Summer Projects

I certainly can't say we wasted the summer, or that we just played. We had several projects going on at the same time. My brother-in-law's brother was in town around July 4th. He's a painter and we had been wanting him to quote painting just our trim and shutters. It turned out to be alot less expensive than we thought, so we went ahead and had it done. We love the difference it has made. The previous color was a teal. I love the house but can't say I loved the teal. Here's the before............

And the after....................

We also decided to lay laminate flooring on our own. We knew it would be a challenge, but it wasn't that bad once we got going. Here is our living room before we pulled the carpet up...

Here's my man working on the hardest part, which was pulling up a small area of hardwood that was in the entry. It was glued down and very difficult to pull up.

And here are some after pictures. We still aren't quite done, but we feel almost done, anyways.

I don't have pictures of our biggest project, yet, but we also screened in the back porch. We have a triple deck in the back and I had a fear of one of the kids falling over. We had a metal roof put on, then did most of the other work ourselves. My mom's husband, Ed, helped us install electricity on the porch.

Well, I do have a few pictures of some baby birds enjoying the new porch. Their parents made a nest while we were building it. We decided to wait to put the door on until the babies hatched and flew away. This is the day the babies first flew out. It didn't take them anytime to learn to fly.

We enjoy sitting out on the porch in the rain!!

Stone Mountain

Summer.....The End

We went to my mom's cousin, Lynn's, for July 4th. We always have a fun afternoon there. The kids swim, then we cookout. This year we had a lighter crowd, but still had just as much fun. After Lynn's, we went home for awhile, then headed to the fireworks in Peachtree City. We pulled into the shopping center they have there and got a great space. Some of our neighbors happened to pull in a little while later and saw us, so they parked behind us. I got a picture of the kids with their sparklers. Sorry it's not a better picture. I took it with my camera phone.


Scott took 1/2 day for us to go to Callaway Gardens on July 18th. We had a blast, riding bikes, going to the butterfly center, then going to the beach. I would love to go back in the fall when it's not as HOT and ride bikes again. We went when the weather was in the 90's.......I look forward to going back in the fall, when it's not so hot. After CG, we went to see my mom. She had a pinched nerve in her neck and had to have an epidural. She had to have this done several years ago, too. It is a little painful at first, but helps in the long run.

July 18th is also my dad's birthday. He would have been 58 this year. I am so excited that I will see him in heaven one day!!

Isn't she gorgeous!! Look at my handsome boy!!!

Our last official trip was to Stone Mountain. We are with the Statzers and Nadreaus again. Kim, Lisa and I are all teachers, so it was easy to plan things to do with them. We had a fun summer. Hopefully, we'll make plans next year too!! Anyways, we went at 4. It's a great time to go. First of all, you get a discount and second, it's not quite as hot. I started posting pictures, then realized that there were way to many, so i will make a slide show and post it later.

We went into the barn first. It's like a foam factory. The kids pick up balls, then go upstairs and shoot them. They had a blast. Then we went to the bucket ride and rode to the top of the mountain. Being on top of the mountain reminds me of how awesome God is to make such a beautiful creation. Psalms 36:6 says that his righteousness is like a great mountain. How awesome is that!!

We went on the new Sky Hike, which was so cool. Sarah and Jack had to go on the mini hike, but got to climb the rock wall. Sarah amazes me.......she beat everyone to the top the first time she tried.

The kids had fun listening to the music and waiting for the laser show. They danced, ran around, then settled down and played UNO. They were all so good!! My favorite part of the evening was singing "I Will Always Love You" at the top of my lungs with Lisa. I'm sure everyone around us thought we were crazy, but it was fun!!How awesome!! They are looking at Atlanta, where there daddies work. Speaking of....all the daddies joined us for the laser show after a hard day at work. I have lots of good pictures, so I'll make a slideshow in the next few days.

Summer Part 3

We took a trip to Whitewater at the end of June. We didn't get many pictures because........it's wet! Here's one of all of the kids, though. They had a good time. Caroline, Ethan and I rode the tornado, which was the highlight of my day. I had always wanted to ride it, but there was an eternal line. We go there early this time and this is the first thing we did. The rest of the kids were not tall enough to ride........maybe next year.

