8th GradeMission Trip

Well, we leave bright and early in the morning for the big ATL. We're taking about 40 8th graders on a mission trip to help a church plant in a section of the city called Atlantic Station. It's a new area in downtown Atlanta with condos, apartments, townhomes, shops, a movie theatre, gym, restaurants and even an IKEA. They built it with the mentality of live, work, and play in the same place. This area has no other established church. Midtown Bridge Church is a church plant of FBC and Woodstock Baptist Church with Larry Graves as the pastor. Check it out at http://www.themidtownbridge.com.

Please be praying for all of us as we share Christ though backyard Bible clubs, door to door survey, passing out water bottles and breakfast, and passing out tracts at a Braves game. We truly covet your prayers for safety, health, strength, and boldness. This is taking many of these kids out of their comfort zones and placing them in the middle of a spiritual battle. It's hot, people can be rude, and we're going to tired. But, I know God is going to change these kids lives.

Swim Time

At the end of last summer I bought a blow up pool for like $4. I didn't know it would be so big. I just thought it was a little pool that Katekyn could splash around in. Well Dan got it out of the box this week and blew it up. Today the two of them took it in the front yard and played. they both had so much fun! I love my family!

Father's Day

Happy Daddy's Day Dan! I am so thankful for my husband. He is the best guy around. He is a wonderful hands on father who dotes on his wife and daughter like no one else. I am so thankful God put him in our lives!

My parents were out of town so we raided their house and had a bunch of people over. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, grilled corn on the cob, cole slaw, potatos, green beans, peach cobbler and chocolate cake. I know all the dads there had a great time. They watched the US Open, played the Wii and just relaxed. Happy Fathers Day to every dad out there!

4th Wedding Anniversary

We had our 4th wedding anniversary yesterday. I can hardly believe that it has already been four year since I married such a beautiful person as my wife. She is such a blessing to me and my life and God has given me so much more then I deserve. The time has flown by but I honestly think I have made more memories these past four years then any four in my life.

As a surprise to Marianne I made reservations for a hotel room in Orlando and made arrangements for Katelyn to spend the night with her cousin. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Tu Tu Tango. It's one of the places we went to on our honeymoon. It's menu is all appetizers that are mostly between 6-8 dollars. So you can order a bunch of different stuff and its really good. We had empanadas, calamari (just for me), ribs, steak skewers, and quesadillas.

After dinner we went and played mini golf. Marianne always beats me, except if you've been reading this blog then you know on our trip to Virgina I finally beat her. So I put my winning "streak" on the line...and lost. It was only by one stroke but it still was a beating and she lead the whole way. We both played well and had a great time.

The highlight of the evening was getting to go to Downtown Disney for dessert at Ghirardelli Soda Fountain. I had fresh strawberries over strawberry ice cream (i know it's a chocolate store but I'm not a huge chocolate fan) and Marianne had dark fudge and marshmallow over vanilla. We had a great time just talking and enjoying the surroundings. It was packed and it was past 11 on a Thursday. Disney is just a magical place.

We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott in Lake Mary and had a beautiful room then this morning we went to another one of our favorite places...IKEA!! We found out about IKEA on the 8th grade mission trip last year. If you don't know about it, it's like a sam's club for furniture. The prices are incredible and they have really cheap food. We had a huge lunch of soup, salad, mac and cheese, Swedish meatballs, and mash potatoes, with a drink for less than 10 bucks. It was great and we had some good ideas about how to remodel our kitchen. We are looking forward to going back when we get to Atlanta in 8 days.

Overall it was a really memorable 24 hours. Katelyn was really excited to see us when we got home. I don't take for granted just how special my life and my family are. 4 anniversaries down, 63 more to go...unless the LORD returns before that. I love you Marianne!

Darien

This past Saturday we decided to meet up with Dan's parents for dinner and just a little bit of time together. There's this neat little restaurant right on the river called Skippers. The food was pretty good (though a bit pricey) and the atmosphere was nice. they had a big dock and a large pond with big fish in it. Katelyn really enjoyed running around with her Nana and daddy.

Pools and Hospitals

Hey All. It's been a pretty uneventful week. Not too much going on. Today Katelyn and I went to a friends house to go swimming. Katelyn had so much fun jumping off the side of the pool into the water. She is definitely a water baby. I don't have any pictures seeing as how I was in the water with her! : )

Katelyn has been having a lot of trouble with her teeth lately. She's woken up in the middle of the night the last couple of nights (which she NEVER does). Poor thing just yells and screams it hurts so bad. Her one year molars were nowhere near this hard on her.

Earlier I said there was nothing much going on this week, but I forgot about our hospital visit. Tuesday night I was finishing dinner when Dan was being a good husband and taking the trash out. He went to get the bag out and decided it would be fun to slice his pinky finger open. It was 8:30pm and after a few minutes trying to decide if we needed to take him somewhere, we hop into the car and head to Solantic. We were trying to get there before they closed at 9pm.

Just a hint for someone else who might find themselves in a similar predicament, Solantic does not really stay open until 9. We got there about 8 minutes until 9 and the doctor would not see him. At least one of the nurses wrapped it up really good and told him he would definitely need stitches. From there, we head to Memorial's urgent care center where we were for the next 2 hours. My dad met us there to pick Katelyn so at least he didn't have to stay. The nurses and doctors were nice and the wait could have been much worse. Not looking forward to that bill though!