Lake Hadley

This past weekend we drove up with some couples from our class at church to Kansas for a lake trip. We had an amazing time with some amazing friends. There were too many great pictures that I had to include, so sorry for all the pics!!!

The Group

Sessler's and Maenius'

The wild crazy MEN

All the guys "trying" to get on one tube

Trent jumping over Sam...I think Sam was a bit suprised!

Sam

Bye Bye Trent!

Brandon attempting to hang out...I can't remember the outcome but I am going to assume he was a gonner!

Sam taking out a girl! geeze!!!

Sam and I

Thanks a lot babe!!

THE GIRLS!!!

All the girls successfully getting on one tube....it all went downhill from here!

Melanie, Amy, and ?????

Mandy and Melanie...I look like I am enjoying this more than her!

Chrishtan, Melanie, and Mandy

Amber & I

My transition....


holding on....holding on...


where did she go??? She's on the other tube!!!

No good terrible very bad blogger!!!

I have been a no good terrible very bad blogger this summer!! I guess I have just been enjoying our summer so much that I keep putting off blogging!!! Forgive me. Since I don't want to bore you with separate posts for some of the things that we have done since I last posted, I thought I would just share a few pics!

We have.......

Hung out with family....

(although I only have a few pics of just this occurrence) Ms. Quinci

Reed

Got my first tattoo...

(ok, so its a non-permanent henna tattoo...please excuse the unpolished toe nails, and the weird crusty stuff is the sugar water they put on to help the tattoo stay..I'm not dirty!!!)

Taught some friends how to make cookies...

(I think I might have to hire them one day!)

I met some of my girl friends at the lake for a fabulous girls weekend....

We did this the entire weekend!!!We're goofy, I know!!!

and Sam has played some softball....

I also thought I would share some pics of my niece Mia. She just turned 3 months old and is precious!!! I had to borrow these from her parents blog though b/c I have been a bad aunt and don't have many recent pictures!! I would also like to ask you to please remember her and her parents in your prayers as they have now reached the 12 month mark. Please pray for peace and faithfulness for her parents, and that they would not allow fear to overcome the joy of having this precious little girl. I know they would appreciate it!

Viva Las Vegas!!!

A few weeks ago we went to Vegas for the first time to celebrate our 3rd anniversary!!! We went with our good friends, Jennifer and Jacob, and had a great time! We had so much fun seeing all of the sites and watching all of the very "interesting" people!! One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to eat some fabulous food! I love to research great restaurants and tend to eat A LOT on vacation, but hey, that's my favorite part!!! We did not gamble much - but we did come out ahead for the little that we did play! I only played blackjack because it is the only thing I know how to play. I did not even try a slot machine until the last day!!! I'm afraid if I started that I might not stop!! Plus Sam was convinced that they had to be rigged b/c they were computer generated!!! Sam played a few different games, but he won almost half of his money playing War!!! Not too hard of a game...just beat the dealer!!! We stayed at the Venetian hotel and it was amazing! The hotel itself was of course huge and had so much to look at; the pool area had several huge pool areas; and our room was awesome! I'm pretty sure it was the biggest room I have ever stayed in. It had a hallway!!! (I really need to get out more) There were three flat screen tv's! Since the US Open was on the weekend we were there, Sam always had the tv on so we could catch a bit when we stopped by the room. If you had all of them on at once it was like surround sound!!! So basically we did a lot of walking, a lot of eating, a lot of people watching, some gambling, some time at the pool, little sleeping, and a pretty good amount of shopping!!

One of the biggest reasons for us even thinking about going to Vegas was to see the Cirque du Soleil - Love show. Since Sam is such a huge Beatles fan I wanted to get him there to see this show. It was SOOOOOOO worth the money!! I would recommend it to anyone, but especially to those who enjoy the Beatles!! Such an amazing show; I honestly don't know 1. how they do the stuff they do, and 2. how they even put something like this together with all that is going on and all of the crazy costumes!!! I kept telling Sam that I felt like I was watching an amazing show of organized mass chaos; I honestly could go back 5 times and still not catch everything!!!

It was a great way to celebrate 3 amazing years! I probably won't go back anytime soon (too many other places on my list), but definitely some day!! And now....PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!

