Fun stuff...rainy day style...

• jump in puddles with rain boots
• jump in puddles without rain boots
• sing in the rain
• count raindrops as they land on your tongue
  
• go for a walk in the rain, don't forget your umbrella
• make a waterproof outdoor fort with tarps
• take turns reading out loud in a favorite book
• take a picture with your camera phone and send it to a friend...right now...and don't forget the silly faces!
• spin tops, race the tops, see whose top can stay up the longest, bump them into each other, try to spin them on top of each other, try to spin them on your hand, on your knee, on your nose
  
• go to the dollar store and each pick out one new toy, that should be good for a couple hours or maybe an afternoon of rainy day fun
  

My Grandpa's Wallet...

It was on my sister's lap at his funeral. She was passing it on to one of the men in our family as a keepsake. Previously she had returned the photos from inside to their new rightful owners. The photos he carried of me were from 5th grade, in all my buck-tooth glory, and my senior photo. I felt special, knowing he carried photos of me wherever he went, and even more special to see the signs of wear, realizing he loved me enough to take the photos out and look at them or show them off once in a while.

Tooled diagonally into the front of the leather were his initials, DRM. Most people, even up to his funeral, never knew his name was Davis Roy McCullough. Everyone called him "Doc;" born in 1929 he was the first of his siblings to be delivered by a real doctor, which is the rumor anyway. My sister traced the initials with her polished fingers and turned the wallet over and over in her hands as we listened to the preacher. She was obviously connecting with him in the only way possible now, through the things that remind us of him. And I longed to connect with him too, to put my hands where his had been so many times, but not at the expense of my sister's comfort.

The leather wallet was dark and slick from age and wear. It was also thin and empty now, but during his life my grandpa worked tirelessly for the cash that came and went through its folds. As my sister flopped it open and closed I remembered how easily he had opened it to give what little he did earn to help anyone who asked and many more that didn't. I remembered the times he reached in and slipped a bill or two into the palms of my own hands.

It wasn't just money that he gave. I met several people with stories about my grandpa's wisdom, the kindness he had shown and the replacement father he had been. I don't think he met anybody without becoming their best friend. It reminds me of that wallet. He too was old and worn, his body used up. But what a way to wear out, by constantly opening up and giving generously of what he had for the benefit of others.

I love you, Papa Doc. It is my turn to carry your memory around wherever I go, to take it out and show it off every chance I get.

How to decorate a coffee table...

Kimba at A Soft Place to Land always has beautiful home decor ideas, her blog is all eye-candy, all the time. I live vicariously through her and someday when we own our own home I will get busy with all the lovely things I have planned to make my home a soft place to land after a hard day in the world.

Today Kimba shows us how to decorate a coffee table, below is just one of the oh-so-fabulous examples.

In my world however, there is a very feisty one-and-a-half-year-old who would be fascinated by the open flames and all the pretty breakable things and even the rocks to dump out of the vase. So here is my take on how to decorate a coffee table, one-and-a-half-year-old style, hope you are inspired!!

• rake the leaves and jump in them, then do it again.
• dissect owl pellets
• make corn husk dolls
• see who can go the longest without talking
• arm wrestle
• thumb wrestle
• wrestle
• let your girls try on your jewelery
• say "Mrs. Smith's Fish Sauce Shop" ten times fast. Then try this one,

"A Tudor who tooted a flute tried to tutor two tooters to toot. Said the two to their tutor,"Is it harder to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?"

If your kids are anything like mine they will start giggling hysterically at the first mention of anything "tooting!"

Have fun!

Things I like right now...

They totally got the spiderweb cookie design from my 4th of July cupcakes, who knew GoodHousekeeping editors visited my blog?!

Halloween decor from GoodHousekeeping.

Have I posted this before? I dunno, I can't remember. Maybe I just sent an email to some peeps? Whatever, it is good enough to post about twice. Jelly Telly is a newer online show by Phil Vischer. If he sounds familiar...he should...he was one of the original creators of Veggie Tales! Jelly Telly is for older kids, kind of like graduating from Veggie Tales and moving onto Jelly Telly, sort of. I like it because it has a lot of depth, especially for a kids show. I am always kind of sad to compare the new Veggie Tales to the old ones, they have lost so much since being sold and resold and now in the hands of Saturday morning cartoons, it has lost all meaning. Not so with this show.

Basketcase

Elisabeth Elliot said this to me today...

"Let us not forget, however, that to God each of us is a special case. There is no category labeled "Miscellaneous." The God who guided the great apostle (Paul) in his great work is the God who carries lambs in His arms."

