Okay, maybe I'm more excited about this than I should be. But I got all of these clothes for Ben, for $15 tonight at Old Navy!!! They're clearance is an extra 50% off (until tomorrow)! I think I even introduced Ryan to the "digging for it" technique and how fun it is to find steals. The 2T's aren't always going to be with the 2T's... you've got to look, at EVERYTHING. Ryan REALLY wanted the Charlie Brown t-shirt! And I got the "67" shirt for $.48! SCORE! I just REALLY love bargain shopping for his clothes and really find that's THE only way for me to do it. It makes NO sense to pay full price when I can buy it on clearance the year/season before! I'm all for used clothing, but sometimes buying NEW on clearance is still cheaper! Even the jeans were $3.49! Such an awesome deal. Some of these he wont be able to wear for quite some time, but that's okay! I just can't pass up a good deal! Okay, I'm done.

Photo Journal

I need to post some pictures and journal a few things. I might just have to post the pictures with short explanations. I've been SUPER busy lately, mostly with photo shoots- which is AWESOME, but haven't had a lot of time to blog.

This was at Stake Conference for Church and they had a musical number by the choir and anytime there is a musical number at church Ben always wants to watch. He likes to stand up and watch and listen and usually will stay up the WHOLE song with out distraction! (Although in this picture he was obviously distracted because he wasn't looking forward!)

Ben really enjoys hanging out with Miss Aubrey. He gets REALLY excited to see her and even agreed to hold her hand as we were all coming out of the restaurant from dinner the other night. He's going to have a lot of girls to worry about one day I fear!

This was just a cute shot I got of him sleeping!

At this moment in time I felt like EVERYONE (except for Ryan) needed to be on me. Not that I mind...

We went to Piedmont Park for a family sitting I was doing. It might not have been the greatest idea for the whole family to come in retrospect, but we still managed to have some fun in the HOT, HOT miserable heat!

Ben had his 2 1/2 year check up. He's so TINY! He only gained a pound and maybe like half and inch. He's in the 3-5th %tile for height and 10th for weight. He's still wearing 18-24 month pants, but his torso keeps getting longer, just like his daddy's. He got an extra sticker from Dr. Greenwald for using the big boy potty while we were there!

We got to visit with some old friends of ours, Joel & Keely Robinson. We knew them in the singles ward at church and they now live far, far away in Virginia. I haven't seen them in FOREVER, so we headed to Mellow Mushroom to visit with them and their cute little girl. It was a good visit!
Ally really loves to hide under the bed. We mostly see her tail sticking out, but this was too cute to pass up.

Ashley and Jacob have recently acquired a toddler bed for us to use. We have not brought it home to put up yet, but... uh... we plan on it soon. Ben calls it the "school bus bed". It even has a sunroof! LUCKY! I think he'll enjoy it, we just need to figure out where the heck to put it!

Two Saturdays ago we went to see Sesame Street Live at Philips Arena, courtesy of free tickets from my work! SCORE! Ben was mesmerized! More to come on that... as soon as I find the little camera with the photos on it!

We got to stop for TCBY after! Our A/C was out ALL that weekend so we did everything NOT at home that we possibly could because it was SO HOT. The frozen yogurt was refreshing and a treat Ben doesn't normally get, so it was fun.

The Elton's let us borrow their fish tank. We bought 3 fish and by approval of Ben named them Ham, Goomba and Betty. We're down 2 and still have Goomba currently, although I'm not sure how much longer he's going to stick around. We think the weekend with no A/C made the water too warm and some kind of bad bacteria must've dun dem in. Ryan was heart broken... they're his first fish. (Insert sad face here)

