A little summer fun

At the very beginning of summer Micah, Patton, and I made "Summer to do lists." Patton's was very simple and he had everything checked off super quick. When you put things like "Go to TJ Maxx", and "play on Mama's phone" you know you'll accomplish everything. I'll have to get some pics of mine and Micah's lists. We failed to accomplish everything, but I told him that even though school is back in, summer isn't officially over until September :) "Play on a slip n slide made Micah's list.

 There was a lot of fruit picked.

 Bugs, insects, frogs….

                                                   
                                                   
We had a lot of play dates. One at our house. CRAZY day!

 But we got to enjoy Harrison and Levi! Boy boys were so happy!

We made it to one summer movie and everyone did great. These guys love Despicable Me 2!

 This picture has a story of it's very own. One day we were supposed to have some friends over for a crafty day. I try to never tell Micah plans ahead of time, because he becomes distraught if they get canceled/ changed, or bugs me about how much longer/ what times all.day.long. They knew this particular day that we were going to have friends over. As soon as Micah found out that plans had changed he was so sad. I tried to make it better by asking him if he'd like to go to Hobby Lobby. He did not. I really needed to and normally he Loves Hobby Lobby. I figured once we got there, he'd be ok. Little did I know. His day had officially been ruined. I got what I needed and told him that we were going to go home to stay. He doesn't like to stay home. He loves to go, but I knew that he was exhausted and Needed to be home. It was still early, 9:30 to be exact. He said "Let's go somewhere!" I explained that most stores don't open until 10:00 and that unless we were going to Target, or a grocery store that most stores are closed. He argued and argued. I was tired of arguing. He almost through tears begged to go to Life Way. I said "I' sure they're closed!" I was mad and so ready to be home. I said "Let's make a deal. I'll take you by Life Way, YOU read the hours and if they are closed we will go home and you can play in your room by.yourself (he Never entertains himself) until I tell you to come out, and if they're open, we'll go in!" I was mad. I knew they were not open. just KNEW. I pulled up in front of the store. Smack in the front row so that he could see the hours of the Christian bookstore. Clearly on the door it said 9:00-10:00. I almost cried. It was God. We went in. I bought a Bible (which will be a birthday present) a cd, and some flashlight thingy for Micah. With that one stop, his, and my days both turned around like magic. What a story, what a day.

 Not on the summer to do list, but too cute not to share. Apparently he felt the need to protect himself while he slept.

Cow Appreciation Day

During the week leading up to Cow Appreciation Day our local Chick-fil-A has special events every.single.day. We made it a point to go to several. We went to Mommy and me for breakfast and the kids worked on costumes. Kelsey and Makenzy came with us.

 Tie dye day is one of our favorites every year. Kelsey and Riley came to this one. It was so hot so we HAD to had a sweet treat after dying shirts :)

By the time Friday came around we were all ready to appreciate in our new costumes. We never like to take advantage of any Chick-fil-A, so we headed to Dacula for breakfast, and of course our own for lunch. We saw a lot of our friends and had a wonderful time. 

4th

We had a fun 4th this year. The weather was perfect so we were able to spend the entire day at the rent's pool. 

We stayed and had dinner before heading to Auburn to watch the fireworks. We decided that we'd go early enough to make sure that we could get a good place to park and see the fireworks. We got there in more than enough time to wander around the festival. Micah was able to play in those hamster balls on water. We ran into Heather, and Sarah and their families. All of the boys were so excited! So excited that Patton couldn't even wait to get to the bathroom. He wet his pants! Poor thing. We were probably a mile away from our car, so by the time we walked back to the truck, found him a change of shorts, and walked back…. It was almost firework time. 

The fireworks were good, but I made the mistake of taking glow sticks, that was all Micah and Patton could think about. The rest of us had a fun time :)

Country Kids Camp

I heard about this camp from a friend of mine last summer and I just knew it would be right up Micah's alley. Swimming in the lake, playing in mud, zip lining, obstacle course, fishing, archery, horseback riding, you name it…. If it was an outdoor activity they did it! Micah was SO nervous on the way to the camp. Something I never experience with him! He was nervous that he wouldn't know anyone, but I knew he would have a BLAST. I was right! He said something like "This was the Best day EVER!" The camp was 3 days and he LOVED every last second…. And wanted to go again the following week :) I was so sad that I couldn't be a fly on the trees during this camp just to watch Micah have fun. I was SO glad at the end of camp when they offered to sell CDs of pics from the week. I jumped on that so that now I can have pics that go with the stories. This is definitely a camp we'll do again next year!

                                      

                                                         

10 years!!

In May, Stacy and I celebrated ten years of marriage. I told him years and years ago that we didn't have do to anything Big for any of our anniversaries, a dinner date was acceptable. But I let him know at least 5 years ago that I was expecting something better for the 10th. I wanted a child free trip. We were so blessed to be gifted our honeymoon trip to Sandals in St. Lucia, I already knew that I LOVED the all inclusive idea. I can not stand having to decide what to do, or where to eat. I knew and let Stacy know that his choices were either all inclusive, or a cruise. I could care less where in the world we'd go, just that everything would be included…. the less choices, the better. 
Stacy talked to Mama who would be keeping our little people while we were away. She gave him  dates of the best week for us to go. He then began shopping for cruises. Neither of us had ever been on one. He found One that was 5 nights and booked it. We left out of Charleston. Our boat left on a Tuesday. After talking to a lot of people we decided to leave the night before to make sure that we'd be able to get there safely and on time. We had more than enough time to wander the streets of Charleston. We enjoyed the market and shops. Stacy wanted to eat SO bad, (it was approaching lunch time) but I kept reminding him that we had unlimited food included as soon as we boarded the boat. I talked him into waiting, I mean we could see the boat! Little did I know that between parking the car, unloading luggage, going through customs, security, check in….. It would be over an hour. Stacy was STARVING! He is just like my Daddy and turns into a bear when he's hungry. I said more than once "You better leave the bear in Charleston, otherwise this trip is going to be miserable!" We Finally got onto the boat and I made sure that the first thing I did was find him some food. I opted for a sandwich because by now it was close to 1:00. He tried the pizza. Both of us enjoyed our meals that we ate while sitting on the deck looking at the beautiful views. 