Pretty sure my category is "Basketcase!"

The wait is over...

With a BIG sigh of relief, and a little groan for having to start all over again in another new location, we can finally say we know what the plan is! God has given Michael a great job in Umatilla Oregon and he will be commuting from Kennewick. The pay is great, the hours are great, he will be a Training Instructor, which he is very good at and enjoys. What more could we ask for?!

So many of you have been praying for us and we have coveted those prayers along the way. We serve a GREAT BIG GOD who has answered according to His very best plan for my family, thank you for petitioning Him on our behalf! Thank you for loving us enough to support us and take care of us when we needed it most. Thanks for putting us up for the night here and there as we traversed the country, for the great home-cooking, for the dinners out, for the time you have invested in our family, for the words of encouragement and the advice we so desperately needed. A difficult time was made so much easier by the help of our dear family and friends.

So there it is, finally over with. We will be settling in Kennewick...until God calls us somewhere else!?

• organize a neighborhood toy auction
• volunteer at the zoo, local animal shelter, old folks home, soup kitchen
• order a pizza, try a combination of toppings you have never eaten before
• make root beer floats
• memorize the presidents
• memorize the states and their capitals
• do some worksheets in preparation for a new school year
• have your kiddos call the extended family to make a list of their birth dates, use it to send them bday wishes throughout the year
• move across the country, it will keep your whole family occupied for at least a month when all is said and done
• do show and tell after dinner, let the kids choose the item in the morning or afternoon so they anticipate it all day long
  

Who Would've Thought....

...that when we moved to Texas we would stay here for less than a year?
...that my prayers for a very best girlfriend would finally be answered?
...that it would be so hard to leave after such a short time?
...that I LOVE living in a red state, and deplore the idea of going back to such a raging liberal,
agenda pushing, government controlling environment? (Seriously, I can't even choose my own
dishwasher detergent, and don't get me started on home school laws!)

I wouldn't have thought any of these things, but God did. He knew ahead of time all the choices we would make, and exactly how He would work in our lives through those choices. He knew ahead of time how desperately I would need a friend to lean on, and to keep my head on straight. He knew I needed a good dose of encouragement and to see that our great nation still has plenty of like minded Godly patriots.

My head is swimming with thoughts, and questions and emotions. I am sad to leave, glad to get back, wondering exactly what our destination will be and desperately trying to lean on God and His understanding rather than my own. There is grace in uncertainty, as a friend so eloquently laid it out for me.

As for the destination, I know you are all on the edge of your seats...and I am too!! Michael got a call back on a resume that he put in for a job in Kennewick. He has a phone interview on Monday the 17th. If he were to get hired, then we will settle in Kennewick for the foreseeable future. If not, we will be headed to Spokane for him to attend nursing school. Please pray that we would just be wherever God wants us to be.

I have lots of pictures from our recent trip to Florida, which I will post...eventually. But we are up to our eyeballs in boxes, we are picking up the moving truck tomorrow and headed North on Saturday morning. I won't be blogging for a bit, but you can check me out on Facebook for updates.

*********EDITED TO SAY**********
Let me clear this up for my Washington peeps...I am sad to leave Texas, sad to get so far away from my side of the family, and a little confused about the why's and what for's of this last 8 months. BUT I am also very excited to return to Washington, be it Spokane, the first place I ever felt like I had roots, or to Kennewick where we would be so close to grandparents and cousins. Either way I am looking forward to some decent weather, some beautiful scenery and the people that we love!

• take a nap
• spend 15 minutes everyday practicing a new skill until you master it
• spend 15 minutes everyday cleaning in the one room of your house you never get to
• paint flowers on your toenails
• hula hoop
• take silly quizzes online
• sing "The Song That Never Ends"
• microwave a marshmallow
• microwave a light bulb in a bowl of shallow water
• take a trip down memory lane, talk about your favorite memories together
  
• drop a mento into a bottle of coke
• go fishing
• let your kids choose what is for dinner and eat it no matter what
• ENJOY YOUR SUMMER...IT IS ALMOST OVER!!
  

Mini-chairs

Picked these up at the thrift store, along with a 99-cent can of spray paint. This is what I ended up with:


Well no, not all of that, but this is what I have to work with. I want some kind of arrangement that looks cute enough to hang on the wall.

Combo #1, needed more color?

Combo #2, still not quite the razzle-dazzle I am looking for.

Combo #3???

