Carson learns to shave

One of those special father and son moments. Brad is such a good daddy!

What A Mighty God we serve!

Sometimes it takes a beautiful sight such as this to remind us of the magnitude of God. Friday night we headed out to an engagement party for Patrick and Juliana. The sky’s looked like a downpour was coming for sure. Tucker and Aubrey had ridden with Brad and I and our kids and Tucker says hey look. This was the beautiful sight we saw. It was light at first and then Brad made the mistake of saying “it’s kinda light isn’t it?” And next thing you know it was the brightest rainbow I think I’ve ever seen. We watched it for about five minutes and then the downpour came. But what a beautiful sight! It reminds me that no matter what I may be going through in life God can place a rainbow at any point during a storm.

Happy Father’s Day, Brad!

Happy Father’s Day, Brad!

I have always been close to my father and always thought he hung the moon. So you can imagine the shoes to be filled. Brad and I married and though he is wonderful I must admit I was skeptical that ANYONE could fill those shoes. Yes I am one of those little girls that thinks my daddy can do no wrong and can do and fix anything, make anything right and would give the shirt off his back to his worst enemy and I must say that all these things are completely true about my father. He has taught me to be so many things, I only hope I can be half the person he has taught me to be. He has always been the backbone to our family and unknowing to me all the time shaping me to be the person I am today. By his own life I have learned to make many great decisions and yes even avoid some mistakes. He taught me about many things but most importantly he taught me about God. As I grow older my spirit yearns more for that closness with God that my father taught me as a child. Now that I have my own children I realize how impressionable children are and how closely they watch and model your exact behavior . Who you are is who your children become. Little did I know that God’s plan for me held a person that closely mirrors my own father. As skeptical as I was that there would ever be someone in my life that could ever fill those shoes. Today on father’s day I want to thank God for my father, for the person he taught me to be and for the wonderful husband he blessed me with that is now a blessing to my own children. Thank you Brad for being that man in my life. Thank you for sticking with me and being patient while I learned for myself what a true blessing you were in my life. I could never ask for a more hands on dad. From bath time to making brownies you are always there for us. Thank you for taking the lead, to be the spiritual leader of our house and walking a path I would be proud for our children to walk.

Here is my prayer today,
Lord please help me to be that helpmate you designed me to be for my husband, help me to love him, support him and walk by his side in every step in our journey through life.

Tons of Wonderful Memories!

Panama City Beach 2010

Many wonderful memories on our mother/daughter trip. Enjoy!!

So for those of you that see my updates to facebook this trip will be no suprise or maybe it will because for all of you that know me well, know that being OCD takes away my ability to fly by the seat of my pants. 

That being said, I have learned a very valuable lesson from this trip:

Sometimes it pays to be last minute. Some of the best things in my life have happened at the last minute. So to calm my OCD fears I have decided that there is a much better way to look at this. Last minute things are really not last minute, they just weren’t in my plans. However they were in God’s plan and since he had the plans for my life planned out long before I was born I can now rest easy knowing they were planned for me all along.
How our unexpected trip came about:
Amanda lucked upon a free condo. Her, Ady, Lia and Maci had plans to go. At the last minute they ask me and Caroline to go for a fun week of mother daughter time. So who can pass up a free trip? Well not me! Beach, free I’m there! Oh wait did you say we are leaving in 5 days!? But I put my OCD aside and pulled it off. Then the Monday before we were leaving Lia had some stuff at work come up and wasn’t going to be able to go. A little bummed cause Lia couldn’t go, Amanda and I decided to still go, so off we went.
We had the best time. We spent most of our time on the beach but still found time for lots of great seafood. The beaches were beautiful, no oil in sight. Caroline and Ady were both very well behaved and had a great time together. It was nice to spend time just me and Caroline and there couldn’t have been a more perfect place than the beach for these two beach babes!

We made it! Caroline is so excited!

Our first day on the beach

Dinner at Pineapple Willy's

Day 2 on the beach Caroline loves the beach can you tell?

Dinner at FudPuckers.

 Caroline even got to hold an alligator and loved it!

Dinner at Margaritaville was fun.

  Caroline loved the stilt walkers making balloon animals

Showing off her new balloon hat palm tree

Our own mini beach picture session

This is the morning before we leave one last dip in the pool

Memorial Day Trip to the Zoo

To finish out our Memorial Day weekend this year we made a trip to the zoo. We called our neighbors Bonnie and Gene and all met up at the zoo. Our kids love playing together. Here are just a few pictures from our trip to the zoo.