The Venetian

Outside of Caesar's Palace after eating at Spago - Wolfgang Puck

New York New York - fun hotel!! I totally paid way too much to

ride the roller coaster, but I couldn't pass up a roller coaster opportunity!!!

I could not get enough of the Bellagio fountians -

I might have even been slightly obsessed!!

Chill'n at the pool...please pay not attention

to the lack of tan bodies!

Looking at the Vegas sites from the Effiel Tower at the Paris Hotel

Going into the Beatles show

Trying to win some money!!!

I just like this pic!

Bobby Flay burger at Mesa Grill - I had to get a burger
created by the "burger master"

Ok, that's enough...I suggest just checking it out for yourselves if you have never been!!!

All About My Dad!!

A very happy birthday!

We just got back from our trip to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary, but since I don't have my pictures all together yet, I thought I would throw in a few from my birthday. We didn't have any type of big celebration due to the fact that we had the garage sale and that we were leaving for Vegas, but we did get together Friday night before we started setting up for the garage sale at my favorite local Italian dive. It was a great dinner with great friends!

Seccess!!

The garage sale last weekend was a success!! All day Friday I had people bringing over stuff for us to sale. I think we could have had a week long garage sale and we still would not have sold everything! The good news was that another couple from our church took all the leftover stuff to sell at their garage sale this weekend to help raise money for them to adopt a child overseas. The grand total was more than I was ever expecting, so the Lord really showed up!! Thanks to everyone that donated, and for all those who helped put on the event! Even though it was a lot of work and extremely hot, we had a blast doing it!!! The best new was that the electricity was finally fixed by about 6:30 Friday night right before it was time to set up!! That also meant that we got to sleep in our own bed with an air conditioned house...only to be woken up at 6:15 by happy, impatient shoppers (note: the sale started at 8:00)!!! They were eager and ready to go!!!

Setting Up

Let the sale begin!!

Working hard!!!
Displaying the furniture!

The delicious bake sale

Three years ago...

That's right, three years ago today I married my best friend and the best husband EVER (I'm a bit biased, so I'll just say the best for me!). In someways I can't believe we have already been married for three years and in others I feel like we have been married forever! These years have been a fun adventure of learning about each other and growing closer each day. The Lord blesses me each and every day through my husband. Whether its through laughing, working together around the house, or just sitting together doing nothing! I love you Sammy and I can't wait for what year number four has in store for us!!!

Wedding Day- June 2006

Honeymoon - June 2006

1st Annivesary - June 2007

2nd Anniversary - 2008

AND NOW HERE WE ARE TODAY!!

GARAGE & BAKE SALE

We will be having a garage & bake sale at our house tomorrow, June 13th starting at 8am!!! All proceeds will be donated to a very deserving family. This is a multi-family sale with lots of fun stuff. We'll have furniture, clothes, kitchen items, golf clubs, TVs, home decor, etc...if you don't need anything, come for a fun homemade treat!! Who knows, if the tree is still laying on our house, we might be selling fire wood too. Just bring your own saw and cut away!!!

Electricity or no electricity (that's right, still no power) the SALE WILL GO ON!!!

Front Door meet the Tree!

The meteorologists predicted a 30% chance of RAIN yesterday and today...well it seems that they missed the HUGE stormS that passed through last night and continue this morning. The first one hit right when everyone was getting home from work. A tornado hit right by our house and the winds were atrocious (I would probably know the speed except we have had no power for over 12 hours! Thank God for the invention of the iPhone!). Sam happened to be home and once he came out of hiding in the hall closet, he went to the front door to find this.... (sorry for the bad quality!)

That's right, half of our tree in the front yard fell on the front of our house. You can't even open the front door because the tree is on it. I can only imagine Sam's face when he opened the door!! We were pretty bummed, but knew there was not much we could do about that. THEN another huge storm came through around 4:00 in the morning and lasted hours. It is probably one of, if not the, worst storms I have ever heard. After taking a shower this morning in the dark, I went to the kitchen to find something to eat and saw this....

Another one bites the dust! So this should be fun to clean up and fix!!! Oh, did I mention that we just paid a pretty penny to have these trees trimmed nice and pretty this spring! I guess now we'll be paying to have them FULLY trimmed!

Cross your fingers that the electricity comes back on soon; I'm not sure how long the ice on all our food will last!