Bath Buddies and More

Hello everybody!! We have had a pretty good week around here. Above are a few pictures of the kids. The first one is Beau reading his bedtime story to himself. I mean, who has time to read to 2 kids? He'll just have to keep fending for himself (haha). The second one is Abby giving us a sampling of some of her beautiful jewelry. The last 2 pictures are of Beau and his buddy Lola taking a bath one night at our house. I love putting kids in the bathtub together. They are so cute and have a good time playing in the tub together. In the one picture there is a toy flying through the air that Niki (Lola's mommy) was throwing back into the tub. I happened to catch a picture with it in mid air. I promise we don't usually throw things at the kids. Only for fun every once in a while...

I hope everyone is doing well. We are gearing up for our busy October - which starts tomorrow! We are so excited to be going to Gatlinburg this weekend for our annual trip with Papaw and Jody. This will be the first time (and probably only) to watch UT play live this year. Aunt Jody and I always try to kick off our Christmas shopping this week together. I think we have Toby's friend Jammey talked into taking some more family pictures for us this year, too. He is the BEST photographer. I am so sad he wasn't doing it when we got married! Check out his sight if you know anyone needing pictures for a wedding or any other event - http://www.essentialmomentsphotography.com/ - he really is awesome! Anyways, I'll try to post pictures from the trip when we get home!

Back to School

Last Wednesday (September 5th) was Abby's first day back to school ("playcare"). Mommy and Daddy were soooooo excited!! She was pretty excited, too. She got to see all of her old friends and meet some new ones! In the picture she is holding her lovee - I thought that attachment would decrease as she got older. However, it seems to have done the opposite. She is a female Linus with that thing these days. Anyways...Abby is now in the Red Room and has 2 new teachers that we really like. The only part of school Abby complains about these days is her nap. She went right in on her first day and got to playing dress up with her pals. It almost made me kind of sad as she has always been my clingy, dependent child. The only drawback to school starting last Wednesday is that Friday I was called at work to come and get her that morning as she did not feel well. I took her back to work where we learned that she had strep throat! Great! We are still taking her 10 day round of antibiotics, and Mommy just finished hers. Yep, that's right - Mommy started with her fever last Saturday and was sick all last weekend. We had a much better weekend this weekend, thought. We went to the zoo, Maggie Moos, etc.

On other news since I have not blogged in a while. Toby went to our future hometown this weekend in search of a new abode. He toured about 16 houses without out very much luck! Well, I have decided not to worry too much about it and just put it in God's hands. He is most capable and He will provide for us I'm sure. We would appreciate any extra prayers on the this matter from everyone, though! It has been a real challenge trying to take care of really important matters 10 hours away and with 2 kids. Maybe on the next trip down Toby and I can both go, hopefully. We'll see... The good news is Toby went and visited a few schools, and he said the school we went ahead and applied to for Abby is, in his words, "awesome" which makes me feels tons better. It is a little Baptist school that starts in K3 and goes through 8th grade, so she can stay at the same place the whole time we are down there. Now, where to take the little guy...somewhere with wide open spaces for lots of energy...

We are excited about lots of fun things to do over the next month and more. It seems all of our days are filling up quickly with fun plans. Next weekend is a trip east for Amber's little guy's first birthday and a visit with some of Toby's family. The first weekend in October is our annual trip to Gatlinburg for shopping and a UT game with Toby's family. The third weekend in October is Toby (and Michael's) 5 year medical school reunion. The last weekend is my nephew's first birthday party (which they are having at a pumpkin patch here, yay!). Busy, busy...

Forgive me if I fail to post much over the next few weeks, but I will try to do better!

Birthday Trip to Chicago

So, my wonderful husband surprised me (or at least tried to) for my 30th birthday last week with a weekend trip to Chicago. My mom, Miss Sharon, and his sister all chipped in to help take care of our kiddies so we could enjoy our weekend away worry free. It was so much fun!! We ate at some really great restaurants - The Custom House and Keefer's. We did lots of shopping (yay) - Toby even shopped with me a little bit! We also went to the Hancock Tower (2nd tallest building there I think) as well as went on an architectural tour and to a Cubs game. Quite a bit for a 2 day trip! I can't wait to go back. It is like a really clean New York. There was much more shopping to be done, as well as great museums to see, the Navy Pier, Millennium Park, etc. Hopefully we'll get to go again soon!

What better place is there to play than an empty suitcase?

Once a year Chicago has the largest free air and water show. We happened to be there for the fun! There were planes flying around pretty much all weekend. They were really loud and fast. They would do nose dives, fly between buildings, fly together 5&6 at a time. It was really neat.

We went on an architectural boat tour while we were there. It was very informative and we got to see a lot of really beautiful buildings. There is so much great history there. I didn't even know that there was a huge fire that destroyed most of the city in the 1870s, but apparently there was! My only complaint about the boat tour is that I WAY under dressed in my shorts and T-shirt. It was in the 60s while we toured and a little rainy! I was unprepared for Chicago weather and ended up buying a sweatshirt in a gift shop for the day! It's hard to imagine weather that cool until you're in it, especially when it has been over 100 here consistently! The tall building in the picture is the Sears Tower. It has 110 floors I think!!

