An Almost Empty Nest...

This weekend, Caylie and Christian are both away on a church retreat.

They are with the 6th through 8th graders from our new church. Caylie went to serve as kind of a high school mentor for the middle school girls. They were both very excited about the trip. They are at the same retreat center that Caylie attended last weekend with the high school kids from our previous church. I'm praying that they both have a wonderful weekend!

This evening, after we dropped Caylie and Christian off, Corey, Carson and I went to Chip's BBQ, one of our favorite, very casual restaurants. Although I have been trying to eat a little bit healthier lately, I had to have a piece of Chip's delicious chocolate pie tonight. Chip's is one of the very few restaurants where I always want to order dessert. Thankfully, we don't go too terribly often!

We got home a few hours ago, and have been watching the Olympics all evening. This is really my first night to spend much time watching the Olympics. It has been nice to just have an evening to relax, and not allow myself to worry about getting anything done. Right now, we are watching curling. I've gotta say...Corey and I both think that it is a very weird sport! We don't quite get it. :)

Anyway, tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day. After Corey goes to a short meeting in the morning, we might get out and do some work in our garage. It is screaming for some organization!

If the weather will cooperate, we would like to plan a yard sale within the next few weeks. It is amazing how quickly things accumulate! I think that my last yard sale was not much more than 6 months ago, but already, I feel like I'm drowning in extra "stuff". I can't wait to get rid of some things!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Humbled...

I just read my sweet Caylie's post about her weekend retreat, and wanted to share it. It is such a blessing for me to be able to witness God's hand at work in the hearts of my children...http://lifethesedayscaylie.blogspot.com/2010/02/no-horizon.html

And The Birthdays Keep On Coming...Happy Birthday Corey!

Well, Corey's birthday was yesterday! That should wind things up around here (in the birthday department) until February. We get off to a big start each year!

Last night we celebrated by going out to eat barbecue with his parents, his sister Kinley, and her two children, Jordan and Jackson. We had a nice time, and then his parents and Jordan came and spent the night at our house.

This morning, Corey, his dad, Christian, Carson, and Jordan, all went to the Big Buck Classic...a deer hunting expo that was in town. (Though none of them are very much into deer hunting!) It had live animals, and other things that the kids (and the men!) were all interested in seeing.

After the Big Buck Classic, they headed to Jordan's basketball game, then with Mickey (Corey's brother-in-law) added to the mix, they came here to watch the Razorbacks.

Corey's mom, Kinley, Caylie and I all took that as our cue to run out and hit a few stores!

We wound things up with Mexican food at our house before everyone went home a little while ago.

It has been a busy, but fun weekend so far.

Now I'm heading out the door do the the c25k training that I just started on Thursday. Hopefully I will have the discipline to stick with it through the end! Thank goodness I have my own personal trainer...Caylie! She is quite the encourager...and has very little tolerance for excuses!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

How Cool Is That?!

We just finished watching American Idol, and are pretty excited!

We actually know someone that is "going to Hollywood"!

Charity is the talented, sweet, 16 year old, that was among the contestants featured tonight. She was shown working at her family's hair salon here in town.

Charity is a friend of Caylie's. They have attended church, and done theatre together. She and her family attend our previous church, where she sings occasionally, and she has also sung recently at our new church.

She's a sweet girl...one that we would love to see make it all the way!

Like Kris Allen (also from Arkansas!), she would be such a welcome change from many that seem to end up in the spotlight these days!

Keep your eye on her!

We're pulling for you Charity!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Beth Moore Study

Last week I began my very first Beth Moore study.

I have always heard great things about Beth Moore studies, but for some reason or another, I have never ended up participating in one.

A few months ago, Caylie went on a youth group girl's trip to Memphis, to attend a Beth Moore conference, and came back just bragging about how neat it was. It sparked an interest in me, and so I was immediately interested when I saw in our church bulletin that one was starting during the time that Christian's youth group meets on Wednesday evenings. I decided that I should give it a shot. It will be convenient, since I will just bring Christian to church, and stay for the study, and then we will head home together when we are both finished.