Hmmm, any suggestions?? In my brain I have beautiful blue walls, like the ones you see in all the new cottage-style, coastal style magazines. And an unlimited budget with which to adorn my mini-chairs in glorious, exotic seashells and something covered in jute.

In reality, I am packing my house to move back across the country, and my husband is diligently repainting the fingerprints on the walls with the normal shade of white found in rentals. Is there such a thing as rental-beautiful magazine? We do live on a budget, so that we don't have to live crisis-to-crisis like most. And besides, isn't having everything covered in cardboard just as lovely as jute?? Good thing my kids are cute, and my husband is so handsome they sort of make up for my lack of home decor!!

On a side note, please forgive my photography. I have this super-cute, and super-ornery two year old that just figured out she is tall enough to reach onto the counter. On top of said counter she found my camera. And the rest is history, I found it, turned on, lens crooked, bearing that fatal message...LENS ERROR...ugh. So my phone is my camera for now, and yes for those of you who remember, it was about this time last year that I had camera trouble also.

Honorable Mention

Homeschoolshare.com put on a great contest this year, go check out all the new content up on their site. Click here to see my submission, a unit lesson about teeth. I planned it a while ago knowing Mikey would be losing teeth sometime this year and thought it would be fun to do with the kids. I didn't win the big grand prize, but received an honorable mention and the prize is 15 children's books! Next year I will try even harder, but the competition is pretty amazing!!

A boy and his teeth

(Papa Stordahl, this was not a prompted response, he came up with it all on his own!!)

I know this is a rite of passage that every kid goes through, but there is something about this kid and his teeth that makes me kind of nostalgic. When I found out I was pregnant with Mikey, I was terrified, there is no other way to describe how I felt. It wasn't elation, it wasn't excitement, it was sheer terror. Yes, I know there are more virtuous reactions to finding out such great news, and if I knew then what I know now there wouldn't have been a problem. But in my feeble-minded attempts to plan my life out, kids were an option several years down the road, not when I was 23 and still trying to figure out married life and college and work and finances and all that jazz!

So Mikey came and we had the life-altering, world-upside-down-turning, but greatest- experience-ever of having your first-born child. Then all of a sudden, right before my very eyes, he started growing up, and changing, and learning and one morning he woke up with a tooth! I cried my little heart out. This precious baby of mine, who I had been so terrified of, who had come and rocked me to the core, wasn't always going to be a baby. It was an awful realization, one that I am reminded of frequently as they go through these rites of passage from one stage to the next.

Now this precious baby, who is not really a baby at six years old, not even a toddler, not even a pre-schooler, but a full-fledged kid, (and almost pre-teen to hear him tell it, where did he even hear that?) is losing that very same first tooth. He is excited, he has big plans for his tooth-fairy money, his mind wrestles with the all important question of whether or not the tooth-fairy is real, big stuff for a full-fledged kid. And I am still crying about losing my baby, and trying to relish every moment and treasure every memory.

Two-tutes: Braided headband with ties

I have wanted to make one of these headbands from Heather Bailey's free stuff for awhile. Then I saw this cute this 5-minute headband from Lu Bird Baby and knew they would make a great combo!

What you need:
--scrap fabric, this is a very forgiving kind of thing, if your fabric is long then you need less elastic, if your fabric is short, you will need more elastic
--elastic
--thread
--sewing machine


What you do:
--Read both tutorials first.

--Complete step 1 on Lu Bird Baby's tutorial, which is cutting strips, instead of attaching elastic, just braid your strips together and then skip the rest. Do not do anything with the elastic right now.

--Skip steps 1-3 of Heather Bailey's headband pattern.

--Complete step 4 of HB's pattern.

--In step 5, instead of inserting anything into the band, you are going to insert the braided fabric into the ties. Also insert your elastic in the same way, at the same time. You can see in the photo below how the braided portion and the elastic go down into the tie. Fold the elastic over the top of the tie and sew it all into place.


Complete steps 6-8 of HB's tutorial, which is fitting the elastic and tying it up, and you have a super cute, braided headband with ties!

Project Rating:
--Supplies--Needed to buy elastic, got 2 yards of 1/2 elastic at Joann for less than $1
--Execution--Easy, peasy, rice and cheesy
--Fun factor--It was fun because I had an opportunity to craft something!
--Mess factor--Just scraps of fabric to throw away (unusable of course!)
--Side notes/learned by experience--my fabric was a little stretchy and I didn't take that into
account when I measured the elastic. Now the elastic is too long.

