10 Years!!!!

Today Tony and I are celebrating our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary!!!! Can you believe that? It's went by so fast! He has planned a weekend getaway for us, something that I've always said I wanted to do. We are going to Lexington, KY for the weekend to watch the UK Football game. You see, I'm a huge Cats fan, and Tony is an IU fan. People are always giving us tickets to go to IU football and basketball games and we've bought several football tickets to tailgate with friends. When one of my cheerleaders from CHS went on to cheer/dance at IU, we made an effort to go to many games. But UK tickets are harder to come by. So even when we do make it down there to a game, we are always sitting in the Indiana section. ;( Just think how ridiculous I look sitting with my royal blue shirt in a sea of red. ha! ha! So Tony went out of his way to get tickets to Saturday night's game (it's homecoming) and made reservations at a hotel for Friday and Saturday night. I'm so excited!! I'm hoping to do some shopping in all of the little shops downtown. I've heard it's such a cool atmosphere there. I would also like to check out the campus as well. I think Tony was researching other things to do last night, too.

Side note: I know most of you know that when we went to Disney World for our honeymoon, that we have always said we would go back for our 10 Year Wedding Anniversary. However, since I only have 1 day off for Fall Break, we decided to wait and do that over Christmas Break instead. The day after Christmas we are leaving to go to Florida and visit my aunt and then on to Disneyworld. My mom and dad are coming with us to help with the Rhett, Micah, and Blair.

Back to this weekend, the kids are spending tonight at Cindy's and Saturday night at my mom's. They are excited as well. Since school has started, it's harder for me to find time to hang out with Cindy and her kids. They can't wait.

Tony: I love you with all of my heart and am so thankful that God brought us together. You are my best friend, a fabulous husband, a wonderful dad, and a strong Christian leader. I am so proud of you and all that you do. I can't wait to share some much needed one on one time with you this weekend. We have such a unique and strong bond, that words just can't explain. I still think of Allison Kraus's song You Say it Best, When You Say Nothing At All. It's been an amazing 10 years and I look forward to living the rest of my life together with you.

Random Pictures

Hanging out at the Zoo
Rhett & Hope hanging out at the Zoo
Rhett took this of us at Lisa's wedding
This is the "civilized" picture ...after this, they went a little crazy with silly poses!!
Micah slept in rollers so her hair would be curly for school one day!

Pirate Treasure Map

Emily found the first clue!

John, Dustin, Caleb, and Devin took turns holding the boat in place.

"The Captain"


The Treasure Map





The Treasure Box!!!!!!



On Labor Day weekend, while we (Marcye's family, Tabby's family, Cindy's family, and my family) were camping, we went to Patoka Lake to see Abby & Troy's new houseboat. While we were there, they had planned a "Pirate Treasure Hunt" for the kids. The kids found a floating bottle with a treasure map inside while swimming in the lake. The kids (I went along to help with the little ones) boarded the pontoon and headed out in search of the treasure! The first stop was so funny because no one knew exactly what they were looking for. Emily ended up finding a clue tucked away inside another bottle. That clue led us to the next stop. Each stop was named although I can't remember any of the names except for "Chigger Island." The kids were super excited at each stop to see who would find the next clue. Everyone had to work together to get on and off the boat. At one stop I overheard Rhett and Micah trying to decide if this was a "real" pirate treasure hunt or just pretend... and came to the conclusion that of course it was real!! ;) Rhett actually found a couple of the clues ... he was really into it! When we finally reached the treasure (which was on a boat in "Party Cove"), even I had no idea what to expect. The treasure box was filled with candy, chips, crackers, cookies, etc.!!!! There was plenty to share! Rhett hasn't stopped talking about it since. He has drawn pictures of pirate ships, sharks, whales, pirates, fish, etc. He has played with his Imaginext Pirate Ship almost every day, and he's even mentioned wanting to be a Pirate for Halloween. Thanks to Abby and Troy for a great day full of fun and adventure!!!

Hurricane Ike

This is the tree that was my backdrop for the "First Day of School" pictures ;(
Another view of the tree that has now become Rhett's favorite thing to climb!
This tree landed on the swing set.
The roof after it was patched (notice the blue and gray tarps)
The shingles that we collected in our yard.

Hurricane Ike... in Kentuckiana!!??!! We had a huge wind storm Sunday afternoon and much of Kentuckiana is without power. Clark County is in a State of Emergency and all of the local schools are out for the week.

We started our Sunday afternoon like any other, with a trip to McAllister's, and while we were eating the electricity flickered a couple of times. It looked like at any moment a storm was about to occur, so we ate quickly and headed home. Not long after leaving the restaurant, Tony got a call to go to the church and check on a gutter that had fallen from the "wind." We turned down a country road to detour back to the church. By this point, we could tell things were looking bad. I had just told Tony that maybe he should take the kids and myself home first and then go to church, when in front of us about 20 feet a huge tree and telephone pole fell across the road blocking the entire road. We had to back up and go a different way. On Highway 62 there were huge foam insulation boards flying off of the roofs of 2 constructions sites. It was a mess!! When we got to church, Tony looked things over and then we headed home.

