Oh happy day!

We are off to IKEA for the morning! We're making progress with the house -- the living room is painted (but not the trim) and the bathroom has been stripped of wallpaper, sanded, sealed, mudded, and sanded again. The kitchen cabinets have been sanded and half of them have been primed. The doors have new locks and deadbolts. We have a swing on the front porch. We have decided on bathroom paint colors and bought flooring. Oh yeah - and we have new bathroom light fixtures (yay for hubby working at a lighting company!). There is still so much to do, but we figured since we have been working our butts off that we deserve a break -- so we are introducing my parents to IKEA and The Varsity. :) Should be fun.

P.S. for Sarah - I tried to call you to see if you wanted to come. You didn't answer. But I forgive. :P Love you!

I thieved it.

I have been wanting to change the music on here for weeks now but just haven't had a chance to do it. For the past two weeks I have been listening to the music on Emily's family blog and it has been making me happy. So I thieved her playlist. Well, not the whole thing, but parts of it. I wish I knew about these songs of my own doing, but I didn't. I am so glad that Emily did.

Hope you like them!

P.S. My parents arrived yesterday afternoon with a truck full of stuff for us and the house (The Clampett's came to town! Ha!) and they are staying all week to visit and help us work on the house. I am so excited they are here! If you are lucky you'll get to meet them. :)

Need stuff to think about?

Hi.

Go here.

and here.

But only if you can handle sarcasm and are willing to really, truly think about some stuff.

What's that you say? That's not enough information?

Ok ok. Calm down.

The first link is to a fabulous blog called Stuff Christians Like. I love it. But I will warn you - don't even bother going there if you can't appreciate sarcasm. I have no doubt that you will go there anyway, but consider yourself warned. If you go and leave with a little different perspective on the church (hopefully better) or a better understanding of the Gospel, don't say I didn't tell you so. Because this is me telling you so. There's a post on there today about Christians and drinking. As in, drinking alcohol. Yep. It's wonderful. Go see. Make sure you read the comments.

The second link is to a blog called Ragamuffin Soul. The author is Carlos "Los" Whittaker who is the "worship leader" at Buckhead Church in Atlanta. Los usually has interesting things going on on his blog - but if you head over there today you will see some very heated and interesting conversations about worship and "worship leaders." I hope that it will make you think and...well, I'll just leave it at that. That is a subject that has really been on my heart/mind/soapbox lately and so maybe it won't mean anything to you, but then again, maybe it will.

I hope that if you ever learn anything new or if you are ever reminded of something you had forgotten that you'll come and tell me about it. I might need to be reminded or learn something too.=)

Thank you!

Well it's official - Justin and I are homeowners (again). We closed this morning in what was probably the smoothest closing in the history of closings. Yay! Thank you Lord.

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who prayed with us through this! Y'all are amazing and we are so blessed to call you friends and family.=) Love y'all!

*P.S. You'll have to excuse me if my posting is sporatic over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to do my best to keep it up, but I'll most likely be painting and cleaning and moving and nannying. But feel free to comment and tell me how much to you miss me. That would be nice.=)

Friendship Part II

Ok - here's Part II of the Beach Trip pictures. I hope someone actually looks at these since it took a ridiculously long time to get this on here. You're welcome. =)

Seaside - sunglasses on

Sunglasses off

Seaside

I love pictures like this - -natural and un-posed.

Funny hats! I think I tried on every wide brimmed hat in the Florida panhandle that week. Seriously.

M & M still at Seaside

The Chapel at Seaside

We spotted this monstrosity somewhere between Rosemary Beach and Seaside. I mean really - what do you DO with a house that big (and ugly)?

One morning the boys got up really early to go fishing. They didn't have much luck, but Justin did catch this thing.

The Mays

The girls

The Moons

At Baytowne Wharf in SanDestin - the coolest little place ever.

Justin made me put this one on here -- he thinks it is hilarious. I have no idea why he looks like that.

Perhaps my favorite picture -- but you probably could have guessed that. This is at Baytowne Wharf on the dock.

This looks like a photo-shopped picture it is so pretty. I didn't touch it I swear!

Preciousness.

Yay! I'm just so happy that Sarah and I actually have a ton of pictures TOGETHER now!

Being silly.

Love this. And really - could my husbands eyelashes BE any longer? Gorgeous.

Zach's postcard picture

The biggest chair ever - notice the *warning* on each side. Ha!

Love the pink loin cloth.

And the ankle grass skirts.

So somehow my husband never flew a kite as a child. I know right?! Shocking! So we bought him a Osprey kite named Fluffy/Oscar (we were divided) and he "flyed" a kite for the first time our last day at the beach. Fun times.

You can't really tell from this picture, but Fluffy/Oscar was WAY up there. We ran out of string. Sad news though -- he didn't survive the flight back down. But at least he went out with a bang!

Don't ask me why - but this is what Justin chose to wear for our lunch movie hour. I think he makes a pretty good merman.

My little feetsies.

I love profile pictures. Notice the expression on Justin's face. ???

This was our last night in Florida. We ate at Uncle Ernie's - a fantastic restaurant right on St. Andrew's Bay.

Final group pic. What an amazing week!

There were dolphins in the bay right behind us as we ate dinner. Dolphins make me happy.=)

I am still completely unable to put into words the utter amazingness of this trip. Hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves. If you want to actually READ about the trip - go see Sarah.