Kara's Birthday Party and Girls' Night Out

Kara's 12th birthday isn't until the 20th of May, but she got to celebrate early with a party with all her friends. She had 16 friends over from our church, Sovereign Grace, and her school, Veritas. When everyone got to our house, we ate PB&J sandwhiches, pimento cheese sandwhiches, chicken salad sandwhiches, and Kara's favorite.....Cheetoes! They the whole crew walked over to the "big field" in our neighborhood and played a game of kickball. It started raining, so we all ran back home. Kara then opened presents and we had ice cream sudaes:) The party ended with some really competitive 4-square tournaments. Happy Early Birthday Kara!!!!!!

On Tues. I got to go out with my friend Chara and a bunch of her friends. We all got dressed up and did out makeup and hair together at Chara's house. Chara had made reservations at a nice Indian restaurant called Nawab, so we all piled into her friend's car and drove over there. After the very yummy dinner we headed down to the beach, grabbed some DQ, and walked on the boardwalk. It was such fun time!
Chara is in the pink dress.

Our yard

This past saturday we were all at home working in the yard. It was such a nice day to be outside too! I love spring time when all the plants start to come out and everything turns green. Our God is such an amazing Creator!! I hope you enjoy the pictures.......in a few more weeks some of the annuals will have filled out more, so I will have to take more pictures then.

Sugar enjoying the azaleas
Our front yard

the backyard with Mom's little girl statue
For the very first time, we have a vegetable garden. It has lettuce, eggplant, peppers, cilantro, tomatoes, and cucumbers.......yum!!
Our backyard and patio

The Japanese maple tree

Lacrosse Game

Tonight we all went as a family to watch Connor's lacrosse game. Connor plays for Hickory High school (they are white) and they were playing Kellum High (black...of course:). This was a particularly exciting game........Connor scored his FIRST GOAL !!!!! (and scoring a goal in Lacrosse is a pretty hard thing to do:) Lacrosse is a really fun and fast paced game to watch. It is kind of like a mix of hockey, soccer, and football.......if you can picture that:) Connor also wants to let everyone know that he knocked a bunch of people to the ground!! Oh ya baby!! Connor is number 13 in all these pics. Let us know if you would like to come and watch a game sometime.....we will let you know when and where Connor is playing next.

Almost finished with school!!!!!!

I am almost done with school at TCC for this semester!!

What I have left:

1. History final due April 28th (take home and open book:).....working on that right now, just thought I would take a quick break to blog...he he:)

2. English quiz on April 28th

3. Psychology final due April 30th (take home and open book too:)

I thought this was a pretty good excited face:) I think it was taken like 4 years ago, so I was about 15 (you can see my gum too........I love to have gum all the time:)

This week so far.....

I'm copying this idea of "normal life" from some other friends:)

I guess I'll start our week out on Sunday, the 20th. So here it goes:)

Sunday 20th- Dad, Kara, and me went to church

Kara watched Mr. Magoriums Wonder Emporium....she said it was a little weird, but still continues to watch it over and over:) She said, "you get used to it after a while."

I went out to lunch at Five Guys with friends after church

I also realized at 7pm that I had an English draft due on Mon. and I hadn't even started yet! I was up late getting that done....and it certainly was a ROUGH draft:)

Mom and Connor returned late from Memphis, TN

Monday 21st- DAD'S BIRTHDAY, but we didn't get to actually celebrate it

Mom was home sick all day:(

I had school until 2pm

Connor and Kara-school too

Tuesday 22nd- I worked til 3pm....went to the bank

Mom was feeling better today:)

When I got home from work we all headed to the mall to get Dad some presents....talk about last minute lol :)

We then met Dad at Tropical Smoothie for his birthday celebration....so yummy!!

Came home and opened presents

Wednesday 23rd- School for me til 2pm (I only have 1 week left of school yippee!!)......washed my car

Connor and Kara school too...of course

Mom and Dad headed to Leaders caregroup tonight

Jordan came over to study Spanish with Connor.....I wonder how much "studying" they are actually doing:)

Our Weekend

On Friday Connor, Kara, and Mom woke up very early (4:30am to be exact:) and headed up to Veritas for the Washington D.C. fieldtrip. The Lord cleared out the rain that had been in the area for the past week and gave them a beautiful day for D.C. on Friday. Kara was on one bus and Connor and mom were on another. Connor's group went to the Holocost museum, National Archives, and Mount Vernon, and Kara's group went to the Air and Space and National History Museums. They all said they had a great time, but were very tired when finally arriving home at 11:30pm. On Saturday Kaitlin worked all day. Because the sun finally came out Enchanted Forest Nursery and Stone was a hoppin place. It seemed everyone was out to get plants, stone, or mulch on that day (I will try to post some pictures soon of my new job). The rest of the fam stayed home an worked around the house both inside and out. We all enjoyed a very tasty and relaxing meal at Chilis that night together as a family. On Sunday right after church we went to the induction ceremony for the Phi Theta Kappa Tidewater Community College honor society. Kaitlin is now a member of the honor society at TCC. Afterwards we went to a restaurant called Pirates Cove to celebrate. We ordered fried calamari, hushpuppies, apple booty (like apple pie:), turtle cheesecake, and a brownie sundae. We all shared everything and it was so yummy (not to mention loaded with carbs, but lets not think about that right now:)!!

Connor and his friends sitting on the lawn of Mount Vernon
Some girls from Veritas- Mary, Laura, Reagan, Alyssa, and Jessica
Connor and Lee
A very sweet picture of Jordan and his mom
Connor and classmates lounging by an old barn
Honor Society Ceremony

Spring has Sprung.......even on our blog!!

With all the changing that can be seen outside on the trees and flowers, I decided to also change our blog a little with the colors. I hope you enjoy our new spring/summer colors!!

Change is good!!:)

Spring is like a perhaps hand

by E. E. Cummings

III
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

This picture was taken by Connor on his digital camera.

New Attitude 2008

Last year I attended the New Attitude singles' conference for the first time. I'm so excited that this year I can go again!! It is such a wonderful and refreshing time of teaching, fellowship, and worship. Here is a link to watch the promo video for NA 2008:)

NA 2008

May 24-27

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YN6g1ta2paU

Christ the Lord is risen today!!

He is Risen!!

Luke 24:2-7 ~And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. And it happened that while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling apparel; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how he spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."~

Isaiah 53:5

~But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.~

Romans 4:24-25

~as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.~

He is risen indeed!

I hope everyone has a very happy Easter celebrating our risen Lord!!

Beach Day

Connor and Kara's had a day off from school on Friday, so we decided to do something fun. The weather has been so nice here(in the 60's and 70's) that we thought it would be fun to head down to the beach. It was beautiful there!! The sun came out later in the day and it wasn't too windy. We went with our friends the Adams(Susan, Laura, and Rebecca) and the Coffeys(Linda and Kyle). We first ate lunch at a Christian place called Daily Bread. Most of us got a yummy smoothie or milkshake there. After lunch we rented three bicycle surreys and rode along the boardwalk. It was such a wonderful day and I can't wait to go to the beach more!!