Busy Busy

I have been extremely busy lately. I have felt even busier than I've actually been. My stress level hasn't exactly been low lately.

Why?

School starts in less than 48 hours. Thursday is the first day of school for the 2010-2011 school year.

I do not feel ready. AT ALL!!

I blame some of this on the fact that we have a brand new middle school building. Sure it is GREAT! It comes with some very exciting technology that I can not wait to use. But there are some downfalls as well. Like it still isn't completely finished. I have walls hanging out of my wall still and my stripper pole closet (more on that in a later post) doesn't have a door yet.

All of this I could deal with it if that was the only issue.

But I'm not ready with lesson plans either. Math intimidates me. I'm not even going to lie. I have no idea what I'm doing. To be honest I've been very much like my students putting off my to do list thinking I had all the time in the world. But I don't. Thursday is right around the corner.

I haven't been too concerned because for this week I'm just going to be in survival mode. Getting to know my students and letting them get to know me. We have all these students and the possibility of hiring new teachers so I figure their schedules will be changing over the first few days. That makes it hard to start too much.

But enough about school. Through my quiet time God has given me a verse to live by for the year. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13 I am definitely clinging to that.

I am really looking forward to the weekend. I am going camping with my parents. I haven't done that since I was a little girl. It is going to be some awesome quality time with the parents and some yummy camping food. I don't know why but everything taste better when you are camping. My daddy is going to cook me scrambled eggs and bacon one morning. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it and there aren't many foods that do that.

Okay now that I type this out I feel like I'm not that busy. Maybe overwhelmed is a better word.

Family Weekend

I have had the best weekend! It has been packed full of family & fun!

Friday as soon as I left work, I did some last minute birthday shopping and then came home and packed. I headed the two hours north to my grandmother's house for a celebration of birthdays.

We celebrated Sawyer turning 3!



Livvy celebrated her 8th birthday!


And my Mommom celebrated 71 years!


It was such a nice night. I have the best cousins. We talked and laughed for our hours. My cousin, Tyler, is finishing up his junior year of high school. His school is getting a new greenhouse next year. With this new greenhouse comes new classes such as Turf Grass Management! Doesn't that sound like the class every high school student is looking to take?

Andrew was not able to go with me. He had to work until almost ten o'clock Friday night doing inventory. I don't think it went very well, so he was not happy about it. Things are kind of up in the air for him at work right now. His company was recently bought and so there are changes being talked about. Nothing too bad, it just makes it hard for us to make any plans at all. I'm scared to death that they are going to call and require him to travel out of state to help open a new branch the week of my surgery. I'm trying to tell myself it will be okay if he has to be gone. I know he will be here if it is at all possible for him to be. Just praying he doesn't have to be on a business trip that day.

Anyways... since he wasn't with me I decided to spend the night with my Momma & Daddy. I didn't want to drive home that late. I was sleepy and I have a headlight out right now.

Saturday morning I woke up and decided to drive to Blanchard Springs to spend the day with my brother and cousin. They were camping for the weekend. I hadn't been to Blanchard since I was in high school. When I was little, we camped there a lot! That was also the place for field trips when I was in elementary school. One year we would go to the caves and the next year we would go to the Ozark Folk Center.

The drive from my parent's house to Blanchard was absolutely beautiful! I couldn't help but praise God for his creation.




Seth and Joseph didn't know I was coming so it was a bit of a surprise to them. I think they were happy to see me. I had the best time hanging out with them. I definitely caught camping fever. I am hoping Drew and I will be able to take the nephews up there for a weekend before my surgery. Just look at the pictures. You'll see what I'm talking about.












Today we got up and to church at Geyer Springs. They have been without a preacher for quite some time now. Jeff Williams from Florida preached this morning. They were going to vote on making him their pastor tonight. Andrew and I really enjoyed hearing him this morning. He reminded us about what the cross really means to us. He reminded us that the lost people around us should matter to us because they matter to God.

After church, I took a nap. Yesterday's adventures wore me out. This afternoon Andrew and I went driving around looking at land. On the way home we stopped in North Little Rock, grabbed some lunch at ate at beside the river. It was beautiful! Great way to end the weekend.

How was your weekend?

Camping Pictures

I thought I would take advantage of my day off and finally post some pictures of our camping trip. Hope you enjoy them.