Sweet Memories

So today marks 6 months since my big sister Shauna passed. I sure have missed her. I have lots of really neat dreams though where I've gotten to hug her and tell her I miss and love her and either it's just my way of coping or her way of coming to comfort me. I'd like to hope it's the later. I have a lot of thoughts about it... I'm not sure how to write them out though. It's still terribly hard. I still cry a lot. I still think about her everyday, and how I could've been a better sister and friend to her. I wonder what it's like where she is, and if she feels loved. I wonder if she watches our family and watches over us and knows how much we feel a vacancy with out her here with us on this Earth. It's so weird to send emails with pictures of Ben to everyone, except for Shauna. I can't delete her phone number out of my phone or her address out of my address book... it's too hard. Every once in a while, Facebook shows her profile as someone I am recommended to reach out to... man, if I could I WOULD! I really miss hearing her call me her "Little One". I miss how she used to laugh and get tickled when I sang to her "I'm gonna beat you up, beat you up, beat YOU UUUUUPPPP-ah!" She loved that. I have little torn up pink sticky notes in my blue recipe book she went through once to choose some recipes that I refuse to take out. I have her funeral program in two places in my house and a photo of the two of us I gave her that her partner Randi gave back to me in the family room. I just miss her, period. And it sucks she's gone. Randi sent me a package of letters and pictures I sent to Shauna over the years that she saved. She saved EVERYTHING. I haven't even been able to bring my self to look at them yet. I had Ryan put them away for me until I can muster up the strength to do it with out crying my eyes out.
Reminder to myself... PLEASE, PLEASE don't take your family for granted. Tell them you love them, often. Be their friend. Know what is going on in their lives. Be kind. Be understanding and Christ-like and non-judgemental. You never know when Heavenly Father will decide to bring them back to be with him and leave you with their memory. Make the best of the time you have with them NOW.

A Child's Prayer

(Ben in his church clothes. He was SO handsome, he even thought so because he kept checking himself out in the mirror!)

Last night after dinner was prepared I peered over the counter to my husband sitting at the table waiting to eat, and my little dude sitting in his high chair to the right of him (not) waiting to eat. And I said "okay, let's bless the food" I asked Ryan and Ben I guess decided I was asking him and I asked him if he wanted to bless the food and he said yes. He folded his arms and squinted his eyes and covered them up with his folded arms- and said VERY quietly "Heavenly Father (in two year old accent)..." and then proceeded to mumble some words like "pweese" and "bless" and some other incomprehensibly cute things. I had to help him out a little bit, but he finished it up with a great big "AMEN". It wasn't his first "prayer", but it was different this time because he did it all almost by himself and he wanted to and he knew how... It was SO adorable, and it put a big gigantic smile on my face and a melody in my heart-and I felt so proud of my little 2 1/2 year old BOY who is growing up so very quickly before my eyes. I am so grateful he is in our lives. I am so grateful for the way he learns so quickly and loves his family. He's going to be a good man one day and I know it's because he has a wise spirit in that tiny little body.

Thundering Waters Labor Day

Well, Labor Day weekend has come and gone and it's officially not summer anymore. I guess it's Autumn now? Because it's not quite Fall to me yet. It's still very green and HOT. It's supposed to be in the 90's this week, so to me- it's Fall yet.

We had a fun Labor Day weekend this year. It seems in the past that we usually try and make it to the beach one last time before it gets too cold to go and enjoy it. But that didn't happen this year. We decided to go to the Thundering Waters cabin we have loved to rent the last year or so with everyone. It's so inexpensive (even though it sounds like it wouldn't be), and homey, and relaxing, and not a long drive away from home. We're all familiar with it now and feel like we have a place there. I wont go into too much detail about what we did, because in reality it wasn't much. But that's what was nice. We did have the opportunity this time to get in the Chattahoochee River and play though because it is still nice and warm out. We've only ever been in winter so it's always been too cold to go. When we got there Ryan spotted some abandoned tubes (used from a local tubing company) on the rocks below the house by the rapids. I would like to hope that they floated away and down stream and that no one got hurt and left them. Anyway- we got there Friday night and then Saturday we went out to the river so Ryan could "rescue" them. I only got in to my feet that time, Ben wanted to go in so we just took his socks and shoes and shorts off. Later that day, after Ben's nap and after playing some games and waiting on Clint and Geoff to arrive- we all suited up and went down to play. It was us, the Terry's, Jennifer and the aforementioned gentlemen. :) We all had fun, it was refreshing and there was lots of fun rapids and water falls to go down. Ben had a good time too. We rested Sunday, mostly played games and Wii and then Monday we (me and all the boys) went out to play in the river again. Jennifer took lots of pictures for us. Ryan took Ben down a couple times and he LOVED it. He giggled and smiled and had so much fun. He played in the sand a lot too. The boys all went down the rapids sans the tubes too, we got some funny face pictures from that! Anyway, we had fun as always up there. Fun group, relaxing, cozy, good food, good times. Oh and the weather was PERFECT. AND I didn't get sick this time. I usually always have something when we're there. Although, Ryan didn't have a lot of good luck because he fell up some stairs and then down some others! Poor guy.

