Is is really already September????

ok, life has been crazy again....August came and went and I think we forgot to take a breath....Our Church was celebrating 175 years in the Medina community in August, so we were very busy...we had a 3 week celebration...starting with the past, and we had an accapella concert on Friday night, August 15th then we had Church on the Medina Square on Sunday, August 17th, it was a really neat service. We had almost 800 there and we fed them all chicken and JOJO's, which in the part of the country I am from we just call them potato wedges....ok!!! Whatever! Then the next weekend, was the present, we started that weekend off with "SLIME TIME LIVE" on Friday, August 22nd, then our service on Sunday, was kind of like a birthday celebration, we had cake, punch, mints and nuts, and we dressed up a little more than normal, Nate wore a suit, take your breath away, I know!!!! Our last and final celebration was the future, and we joined our service with 2nd Baptist, which is a Church that ours helped to start many years ago, so they came and their choir sang with us and we had a wonderful service. Then after Church we all set up for what we like to call "THE PARTY", it was a community event, we had 8 inflatables, a petting zoo, pony rides, a slip and slide and so much more....but best of all our friends the Bettinger's came down to see us and to attend our event! and another surprise of the day, Nate's mom and dad showed up to see what we were doing for a couple hours. It was such a nice surprise!

In the midst of all of this we reached another milestone in our lives, on August 21st, my baby boy, BRADY, started ALL-DAY Kindergarten, on that Thursday morning, it was a little easier for me to get out of bed for some reason....and I also kept grinning, and singing "Oh, Happy Day", I have waited for this day for 5 1/2 years and it is finally here....don't get me wrong I love my boys, but I love them more when they are in school all day, and learning new things, and ok I will stop you get my point....they are both doing really well, Brady really likes the routine of all day kindergarten and Riley well let me say they hit the ground running, our first week of school we had 3 hours of homework a night, because he was not getting his work done in class, well that has gotten a lot better, I guess he finally got it, that if he does his work in class he won't have to bring it home, DUH!!!! but really, they both are doing well, and are liking their teachers and their school....

on to house news, we have looked at almost 20 houses, and we have narrowed down our top favorites, we have made offers on two, and been rejected, so now we are going to look at one more that we found and see what we think, then we will hopefully make an offer again, who knows maybe the third time is a charm! I would love to get into a bigger place, so we can stop being on top of each other all the time!!! I know God has the perfect house for us, it is just hard to wait at times for His timing and not our own, but we will, and then we will reap the blessing!!!

today we are off to Norwood, to see my brother's ordination service tomorrow night. We are making the cakes for the reception and of course singing, It should be a very special service, and I am hoping I don't cry, so I can make it through my song!

pictures of all our events are posted on nate's facebook and some on our myspace pages too....we are slowly but surely getting them on there!

www.myspace.com/nateandroc
www.myspace.com/live4jesus4
www.firstmedina.org

The Last two weeks....

Well, it has been another busy couple of weeks. Nate and I and the boys went to Kings Island for two days on July 20th. we stayed with my dad on Sunday night and then on Monday we got up and went to King's Island, we met my brother, Sheri, Julianna and Tyler there, and my dad went with us too. It was so much fun being together, Brady and Julianna would ride everything and Tyler was too short to ride and Riley, well he only wanted to ride one helicopter ride, Brady even rode on the Runaway Reptar which is a huge hanging roller coaster, I was so proud of him for trying new things. It was fun and by the time we left we were so hot and tired. We went back on Tuesday and started out at the Water Park section of Kings Island and met my cousin Rachel and her three kids there and my cousin Nicole with her two kids. We spent about 3 hours at the water park, Nate and Nicole rode a huge water slide together, it was amazing, then we changed and went to the dry park side. Brady again rode big rides with Annie, Rachel's oldest. We were way too tired to drive back to Medina, so we decided to spend the night and leave early in the morning. Tuesday night was the Norwood Day Parade, so we decided to attend. What a joy that was. My cousins came so it was again another fun time with family. We went home and rested then we got our things packed and went to bed....lots of fun.

on Wednesday, I got my house clean and then Thursday evening, our friends from Michigan, the Bettingers, came to town for a quick trip. Carrie and I and the four kids spent Friday together. Then Sunday, our Brother-in-Law, Jon was ordained at the Louisville Baptist Temple, so that was a neat ceremony, and Nate sang of course, then they had a little Pot-Luck celebration after. When that was over, I rode to Michigan with Ryan Bettinger to go to Carrie's house with Brady and a ton of luggage. Carrie had surgery on Monday and I came up here to help her around the house and with her kids...it has been a fun week of watching movies, HGTV,the Food Network and napping. Carrie is doing well. Nate will come and get me on Sunday and we will leave sometime Monday. Then I hope to have a yard sale next weekend. so the busy, fun days of summer continue, before we know it we will be school shopping and getting ready for the first day of school....WHAT FUN!!!!!

