm so thankful Sara was with me so I wasn't left alone with my thoughts.

When the girl came back into the room, she said that the radiologist said that it was absolutely nothing to worry about. It was either a cyst or blocked milk duct, and neither of those were something to worry about.

And this is where Sara and I praised God!

The only reason I decided to do this post is because I know that SO many women get back abnormal mammograms, which means that there are SO many women that worry about having breast cancer. It runs in my family, so I am more at risk, so it was a concern of mine before I even started this whole process. And out of the few women I told, almost all of them told me of other people they knew that had recently gone through the exact same thing, with a good result at the end. If you are a woman that is reading this, and you someday get back an abnormal mammogram, please know that even a little cyst will cause a mammo to come back abnormal.And I know it gave me comfort knowing so many other people had been through this same thing and everything was fine.

So my hope is that this will give someone else comfort if they ever have to go through this. And if we are friends and you're going to have to go through this alone, CALL ME! I will do everything I can to be there for you. After today, I know how important it is to have someone there.

Wait! Have I mentioned how thankful I am for Sara?

Because I am. :)

14 years

Robbie and I are celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary today. That makes me sound so old, but really it's just that I got married young. Someday I will admit that I'm old, but today will not be the day.

When I walked down that aisle 14 years ago, I remember being worried about how the flowers turned out, who all came to our wedding, is our cake going to be good, and if that little white 'chill' pill Robbie's mom gave me would wear off enough for me to be able to remember something about that day. I had no idea what all God had in store for us. I didn't know how high our highs would be and how low our lows would be. I didn't know we would have trouble having babies. I didn't know all of the awesome friends He would put in our lives. I didn't know God would give us 2 precious boys when His timing was right. And I didn't know that God had created Robbie just for me.

Fourteen years later, I now know that we have gone through a lot of hard times, but have always come out stronger on the other side of it. And I know that we have more hard times coming because that's just how life is, but I don't have to worry about us not going through them together. I know that we are doing a pretty good job raising these 2 boys that God is trusting us with. And I know without a doubt that God created Robbie and I for each other.

We have had to make so many big decisions together, some of which have been in just the past few months. But we've always tried to think about what God would want and what is best for our family overall. I love that we both live our lives with the ultimate goal in mind: to get to heaven. We have made some really stupid decisions in the past, but when you know better you do better, and I think we've always learned from our bad decisions.

This past Sunday we sang 'Father Hear the Prayer We Offer' in church. It was also sang at our wedding, and every time I hear it I think about the commitment we made to each other and to God so long ago. Here's a few of my favorite verses:

Father, hear the prayer we offer:
Nor for ease that prayer shall be,
But for strength, that we may ever
Live our lives courageously.

Be our strength in hours of weakness,
In our wanderings be our Guide;
Through endeavor, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side.

Let our paths be bright or dreary,
Storm or sunshine be our share;
May our souls in hope unweary
Make Thy work our ceaseless prayer.

I think that no matter how far off track life gets, as long as you bring it back to your commitment to each other, and the commitment to God, and lots of prayer, you can get back where you need to be. I hope I never forget that.

I love you, Robbie, and I can't wait to see what our next 14 years will hold. Happy Anniversary!

Knee deep in the water somewhere

 I'm really not even sure what we did with our summer, but I do know that we've had these last 3 weeks full of going places. I just can't believe that this time next week for the first time EVER, both of my kids will be full time students.

Yeah. I'm not even gonna go there right now.

So, last Friday after Robbie got off work, the 4 of us loaded up and hit the road to Destin for our last summer get-away. We drove to Jackson on Friday, which was a little under halfway. The ride Friday was uneventful, unless you count the spilling of my Dr Pepper into my purse. That was NOT my favorite part of this trip, but I'm happy to say that after all the cleaning I've put into that purse in the last week, I'm not sure it's ever been more clean.

Which is really not helping my "I need a new purse" argument.

Four people + one week of stuff = one full car

Saturday, after driving around to avert traffic in Mobile, only to find worse traffic AND after Austin asked about 3,543 times "are we there yet", we finally made it to Destin. We met my parents there because this was kind of a family reunion trip where we got to see some of my cousins that we only see once a year.