I also saw this as an opportunity to spend some quality time with Ben on his potty training. He was a ROCKSTAR! Well, he already is in my opinion but he did really well. I'm still not comfortable with putting him in straight up undies all the time, but we're getting there. He's still having accidents in his pants, so we're keeping either diapers or pull ups on still.

But, we have had a WONDERFULLY fun Summer and I now we'll have a wonderfully fun Fall and (hopefully) Winter too!

Ben has had another "1st's" weekend. He accomplished a lot of things this past weekend that he never has before and we're SO proud of him! And in no particular order, here they are!

-helped his momma make some blueberry muffins for breakfast! Now... he dumped the package of muffin mix in the bowl and I measured out all the wet ingredients and he dumped those in also.

-Went bowling!

-decided he was okay with potty training, and #1 and #2'd in the potty!!!! I have NEVER been so excited for someone to use the toilet in my life! Well... I'm sure there were a few times I was excited for ME to use a potty...

-has decided that ANYTHING that's broken or that resembles broken needs batteries. For example his blue plastic basket that has a broken side... needs batteries. :)

Beezy

I think I forgot to mention Ben's latest thing to say. It's amazing just how much these little kids of ours listen to us, even when we think they aren't. The other night I was making dinner and Ben wanted to "help" but I told him that he could help me next time and that I was busy because I was tyring to get us all fed at a decent hour. So when dinner was done, I called Ben to come eat and he said "No Mommy, I beeeeezzzy". Which is actually quite cute. He also started saying when I call for him, "don't call me mommy". And has now since combined the two! The other day I called him from the bedroom when he was in the family room. He came to me with his eyes are squinted and said very seriously "Mommy, don't call me. I beezy." and I said "yah, I'm busy too" and he said "I beezey too. I play with my toys." and then walked out and said "BYE!" He's a hoot.

Still enjoying it even two years later...

A New Member of the Smith Family

Introducing little Sofie! We drove with Nana to go pick out a little Lhasa Apso girl. Ryan grew up with a Lhasa Apso named Mandy and I think ever since then both the Smith's and Ryan decided they wouldn't have another kind of dog. (Hence why we have Ally whom we love very much.) She's a lot bigger than Ally was, but she is a snuggle bug and already loves Ben. On the way home, she pretty much insisted on sitting in his lap in the car seat. She didn't want to sit with me or anyone else but him. And he loved it. He drove his cars up and down her back and she didn't mind a bit. We brought her to our house to meet Ally and so that we could let her out of the car before we took her over to the Smith's. Plus Ryan and Debbie had to go to the pet store to pick some stuff up, and Ben needed to nap. We've been a little lame in that we haven't socialized Ally much. We need to... but I think she just doesn't give a crap about other dogs now! Anyway, Sofie is cute and we're excited to see her grow! And hopefully her and Ally will be buddies. I'm sure once she's out of her "puppy" stage and Ally can tolerate her more, they will be!

