fun and funny shots from Sam and Mel's wedding reception

Nettie demonstrating that she is, indeed, from Evans-tucky.























Is Nettie teaching Casey the fine art of feeding wedding cake to another person???




























Whose idea was it to let the adults into the bounce house? And I use the term "adults" loosely.

















having a more mature moment with my girl, Angie















and finally, with the bride, Melissa. This picture doesn't do her justice...she was breathtaking on her big day!!!

my mama's birthday party

I can't believe it's taken me this long to post these -- Mom's birthday was June 24th! Anyway, my sis Katie had the wonderful idea of us girls taking my mom to the LS Ayres Tearoom at the Indiana State Museum (the tearoom is a piece-by-piece recreation of the more famous tearoom that used to be at the downtown Ayres before it closed...). Since my mom loves tea and because she instilled that love of tea into all 3 of her daughters, well, it was just the perfect setting for a precious birthday party. We all had a lovely, elegant afternoon together!

please pray

If everyone could keep my sister Sarah and her unborn baby boy, Elijah, in your prayers, I would be so very grateful.

Sarah is going into the hospital tomorrow for some follow-up tests after some bloodwork came back showing her blood sugar is very, very high. Apparently, her thyroid gland is also not keeping up properly. Sarah is 31 weeks into her pregnancy, but Elijah keeps measuring at least 3 weeks larger than his gestational age, so he's technically measuring at nearly 35 weeks (he's over 4 pounds by now...big boy!). Specific prayer points for Sarah would be: that the doctors get Sarah's blood sugars down to normal levels, that her blood pressure doesn't spike (happened with Ethan, who was also a very large baby), and that her thyroid hormone levels would adjust appropriately. Specific prayer points for Elijah would be: that he doesn't keep growing too fast, necessitating an early arrival before his lungs are ready for oxygen, and that through Sarah's difficulties, he would be kept safe and protected. Finally, also say a prayer for Sarah's emotional well-being: she has had pretty dramatic pregnancies, labors, and deliveries with all 4 of her children. Please pray that the Lord would give her an extra measure of peace and calm right now. She is also very tired and this heat is not helping any! Please be with me and my family as we lift up Sarah and Elijah right now.

Thank you!

the beauty of hope

Please take a moment and check out this lady's blog:
http://agracioushome.com/?page_id=65

I just happened across this blog through another blog that I occasionally read, and wow! What a fortuitous find! My heart literally stirred a little bit when I started to read...this lovely lady is 38 years old, has been married for 9 years, and is finally pregnant after years and years of trying!!!

The best thing for me is her wonderfully sweet attitude about it all. You can tell from her writing that her attitude is very much one of: may God be praised, whether He gives me children or not! What an example for me to live by, and what a sense of hope I have received by her hands from the Lord! May God bless her, her husband, and especially this little long-awaited person that they will meet in a few months. My joy is with and for them.

as promised, I researched "hurts like the dickens" and boy, I was NOT surprised to find out that it's a 16th century British euphemism (of course!)

LIKE THE DICKENS
[Q] From Jan Walsh: “Do you know where the phrase hurts like the dickens comes from?”
[A] Let’s focus in on dickens as the important word here, since there are lots of different expressions with it in, such as what the dickens, where the dickens, the dickens you are!, and the dickens you say!
It goes back a lot further than Charles Dickens, though it does seem to have been borrowed from the English surname, most likely sometime in the sixteenth century or before. (The surname itself probably derives from Dickin or Dickon, familiar diminutive forms of Dick.) It was—and still is, though people hardly know it any more—a euphemism for the Devil. It’s very much in the same style as deuce, as in old oaths like what the deuce! which contains another name for the Devil.
The first person known to use it was that great recorder of Elizabethan expressions, William Shakespeare, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “FORD: Where had you this pretty weathercock? MRS PAGE: I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of”. That pun relied on the audience knowing that Dickens was a personal name and that what the dickens was a mild oath which called on the Devil.
World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2006.All rights reserved. Contact the author for reproduction requests.Comments and feedback are always welcome.Page created 11 May 2002.

a mish-mosh rambling of life

July 10th. Now what seems so familiar about that date? Oh yeah, it's the day I got married, 7 years ago! To me it's still funny because I didn't even pick that day out; Franklin College Chapel did that for me when I called to see their availability for our wedding ceremony, and they said, "uh, July 10th is all we have left" and I said, "done. I'll take it."