Since we have recently started attending a new church, this will be a good opportunity to meet some new women. Including me, there are 5 homeschooling moms in the group of about 30, so that will be something that I have in common with some of them!

The study is called "Jesus, The One And Only". I have done 3 of the 5 weekly lessons so far, and they were really interesting. It has been quite a while since I have done a women's group bible study, so I'm looking forward to it!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Happy Birthday To...Me!

Yesterday was my birthday!

My birthday is only 3 days after mom's, and 10 days before Corey's! January is a busy birthday month in our family!

Corey and the kids woke me up with breakfast in bed...an egg sandwich, coffee, juice, and a candle! Of course they sang the birthday song...Carson would have had it no other way! He was beside himself with excitement! It was a great way to start my day.

Corey took a picture of me with my pj's and crazy hair, but you're just going to have to use your imagination on that one!

During the day, it started to appear as though my birthday might make a bad turn.

As I was transferring clothes from the washer to the drier, I looked down and saw Christian's flash drive (with his school work on it) in the bottom of the drier! Not good.

I then walked straight into the kitchen, and looked down, only to realize that I was standing in a big puddle of water that was leaking from the dishwasher!

Love it when that happens!

Anyway, moving on...

We decided to eat at Shorty Small's for dinner. We hated to not have Caylie with us, but she had a volleyball practice that she needed to attend.

Shorty Small's has great mozzarella sticks. Carson sure enjoyed his!

He didn't seem to care about our instructions to look at the camera and smile. Here he is with my sister, Jeanna, and me...2 out of 3 smiles...I'll take what I can get!

Mom, Christian and Corey...

While we were waiting for our dinner, I got to open my sweet cards and gifts.

Mom and Jeanna gave me a Coldwater Creek gift certificate (one of my very favorite stores), and a Wood Wick Almond Orange candle. Mom had given me one of these candles a couple of years ago, and it is almost gone now. They knew that I wanted a replacement! I was so excited!

Corey and the kids gave me a gift certificate for a new blog design (which I had asked for)!

The deal that I have made with myself, is that I must get my 2008-2009 blog entries printed before I can get my new blog design. If I don't have a goal, it won't get done!

I have been playing around with the "blog to book" software that I downloaded from blurb.com. It is going to be more time consuming than I had hoped it would be to get it all laid out correctly, but I'm hoping to make it happen before TOO long!

I wish I could just print it out exactly as it is, with me just determining where the page breaks would be, but all of the sites I have found either mess the layout up when they automatically fill in the pages, or require me to do pretty extensive photo and text layout in order for it to make sense.

So, if you see that I have a new blog design anytime in the near future, you will know that I have finally met my goal of getting my blog printed out!

After dinner, we went to mom's house to enjoy the wonderful pound cake that she had baked for my birthday! She served it with whipped cream and strawberries! Yum! :)

It was a very nice day, and I appreciated all of the nice things that were done to make it so special!

Writing the Waves,
Christi

Celebrating Mimi at Mimi's

Last night we celebrated my mom's birthday (Mimi to my kids), at Mimi's Cafe...how appropriate! :)

She opened her birthday gifts, which were framed pictures from the recent photo session that we all did together. One frame held a collage of several different images from that session, and the other frame was a picture of Mimi with the grandkids...below the picture, it read, "The best things in life aren't things." I think that she liked them!

Can you tell that this picture is posed? I was so caught up in the moment, that I forgot to take pictures while she was actually opening the gifts...so I made them fake it for a picture!

Another recreation of the real moment...

Here she is after we sang to her. She is about to blow out her candle.

As I have mentioned before, Carson LOVES, LOVES, LOVES birthday celebrations!


After dinner, we all came back to our house to hang out and play a game together. It was a fun night!

Happy Birthday Mimi!

I couldn't ask for a more, wonderful, special, gracious, and loving mom!

I love you!

Writing the Waves,
Christi