Other fun headband tutorials:
Reversible Ribbon Headband from Fabric, Family, Fun
Ruffly Headband from Heart of Light (this one is going on my to-do list!!)
One with feathers from Melissa (also going on my list!!)
Wide reversible fabric ones from The Long Thread
Cute one from Between the lines
Who could resist a baby one from Vermillion Rules?

Family Friday!

Big week at the Stordahl house! HUGE! TREMENDOUS!! One of those weeks mother's pray for from the time their babies are born, maybe even before your babies are born if you are really virtuous!

We had Vacation Bible School at our church this week. The theme was Ephesians 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Each day there was a clear presentation of the gospel message, lots of fun activities and crafts to go with the theme, and it all tied together very well. The WHOLE group of kids was great, a very well-behaved bunch, not a single trouble-maker among them.

Anyway, on Thursday Haley had a rough day. She did not do a good job showing self-control and threw a fit, and wouldn't share the ball at game time. (Poor girl, I guess she was the trouble-maker! ;) ) When we got home Michael chatted with her, and gave her the appropriate punishment. Afterwards she was whispering something and through her tears she told him, she was whispering and asking Jesus to save her from her sins! My heart is rejoicing for her even at this minute, and if you know me, you know the tears they are a flowin'! Praise God for His mercy and grace even in the life of a child, and praise Him that He got my sweet Haley Pie at a young age! Praise Him that Michael got to participate in such a tender moment in her life, what a treasure that will be for both of them.





This is just cute, had to share. She really liked having the glasses on and left them on for a long time. Usually babies just yank them off and then proceed to snap them in half or break a temple off.


This is one of Jeremiah's latest predicaments. I don't know if you can see it in the pictures very well, but he got the cap of a flashlight stuck in the roof of his mouth. And in the second picture you see the tools we had to use to remove it. He looks rather chipper in these photos, but trust me, it was not so easy, and he was not so happy...

This is my friend Sherry. She took me out for a girls' afternoon. We had lunch at a sushi bar downtown, she had sushi, I had a burger! Then we went to Harwin Street which is jam packed with little stores and shops, which are in turn jam packed with cheap junk for sale, but most of it is really fun cheap junk! And after that she took me to the Hong Kong Market. I have never seen so much weird stuff all in one place! I loved Harwin Street and hope to go back before we make our departure from Houston, but I don't know if I can stomach the smell in the Hong Kong Market again...it was very....fishy...rotten fishy.

Hope your week was as wonderful as ours!

This is serious, we must get busy.

Last night I was able to listen in on a webcast (I think the audio from the webcast will be available on their site soon.) put on by the pro-life group Americans United for Life. AUL rallied some big names in the fight for pro-life, and they came together as a united front to give us information, facts, and statistics about the healthcare bill being proposed by the current administration.

This bill and it's various components have some serious implications for pro-lifers. Not just for abortion, but for terminally ill, mentally and physically handicapped, and elderly Americans. I never thought I would see the day when our country was ruled by tyrannical, activist, Hitler types. But it is here, and we must stop it.

Please get informed, and then ACT on the information. This is not the time for any of us to be complacent, there isn't any room or any time left for us to "wait and see." We must rally the troops and fight before it is too late.

• start a club
  
• make milkshakes
• use puppets to tell a bedtime story
• make a hideout or clubhouse
• make a human sundial (scroll down a ways)
• memorize a poem
• go to an Imax movie
• play tag
• feed some squirrels
• your mall probably has a play structure, brave the crowds and go to play on it, AND talk to a stranger, you might make a new friend.
  

• Find a store that sells products made in your state and learn about some local industry
• Go fishing
• Lots of theaters have free summer movies, check out your local theater
• Give your kids a dollar each and take them to some yard sales
  
• Invite the grandparents over for dinner or out for a picnic
  
• Do a "Secret Summer Santa" where your kids secretly make little surprises or do sweet things for a secretly chosen sibling/parent, then reveal after a week...might cut down on the summer arguing.
• Go to an empty parking lot and have bike races, public school parking lots are empty right now.
• Play a board game that you haven't drug out of the closet for a long time
• Play hide-and-seek
  
• Watch a movie or read a book and then write a review, this would be good to brush up on some language arts skills/parts of a story/critical thinking this summer
  

Family Friday

Oh Ella! She is into EVERYTHING...ALL the time!! I know it is an ages/stages kind of thing, and she is just curious, but between the toothpaste, the tupperware, the crayons and the dishtowel drawer there is just no reprieve!! After a rather loud CRASH-BANG-CLANG sound I ran downstairs to see who did what and there she was bringing me a pot, and there were several others waiting for me on the floor! But boy oh boy, she is cute while she does it!