Maybe I should pick a random memory from my wedding day...searching, searching: Got one. After our ceremony and after we walked/ran through the bubble clouds to the getaway car (which was my sister Katie's), our driver (Katie) took us on a brief jaunt through the countryside in and around Franklin (we did this spontaneously to kill some time so the wedding guests would all arrive ahead of us to the reception hall). Anyhoo, displayed prominently on the back of Katie's car was a sign that read "Honk! Honk! Just Married!!!" And we got the funniest honks from that sign...even a guy on a bicycle tooted his little bike horn at us. It was great! Katie also took us through the Wal-Mart parking lot (if you didn't know I was hick before now, well, there you have the final piece of damning evidence) and of course, THAT generated lots of honks and stares and good-natured waves in our direction. So there you have it, my random memory of my wedding day, 7 years ago.

Other general musings...
*my niece Abby, aka "Peanut," had to get 4 stitches in her chin/lower lip after she fell and bit clean through her lip to the skin on the outside of her mouth. I must say, there is nothing more pathetic than an 18-month-old baby with stitches protruding from a very swollen lower lip and chin. It broke my heart to see it. However, I actually have some hope now that Peanut will learn some gracefulness in her movements...or at least more caution! The child forces and pushes her way through life. She started walking at 8 months out of sheer will to keep up with her siblings. So, motivation is good but stitches...BAD.
*My company moved into a larger office suite over the weekend. I'm now back in cube-land (after a 2-month hiatus of sharing a small conference room with a co-worker, as we were plumb-shy of cubes after our staff grew by several people a while back). Cube-land is, well, it's still gray and boring and rather reminiscent of prison cells. Sigh.
*We showed our house twice over the weekend, and both lookers were second-timers, but as of this afternoon, nary a phone call with an offer. Pooh on them. Just buy my house already so Adam and I can get a teeny-weeny house and then be part-time missionaries and world travelers!!!
*I've decided there's really nothing better in the mornings than a grande, 2-pump, toffee nut latte w/ whip from Starbucks. I literally sigh with delight after my first gulp.

I think that's it. Perhaps more to come later. Filled with incessant urge to write down meaningless info.

more pix from Day Out with Thomas

Ethan's big day out with Thomas the Train

As part of his birthday present, Ethan got to meet his favorite "buddy" in the whole world: Thomas the Train. Before I go any further, I have to somehow emphasize how important Thomas is to Ethan...let's put it this way: Ethan won't go to sleep at night until his trains are all lined up beside him in bed, and he usually falls asleep with one of the engines clutched in his little hands!

Anyway, so this was a very big deal for Ethan, but it was a fun day for the whole family. It's just so much fun watching little kids have a good time. I think that's one of the beauties of looking at life through the eyes of a child -- they don't take ANYTHING for granted and seemed to be awed by "ordinary" things. So, without further ado, here's some pix from that day:














"here I go with Daddy to see Thomas!" (please note my engineer's cap!)
















Abby with her daddy, waiting for the "all aboard" call




















We wanted to prove to Elijah one day that he was there, too















Zu-Zu and Ethan enjoying the view from the train















Adam and I, trying not to melt in the heat (and yes, we're both wearing Superman t-shirts)

back among the living

Since I am now recovering from the mother of all kidney infections, I will be able to post my happenings again! I just haven't been able to sit at my laptop without sweating through the pain. I've had UTIs before, but never have I had the infection in my kidneys, and holy smokes, it hurts like the dickens! (sidebar/note to self: research origin of "hurt like the dickens" -- I always say that and I haven't a clue what I might be actually saying!)

With the aid of Advil, I was able to participate in the preparation for Sam and Mel's wedding, which was yesterday. Golly, I love those two kids. And they had such a precious wedding. It was HOT outside during both wedding and reception, but the food was tremendous and we all had such a good time.

In order, I think these are the posts that I "owe":
Day Out with Thomas photos
taking my mom out to the L.S. Ayres tearoom for her birthday
Sam and Mel's wedding

Best get to it!