Toby and I posing at the Cubs game. We had great seats right on the front row of the left field line. It was so much fun! Oh - and the Cubs won...

Toby posing with a Leggo man. There is a huge Leggo store there, and, as you can see, they have all of this neat stuff built out of Leggos. I also have a picture of me with Darth Vader (sp?) if anyone just can't live without seeing that one! (Ha!)

This is a miniature Leggo Chicago. Isn't it neato?

A Few More Beach Pictures...

Here are a few more beach pictures. There are even more that have yet to be unloaded from the camera. I know...that is ridiculous... Most of these are from the evening we arrived. We took a quick stroll down to the beach. Beau went nuts - crawling and running into the water. Abby made sure to bring her ziploc bag down with her to put her seashells in.

Beach Trip 2007

Abby posing at the beach

Taking a ride on the train with Aunt Jody

Riding the carousel with Daddy and Aunt Jody

Beau trying to escape from his parents and go ride some rides on his own...

The huge sand kingdom built by (mostly) Mee-Mee, Abby, Papaw, Erica and Nicole.

Abby and Mommy taking a break in the sun

Mee-Mee and Beau on a walk

Abby and Mommy on a bike ride

Abby and Daddy on a bike ride together

Beau at the pool - completely fearless of water I might add...

Mommy and the kids at the beach. Beau is trying to make Abby share her beach chair.

Abby on this wild jumpy thing - she looks so little to me in this picture...

We had a great time at the beach last week. I have had a lot of trouble getting these pictures to upload for some reason or another so I will keep this short and sweet. I will say that both of the kids LOVED the beach and the water. We all had a wonderful time spending time with family. Hopefully we will repeat this trip next year and add even more family and friends! We have more pictures that I might try to post later (from the good camera), but I am tired of wrestling with this thing. Beau is getting in 4 or 5 teeth and keeps waking up a lot at night so I'm going to bed!!

Boys trip home...

Abby enjoying her marshmallow hamburger Daddy and Beau brought back for her

Beau passed out on the 4-wheeler with Daddy

Playing on Papaw's farm

Taking a ride with Aunt Jody

Too cool...



Hey everybody!! It has been quite a while since I blogged. We have been very busy lately - more on that later. This last weekend my boys headed east back home to the mountains to visit Papaw, Jody and Mamaw (among others, of course). Toby went to help Jody do a few things on her condo and to do some visiting. Toby said Beau had a great time, especially at Papaw's farm. He loves to run around outside and apparently loves to ride the 4-wheeler (without a helmet - much to Mommy's dismay - Daddy has been scolded...).

The girls stayed home and had weekend of eating out and shopping with Mee-Mee, Aunt Ramona and Erica. I have probably packed on some poundage this weekend as we ate at J.Alexander's Friday night, The Cheesecake Factory Saturday afternoon, Kobe's Saturday night and Cracker Barrel Sunday after church! Isn't that ridiculous? I am about to pop!! Abby and I also went to her friend Little Howard's birthday party where Barney made an appearance on Saturday. Abby kept screaming "Don't touch me!" if Barney got too close to her. I think she was OK with him until she saw him take his purple hand off so he could use his human hand to tie a balloon animal. She started crying when she saw that and said to me, "Mommy, why is that man trapped inside of Barney?" The crying subsided but never completely stopped after that until he left the premises! The camera was with Daddy so, sadly, I have no pictures of our fun girls' weekend. Maybe next time...

Last but not least ---- Yes, we are moving south!! Toby has decided to accept an offer to do a pulmonolgy/critical care fellowship. We are not sure on exact moving times yet, but it will be before the end of the year for sure. The fellowship will be for three years, then we hope to head back home and be settled for good!! We are very excited as this is a great opportunity for Toby. Having said that, we also sold our house already!! We put it on the market for sale by owner and had not trouble at all! I feel like God has really blessed our family with this opportunity as well as with the easy sell of our house. Please keep us in your prayers as we are going through and will be continuing to go through a lot of change over the next few months! Start saving those frequent flyer miles to come visit - it will be a 10 hour drive home!!! Thanks to everyone for their support and words of encouragement as we embark on this new journey!

Happy 4th of July

We had a fun 4th of July holiday. We met our friends Jeremy and Emily and their 2 kids for lunch at the Aquarium restaurant which was a lot of fun. Afterwards Mommy and Aunt Jody (who came in for a visit this week) hit the Gap outlet while Daddy went to Bass Pro. For the evening it was dinner at Mee-Mee's with her friends from England. Toby made a "Boston Butt" which he grilled on the grill all day starting at 5am. It was sooooo good. After dinner we walked over to DLU for fireworks. Beau and Abby both loved the fireworks (also known as "boom-booms"). We had a fun holiday and hope everyone else did too!! The kids both had on really cute red, white and blue outfits for the occasion although this is not shown in the pictures. They both decided naked was better in Mee-Mee's backyard on such a hot day!