Her bangs drive me crazy, getting ready to trim them, but when I did it for Haley the first time, she ended up looking like Jim Carrey in the movie Dumb and Dumber with short bangs from temple to temple. So I am a little apprehensive this time!

Last weekend Michael was off for the 4th of July and we celebrated first with some friends from church. I made these super easy firework cupcakes to take. Afterwards we headed to the Giles house for swimming. And the night before Michael and I went to a tea party...no, not that kind...Michael wouldn't be caught dead at a real tea party, but an anti-gov't-spend-our-way-into-oblivion-kind. It was fun if you are into this kind of thing, we made signs. Mine said "Ask me about the FairTax." Michael's had a picture of a tea bag and some kool-aid and said "Which one are your drinking?" There were loads of funny signs, good speakers, a comedian, booths, food and it was good to see a bunch of like minded people gathering together.

Ignore my ridiculously large sunglasses. They are all I've got right now, and I can't go buy a new pair until these are gone or broken, which probably means they will last forever!! But my sister-in-law was kind enough to give them to me when I didn't have a pair at the park. Otherwise the Houston sun will bore large holes into your face where your eyeballs used to be!

Hope your week was as wonderful as ours!

Fun stuff to do with kids

• play store
• play restaurant at breakfast, lunch or dinner complete with menus
• give everyone crazy hairstyles
• have a carpet picnic
• have breakfast for dinner
• dress up fancy for dinner at home
• take bubble baths
• go get drinks at Starbucks
• go order some fries to share and play in the playplace at Chick-fil-a, or McDonalds with those who are unfortunate enough not to have a Chick-fil-a
• take a nap in the grass, or under the trampoline, or if you live in the south, you better take a nap on the trampoline or you will get eaten alive by the ants. On second thought, this is for my northern friends only. If my southern friends tried to take a nap on the trampoline, they would fry like eggs.
  

Mod Podge not Modge Podge

Yes, these are two totally different things...but I didn't realize it until TODAY when I had a craft featured at Mod Podge Rocks. Mod Podge is the decoupage medium that I have always called Modge Podge...geez. Go check out her blog, not because I am on there, but because there are some very clever projects on there. My crafty-to-do-list gets longer each time I visit Amy's blog!

Don't forget...

Click here for your free Hershey's chocolate!

Family Friday, with real photos!

Two-tutes: Repurposed Sweater into Coffee Coozie

I am combining this coozie, from House on Hill Road with this knitted coozie from Knitterella. Really this is a three tutorial combo because there is also this one from Craft Addiction, which is about repurposing a sweater. And from henceforth, I will call these cozies, instead of coozies. I either feel like an 18 year old frat boy or a 50 year old redneck when I say coozie. Either way, when you combine all those tutorials, you get this:


What you need:
old sweater
scissors
sewing machine
velcro
liquid stitch


Step 1--cut off the cuffs of the old sweater.
Step 2--cut the cuffs open, and cut out the seam.

Step 3--lay one cuff on top of the other, lining up the finished edges as best as you can.
Step 4--sew a new seam across the unfinished edges, I used a zig-zag stitch, I think that makes it better, but I'm just guessing!

Step 5--fold your cuffs over the new seam
Step 6--top stitch in a big rectangle around all the edges

Step 7--using the liquid stitch, glue your pieces of velcro onto opposite edges of the cozy. So glue it on one side then flip it over and glue the other piece on the opposite side!! Es muy importante!! I chose the liquid stitch because my machine doesn't do well with thick stuff, so adding the velcro to the two layers of sweater wouldn't have worked. Also, my velcro has sticky backing, and I have heard it makes a big mess on your needle, I wasn't willing to find out if the rumor was true, so I used the liquid stitch.

And there you have it:

Project Rating:
Supplies--I had everything on-hand.
Execution--Completed in less than 15 minutes--starting from scratch.
Fun factor--10/10, but this is a quick, cheap project, and those are right up my alley!
Mess factor--pretty much nil.
Side notes/learned by experience--My sister had this genius idea, put some puff paint on the inside so it doesn't slip off your Starbucks cup!! I don't have any puff paint, but am going to pick some up on my next craft supply run. Also learned that my machine does not do thick stuff well, if you look close at any of the photos you can see just how poor the stitches are, but mission accomplished in spite of crooked and uneven lines!! These would make great little gifts for the coffee drinkin' ladies in your life!

