I'm still here:)

Hey Al! Yes...i'm still here. I think i'm officially 3 weeks behind on blogging (and other things) due to the incredibly busy schedule we've had lately. I've been slammed at work, which I guess is a good thing to actually have things to do keep me busy, but man....I'm tired after the last week when I finally finished a set of bathroom renovation drawings I'd been working on for about a week and half.

I'm actually in Dothan this morning, and if you haven't heard, I have to have a my one and only wisdom tooth pulled in about 2.5 hours and i'm super nervous thrilled:) Seriously, it all happened so fast I haven't really even had time to let it sink in....I know it's a small procedure in the big scheme of major surgeries, but let's be honest, you've seen me when it comes to needles...and we all know that it's not pretty:) I will say that I took my first prescribed valium last night and let's just say it took full affect after about 15 minutes. As you might imagine, there were many laughs.

Anywho....I loved seeing pictures of your latest adventures in the last post....I wish it were that easy for us to escape for the weekend to somewhere as beautiful as the places you guys get to go, but then I remember you have 4 feet of snow in the winter and I feel a little better:) I love the picture of the little girl you're babysitting now...she looks really sweet. I'm sure she likes hanging out with you too:)

So this will be random, but I'm just going to do another camera dump on you and let you see some of the things we've been doing lately.....here goes:

We spend the 4th of July in Atlanta with the Browns and this little guy:

Parker is getting so big:) He's 19 months old now and will be a big brother in January!

This is Ellie...she's our little cousin, Sam's Mom's sister's daughter. So cute.

Parker and his little girlfriend Samantha....they are about 1 month apart. And Samantha's mom is expecting another baby at about the same time as Melissa again.

This is my husband....

Celebrating the 4th a night early with some sparklers....I just took pictures, and didn't actually participate. But Mrs. Nancy, Sam's step-Grandma, was singing the "God Bless America." It was really funny....

Jon, Melissa, and Parker

Playing with Parker:

Sometime in July Sam decided he wanted to go pick a lot of blueberries. After driving for about 2 hours around Birmingham, we finally found a blueberry farm that was in fact open. I was a little less than thrilled that we had to drive around that long and then spend 2 more hours picking blueberries...but Sam had a great time.

I helped him for the first half gallon and then quit and sat in the car for three reasons: 1. it was ridiculously hot. 2. I wasn't dressed right, and had a million ant bites from wearing sandals with in the first 15 minutes 3. I was sweating and I hate to sweat.

When we're not picking blueberries....Sam can be found grilling in the backyard. He loves it. It's fast and most of the time an easy dinner. This particular night the rain caught up with him.

He tried to keep grilling but the rain won in the end and we had to bring everything inside and bake the rest.
Did I tell you we kept a friend's two cats for 3 weeks? Oh yes...Snickers is the little one and ironically "Littleman" is the huge one, weighing in at about 17 lbs. They're super sweet cats and provided a good bit of entertainment over the time we had them.

Little man doing his morning meditation:

Playing in the new favorite toy, an old laundry bag with holes in it:

Last week we decided to go for a "walk" at a trail about 6 miles from our house...Sam saids, "Yeah that's a good idea, I'll run over there and then we can walk the trail." hahaha. This is what he looked liked after I met him there:

I've been doing a little of this lately: Studying for my big NCIDQ exam in March of next year. It'll be a beast.
The past few Sunday mornings, I've been able to keep the little babies in the nursery before we got to the service. It makes for long Sundays but holding little guys like this is so worth it.
Sam has been doing a little biking on his trainer at night while watching non other than the Tour de France....I know he wishes he could be there....maybe one day we could be spectator?
And last but not least...you remember our friends Jeff and Kalli? Well they will soon be the proud parents of a boy or a girl...we don't know yet. But here she is at 7 months.

Ok...if you hung in through all that, I'm super proud of you. Hope things go well this weekend. I'll be sure to show you a funny picture of me after the tooth surgery. I'm off to take my next Valium.

Love you,

Whit