A history lesson of sorts....

6 years ago this month I met Ben. Little did I know how one free concert would lead me to one of the kindest, most loving men I have ever met.

5 years ago today, I renewed my vows to my best friend & confidant.

4 years ago we spent this anniversary apart.....

....but were safely reunited.

3 years ago we spent this anniversary apart....

......and were joined together again plus one.

2 years ago we spent this anniversary apart....

....and were blessed to come back together for some "down-time" together.

1 year ago we celebrated while planning to make our family become four.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

Happy anniversary my love!

Where you live- Kid's rooms

This week of where you live is about the kiddos rooms. Head over to Kelly's Korner at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ to check it out!

Princess Kendall's room

looking into Kendall's room from the hallway

Kendall has been our "bug" for as long as we can remember so it only seemed appropriate to make her big girl room all about lady bugs. She loves having her name spelled out for her & will point to it on the wall a lot.

another view

oh to be a little princess again!

notice the vintage toybox that was mine & my mom's before me!

"little man" "squeak" or "big wink's" room

Isaac has no choice but to like helicopters and planes!

oh and Texas A&M stuff....can you tell that Daddy was building his AHEM Isaac's dream room?

Love little Isaac popping up out of the crib!

More planes!

The crib is one of my favorite parts of the room!

The kids while I was cleaning

Kendall's Korner and Isaac's inch by inch

Kendall is getting better and better in the potty training arena. She knows what she needs to do but up until recently has just been too STUBBORN to put it into practice. She has been going pee pee on the potty pretty consistently since we left for Charleston. We have even ventured out into town in just big girl panties! I am super pumped because if she continues this route she will be able to move up to the 3 year old class for Sunday School in August & start pre-school at St. Anne's in September!

Isaac has been rolling around for quite some time but is trying REALLY hard to begin crawling. I think that yesterday he would have except he was crawling off of me to fall off of the bed so I had to stop him. For now we have to be satisfied with him scooting backwards on his belly or rolling to get what he wants. He has his 9 month check-up (hard to believe isn't it?) coming up soon so I will let you know how he is doing!

The last half of our "weekend"

We spent playing, laughing, and snuggling the kids.

We also did a lot of BACK BREAKING work! Ben and I have been kicking around putting in plants along the back of our fence since we moved in (almost 3 years ago now!) We have been toying with the idea of a raised garden/plant bed for about 2 years. Finally, we put our dreams in motion. Ben built the bed & wheeled a couple of tons of dirt from the front to the back to fill it. I planted all of the flowers and shrubs & Ben also put the tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno plants in. I tried to make myself useful while Ben was wheeling dirt and weeded our other beds which our in dire need of some TLC as well. This is almost the finished product. We still need 2 more larger plants/shrubs for each end....any suggestions?

Laura

Happy 30th Birthday to my sister-in-law Laura! We hope that you have a very happy and blessed day.

Congratulations on Graduation! We also want to wish Laura all the best and say that we are so proud of you!

Remembering those who gave their lives in service for this country

Remember the people that have gone before us to give us the right to be free.

Remember those that are still serving to keep that right in place.

Pray for your military men and women.

Happy Memorial Day.

Memorial Day Weekend thus far....

Howdy everyone! We hope that you are all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend so far. Ben still has Monday and Tuesday off so we will be "enjoying" some outdoor projects the next few days! We have been very busy since we got back from Charleston.

Thursday, we got the opportunity to go to the C.O.C. (change of command) ceremony for Ben's old squadron 269. It was pretty fun to see some old friends & sad as well because there were so many new faces there. I guess that is the nature of the beast! It does not seem like it has been 5 years since Ben and I arrived here in Jacksonville but it has been!

Friday, Ben got off at noon then took a bike ride with his friend Aaron. We didn't do too much but relax then went to small group on Friday night.

Saturday, we started out of the house with the intent of going to the parade but couldn't locate it. Instead, Ben has been telling me about these fields of wild flowers so we decided to drive over near Emerald Isle to check them out. (We also swung by and checked out our rental house for our June beach trip with my family.)

Here are some of the pictures with the wild flowers. As you can see, Kendall really enjoyed them!

Today we had church and Sunday school then I had to run to New Bern to learn a few dances for the flight suit party that is coming up for Ben's squadron. I will elaborate on that at a later date. After I got home, we decided to get out of the house and go to sonic to eat supper and let Kendall blow off some steam. (Oh yeah we had to go to Lowe's to get some material to finish the back garden bed that Ben has been building too!) The following are shots of us enjoying some playtime. Kendall was insistent that I go down the slide as well so the last picture is Ben making sure everyone knew about my misery!

Charleston in Pictures and Videos

Pictures of Ben and I



Videos of our trip

Our Charleston vacation in words

Charleston, SC 2009

Day #1 (Friday)

• We went straight downtown & took a scenic carriage ride. Our guide was very engaging & informative and we had a beautiful horse named Chief pulling us around. Some of my favorite items from the tour were the White Point Park along the river, the 13 million dollar house for sale, and of course the HUGE porches that were attached to most of the houses. How Beautiful!
• We were going to go to our harbor tour next but it looked like it was about to rain so we went to the hotel and checked in instead. It didn't end up raining but we had already missed the boat.
• We ate at a YUMMY resturant named "The Water's Edge" on Shem's creek. Both of us enjoyed the meal immensly. We had live entertainment.....the dolphins were putting on a show in the water below us. I loved the mother/baby combo that looked like they were attached at the fin. Ben also liked the fact that one of the fishing boats had pulled up & unloaded a large catch. It was pretty cool until they started skinning them on the table below us then I didn't really want to watch anymore!
• We finished up the evening with a car tour around Isle of Palms & Sullivan's Island. (We also got out and walked along the beach for awhile collecting shells for Kendall.) We stopped and looked at Fort Moultrie too. We ended up stopping at "Poe's Tavern" for an adult beverage before heading back to the hotel. (We thought that someone must have just loved Edgar Allen Poe to dedicate a resturant/bar to him but it turned out that he was born and raised on Sullivan's Island.)