I'm just going to mention very shortly and sweetly that we had some MAJOR time share issues with the place(S) we stayed, but it's a part of this trip that I hope to forget. So I'm going to just leave it at that.

My favorite part of Destin was riding jet skis. Robbie and Aaron rode on one and Austin and I had another one. It was SO FUN! I didn't get pictures of this because (1) I've only had my iPhone 4 for about 2 weeks now, and I'm not ready to give it to the ocean (2) If I'd have been taking pictures when I was supposed to be driving, I may have gotten to know some fellow jet skiers or boaters too personally. And it wouldn't have been pretty.

And it's not possible to talk about being a vacation and not talk a little about the food we ate. We went to this place called FudPuckers for lunch one day. It's the kind of place that you hope there's a wait to eat so you can go do everything there is to do while you're waiting.

They had lots of gators you could watch swim around in the water.

The boys even got to hold a live gator. Watch out Swamp People!

LOVE this pic of Robbie and Austin!

OK, I was looking all kinds of rough, but I was having too much fun to care about what I looked like.

We drove to Fort Walton Beach one day to eat at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I had seen it on Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins and really wanted to try it.

Aaron tackled this bacon cheese dog!

I just realized that's the second place in the last 3 weeks I've eaten at a place BECAUSE I saw it on that show.

Good job Food Network. Good job.

We also spent some time at The Track, where we rode bumper boats, bumper cars, and go-carts. The bumper cars was one of Austin's favorite things about this trip, except for when we were on jet skis and he would yell WOOHOO!! every time I gassed it. He was a little disappointed, however, that he couldn't convince anyone to parachute out of a helicopter with him.

I'm sorry. But I do have limits.

One evening it was raining and we were looking for something to do, so we went to an arcade to let the boys play for a while. They both had a blast there.

Aaron won 250 tickets in one play!

Another place that I have to mention is the laser tag place. I didn't play and didn't get any pics, but my 3 boys did and they all had fun with it. Aaron did it twice and wanted to go back again. He was disappointed when I told him there wasn't one in Texarkana. He said it was in his top 3 favs of the trip.

Last but not least, we spent lots of time swimming at the pool and on the beach. There's just nothing like standing at the foot of the ocean, smelling the ocean smell, and feeling the breeze and the sand between your toes. Love it.

At one point Austin and I were holding hands standing in the ocean looking out across the water and I said "isn't this beautiful, Austin?" He said "yes, it's very romantic momma".
Romantic? How does he know this word??

Just had to get this one of Austin's feet covered in sand

It was really nice to get away for a little while and the boys have always loved going to the beach. I'm not sure I like Destin as much as Gulf Shores, but we all had a good time, and that's what matters.

I'm going to do a little plug for the people that take care of my dogs every time we leave town. If you live anywhere near Texarkana and want your furry babies to be taken care just like you would take care of them yourself, Doggie Diva's in Genoa is the place to go. I've had terrible experiences in the past with leaving my animals with other people while we are out of town, but I never worry about that anymore. They are a full service dog grooming shop, and can board them for as long as you need. They did not ask for this plug. I just wanted to do it for them because it gives me peace of mind when I'm gone knowing my animals are well taken care of, and I know that's not an easy thing to find.

They treat my Bea like the princess she is. Thank you Doggie Diva's! 

Wyldwood, Searcy, and House Progress

A few months ago when we were at the LTC conference in Dallas, Aaron and his friend Garrett Brooks saw a brochure for Camp Wyldwood and decided right then that they wanted to go together this year. For the past few years, they have been going to Mountain Fork together, but this year Garrett was old enough to be moved into the older camp and Aaron wasn't, so when they saw that they could both go to Wyldwood at the same time, they jumped at the chance.


I had never been to Wyldwood, but I've heard good things about it. And it is in a town that I rarely get to go to, but I will always love. It's in Searcy Arkansas, which is where Robbie and I went to college, met each other, and lived our first year and a half of marriage. Almost everything in that town has some kind of memory for me, so this week I got to take a stroll down memory lane while taking Aaron to camp and picking him up.