Other ways to repurpose sweaters:
Pillows from My Mama Made
Coin Purse from Craftster
Scarf from Knitty
House Slippers from Sew Green
Hats also on Craftster
Cashmere Bunnies on Betz White--she also has a book on repurposing things to sew with
Cute little tote bage on WhipUp

Fun stuff to do with kids

 

• make paper airplanes and see who's flies the best, does the most flips, flies the farthest, etc
• see who can make the longest paper chain
• use a paper chain to count down to the next big thing you are looking forward to
• make paper hats
• make paper plate masks
• play rock paper scissors
• do paper mache
• cut holes in the bottom of a cardboard box, and try to weave ping-pong balls through them
• tape record a letter and send it to someone
• play in a bubble bath
  

Prayers for my family

Heb 12:1  Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us...

Lord, teach Mikey to persevere in all he does.  Help him to run the race You have marked out for his life.  He often gives up at the first sign of difficulty, please don't let this characterize him, but work in his heart.  Lord as we seek to teach him perseverance, fill in the gaps that we miss and fix our mistakes when we fail.  Help us model perseverance in all we do.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Great giveaway!

Think pink and polka dots and organizational help...are you in? Head over to the Best Nesst for a great giveaway!

Fun stuff to do with kids

 

• make animal footprints out of cardboard and strap them to your feet
• get an ant farm
• make up an obstacle course and run through it with bean bags on your head
• bean bag toss
• bean bag basketball with pot in middle of floor, yard, driveway, etc
• blindfold someone and guide them around
• play follow-the-leader
• trace your body with sidewalk chalk and then decorate it
• make a shadow animal show
• play musical chairs
  

Prayers for my family

Pro 13:20  Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Lord we just want to have some awesome fellowship with some of your awesome followers, lead us to the friends you would desire for us.  Let each of us have a friend who can sharpen us, as iron sharpens iron.  Friends who will stick closer than brothers, cords that cannot be easily broken.  and especially for Michael as he seeks to lead our family, Lord, provide him a like-minded friend for accountability.  In Jesus name, Amen.

Family Friday-ish

Yes that is me, with an H2! And I even got to drive it all weekend! At the beginning of June I took a very quick trip to Colorado for a girlfriend's wedding. Holly and I have known each other since the 5th grade, almost 20 years ago! I was so glad to be able to see her get married!

The line at the airport at 5:30 AM was very short, and I got to the counter, with my ID ready to go. The gentleman then informed me that I had no reservation...um...what?! I explained that I booked it online, and so he checked again...and there I was! Except I was booked on the 7 PM flight instead of the 7 AM flight that I thought I was on! I felt like such an idiot! So I was 12 hours early for my flight. Except the wedding started at 5p...bummer. Fortunately they worked it out for me and I got on another airline, just a little later than planned.

When I finally arrived in Denver, I shuttled my way to the rental car company. The lady and I had a lovely conversation, at the end of which she prayed for me and my family...right there at the counter...isn't that amazing? So I went outside to wait for my car, which was supposed to be the smallest, cheapest thing I could find on the Internet, and turns out she had upgraded me to the Hummer, and given me a discount so it cost less than what I originally planned! (Which is good because I had to shell out some extra dough for the mistake I made while booking my flight!) Is that awesome or what? I felt so cool all weekend long, driving around in that thing!

This is the beautiful bride and her groom. She planned a great wedding, everything was beautiful, the food was delicious, the favors were cute. Holly was gorgeous, one of the most beautiful brides I have ever seen!

This is Holly's family. Her grandmother has always been so little, and now that I am over 5 feet tall (5th grade was a long time ago!) she seems even littler, but as sweet as ever. Uncle Pete is blind, but it doesn't stop him from much! He has been a farmer as long as I have known them, can you imagine that, it takes some guts and stamina, neither of which he lacks. And Pat, Holly's mom. I am not sure she will ever know what an important role she played in my life. She used to come pick me up every Sunday morning and take me to church, after church she took us to the corner store and let each of us girls choose a soda and a candy bar. (I always chose RC Cola and a SKOR.) And then again every Wednesday night she would come and take me to Confirmation Classes. It was after those confirmation classes that I accepted Jesus as my Savior and became a Christian. Granted, I had a few rough years after that, and my walk didn't match my talk for another eight years, but I never forgot what I learned there. I never forgot how faithful Pat was, or how generous she was. God is faithful, God is generous, and I learned that from her example. Praise God for the friends he has given me along the way!

Here is a quick snapshot of Holly and I. 20 years later, and she still calls me on my birthday every year.