I told you we took a lot of stuff...


Our big tent and little tent.



A few pics from early Saturday morning...




The view at Mt. Nebo was absolutely beautiful. Just take a look for yourself.





We went for a hike Saturday afternoon. Got some great pics!

Mt. Nebo

I just realized that my camera is out in my car and I really don't want to get up and go get. So I will have to post some pics later but I thought I would go ahead and share about our camping experience this past weekend.

First let me just say that it was a lot of fun. I'm glad Andrew and I can now say we've been camping. :) Friday afternoon as we were loading our friend Slack's 4 runner things got a little out of hand. We had an insane amount of stuff for three people. The back of Slack's 4 runner was packed full and so was one side of the back seat. We left just enough room for her to sit back there. Andrew drove and I sat up front with Liberty & Liam.

We got to camp after dark. We sat up Sinclair & Amanda's tent (more friends that went with us) first. I laughed so hard. Their tent was tiny - just wait till you see the pics. I honestly thought they were going to sleep in two tents. After they set their tent up which only took like two minute because it was so small, the guys got a fire going and began grilling burgers. It was getting very cold very quickly so the fire was nice. We enjoyed our yummy burgers and dogs around the fire. Then we sat up our mansion of a tent. Andrew and I borrowed my little brother's tent which is a two room tent. We immediately decided that Sinclair and Amanda would sleep with us seeing as how their queen size air matress wouldn't fit in their tent and Slack would get the baby tent. By this time it was very dark and we were very tired so we headed to bed. To say that it was cold would be a very large understatement. We froze. My joints hurt because I was so cold. I couldn't get comfortable at all. It was incredibly windy outside. No one in the big tent slept well. We were too cold to be comfortable. Slack however slept quite well. Our big tent apparently blocked all the wind from her little tent.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast. Scrambled eggs and bacon - quite yummy. After breakfast we all went for a hike. It was absolutely beautiful. We basically hiked down the mountain and then back up. The dogs loved this. This was Liberty's second mountain to climb. She loves this sort of thing. She has so much energy and loves being in the lead. She is amazingly good at staying on the trail too. This was Liam's first hike and he did great. I only had to carry him up a few steep rocks. He probably could have done the whole thing, but he's my baby and I have to take good care of him. :)

After lunch, it was time for a nap while it was warm out. We all slept 2-3 hours. Then we got up for lunch, did a Wal-Mart run, and sat around the fire listening to the Razorback game. Thankfully I went to bed at the beginning of the 3rd quarter. I was very upset to wake up Sunday morning only to learn we lost 21-20 in the last two minutes of the game. Sigh!! By the way we all slept much better Saturday night. It was much warmer. Andrew and I had the best night's sleep we'd had in awhile.

We got up early Sunday morning, packed up, and headed back to NLR for church which was awesome as always.

So that is our camping trip in the short version. Got a couple of close calls with the dogs, but I'll save those for another post with pics.

Tomorrow is the big day!

We are finally going camping tomorrow. I am so excited. We are going to Mt. Nebo. I have no idea where that is, but it doesn't matter. I can't wait to sleep in a tent with my hubby and our furbabies. :) You can all be watching for pictures because I'm sure that there will lots taken.

In the mood...

Camping mood that is. :) Andrew and I have been saying since we got married, almost five years ago, that we wanted to camping. I'm not sure he has ever even been camping before. I used to go all of the time as a child. In fact, camping is one of my all time favorite childhood memories. I love sleeping in a tent, swimming, playing cards, and even fishing. But my favorite - the food. Hamburgers and scrambled eggs & bacon somehow taste a thousand times better at a campsite. Anyways - I have finally just told Andrew that we are going next weekend so he best be ready. I think it might actually happen. It has to happen!! Last night we built a fire in our outdoor fireplace. Andrew grilled burgers and we ate and had our Bible study around the fire. It was so nice. I loved it. I was just as giddy as I could be. I kept telling Drew that those were the best burgers I've ever had - seriously I wish I could give you one. They were so good. I absolutely love the way a fire smells. I wish I could put that smell in this blog. Go ahead and close your eyes and imagine it - you know you want to. I am so ready for next weekend. Last night just really got me in the mood for camping. I wish I could take you all with me so that you could enjoy it too. Anyways I have a few pics for you - some from last night and some from my past camping days. Enjoy!