Summer time.....

Ok, it has been a busy couple of months...let's do a little back tracking. On May 23rd Brady graduated from PreK, we had a little picnic with his class and each received presents and awards from their teachers, it was nice, then later that afternoon, Riley received a Fruit of the Spirit award for "Goodness" in chapel, it was a fun and rewarding day. We have been really busy since then, the last week of school was full of fun activities. I went with Riley to the bowling alley, to glow in the dark miniature golf, and on the last day there was a talent show. What fun!

Now into June...
Nate and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on June 20th and we got to get away for a few days together. We went to Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia. It was a lot of fun. We went to the Oglebay Zoo, a Glass Museum, and a History museum, not to mention we did a lot of shopping and driving around exploring the area. It was nice to get away together, we had not had that opportunity in a while. Before we left, I was thinking about our ten years together and I realized this year marked something unique for us....This year marks a point in our lives where we have been married 5 years with my mom still with us and 5 years without her, so from this point on we will have been married more time without her than with her, I don't know if that makes since or not, but it does in my head. It makes me realize the treasure I have in Nate...because I am not the same headstrong girl he married, my world has changed forever, so he was married 5 years to one girl, and now he has been married 5 years to another. I honestly don't know how he does it at times, I guess by the Grace of God, He does often say, "Love is a Choice", maybe he is trying to tell me something....no, I am kidding. He is a good man though, and I am thankful for his presence in my life everyday.

as soon as we got back from our trip, we were right into our first VBS at First Medina, it was a rewarding week, and very busy, on top of it, I asked if we could have our nephew Isak with us for the week, so he could attend with us. so we did fun things like going to the movies, and swimming everyday on top of VBS, those boys were tired by Friday, oh yeah, one more detail, Nate decided to spend the night at the Church on Thursday night with all three boys and roast a pig for the end of VBS luau....oh, yeah, he is crazy...

The Saturday after VBS, we had choir practice all day for our big Fourth of July Celebration on Sunday...The practice went ok, one problem was that Nate and I were singing a duet and had never practiced together......and he forgot to bring the cd home, so we planned on meeting at the Church the next morning at 7:30 to practice, when I got there that morning, Nate was in a frinzy, because when he got to the Church he learned that the soundboard was completely DEAD...would NOT start up at all....what were we to do???? He called our sound tech real quick and they pulled out an old board, and we made the best of it, but one problem, nate and I still didn't get to practice.....so WE did the best we could...and everything turned out ok...not as we had planned, but a good second...

For fourth of July we went to Michigan to our friends, the Bettingers, house so that we could practice with Carrie for Jr. High camp which was the following week. It was a nice time, and we got some good practice time in too. Nate left to head back to Medina, and I stayed with Carrie to ride to Chautauqua with her and her kids.

so, Camp started on July 7th....everything went very well...over all we had 19 salvations during the week, and of course we had a few complaints about our music but overall, I felt like we were well received by the Jr. High students, and I hope they are still singing our songs. To top off the whole week though, on Saturday, I was remembering the words to one of the messages of Kent York while we were there, about being bold in your faith and the way you present your faith to others, and I knew I had a five year old little boy living in my house who I was not being bold with, so I started talking to him, and asking him questions about Jesus and seeing if he knew all the details, well he did, so I asked him if he had ever asked Jesus into his heart, and he said no, so I asked him if he wanted to, and he did, so right there on my bed with Nate's big Bible, I led my little boy to Jesus. What a wonderful feeling, we got on the phone right away to call our family and share the good news.

Well, I think that catches up the blog, we are now just staying up late, and sleeping late, then we head to the library to get books and movies, don't you just love summer time...I will try to keep updates more frequently so that they aren't as long as this one turned out to be...

A Chapter Closed....