Camp Wyldwood was only about a mile from the first house Rob and I lived in when we first got married. That house also served as a hangout for our friends that were still living the dorm life and needed a get-a-away. We had my HUF (Harding University in Florence) group over weekly for devos, food, and games (specifically Nerts and Spoons). LOTS of good memories in that house. Wyldwood is also very close to the rock quarry where one of my slumber parties ended up with my friend, Erin, having an unfortunate incident that landed our entire slumber party in the ER.


Good times.

While in Searcy this week, I went by my old dorms that I lived in my first few years of college. It has changed so much up there and had a LOT of growth since we left, but a lot is still the same. I was sad to see that they took out the steps going into Stephens dorm, because that's where Robbie first kissed me when he was walking me in from a date one night. I went into the Student Center, and even though it has changed dramatically (umm, HELLO! Who needs a coffee shop and a Taco Bell when you can have a bowling alley?), it still had the same smell that brought me right back to the days of being in Delta Gamma Rho and it made me miss all of my friends that I was so close to then. I saw the lawn where Heather (my roommate) and I ran barefoot in the pouring rain just because we could. That was also the lawn that Robbie and I used to sit on a blanket and read the Bible together very early in our relationship, so that was probably also the place that I realized (even though I didn't admit to it until MUCH later) that I was going to marry him someday. Not that it's rare to see a couple reading the Bible together at a Christian college, but it was a first for me.

Ok, I could really go on for DAYS about my Harding memories, but I guess I'll get back to now.


Even though memory lane can be a pretty nice place to visit sometimes.


So, where was I? Robbie, Terri (Garrett's mom), Garrett, Aaron, Austin, and I all loaded up Sunday this week to take the boys to camp. They had originally not put the boys in the same cabin, but after I did a little convincing to the camp director that Aaron was mature for his age and could handle being moved up to an 'older kids' cabin, we were set. Of course, my thought was, 'please don't let him be crying to come home after I've talked about how mature he is and make me eat my words'.

The boys decided that they wanted to do the 4 night session this year just to see if they like it, and then they can move up to the 7 or 11 day session next year. My mom, Austin, and I went up to Searcy Wednesday night and went to the devo they had at the camp, and then just spent the night in a hotel that night. We picked the boys up Thursday morning and they both really enjoyed their week. They got to do several things there that they don't get to do at Mountain Fork, such as night swimming and horseback riding. I'm so glad they had a good time.

Buddies

Austin has missed Aaron so much. He just needed to chase him.

When we went into their cabin to get their stuff, the boys had made a cross out of shoes with an open Bible on the floor for the cabin checker to see. I thought it was very creative for a cabin full of 12 year old boys.

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This was the boys bed. Aaron had the bottom bunk.

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Cabin B5 - Apparently Austin's head makes a good armrest

Garrett lost a tooth in the 4 days they were there, and Aaron had one that was very loose. Aaron told me when I saw him Wednesday night that he couldn't wait to get home so he could pull his tooth and not have to worry about losing it. Well, we were home 15 minutes and.....

he pulled it right outta there! He really was waiting to get home for that! It's good to have him home. I feel like I haven't seen the boy all summer.


I haven't posted house pics in a few weeks, so here's a quick update on that.


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This is our fireplace with a built-in place for our TV above it. VERY excited about that!!

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They are storing our windows, doors, and siding in our garage until they can get to them.

This is a side view. Siding is going up!

Rob is getting all of the lights put in around the porch.

Boys bathtubs are in.

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Austin is already wearing out these stairs.



Our framer apologizes to me daily for not being further along than they are. These guys have been working in 110 + degree weather in the direct sunlight trying to get this house up. I don't know how they do it really, but they do keep having to stop for breaks more often with it being so hot, which is slowing their process down. I haven't complained once though, because I don't even like to be outside for more than 5 minutes under these conditions. I don't know how they do what they do. I'm just thankful for any time they can put into it right now.

Seattle and Spokane

On Wednesday, Brandi and I spent the day walking around in Seattle. I just need to say up front - I LOVE SEATTLE! I think it just moved to the top of my list of favorite places to be in America. The weather was absolutely perfect. I've heard that it rains 9 months out of the year there (I think I learned that on Sleepless in Seattle), but last Wednesday it was 65 degrees and beautiful. Such a welcomed change from the 105 we've been having at home.