I don't know why, but I don't remember a lot of things from like oh 9 or 10 years old and back. I do remember a few things, but they're very gray in my mind and I'm not even sure I'm remembering it correctly. But every once in a while, something triggers a memory for me. A song, and smell, a sound...I just heard a sound that for one reason or the other happened and made me think of my childhood days either after school everyday or during the summer, all day long. My manager who sits near me has a small tape player at her desk that (she just told me) she got from a second hand store. When she got it, it came with a tape already in it, and she was just trying to do something with it and it kept playing some piano music. The sound of a cassette tape nowadays is odd to hear first of all, but that with the combination of piano music triggered the memories of my mom's voice students she had all those years of growing up. She also taught piano, but the recordings usually came from the voice lessons she gave. I do have a very distinct picture in my head of our living room in Flagstaff looking from the bottom of the stairs, or the top of the balcony upstairs or from the dining room. We had parquet floors and it stepped down in to the in the "dusty rose" (pink) carpeted living room with white lace curtains I used to hide behind and a big bay window that looked out to the beautifully landscaped front yard. Mom ran the Nola Collier Studio of Music (right mom?) with these voice and piano students for many years. She also taught at Northern Arizona University while we were in Flagstaff- but I feel like she enjoyed her home studio the best. Many of my weekends or nights were spent helping with recitals, master classes and also when she had to do juries (not to be confused with jury duty). We only had one car and so dad and I would take mom to Ashurst Auditorium at NAU for these different events. The thing that triggered my thoughts about all of this though is that mom would have Sis. Tobbler or other talented people (who I can't think of their names right now) play accompaniments while she recorded them on her tape player in her "studio" in the living room. This was to play for the students during their lessons if the accompanist couldn't be there for the lesson, or to take home and practice. (I think I named Sis. Tobbler in particular because I remember she would come for several lessons at a time, and while mom's students were warming up she would sit on the couch and knit or crochet or read.) Mom also would record the student singing so that they could hear themselves and learn the parts they were singing weakly in the tape better. I just remember that background sound of the tapes being rewound, fast forwarded, stopped, played, stopped, etc. in preparation for her next lesson. She was very organized. I used to love listening to SOME of the students sing (not all were good) and I began to memorize a lot of the songs; especially the Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables songs (although, I don't really remember them that well anymore) and other songs from the Basics of Singing book. So much so that, every once in a while I remember my mom calling from downstairs to me playing in my room upstairs to be quiet because they could hear me singing along and it was disrupting the lesson! oops! (I must confess that embarrasses me now... hopefully they just thought I was a cute kid and not annoying.) Some of mom's best students in my young opinion were Ervie Isom, Midori (I don't remember how to spell her last name), and Shayne. There were very many more, my mother has a way with teaching people how to sing. From totally tone deaf to almost bearable which is quite a feat. Even in her 73rd year she is still leading people in music. For the 1billionth time she's the ward choir director, and true to form when she is called there is no one in the choir and by the time she leaves there are 30-40. I remember my friends in the Flagstaff 6th ward saying to me that they loved to hear my mother sing, and if she made a CD of her singing they would listen to it all the time! Although she doesn't sing much anymore, I will always cherish those memories of her. Her beautiful voice, her Love of music, and her ability to share it with just about anyone.

And that cassette tapes were pretty cool too. So weird our kids will never know them...

It's starting to get to the point where I'm needing the Fall. It's hot. It's hot and humid and has been for FIFTY days... My cucumbers are dead, my peas are dead...our grass is brown and it's too hot to mow. Plus the mosquitoes are out like crazy. I feel like I'm constantly falling asleep at my desk... I just always feel tired. BUT...on the positive side, it's still warm enough to go to the pool. My squash, green peppers and Tomatoes are still fairing pretty well, the earth is still pretty and green and the days are still pretty long. Although I love the Fall, and CAN'T wait for it this year- this has been a very fun Summer for us and I feel very blessed.

We had a good weekend I guess. I had an Infant shoot on Saturday... don't worry, no Infants were harmed in the shooting of pictures! She was cute and tiny and pooped a lot and peed all over the floor, but I got some good shots. Those crazy little newborns! Who do they think they are? Poopin' and peein' everywhere. Anyway, after that when I got home it was about time to eat lunch, Ben and Daddy had already eaten lunch and Ben had ketchup ALL.OVER.HIS.FACE! Oh boy, he's a riot that kid. We cleaned him up and he was ready for a nap. His poor little eyes were red and droopy (but not from the ketchup). So he slept, and I rested and then after everyone got up we got ready to go and went dinner with the Terry's and then afterward went with them to the baby store to look for strollers, highchairs, cribs, etc. for their little soon-to-be little mamasita! Sunday we went to church and heard an interesting talk about U2 and the Joshua Tree album and how "The Streets Have No Name" were instrumental in this young man's decision to serve a mission for our Church. Hmmm, interesting to say the least. I was a little lost at the validity of it all, but to each his own I guess. Nothing much else to report for the weekend. We went to the Terry's for dinner. And other than that did nothing else.