Last week was a big week for us, we got Ohio cell phone numbers and on Thursday, May 22nd we sold our house in Kansas. It was a relief, but at the same time it was so sad. We feel like the page is turned on that chapter of our lives now. We had fun times in that house; we experienced grief together in that house. We fed our friends in that house; we marked milestones in that house. We brought our Brady home from the Hospital to that house; we had Riley’s first birthday party at that house. It was a good little house. We will miss that house, but now it is time for someone new to love it and take care of it. The things we did each year, like putting my Christmas tree up in the same corner of my living room, having Thanksgiving dinner in my Sunroom each year, making cookies in my kitchen for Ladies ministry, baking bread for Christmas gifts will forever be embedded in my memory, watching my children play in the yard and ride their bikes in that cul-de-sac will bring a tear to my eye and a smile to my lips. Goodbye little house on Mosley Ct in Wichita, I will forever hold you in my heart. Take care of your new owner as well as you did us…..

Enjoy Medina for Free Night!

On Friday, May 16th our family decided to enjoy Medina for Free….since moving to town in January we have received several welcome packets and certificates and coupons for free things welcoming us to town, so we decided to take advantage of this and go to all of these places and have a fun family night for as cheap as possible…..so our night started out at Boyert’s Greenhouse….we had received a certificate for a free flowering potted plant, so we headed that way, and we all piled out of the car to look for the best possible plant we could get for FREE. We got a beautiful little orange daisy flower with a purple center. It is sitting on my deck right now.
Our next stop was Hungry Howie’s Pizza where we got a free Large Pizza, we took that home and ate it and then piled in the car again, this time we headed to
The Munch Box, where we received a free cheeseburger, which Nate and I split.
Our next place of fun was Borders, where we had coupons for Seattle's Best Coffee, for buy one get one free smoothies, the boys enjoyed their strawberry and Nate and I enjoyed a Coffee Crunch.
We had also been given a coupon for free games of bowling, so we headed to the Medina Bowling alley, and bowled a game.
By this time we were all getting tired of being in and out of the car, so we went to the park by our house and the boys played on the playground while nate and I sat on the picnic tables and talked, we then decided it was time to go home, the boys kept saying this was the best day ever….I think they thoroughly enjoyed our FREE Medina Night….and it truly was the best day ever…being creative and finding ways to spend the evening together as a family....

School News....

Thursday evening May 8th, was our Spring Program and Friday, May 9th was Grandparents Day at our School.
Nate and I went to the program on Thursday night and it was so cute. They started with Brady’s group (PreK 3-Kindergarten) and as he was walking on the stage I said “Hi, grumpy” and he turned and looked at me, so he knew I was talking to him and he made my words true. He didn’t smile once and barely sang or did the motions to the songs. But he was still very cute.
Next up was Riley’s group (1st-8th grade) and Riley had a special part. He was a part of the “Heart Team” and he was very excited about it. He did very well and the program was so good. It was such a nice atmosphere in this Christian School with hundreds of children singing Praise and Worship songs to our Lord.


Grandparents’ day started at 8:45 on Friday morning, with coffee and donuts, since we didn’t have any grandparents that were able to be there Nate and I decided to attend. Riley was the only student in his class without someone there, so I went down to see his pictures of his grandma and grandpa and to look around his room, and look at his art fair project which took 4th place by the way, then I took him with me to see Brady’s class. When I went back to check on Riley I saw that he was borrowing a friends grandparents and doing a puzzle with them, so I went in the auditorium to get a seat for the program.
They did the same program as the night before and Brady didn’t let me down again, never gave a smile and barely opened his mouth to sing….such a joy, that kid…..Riley again did fabulous, they were released early so we borrowed the grandma of our friend Mary Gillentine and went to lunch with them. It was such a neat experience and I am already looking forward to Grandparents Day next year….

One Crazy Kid!!!!!!!!!

Our Brady is one crazy kid, this morning when I asked him if he had underclothes on, he gave me a sheepish grin and said yes, but boy did he look guilty, so I kept questioning him, only to find out he had an entire other outfit on under his outfit I had laid out for him to wear to school, it was a basketball jersey and basketball shorts, he does these sort of things all the time, he is just a very crazy and creative kid....
these pictures were one of those crazy moments in Brady's life, and he just kept modeling and asking me to take his picture, wonder who he takes after??? He might look like me, but he definitely acts like his dad!!!!!!!!
And brings so much joy to our family, don't know what we would do for laughs without this kid around that is for sure....