As soon as we finished lunch we decided to go check out our room. It was actually larger than I had envisioned. Our luggage hadn't arrived, but there was a schedule outlying the events of the afternoon/ evening. I discovered that there was a tour of the ship at 4:30. I Really wanted to do that. I was afraid that we'd either get lost, or miss out on something cool because we'd have no clue that it even existed. We obviously had some time to spare, and without our luggage we couldn't do very much more, so we decided to wander the ship. 

We had to go to a safety meeting at 3:00 and Before we knew it, it was time for the guided tour. We enjoyed that and learned a lot. Glad we did that. Due to the fact that all of the luggage was still being delivered, the elevators were basically unusable, or SUPER slow. Our room was on the 5th floor and the majority of the entertainment floors were 9 and higher. We got a MAJOR leg workout on the first day! I workout regularly, but my calves were seriously sore on Wednesday! Instead of set dining times, we decided to go with the flex dinning. SO glad that we did, we could go whenever wanted which worked wonderfully for us. After checking the schedule and seeing that there would be a comedy show at 7:30, we decided to eat at 6:00. 

                                                 

 Just as everyone that I've ever talked to about cruises, I learned quickly that the food was delicious. LOVED the chocolate molten cake! I'm sure I ate it every.single.night for dessert! I was SURE that I would gain at least 5 pounds on the cruise. I was prepared to work extra hard when we returned. I mean unlimited soft serve ice cream that tasted JUST LIKE a frosty?! Yeah, I may have had 3 a day….. I gained 0! Not even a point of a pound! I laid around, read a book from front to back, and ate food, lots of food! I owe it all to the stairs :)
Back to the night though. We LOVED the comedian! He ended up having 2 shows that night and we attended both. We laughed and laughed. I tried SO hard not to have a coughing attack, I was on medicine for "allergy induced bronchitis" which I forgot about. I had an awful cough that wouldn't get better. I ended up taking myself to the urgent care dr hoping for an answer. I had been coughing for a month. I paid $75 copay and $25 in prescriptions, only to not only continue coughing throughout the cruise, but for the next 3 weeks as well. I think I'm finally ok again. 
After the second comedy show, I'm pretty sure we called it a night. Our second day was a full day at sea. There were all kinds of shows and entertainment during the day, and between them, eating ice cream, hanging at the pool, and reading, it was such a wonderful, relaxing day. 

 When we woke up on Thursday morning we were pulling into Nassau. This time we opted not do an excursion due to the cost of the ones that we were interested in. We decided to hang out on the beach. The water was so nice and clear. We rented some chairs and an umbrella and were set for the day.

Although we had a nice relaxing time in Nassau, enjoyed the water and had a great day, the city was not at all what I had expected. I couldn't imagine spending a whole week there…. Unless we stayed at Atlantis ;) That evening we saw The Cowboy Comedian, he was by far Stacy's favorite. I don't know that I've ever heard him laugh so hard. 

When we woke up the next morning we were almost to Little Stirrup Cay. (It's a private island owned by Carnival) Now That was my idea of an island. It was absolutely Beautiful! The water was as clear as the rent's pool. We spent at least an hour just walking among the fish. Stacy wore striped board shorts, and I laughed that the fish thought that he was one of them. He had a whole school of BIG fish keep circling around his legs. It was So cool. There were some really pretty fish. We walked almost to the end of the island just taking in the beautiful views. Loved that island! So sad that we couldn't have spent 2 days there! 

                                       

                                         

Of course after a wonderful day on Little Stirrup Cay, we came back to the boat to a wonderful dinner and entertainment. We even ventured into the casino. Our favorite game, that we only played a few times was a claw machine where you tried to grab a stack of $100. How fun! Too bad we couldn't win. By this time, I was almost done with the cruise. I knew that the following day, Saturday, we would be on the water for the whole day. I quickly realized that I am not a Lover of cruises. Don't get me wrong, I had a Wonderful time! But I think that being on the water for 3 days and on an island for 2 was backward. I'd rather spend 5 days on an island. Either way, the last day flew by. We hung out at the pool, watched all kinds of contests (Hairy chest was by far the best!) and got to see a guy carve an ice sculpture. That was really neat! We stayed up late on Saturday night watching shows and going to the end of cruise party. Overall we had a wonderful child free celebration of 10 years, but I'm thinking 15 or 20 we'll go to an island :)

I am SO thankful for Mama, Martha, Laura, and Daphne for tag teaming with the boys. I am also so thankful the VBC fell during the week that we were away. Yes, I missed being able to hear about it every single day, I missed being able to hear the songs and stories, but I KNOW that it made it so much easier for all those involved.