Except for Ryan wants you to say "Irish Wrist Watch" three times. Try it. Try it when you're just waking up from a nap. That's funny!

We may be taking Ben to his first (out of womb) concert next week! We haven't decided 100% yet but we are thinking of taking him to the Jack Johnson concert. I think he'll like it. I hope... that would suck if he didn't. We'll see. Oh and speaking of Ben, apparently he has a "thing" for baseball right now. He talks about it CONSTANTLY so we decided to get him a little cute t-ball set. He loves it... and STILL talks about it constantly. Maybe we'll have a little sportsman on our hands? Neither of us are in to sports so I've got to figure out how to be a good sporty mom. Although, Ryan played t-ball and little leagues and was also on the swim team for years. I on the other hand played softball... well, okay, played is the operative word here. I basically sat the bench the whole season (with good reason, I sucked) and "played" at a scrimage game. Kinda sad huh? I feel a little pathetic admitting it. I think Ben will also be musical too- which is more of my kind of thing. He likes to play the Terry's piano and sing songs a lot. So we'll see.

Yesterday in the car on the way home he growled and Ryan said "Benny, are you a monster?" Ben replied with "No, Daddy... I'm Elmo"

I sure have been thinking about and missing my big sister. Not a day goes by I don't think of her. I keep having flashbacks to the day I found out and how horrible it was... but try to replace it with my good and fun memories of her. I sure hope she's having a ball, wherever she is!

Ben- 2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks & 5 days old.

Well, Ben is changing a lot these last few weeks. He's really a little boy now. My little baby is gone. But he will always be my baby. :) (I'm sure he'll love me saying that to him in about 7 years from now.)
-he's using full sentences now... well, full TODDLER sentences. Some of my favorites lately have been "Ouch Mommy, that hurt me! don't touch my boo-boo!", "mommy, I go to the pool with daddy in da morning, okay?" Yesterday when I picked him up from school I said "How was your day?" and he said "I be nice." When he wants us to pick him up he says "want you". He uses "okay?" a lot after things he says now too. And my favorite word he says is dirty pronounced "Duw-tee". No R sound! Love it! The other day I was washing fruit that we got at the grocery store and he was observing me and after watching said "mommy, it's duw-tee... it's duw-tee"!! -speaking of being nice at school, the last couple weeks he wasn't so nice and was on a hitting tirade. Tirade is I guess a strong word, but he had a few "Boo-Boo Reports" and a lot of time outs at school. He wasn't very nice to one of his friends he plays with a lot one day, and she told him off and it hurt his feelings. After that he seemed to stop hitting! Now if Daddy and I are playing and he happens to see us doing anything that resembles hitting, he PROMPTLY tells us to say sorry to one another. He's a peace maker. OR a tattle tale... either way.
-Ben, I hope, will continue to have a good sense of humor. He laughs a lot, and has THE greatest chuckle of all. He still gets the hiccups when he laughs hard, which is adorable.

-Ben also has a pretty hefty temper... but I guess that's pretty typical. He can get pretty shook up... but he can get over it pretty fast too. Although, it's hard to distract him nowadays, he's started to remember a lot more. And REPEATS HIMSELF constantly. I know, typical 2 year old.

-Ben is giving sweet hugs and kisses, knows how to squeeze when he hugs. I love it. He's been having a hard time saying goodbye in the mornings lately. Not sure why. One day he cried so hard I had to hurry out so I wouldn't either. It's extremely difficult for me.

