First Friday

Last night was First Friday at Harmony Crossing and since this event is both free and fun, we headed over. I took my camera with the 50mm lens that I have recently inspired to break out. We took the soccer ball and the kids had so much fun.

 

The beauty shop at HC was doing hair painting (free) and so the girls HAD to participate.

 

 

It was a FUN family night. I love times like this.

This morning has brought relaxing, house cleaning, carpet cleaning, grocery shopping, and now blog catching up. We are gearing up for the Georgia game. (Can you believe I turned down FREE tickets! They just came too last minute and we had no child care arranged and no tail gating to attend, so we passed. I am not sure it was the right decision.)

Later today we are heading to Stacey and Alex's house for a pool/cookout/birthday party. I LOVE holiday weekends.

A & E

Not the TV channel, August and Elin. Last weekend, Wendy called and was wanting to buy a nice camera. Of course, I steered her towards the Nikon D90. (my camera) She and Eric went shopping and the took my advice. So, on Thursday, they came over and I helped them learn to drive their camera just a bit. (There is SO much to learn!)

 

Here are a few of the shots we took in practice. Nothing really posed, just playing with camera while kids played with each other.

Elin likes to eat- can’t you  tell?! She is beautiful!

August and Jade were being silly.

 

This handsome man recently got his first haircut.

This afternoon inspired me to play with my camera some more. It has been a while since I really took good pics. I HOPE to get some posed ones of the girls this weekend.

BTW- Did you see my in-laws, the Gamecocks play Thursday? They looked pretty good!

Sunday Quiet

We started our day by sleeping in as long as Jade would allow.

We then went to church at the Macs church. This is a country church with just a few remaining members. It is one of the oldest on our community. (Maybe the oldest)

It is the kind of church where they say, and I quote, “We will stand and sign Hymn 223 from the brown book. Verses 1, 2, 4. {what’s wrong with the 3rd?!} If ya’ll ain’t got a brown book, holler and we’ll get you one.” These people are SO sweet and loving. It’s hard not to enjoy a Sunday in this church.

I forgot my camera, so no pics.

Leia Eubanks, a young recent college grad (who is looking for work BTW) was volunteered to do the lesson. Her Papa is ruthless in his volunteering of his grandkids. She did a WONDERFUL job and taught a nice lesson from the quarterly.

This afternoon was really quiet. Jeff went to the farm, Jade went to Nonni’s, and Jenna was at Justin’s.

We are all back under one roof now. Mama is happy.

Happy Birthday AMS

Better late than never….as promised, here are the pics that I could gather of AMS. She doesn’t exactly pose for pics that often, and I didn’t plan far enough ahead to gather too many. I did get a bit resourceful within my own house…here goes:

 

Hee Hee…This was taken in NYC outside of Good Morning America. It was COLD! Rarely do you see AMS cold, so you know if she has on a coat, scarf, and hat- BRRR!

This is one of my favs! 2007 at my wedding.

 

2nd year teaching- 1987

  

1st year teaching- 1988

 

88-89?

 

2003, I think. You see, I COULD Have lots of pics from yearbooks, except AMS was in charge of yearbook for MANY years, so she screened whatever pics of herself.

ME and AMS 1998 (Spring of my first year)

Bahaha! Me and AMS- in 1988. 7th grade spring dance, her first year teaching

2003?

 

Road trips wear her OUT! (as they do all of us!)

Such a dedicated teacher!

 

tractor driver…

 

and a wonderful seamstress, quilter, mother, wife, friend, and AUNT! We love you very much!

I REALLY have to get some GOOD pictures before next year. I need some from the 70s and early 80s. Oh yea, I have a goal. now! Bwahahaha.

Faces of Jade

We are having a quiet weekend at home. (as usual)

Jeff is working on the dove field/ hunting club, Jenna went to movies with a friend last night and is with Justin now, Jade and I are just hanging out.

I took a few pics of Jade today.

You can still see the remnants of the bad bruise from 3 weeks ago! Ouch!

 

and my fav…

Humbled and Thankful

Lots of good news today:

First, Tori (st teacher) came back yesterday to visit and helped me conquer the first round of progress reports and test revisions. Thanks, girl!

Second, Bible study was great. George is teaching on healing and it’s all starting to come together and sink in

Third, Today was a great day at work for me. It was busy, but a lot was accomplished.

Fourth, I have been given an opportunity to teach after school two days a week AND to go out to the Alternative School a couple hours a week DURING MY PLANNING for extra pay. It won’t make up for all that has been lost around here, but I am THANKFUL for the opportunity.

Fifth, MY HOUSE WAS CLEANED yesterday. I try to keep it picked up daily and TRY to get it cleaned once a week. Sometimes that cleaning has to be done a little at the time (ok, and sometimes not at all), but there is nothing like a house cleaned top to bottom all at once. The house smelled SO clean when we got home. What a nice treat!!! Thanks so much Hope, Derrick, AMS, and UC!

Sixth, Jeff got his truck back today. FINALLY! After almost 3 weeks of vehicle trouble around here, we are a two vehicle family again. When Jeff went to pay today, the bill had already been taken care of. WHAT!? We don’t know who did it, but we have some suspicions. If the person happens to be reading this- THANK YOU! If you know who paid, please tell them THANK YOU! I am just asking God to send them a HUGE blessing even bigger than the blessing that they gave us. Truthfully, we had the money to pay, but it would have dipped into Jeff’s “service trip” money. He uses this to operate during his trips and the gets reimbursed. It would have made the next couple of weeks rough on him. Thanks God, for tugging at this person and sending them to help us. How humbling.

We have SO many blessings. It is hard to complain. Yes, we are all working a little harder, living more meager, pinching pennies extra tight, BUT we are healthy, fed, employed, loved, blessed, and WE ARE GONNA MAKE IT!

Lastly, and another blessing to us: It’s AMS’s birthday. She is 39 today! I want to do a picture post for her tomorrow, but I need to collect a few more pictures. If you have any good ones, please snap a pic (a pic of a pic will work) and email/ text it to me. AMS- We hope you enjoy your day! We love you!

Signing off with a full heart- Jan

Monday Musings

We had another fun weekend with very few plans. We ended up joining some distant family/ friends for a birthday celebration. We cooked out and the kids all swam.

After church on Sunday, HAylee came home with Jenna. We had lunch, watched Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Boo), they swam, and we rode on the Polaris.

 

We saw a LOT of turkeys and….

MANY dove. Remember the beautiful sunflowers were really planted for the dove. Any enjoyment that we got from them is simply a bonus. If you look carefully, you can see TONS of birds sitting on the wire. (No electricity is in these wires.)

 

It was such a nice weekend. Today was back to work. It was my first day without Tori, my student teacher. She is back at college for a few weeks. WOW, I missed her. My kids are starting to “wake up” and that makes for some long class periods. This morning I was greeted at work with NO AIR CONDITIONER. Yes, you should feel VERY sorry for us…we work in a building with NO WINDOWS!

 

Jeff was SUPPOSED to FINALLY get his truck back today. FedEx apparently lost the part and it will now be Thursday or Friday before GMC can get another one to the shop. Grrr! I am TIRED of not having my vehicle. Jeff had plans to go on a road trip at work this week and he has had to postpone it for another week.

We are cleaned up from dinner, done with homework, finished replacing bathroom faucets, and ready for the housekeepers to come tomorrow. Thanks so much AMS, UC, Hope, and Derrick for this WONDERFUL gift. I can’t wait!