Friday, January 30, 2009

What a Sight...

When I got home from hanging with my friends last night Jared told me he had taken a picture he wanted to show me. You can read about it here. It actually looks better on his blog because it has a black background but I still wanted to share.



Isn't it so beautiful! I love that my husband is so creative and see's things that I probably wouldn't notice. :)

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Let's get caught up here...

I'm so sorry to have been gone for the last two weeks. A lot has been going on and i've been feeling so scattered that I just couldn't get my thoughts out.

Just a couple of days after I posted about Andon and I having a date night my sister flew in. Most of you know why and her story but if you don't you can read her blog and follow her here. She would love to know someone out there was reading it and praying for her! She put one of those maps and a hit counter and said no one even reads it.. I said if no one know it's out there how can they!? :) She is very transparent in her struggles and I am very proud of her for wanting more for her life. Jared and I have had her live with us before. Actually right before we moved here to Nashville she left our house to start rehab. She has now completed the first part and is here to complete the aftercare and then some. :) Jared and I sat down and wrote out a "life plan" to help aid her in her recovery. It is a lot of responsibility but not too much to overwhelm her. As I am writing right now she is at a class learning how to further her education. I am really excited about this for her!

As well as having my sister move here I recently joined a new bible study at a new church. We started Beth Moore's new study, Esther. I am four days in on the homework and have a feeling this is going to be a good one! I am really excited about getting to know all the women in the group. It is a pretty large group which is a little hard for me but when we discuss things we will break up so that's good. :)

We signed Andon up for soccer in the Spring! We are just waiting for the e-mail to find out what team he will be on and when practice starts! We are all VERY excited about this! Andon is so ready! Every morning he wakes up he asks if this is the day he starts!

What else.. I signed up for a knitting class at JoAnne's. I want to learn how to make some really cute scarves! :) This is coming from a call I made to my precious friend Jackie. No, she didn't tell to go knit but she was helping me think of some fun hobbies. I was having a REALLY hard day and just called her crying about my loneliness and we were talking about some fun things I can do. So I have been spending some time getting caught up on scrapbooking and am going to learn how to knit! On a side note: that call was made before my sister got here and a lot of my time is being taken up.. :) Thank you Jackie for taking time out of your busy day to be with me! I love you so much!

Ok, i've got to take advantage of this time and get some things done.. And spend some time with Andon. :) By the way, he LOVES having A.Jamie here!

Love and miss you all!! ~Jen

Friday, January 9, 2009

Date Night



With my sweet five year old that is. Jared is out of town for work tonight so I decided to do something special with Andon.

First we headed to good ole' McDonald's for some happy meals (which i love :)) and while we were there he had to get some play time in. Then we headed to the movies to see Madagascar 2. If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend it! It was such a cute movie and very funny. Afterwards I had planned to go to Cold Stone for ice cream but Andon wanted a dipped cone from McDonald's so we got that instead.
Here are a few pictures from our fun night...



It was so sweet to be out with my little man. We talked all about his day at school, his friends, how he needs his bike tires pumped so he can ride and how much he loves his dog Sadie. :) He is so funny and so fun to be with!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Runaway horse injures man!

