camping

This summer we're going to be making a trip down to Huntington Beach state park. It's very close to Myrtle Beach, SC. We're going to meet my sister and brother in law for a fun time of camping. I'm excited about the camping trip because it will be Lexi's first real time at the ocean. We've stopped and wet our feet once or twice on our long road trips, but never an actual vacation at the beach. Sure it wont be like a vacation at a Sea Pines rental, but it will still be nice.
One of the great things about the campground is that it has it's own private beach so we wont have to fight with the tourists at Myrtle beach. It also is a state park, so it means cheaper camping. Add that to the fact that I'll be with my family, and you can't have a better vacation!!

Elijah!

Tomorrow morning my sister in law is going to have a c-section and have her baby boy. I'm so excited.

Not only am I excited to see the new baby, and welcome it to our family, I'm excited to get another boy in the family! There are 9 girls and only 5 boys on my husband's side of the family. Maybe Elijah coming into the world will help even out the progesterone/testosterone levels.

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon we'll be headed up to welcome the little man into our family. I can't wait!

LOWES!

I have to admit. I am a geek. Lowes is my favorite store EVER! Right now it's a safe store for us to go in, because I can look and look and look, but leave with nothing. Once we have a house I'm sure that will change. Well, once we have a house and money.

I love to look at all the appliances, there's this one LG washer and dryer I'd love to own. Oh, and the Kohler sinks. That place is amazing to me. Have you looked down the storage and organization isles?! All those Closet organizers amaze me.

Even all the wood and paint and plumbing stuff keep me entertained. I just LOVE Lowes!

Sega Genesis

Do you remember Sega Genesis?

We got one today.

For Free.

With 6 games.

It takes a big of trickery with the wires to get it started, but once it's started it works.

Now I can't get my husband away from the TV. Maybe if we had a pop up tv that I could just push a button and make it retract. Who knows, that might not even work.

You would think we wouldn't get this excited over a game system since we have four now. This would be our fifth, but we sold our original nintendo because we were sick of fighting with the blue screen of death.

Yah, we like video games.

Doctor's appointments

I am so thankful my husband has the job that he has. The company is amazing, they really care about their employees, the benefits rock.

Our insurance is 100% paid- nothing comes out of my our pocket. And I'm so glad. I had insurance when I worked and I couldn't believe how much it cost per month for just ME!!! I can't imagine anyone who has to pay for their individual health insurance. The costs are huge.

Praise the Lord for employers who care!

The Lord's Supper

How serious do you take Communion?

The Lord's supper is a serious thing to me, if there is one thing that bothers me, it's when people disrespect communion.

The actual way communion is taken doesn't matter, whether someone passes out the pieces of bread and juice representing the body, or if someone gives communion invitations for you to come up front and partake of it.

One of the things that people do to disrespect communion that really bothers me is talking, or not taking it serious. I don't think that at the Lord's supper the disciples joked around, or sat there talking during or after they ate the bread and drank the wine.

I bet they sat there silent, their thoughts full of who Jesus was, and what it all meant.

That is exactly how I feel after communion. The church I was a part of in TN didn't do communion regularly. It wasn't a tradition, or a habit. Nothing to take lightly or get used to doing. And when it was over, the pastor would say a brief prayer, and everyone left silent. No one spoke a single word until they were out of the sanctuary. I enjoyed that.

I've been to other churches, who although they took the act of communion serious, there was chatting, laughing, kids running around taking the communion crackers as a snack and it just didn't feel right.

How do you feel about communion? is it serious or do you allow room for laughing and chatting?

Family communication

How often do you talk to your family? Every day? Once a week? Once a month?

Do you have a big family?

I am the youngest of five. By the time I was in a junior in high school, my siblings were all married and moved out. We got together atleast once a week. Every Sunday after church they'd all come home for a big meal.

The house would smell so good, and be full. Children would be running around (my nieces and nephews), adults would be chatting, Mom would be cooking, dad and my brother's would be sitting around talking about hunting or baseball or something manly.

It was great, by far some of my favorite memories.

Unfortunately things aren't like that anymore. My dad died the summer before my senior year, and half way through the year my mom moved to Indiana, I moved in with some friends to finish high school and that was the end of big family meals. We still got together for Holidays though, and that was wonderful.

Somehow things changed drastically. It seems like half of my family doesn't even talk to the other half. My mom lives in Texas now, I'm in North Carolina and the others are still in Maine. I miss the big family gatherings, I miss just knowing that we all like each other and get along!

Sometimes I feel like sending out communication letters, making sure everyone knows it's okay to talk to each other no matter what is going on. My sisters and I talk at least every other week, my mom and I talk almost every day, either on the phone or on instant messenger, but the only time I talk to my brothers or their wives is if someone is pregnant or just had a baby, or if there is some other big announcement.

So what happened? Is it just that we all got older and have our own families? I'm not sure what it is, but boy do I miss big family meals.

Languages

Have you ever watched a movie with subtitling? Sometimes it confuses me because I get caught up in the words on the screen instead of the words coming out of the actors mouths.

When I was in my Sign language class I was introduced to Closed Captioning. I thought it would be a neat job to type the subtitles. The coolest thing was going to plays done in sign language, lucky for us they had people to interpret it in English. It's so beautiful to see people signing, especially in large groups.

I guess I just have a love for language, because I think listening to other spoken languages is beautiful too. I took Spanish in high school, enough that I could have a fluent conversation in Spanish. The bad thing about languages is that if you don't use them you lose them. Unfortunately I don't remember too much Spanish.

Wedding preparations.

My cousin in getting married on February 29th. How cool is that? I wonder how many other people are getting married on that day. I'm not sure if it's a good idea or a bad idea, I mean she only gets an anniversary once every four years. I bet it will be hard for her husband to forget though!

Right now she is busy with all the wedding preparations, the location, wedding attire, wedding flowers, getting the rings sized, all that fun stuff. I'm sure her fiance is busy preparing for the honeymoon too.

I remember how easy it was to plan my wedding. We decided to just do a very small wedding. our mothers were present as well as the preacher and someone to take pictures. Doesn't get much smaller than that. Although we had a small wedding, I still wanted some of the glitz and glamor of big weddings. I had a bouquet, we had union candles, and of course a simple dress. It wasn't the cheapest wedding ever, but it didn't break $250.

At times I wish I had a big wedding, but then I think about all the money we saved and I change my mind. :) Why not keep things simple to save money? It's not like our marriage is any less of a marriage because a ton of people didn't get to see it!

!

Car Angel

I don't know if you have ever considered donating your car, But there is a great organization called Car Angel. It's a non-profit company that uses car and other donations to make video's for kids and teens. They have given away over2.4 million videos. Here's one of the videos they have made.

Car donation is a great idea, it's tax deductible too, so not only does it help other people, it gives you a break too. The thing I like about Car Angel is that they help kids and teens too. Check it out, especially if you're thinking about donating a car to a good cause.