Day #2 (Saturday)

• We started out going on a half day, 6 mile, guided, tandem kayak tour through the salt marsh and harbor. I was extremely nervous but it turned out to be pretty neat. We were only about 10 minutes into the tour when we got to help our guide rescue a rare bird that was hurt along the bank. I think that my favorite part of the trip was having dolphins swin about 10 feet away from us. It was like they wanted to follow along and play.
• Next, we went on our harbor tour. Both Ben and I like to be out on the water so it was pretty heavenly for us. We learned a lot about the history of Charleston, Fort Sumpter, Fort Moultrie, and BlackBeard the pirate. We also got to see some more playful dolphins that decided to swim in front of our ship putting on quite a show.
• We ate at "Toast" which was a resturant that we found when we were walking downtown. It was good food and I loved the "she crab soup."
• The night finished up at a comedy club called "Theatre 99." Not too bad for amateur stand-up.

Day #3- Sunday

• The morning started off with a few rain sprinkles so we were a little apprehensive but it cleared up. We went to visit the naval museums. We went through the Vietnam Memorial, the USS Yorktown, & Patriots Point Museum arboard the Yorktown. I was disappointed that we didn't have enough time to go through the Medal of Honor museum.
• Next was our tour to Fort Sumpter. Again, we loved being out on the boat and enjoyed some quiet cuddle time on the ride out to the fort. The scenery was pretty once we got out there but I was a little disappointed with the actual fort....kind of like when we went to tour the Alamo.
• After that tour, we went and looked at some of the wares in the open air market. It is a good thing that they were closing up some of the shops or I could have really did some damage to our checking account!
• We decided to go to "Bubba Gump Shrimp Co." for supper since it was close to us. It turned out really good and i LOVED their hush puppies. There was even a quiz on the Forrest Gump movie before you could get your food. (Let me also say that we had so many recommendations for resturants in Charleston that we could have been there for 3 weeks and not got through all of them....it was a little overwhelming to tell you the truth!)

Day#4- Monday

• This was probably the worst day of our trip weather wise....it was COLD and rainy. We went to the aquarium since we had free tickets to it. It was pretty fun minus the 3 schools that were there on field trip! We got to watch the sea otters being fed as well as the deep sea fish feeding. It was pretty relaxing and fun to look at all the creatures. I am super excited to take Kendall to the aquarium in June!
• We went to S.N.O.B. for lunch. (Slightly North of Broad) It was delicious & of course we enjoyed having more adult conversation!
• Hold onto your seats.....we actually went back to the room and took a nap after lunch! Man was that worth it!
• We went to Southend Brewery for supper then went back to Poe's tavern to watch the Pens game. (Plus they were the only place that we foudn that had my beloved woodchuck!)

Day #5- Tuesday

• Our last day we spent a leisurely breakfast together then went back to the open air market for a few souveiners. Both of us were ready to get back to the kiddos so we left around 1100 for our 4.5 hour drive back.

It was wonderful to enjoy 2 a day showers without a screaming baby or a busy toddler reaching little hands under the shower curtain. (Can I get an AMEN from the mothers of small children that know what I am talking about?)

I loved being husband and wife for a change without any daddy/mommy interruptions. It was really great for us to be away alone together for awhile.

Thanks again to Mom and Dad for keeping our wild kiddos so we could get away together!

Show us where you live Friday- Dining Room

One of the blogs that I follow, Kelly's Korner, has been doing a room by room tour of our houses for a few weeks. I haven't been able to do the past few but decided that I would jump in today. (Esp. since it is one of the favorite rooms of my house for me!)

I love our dining room because of all of the fun "extras" in it. I do believe that our next big furniture purchase will be a dining room set so for now my great-grandma's table still graces our room with chew marks and all. We don't use it a whole lot but when we have large dinner parties it comes in handy for people to sit down and crash.

The view from our living room

The view from our kitchen

I love the french doors that lead out to our wrap around porch
Last but not least....the kiddos table that Kendall loves to eat at and I am hoping that Isaac will as well. It is fun to let them have their own special space!

Home sweet home

Ben and I returned to NC yesterday afternoon. We had a wonderful time and I will post some pictures and videos when we recover a little bit. As for now, here is a little teaser....Ben and I before we went out to dinner and later a bar to watch the Pens game.

Thanks again to Mamoo and Dadoo for watching the kids. They had a great time together even if Isaac didn't take a bottle the entire time we were gone! I know that Kendall is looking forward to seeing you guys & Aunt Jen and Uncle Josh next month at Emerald Isle. Hope you guys sleep well tonight...you deserve it!

Romance is in the air!

Ben and I are off to romantic Charleston, SC for 5 days and 4 nights while my parents watch these crazy kiddos. Wish them luck! (Thanks Mamoo and Dadoo!)

Stay tuned for pictures on our return!

Appreciation lunch for Jo

Thanks for all of your hard work Jo! (She is the family readiness officer for Ben's squadron and has done a rock star job at getting it up and running!) We had a luncheon yesterday in New Bern for her.