-Ben right now LOVES watching "my giraffe" which is the movie/cartoon Madagascar. He also really enjoys Nemo and Veggies Tales and of course still Elmo. We took him to the pet store last weekend so he could see the fishies and "tuuhrtuls" (turtles) and we got to see Nemo and Nemo's daddy and Dori. He was pretty excited about that.

-Ben doesn't really show excitement like others typically do, like maybe clapping hands or jumping up and down. Ben observes and smiles gently and looks and learns about it and if he feels comfortable he'll want to get down or walk closer to the subject... but then we know he really was affected by it if he talks and talks about it after we've left. He's so much like his daddy.

-Ben's favorite songs to sing right now are: Happy Birthday (to Daddy specifically- EVERY day is Daddy's birthday), No More Monkey's Jumping on the Bed! (which he likes to repeat in different voices and tones quite frequently), Twinkle, Twinkle, ABC's (of course which he still muddles a little and stops at V occasionally and sings the end to the song), the newest is Barney's "I love you" song which he promptly hugs and kisses me during which is A.O.K. with me!!! Other than that I hate Barney! Ha! He likes the few primary songs we have on our iPod and there are a few songs of ours he likes to listen to and tries to sing along to, in particular "Could You Be Loved" by Bob Marley! So cute!

-Ben is still very protective of Ally. They have an interesting bond...nothing too noticeable. But occasionally he will show his love for Ally in random ways. We took her to get her hair groomed this weekend, and he cried his little eyes out when we left her. He was so afraid for her, he thought she was going to get hurt or something. He's very sensitive and can tell when a person (or Ally) is not feeling right or is sad or scared.

With this (I think) he has a really good trait of being sensitive in general. I've had a few nights where I've just really missed my big sister, and have cried and he remembers the next morning. And while I'm crying he almost always apologizes, because I think either he's trying to comfort me or that he thinks he made me cry. It's very sweet and he comes and touches me and gets a very concerned look on his face and says "Sowwy Mommy... Sowwy". It's so sweet and I love his tenderness.
-pretty much, Ben's best friend is his daddy. Must I say more? He just really adores his dad. And his daddy adores him. He also adores his grandparents. All of them, yes mom. :) Oh and I think he digs me too!-Ben loves the pool A LOT, and thank goodness because it's been a life saver in a lot of cases especially because it's been so blasted HOT and HUMID here this summer. He asks to go to the pool pretty much everyday. We use the Elton's pool a lot, but if we can't make it there and have time we fill up his little pool out on the driveway. (Our backyard has tooooooooooo many mosquitoes.) He loves his floaties and will probably be full on swimming by next summer. I think we might try swim lessons during the winter, in an inside pool of course. What kind of parents do you think we are!-Still loves to sleep. Still needs about 10-11 hours a night, to be "normal". Even if he's not sleeping for like the last hour, he likes to rest I guess. He never cries out for us if he wakes up before us, he usually just hangs out and talks or sings and plays with his feet and rolls around. (I've watched him before, this is how I know.) He's still taking naps- a lot of the time on the weekends he'll take 3 hour naps still.-I don't know if he'll ever grow out of it, knowing his dad, but he's pretty shy. Until he feels comfy around you. But he does keep to himself a lot. After the weekend of staying with Ryan's parents I asked his teacher that evening when I picked him up if he talked a lot about Poppy's house. She said "no, he doesn't really talk much. If we ask him questions he'll talk to us- but he doesn't talk much". BUT that was ONE teachers comments, I don't believe that's totally true because the OTHER teacher the other day said that Ben told her he was going to the pool that night and then she asked me if it was Daddy's birthday!!!It's hilarious only because he LITERALLY says it's Daddy's birthday EVERY.DAY.
Proof:

That's a lot I guess for now. I'm sure I'll think of more later and want to add it, but maybe I'll save it for later. We love you BEN!