Parts of Seattle reminds me of being in Europe. Walking through the Public Market Center on Pike was a lot like walking through the open-air markets in Italy. There were people walking around eating a piece of fruit or bread and many of the shops were giving out samples of their fruit. I love that atmosphere and all of the smells. I could live in this place.

This market is also the place of the famous fish throwing guys. We stood there watching the guys throwing fish, cutting them up, and bagging them for people to buy. It was so neat to watch them. They have little songs they sing every once in a while to keep everyone watching.

This marketplace is just beside the water and it was so nice to just stand and look out over the water or to sit and do some people watching. I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to put it into words. But there are no words that would do it justice. The only words I can come up with for Seattle are- pure awesomeness.

 

The tallest building in Seattle is the Bank of America building on 5th Avenue. And y'all. It's big.

It was 2 elevator rides up. The first one took us to the 40th floor. The second took us to the 75th floor. And the elevators moved so fast that we were at the top in a matter of seconds. My ears popped going up and coming back down. The view was just beautiful. You could see all of Seattle. We had first thought about going up in the Space Needle, because that's supposed to give you a good view of Seattle. Umm, no. This is a picture I took from the observation deck where we were of the space needle.

Let's play a game of - can you find the space needle in the haystack of buildings. The building we were in was twice as tall as the Needle. The views were breath-taking.

The cars looked like the little die cast cars that Austin plays with. Awesome view. And for only $3 a piece. It's $5 regularly, but when the cashier asked if we were students, I said "no, but we're mommies" so he gave us the 'mommy' discount. What a good man to know that mommy's need a break just as much as students!

So that was our Wednesday in Seattle. And the only thing I would've changed about the whole day is that we wouldn't have left. But then I may still be there now, and that would be bad for the man that calls me wife and the kids that call me mom.

On Thursday Todd, Brandi, and I headed to Spokane to spend the day. Ok, I did not love Spokane like I did Seattle, but I totally blame Brandi for starting me out with a city that is hard to live up to. I will say this though. We had fun in Spokane. And that's all that matters.

At lunch, Brandi and I were sitting across the table from Todd and we asked him to take our picture. We started laughing about something and COULD NOT STOP. But that did not stop Todd from taking pictures of the events. Here we are.

Laughing.

Still laughing.

Annnnnnddd....still laughing.

Ok. Time to pull it together. This is getting ridiculous.

We were eating at a place called The Elk Public House that was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. And the food was yummy.  Todd actually took about 15 pictures while we were uncontrollably laughing, but I think you get the idea of how funny it was.

While we were in Spokane, we went to Riverfront Park where the World Fair was held in 1974. We went up in a gondola so that we could get a better view of the water. The sign when we got our tickets said that it would be 95 degrees in the 20 minute ride. We really didn't believe that it would be THAT hot until we got up in that thing. It was horrible. We were SO hot, there was NO air moving, and there was no escaping that thing. The only good thing I can say about that is that that was one of the events Brandi and I ended up laughing about on Friday night. It was not so funny at the time though. Here are few pics from that ride.

Ok, they're smiling, but they're HOT!

I think the sign that said it was 95 degrees was about 100 degrees off. It was that hot.

We spent a lot of time in the park, that included things like losing a phone and picking it up from lost and found, taking really bad pics of Brandi and I laying in the grass, and riding a train, in which Todd looked like much more of a tourist than I did. Spokane was fun, but Seattle still has my heart.

So that's my trip. I had such a good week of getting away and spending time with Brandi. I only had to make a few house decisions over the phone while I was gone (I will post house pics later in the week), and my kids did well staying with my parents for the week so Robbie could still go to work.

 

 

Thank you Peggy, Todd, and Brandi for opening up your home to me while I was there. I love and already miss y'all. And thank you to Robbie for letting me be gone for a week, and to my parents for keeping my boys.

And I feel like I need to say "And I'd like to thank the Academy" here, but they didn't do anything for me. So I won't.