Happy Anniversary To Us!

Thursday August 9, 2007 was our 10th anniversary. Vince sent me some beautiful roses at work. They stayed alive and opened up for about two weeks!Where does the time go? We had always wanted to go on a big trip for our 10th and renew our vows in church. Well the big trip had to go by the wayside, the only big trip we'll be going on anytime soon, soon being the operative word, is China! And that's the only one we want to go on right now! We decided to spend our weekend by ourselves so we went to Ross Bridge Resort and Spa in Hoover, which if you haven't been you need to go. It was so great! We totally felt like we were out of town on vacation somewhere. We lay by the pool all day, I had a massage, it was fabulous. We out to dinner and had seafood at the Cajun Steamer in Hoover, it was wonderful. Just to get to relax and escape reality for a day was so healing!
The front of the hotel, which I didn't get a picture of, looks like a big castle. It's a Renaissance Hotel and was so nice. And for you golfers, it's where the Regions Classic (used to be the Bruno's Memorial Classic) is played every May now.
There was even a guy by the pool playing guitar and singing, it truly was a vacation. If you look at our blog alot you've seen the previous entry where we making hidious faces with Madison. Well this is how it got started. After dinner out that night we came back to our hotel and realized we hadn't had anyone take a picture of us on our anniversary weekend, so we decide to take some ourselves. The other ones are like the one with Madison, just totally goofy. You can tell we are a match made in heaven. Who else makes stupid faces into the camera on their anniversary? God always knows what he is doing!
We had planned on renewing our vows that Sunday after Mass. Well, when we got to church the air conditioning was not working, so we postponed it until the next Sunday. Well, it was still broken so we finally renewed them this past Sunday. (Madison is our photographer here!)It may seem hokey to some of you, but I became Catholic after we got married and although we had a priest at our wedding, I really wanted to renew our vows in the Catholic church and we got to do it in our church home with our priest Father Bill Lucas, which made it really special. As Vince said, we say "I love you" so much that sometimes it seems more habit than anything, even though we mean it, sometimes I want you to know how much I really mean it. It was very sweet. I tried to post a picture from our wedding on here too, but when I scanned it the picture was too small. I might try again later. Hope everyone is having a great start to their school year!

Just a little story.....

We have been so busy getting ready for our HUGE GARAGE SALE Labor Day weekend, Friday and Saturday 8-?. The garage sale is to raise money towards our "Zoey Fund" (which is a loaded term) that we've been working on for over two years now. Madison knows that we've been saving and trying to put every bit aside that we can, we've kept her very involved in the whole process. Some people may think that's a bad thing for a 7 year old to know, but we want her to see every aspect of the process. We don't talk about expense totals or anything, but she knows that it is a costly process. She gets allowance every week for chores she has to do around the house and she has a savings account that we started for her several years ago before she knew about buying things because she had money that she had gotten for birthdays and things we put in that account. She knows that she has that savings account now because we encourage her to add money to it for future "big" purchases (car, college, etc.). The other day we were working on pricing some of the garage sale things and Madison said, "Mommy why don't you and Daddy take my savings money to help buy our plane tickets". I started to cry. "You don't need to cry about it, you can have it, I want you to", she said. I explained to her that that was her money and we weren't going to use it, but that it was so thoughtful of her to offer. She said, "That would at least pay for my plane ticket, right?" Which it would only pay a portion of it, which I didn't tell her, but she kept on anyway. I was so touched by her sweet notion. My child who I spend much of the time fussing at for being rude and inconsiderate was offering her money to help bring her sister home. It touched my heart and I just wanted to share it with you all!

First Day of Second Grade!

Thursday August 9th was Madison's first day back to school. It's great to be back at SES! She began 2nd grade this year at Springville Elementary with Ms. Wilder. She absolutely loves school and couldn't wait to go back. She had great summer thanks to Candace our neighbor and her babysitter for the summer, but she was ready to spend days at school. She is one of those children that functions better with a schedule so the school year is really good for us. With the start of school we also have the start of clogging coming up in September and we are going to participate in Brownies this year so all of you guys get ready to order your GirlScout Cookies!!!!!!
We love to snuggle at bedtime and we had fun taking silly pictures of ourselves tonight. We laughed and giggled for an hour just being crazy.This is how we unwind at the end of the day (haha). I can't believe I am putting this on here, but for anyone who knows us, this is how we are, just silly! We hope everyone has a great schoolyear!

CCAA Update

The CCAA updated their website this morning and now have done referrals through November 21, 2005, so that puts us 21 days down the list. One month closer! Just keep your prayers going to Him that they will continue to do at least 7 days a month (or more and not less). We'd at least have our referral before Christmas if the trend continues this way. I just want to add a quick note to all of those who have donated so far to our yard sale, I am completely overwhelmed. Our garage is BUSTING! God is so good to us, we're so blessed to have such WONDERFUL friends and family who are helping us with this journey, Thank you All sooooo much! I also want to say how emotionally exciting it was last night to get to be there when the Ferrills came home from China with ALL their children. I can't even imagine how they feel because I know I was completely overcome with emotion to see those beautiful babies. The Pintaro's also returned this week, as well as several other families. We are so happy that they all are home safely with their new precious children! We'll keep you updated as things progress!