A fun weekend

Carson and I had a fun weekend this past weekend. Friday night started out with a surprise date night to a new Mexican restaurant. My husband really knows what I like.

Saturday morning we got up and went blueberry picking with our friends Jon & Emily Wylie and their daughter Lydda Grace. All of the blueberry bushes were amazing and we had a wonderful time. I'm not the biggest blueberry fan but we found some wonderful, fresh, sweet blueberries that were amazing! Lydda Grace even got in on the action and did some picking of her own!

That night the Wylie's came over for dinner along with Amber and Jackson. Lydda Grace and Jackson had fun playing together and it was very fun to watch the difference in their ages.

Lydda Grace having fun with her daddy

On Sunday we went to church in the morning and helped in the nursery. We work in the youngest room, but we keep the kids until they learn to crawl. Normally we have a varied age group but we had all itty bitty babies, including a pair of six week old twins. It was fun to cuddle with such precious little ones. That afternoon we went to a cookout at Amber's house. We had fun with some friends and got to meet some other nice people. I finally feel as if we're getting settled here and getting to know more of the people in this area. Jackson had so many people to play with him that night. He is such a well behaved, easy going baby with a smile that can melt your heart!

This weekend promises to be another fun one because my Mom and Grammy are coming to visit! Counting down the hours now!

Good-Bye

My family said good bye to our beloved dog Samson last week. He was a part of our lives for over 13 years. I wasn't home to be with my family but I felt the sadness through our phone conversations. Samson was a wonderful dog. . . he set a standard that would be hard for any other dog to live up to. But as my dad said, he brought us more joy in those 13 years than the sadness that we are left with now.

My dad found a poem that I wrote for an English assignment a few years after we got Samson:

We found our dog in a Schwinn bike store,

And we had to hurry because we were leaving at four.

The people at the store were very kind;

But my mom thought my dad had lost his mind.

It took some convincing but we finally got ‘em,

And on the plane home he had to ride on the bottom.

He was cute, soft, and very small;

But we knew pretty soon he would get very tall.

As soon as we got home we had to get food and a crate

Because it had been a long time since he ate.

He’s my dog and he is the best.

He surpasses all the rest.

Colorado Trip

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up we had a lot of trouble uploading all these pictures. Enjoy!


Day 1:
Our day began very early (so early we were in Georgia before the sun had even risen!) to catch our flight out to Denver where we met my parents and brother who were already out there. Since we were already in Denver, we visited the Denver Zoo. My brother has loved zoo's since he was little and Dad and Carson kept trailing behind because they were taking so many pictures. I have to admit- zoo's aren't my thing, but this zoo was pretty cool. The first exhibit we hit was the lions. Since lions sleep 20 hours every day we were very lucky to see them up and moving around. We also got to see a feeding where they tossed them huge femur bones. That was probably the highlight of the zoo and it made the whole trip worth it. Then we took a 2 hour drive to the cabin that we were staying at. The guys rushed down to the lake to get about 15 minuets of fishing in before it got dark.

This was one of the last animals that we saw. I have no idea what it was called but it could walk on it's hind legs. So cool looking.

Day 2:
We took it easy in the morning because of the long day the day before. We headed into town for the afternoon to do some shopping and get some food. On the way home, the guys fished Lily Lake while Mom and I fed the ground squirrels.

The guys all caught a fish at some point but this is the only picture we got of Carson. Nope, that's not the bait . . . it's a fish. We didn't get a picture of the big ones he caught later.

Day 3:
We drove up into the Rocky Mountain National Park. This is an all day event because there is so much to see and do (and take pictures of)! We drove up to the top and down the other side to go to a little one street town called Grand Lakes. We have a favorite restaurant there where we had lunch. We saw tons of wild life along the road and were stopping very frequently. We were even lucky enough to see a female moose and her baby! Matt's favorite animal is a marmot (a large ground squirrel about the size of a beaver) and we found a lot of them. Matt even got a pretty up close picture!

Family Picture in Grand Lakes

Matt and the Marmot

Silhouette of Elk against an incoming storm

The scene on our way back down

Day 4:
The guys got up for an early fishing trip while the girls slept in. Once they returned, we went into town for the rest of the day and had dinner at our favorite pizza place, Poppys. They have so many varieties of pizza that it's hard to choose what to get.

Day 5:
We took a trip to Breynard Lake for a hike. Little did we know, we would encounter snow! We were climbing over snow drifts up to 5 feet high! We went as far as we could until the entire path was covered in snow. It made for an exciting trip. We ended the day with some more Mexican food at the Grumpy Gringo.