The night before we went to Whitewater, I found out that my friend, Maribeth, had lost her oldest daughter, Kate. Kate had become suddenly sick. Apparently, she had an enlarged heart. When I was pregnant with Ethan, Maribeth was pregnant with Kate. We also had a friend, Nellann, who was pregnant with her son, Evan. We made frequent trips to Arby's and shared our pregnancy stories. This was the first pregnancy for all of us. Maribeth had 3 girls, Kate, Claire and Lauren. Nellann had 3 boys, Evan, Tate and Reed. Ethan remembered Kate, mostly from pictures. He wanted to go with us to the funeral home. It was absolutely the most heartbreaking experience. I can't imagine going through this kind of loss. Nellann happened to get to the funeral home right when I did, so we got to see Maribeth together. She encouraged us to go up and see Kate, so we did. The next day, I went to the funeral. The sweetest thing was that her middle child, Claire, who Maribeth says is the shy one, wanted to sing a song. She sang "Where He Leads Me, I will follow". The younger girls had also written a letter to be read at funeral about their sister and what a great big sister she was. Kate's dad, Clay, was an Auburn football player. I found this picture from when Clay got to do the Tiger walk and he took Kate with him.

We also took a trip to the Fernbank. We loved the Imax. It was on Antartica and had alot of penguins in it. There was a young boy volunteering who told the kids about the fossils that were built into the floor. The rest of the time we were there, the kids found fossils.....even in the bathroom.

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Summer Part 2

Sarah and Jack

I wanted to do a post about Jack and Sarah. Jack's mom, Kim, did one. Here is hers, then I am going to add to it:

http://statzerstory.blogspot.com/2008/07/jack-and-sarah.html

The funniest thing is that whenever we take a group picture, Jack and Sarah get together like they are the only ones in it. When they were at the daycare together, they were constantly getting in trouble for hitting or kissing each other. Sarah tells us constantly that Jack is her boyfriend and that they are getting married. She recently told me that they were getting married in the fall and she showed me the shoes she was going to wear. She also asked me once if her and Jack were married yet. My mom told me last night that she was concerned when Sarah said "Jack has kissed me all over". My mom said "where has he kissed you?" She said my cheek, my head and my lips". Anyways, here are some more picture:

Summer Part 1

The kids are at my moms, so I finally have time to sit down

and do another post. We started our summer off immediately traveling. Scott was out of town the first week we were out of school. My best friend, Amy, had just moved from Washington, DC to Ft. Campbell, KY. I was so thankful that she was just 4 or 5 hours away. We decided to go up and see her for a few days. Amy and her husband, Jesse, live on base. I love the safe feeling of letting your kids play outside without worrying. Sarah and Ethan constantly went around the block on their scooters.

Amy was really missing DC and one day, she and Jesse were driving around and they saw this monument that looked just like the Washington Monument. She took us to visit it. It is a memorial to a soldier, but was built as a smaller replica of the Washington Monument. There was a playground and picnic area right next to it, so we packed a lunch and let the kids play for awhile.

Amy found a place for us to go horseback riding. They were really ponies, not horses. The kids were very excited about going to ride. They had no fear whatsoever. We had to watch a video before taking them out. They whole gist of the video was not to let the ponies stop and eat and to keep pulling on their reigns. Well, we got one hungry pony. ALL it wanted to do was eat. We kept pulling and pulling and it would just pull back and keep eating. Sarah, being the animal lover that she is, said "just let him eat". The pony was pushing us actually bit Amy on the arm. The kids didn't notice a thing, really, and thought it was the most fun ever. Sarah got my camera while we were out riding and took a picture of herself. She is too funny!!

Two things that the kids loved about this trip were seeing army men and ice cream trucks. Since we were on base, we saw army men in uniforms, training for the field. Sarah calls them soldiers. When we came home, Ethan told everyone about how they had trucks that brought us ice cream. We just don't see ice cream trucks like we did when I was growing up. We let them get ice cream off the truck a couple of times. Amy and Jesse also had a playground right across the street......how exciting is that!!

My Aunt Dena lives in Nashville, which is on the way home from Amy's. We stopped in and spent the night with her before heading home. She took us to the Science Museum. It was very interactive, so the kids loved it. Here is Sarah with her favorite thing.........it was just air blowing the ball up, but she loved it.

Here she is showing her extreme talent on the piano!

Here are me and Aunt Dena, then Sarah coming down the slide. There are no pictures of Ethan because all he wanted to do was play this virtual baseball game. The pictures were too dark.