I owe ya one

So... let's see. Last we spoke I mentioned that Ryan and I were heading to St. Simons Island, GA for a wedding that I was going to photograph. Well, that was almost 3 weekends ago so I guess I have some catching up to do.
The Thursday before we left there was some serious packing to do, and rather than it be all scattered everywhere I sent the boys off the the Elton's pool to go swimming and I stayed home and got most of our stuff ready. Friday I took a half day and after I got off work ran some errands and as soon as Ben was up from his nap at daycare I went and picked him up. I got the car mostly packed up before I went to get him, so we only had to go home for Ally basically. Me, Ben and Ally headed over to Nana & Poppy's and no one was there yet, so I started to unload the car of Ben and Ally's things, they got to have a 2 night sleep over! The longest we'd been away from Ben! Anyway... in the process... I got locked out of the house. AGAIN. Only this time Ben, Ally and my keys were in the house! Ben shut the door, that wasn't unlocked when I walked out, and yes- locked it somehow. I wasn't super concerned because luckily I had my phone with me, and Ryan was on the way in like 2-3 mins. So we laughed and I joked with Ben. It was pretty funny to hear him screaming "Mommy! Open the door!" to me from inside the house. I tried to talk him through unlocking the door but he didn't understand. Oh well, Ryan came and had a key and opened the door up. We just laughed!
So we left Ben and Ally that night and drove to Brunswick, GA which is just outside of St Simons and is about 4-5 hours south, near Savannah. We were very safe but saw about 2 or 3 accidents on the way down- one on the opposite side of the highway I'm so glad we weren't on because it was backed up for MILES. We're not sure if it was a fatality, but there was a helicopter there to pick up patients and people on stretchers! Yikes! We said a prayer that they would be okay!
Saturday morning we got up and headed to the Lighthouse where the wedding was going to take place and scoped out possible picture spots. We then met up with the Kranendonk family (a very large one at that!) and went to the beach! We didn't go for too long, but it was long enough! Some is better than none! We found a lot of sea creatures under the sand... not scary ones though. We played with Sand Dollars that were still alive and other fun shell-life-like things!
We went back to our (kind of dumpy... okay REALLY dumpy) hotel and showered up for the wedding. Holy crap it was hot that day. SOOOOO hot. And humid, and stormy looking. Luckily it all panned out even though all of us almost passed out from heat exhaustion it was a very nice wedding and we got some nice shots. That night, after the wedding we went swimming with Jared and Kaela and Noelle (Jared, Noelle and the bride are all siblings. Ryan pretty much grew up with them and I know them from church) at the hotel pools, in the rain! All of us happen to have 2 year olds but all of them were being babysat by grandparents at the time (Ben obviously back home with Nana & Poppy), and we felt so liberated! So much so that we went out to eat at IHOP and closed it down! We closed down an IHOP! We stayed out so late! All of like 12am... but for three sets of parents with 2 year olds- that's late! It was super fun!
We headed home Sunday to go get Bubba (Ben) and Ally. We missed him a lot. It was GOOD for us to be away though to be just us with us and not be mommy and daddy. We kept looking back in the car to see if he was okay... and remembering he was just fine with Nana and Poppy. We laughed a lot, listened to our music as loud as we wanted... slept as much as we wanted. It was good. And we didn't want to subject him to that pressure of a wedding, although because we know the Kranendonk's they really wouldn't have cared if we brought him. Plus, it was SO hot so I'm glad we didn't have to have him out in that. But on the way home, we decided to take a pit stop in Savannah for lunch and to check it out. Ryan's never been there and I've only ever driven through it... which is basically all we did except for stopping for lunch. We ate at a BBQ my sister recommended, we were the only ones there until we left. And it was nice. BUT we're glad and feel blessed that we did stop because probably right around the time we would've been on I16 there was a fatal accident and we just missed it by probably the hour we stopped to eat!!! We were grateful that were safe and even though the detour and delay getting home was an annoyance, we were safe.
Anyway, it was fun! I'm starting to get more photo business! This is a good thing!

Labor of Love

Look at the fruits/vegetables of our labor! I know it sounds kind of cheesy, but man this is exciting stuff! It wasn't nearly this cool as a kid! I feel so... accomplished. Like we're doing good for our family!
Well here's to our first "weekend" sans Ben! He will have a lot of fun with Nana and Poppy and Ally is going too.