Carson sliding down a snowbank

Matt and Carson catching snowballs

Day6:
The guys decided to take an all day guided fishing tour. Another laid back day for the girls, so we went back up into the Rocky Mountain National Park determined to see some big horned sheep, but we didn't have any luck with that. It was the only animal in the area that we didn't have pictures of. There was also a Scandinavian Festival in town that my mom and I checked out.

Day 7:
Cabin day for the most part. Matt and Carson hiked Lily Mountain and were able to catch this amazing panorama!

Day 8:
Another day of loading up and traveling. We finally made it back to Atlanta around midnight and once we found the shuttle to our car (an adventure in itself) we were finally headed home. We sure made the most out of the time that we had.

Day 9: Our vacation was over. I had the next few days off to get settled back in, but Carson had his first day of classes at 8am! After our relaxing trip, we returned exhausted.

A note from Carson: If you would like a copy of any of these pictures, simply click on the image here in the blog and then download the full-size version from the page that opens. Enjoy!

Obsessed

Who spends their Saturdays clipping coupons and matching up grocery deals. Who can't wait to get the new Sunday coupons after church on Sunday? And who has a whole coupon bag that is more organized and used than her purse! Does this sound like an obsessed person? Well I am one such obsessed person.

And when I get a good deal, I can hardly make it to the car before I calculate how much I saved and the proceed to call fellow coupon buddies or people that don't really care but are kind enough to listen (Thanks mom!)

I guess I would consider it a hobby. It's something that I spend my time doing. While most hobbies cost money, this one actually saves me tons of money!

But obsessions come with risk. Sometimes I'm temped to buy something just because it's a great deal, but is it really worth the 67 cents if it's something we don't really need? This is really making me stretch my imagination and cooking skills to use what we have. If it's free there's no question that it's in my cart. I've got a bag full of stuff that I got for free (or made profit on!) that we are going to donate.

But I am so grateful that these deals and opportunities are available. It allows for Carson and me to eat more than just Ramen and PB&J.

The deal that I got yesterday was one of the best. When I set it all out to take a picture it was really sad what little I could get for over $50! But check out what I actually paid:

Total cost before savings: $50.46
Savings from sales: $7.86
Savings from coupons: $13.58
Getting Back in Rebates: $24.25
Total paid after rebates: $4.74 (savings of 91%!)

Happy Belated Fourth

We were so busy preparing for our cookout tonight that I didn't have time to blog. But that's okay because now I have lots of pictures to share with you from our party. We had some great friends come and also got to know some of our neighbors a little more. A very fun evening that still isn't over (Carson's best friend Andrew is still here. . . once they start the Wii it's hard to get them to stop :)

Amber and Jackson came tonight and Jackson got to enjoy his first fireworks. He didn't like the loud ones but there were some that whistled that he would just laugh and laugh at. It was adorable. Here he is kind of not sure what to think about the sparklers.


After it got dark we pulled out the big fireworks and made lots of noise. These next few are ones that Carson took with our camera and extended the time the shutter was open so we could write with our sparklers.






Then we decided it would be fun to all light them at the same time and run... it made for some pretty good pictures and is probably the most fun I have ever had shooting off fireworks.




The show ended with some pretty awesome fireworks.




Well I guess it's time to call it a night since we're going to early service tomorrow and then working in the nursery. I think I'm going to institute Sunday naps tomorrow! Good night!

We're back

We're back from Colorado. I'm working on a post with pictures and all but it will take a while because I have to sort through the 2000+ pictures that Carson took! We had a great vacation and it was a nice break. I managed to read 3+ books which there is never time to do while at home and Carson got to do a lot of fishing. When we got home we were greeted by some ants who had decided to house sit while we were gone. They even brought in their own dirt to make themselves feel at home. I think we have gotten rid of most of them and I have just finished cleaning the carpet where their dirt turned to mud when we sprayed them. *Sigh*

So today is unpacking/laundry day. I know, third day back and I still haven't done that! Yesterday I spent the majority of the day shopping for our 4th of July cookout. We don't use our grill as much as we would like but there have been some awesome sales on meat so we're excited about finally getting a lot of use out of it.

Well I better get off the computer and get back to work so I can go visit Jackson this afternoon. I bet he's grown so much. As if two weeks wasn't long enough, Monday is a University holiday so Carson and I are both off. I think we're going to take the day and go visit his grandma.

Stay tuned for some amazing pictures!