It's a good thing I read over my wife's blog. She often leaves out the more interesting (and sometimes scary / funny) moments we have. So after the kids were done riding, Carol asked me if Jen and I wanted to ride. I immediately say "yes" and Jen nervously says "ok". I was then asked if I know how to ride because "Smash" is somewhat sensitive (This should have been a red flag!). Brave man answers "YES" without hesitation. I have actually ridden horses plenty of times and feel very comfortable around them. The one piece of info I left out was that it has been a good 12 years since this "cowboy" has saddled up!
I grabbed the reigns, secure my left foot and hop up. The horse jerks a bit, slightly turns it's head to the side to get a look at me and I am sure, thinking about it now, he was sizing me up. I look over and Jen is up so off we go. I am in front of Jen and not ten seconds into the ride I realize my horse (SMASH) is jerking a bit left and right, popping its head up and jumping from a walk to a nervous trot! (This was red flag #2). I pull the reigns back on him and softly say "whoa boy, whoa". Off in the distance I hear Jen trying to control laughing, you know, the kind of laughing you know you shouldn't do but the more you think about not doing it the more it seems to get out of control. The horse again jerks but this time pops from a walk to a quick run so again I pull back on the reigns and say "WHOA BOY". Off in the distance again I hear Jen laughing but through the laughter I hear her say something like "I am glad I am riding Biscuit and not SMASH!" Implying that my horse gained the nickname through some horrible incident with a previous rider. As this thought is firing through my head the horse jerks again but this time his head dips and I feel the wind whipping past my face. We are heading towards two trees that are about eight feet apart and for a second I think "SMASH" is going to educate me on how he gained this little name. Now I'm pulling back on the reigns, screaming "WHOA WHOA WHOA" squeezing the horse with my legs and preparing for impact when the headline runs through my head "RUNAWAY HORSE INJURES MAN". THANK GOD the horse responds to my plea for mercy and as we stop, off in the distance is Jen laughing so hard she is crying. I look down at the horse and say "Lets start over, I just want to WALK around for a while and then I'm off buddy".
The rest of the ride was easy, somewhat pleasant. We walked around for a while then fed the horses. I couldn't stop thinking about how quickly I jumped in without considering the many warning signs I was given. The most obvious (and funny) was the horses name. I mean what idiot would mount on an animal named after breaking things into small pieces?

Horseback Riding

One of the fun things we did while at home was take Andon horseback riding. My Father in law has some friends who have a couple horses, they said we could come over any time to ride. So sweet! We also took my four year old nephew Cody along for the day.

Here are a few pictures from that day...

Andon was riding Biscuit and Cody was riding Smash... :)




Look at those dirty little faces!! Besides riding the horses they also played on a huge sand mound while we were riding. I think they liked playing in the sand more!

It was so much fun! Thanks so much Gil and Carol for letting us bring the boys over for the day!

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Trip to Florida!

Well we've been home for almost two days and have finally gotten settled in. There was so much to do when we got here that I couldn't find any time to get on the computer! I have so much to post so i'll just write a little now and a little later. :)

The drive to and from Florida was long but Andon and Sadie (our dog) did so well. We made the drive in a little over 10 hours each way. Jared and I played the animal game (think of as many animals that start with the letter A, then B etc.) numerous times and we played 20 questions. And on the way home talked a lot about things we wanted to achieve in 2009. Here is my little stinker in the car.


As soon as we got to my parent's house all Andon's cousins were waiting for him! They had so much fun playing all week together! Here are a couple pics of the boys... Jordan, Andon and Cody and my brother Roger.



And here are the girls.. Briana and my new niece Kylie. She's three months old and absolutely adorable!!

Another one of my sweet Kylie girl. I miss her so much already.


So, we got to my parent's house on Saturday evening and Sunday around lunch time Andon and I headed to Orlando to spend some time with our friends. We first went to Brittani's house and stayed the night there. The kids had so much fun playing on their new playground and dressing up in costumes. Here are a few pics from that day.


The next day we went over to Cassie's house. Andon had a blast playing outside with his friends ALL DAY! Here is a pic of the boys.

I only have pics of Andon and his friends but I had a great time with mine too! :) After all the fun with our friends we headed back home to our family. We had a great time visiting with everyone and celebrating Christmas at home. Here is a pic of Andon and Cody opening one of their gifts...

The trip home was very good. We got to see everyone for at least a short time. I did get a little sad when I drove to Orlando. The sun was shining, it was around 72 degrees and everything looked and felt so familiar. I was just really missing everything and everyone. But the time I spent with them was so great and I look forward to seeing everyone again soon!!