We pulled in our driveway to find our 1 "good tree" (a Bradford Pear) half way down, the basketball goal landed about 12 inches from Tony's car, and we could see shingles and branches everywhere. We quickly got the kids inside and watched through the windows. By this point, the electricity had already went out. It was an amazing experience! Everything on our deck had blown to one side. Our tabletop broke off of the base and our grill was laying flat on the deck (we actually could use a new table and grill anyway). By 4:00 things had calmed down and we headed out to inspect the damage. The rest of the tree had fallen, our other large tree had fallen close to the swingset, and we had quite a bit of roof damage.

We headed to Tony's mom's house to get some tarps to patch the roof and on our way home Tabby had called to tell us they were bringing a generator and were coming to help patch the roof. Johnny and Cindy came too. Brian, Ernie, and John also stopped by to see if we needed help. We are truly blessed to have such great friends and family to help in times of need. The generator was fabulous! Tony and I keep saying we need to get one, but it's just one of those things that you don't think of until something like this happens. The girls (Tabby, Cindy, Desiree, Olivia, Blair, and I headed to Meijer in Jeff, the only open store, to get some food, supplies, and stopped at the only open gas station to get gas for the generators. When we got back, my Mom and Dad had stopped by to help.

Sunday was definitely a day of excitement and action. Rhett was all excited and said, "This is the best day ever!!!" The fallen tree was a big "playland" for all of the cousins and neighbor kids!! Little did he realize the damage caused from the storm.

Monday we all went to the zoo (a total of 10 kids and 6 adults) and when we got home about 5:30 our electric was on. However, the subdivion next to us didn't get power until last night. It's

Wednesday and there are still many places without power, including our church. My school is now a make-shift shelter for food and showers. Today was the first day Tony went back to work. They still are without power but have moved the computers next door and are using generators. When I talked to him at lunch, he said that the plant people are working outside. That's one blessing ... the weather! It's been in the low 70's during the day so at least the people without electricity can open the windows.

Another blessing has been having some extra family time. We've just enjoyed slowing down and spending some quality time together!! Speaking of family, I hear Blair waking up from her nap, so I'm off to check on her.

School's Back in Session!!!

So now that school has started, I don't have any extra time in my day to blog!!! I promise to post pictures of Rhett's first day in 1st Grade soon. It's been quite a whirlwind and I feel like I am on overdrive!! I'm hoping in the next few weeks things will settle down and we will get back in the groove of me working full time. I'm actually doing really well keeping up with the laundry and household things each night ...for now.

Rhett loves 1st grade and loves his teacher (Mrs. Webb). He is really excited about the things he didn't get to do last year since he was a half day kindergartener like special area class, lunch, and recess. However, he is completely exhausted at the end of the day. He is tired all the time. On Tuesday morning he was asking when his next day off was because he "wasn't getting enough sleep." He's fast asleep by 9:00 and I wake him up at about 6:50 in the morning, but he is still complaining that he's sleepy. He's falling asleep every time we are in the car and he just looks worn out. If you know me at all, does this sound familiar?? He is definitely his mother's child! Lack of sleep is one of my biggest issues during the school year. There's plenty of nights where I go to sleep BEFORE any of my kids do!

Speaking of sleep, it's 9:30 and I need to get in bed. I'll post pictures soon!

Family Time

Blair didn't want to stop and pose for a picture.








Rhett and Micah have been saving their money to buy another Webkinz so late this afternoon, we went to Clarksville to pick them out. They earn money by doing extra things around the house. We use Dave Ramsey's style of "some things you have to do because you are a member of this family and some things you do for allowance." Micah chose the Black & White Cheeky Dog and Rhett chose the Silverback Gorilla. Their money had been burning a whole in their pocket for a long time! ;) Afterwards, we picked up Chick-Fil-A to go and headed back to town to have a picnic at the city park. Tommy, the gorilla, was quite a risk taker going down the slide and over top the monkey bars. Patch, the dog, on the other hand preferred to stay with Tony, who Micah designated as the "dog-sitter" for the evening!!

We came home and watched the Jeff/GRC little league boys win their baseball game ... THEY ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!!! I am such a Charlestown fan from the top of my head to the souls of my feet, so I never thought I would say this, but "Go Jeff!!!" It's so exciting!! I grew up watching the Little League World Series with my parents. Just a couple of years ago, Valley Station (PRP in Louisville) won the World Series, and I think it's great that we have another local team going.

Incredible Dave's

"Incredible Dave's is awesome!!!"
Blair and her Papa
Mama Laney, Micah, and Rhett
The Obstacle Course

My dad took the week off of work to fish and spend some extra time with the kids before school starts. On Thursday, my mom and dad went with us to Incredible Dave's. Tony took a half day and met us there. We had a BLAST!!! If you've never heard of it, it can be described as an up-scale Chuck E. Cheese. The food was really good, sort of a tropical menu. There was so much to offer: restaurant, sports bar with a lot of televisions, a coffee shop, a wii lounge, a bowling alley, bumper cars, euro bungee, inflatable jumping castles, a huge inflatable slide, an obstacle course, arcade area, etc.

Rhett's favorite part was bowling (he's actually REALLY good ... he beat me). Micah said she liked "all of it." They talked about it for the rest of the day. When Rhett was just about to go to sleep, he looked at me and said, "I wish we were just pulling in to Incredible Dave's parking lot!" This will definitely be a place we visit again!!