Catch up

OK. I've just gotten a moment to take a breather from this week. I truly think I've been more stressed this week than I was while working two jobs and going to school full time during college. I thought that was pretty stressful, but MAN, this week has just kicked my tail.

We went to visit my family this past weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday and I loved every second of it. I always miss my family because visits to see my grandparents are few. My grandparents played such an important role in my life and short visits are just such a tease to my heart. From the time I was born until I started high school I remember seeing one or both of my grandmothers every week. During my early years it was nearly once a day! All that being said, I love them and they hold a very special place in my heart, as do most grandparents to their grandchildren. Seeing them all this weekend made me wish we could live closer so Helen can know them the way I know them and cherish them. She had a blast while we were there, so I suppose short visits will have to do! :)

We ate lots of good food and saw an awesome football game! Roll Tide Roll! We even had an early Christmas at my grandmom's house! She got Helen a BEAUTIFUL coat! It's black wool with black fuzzy hem and on the cuff and instead of buttons there are red velvet rose buds! It's even got a cute little hat to match! Go Grandmom! Sunday I'll get a picture of her in it and post it!

This weekend I got to visit my first niece. She's just four weeks old and so tiny. See my next post to read a little more about her. I'm still without more pics but they will come soon.

Helen started saying the cutest phrase this week. When someone says, "See you later alligator" the response should be "After while crocodile!" Well, she says, "After Croc-o-dye-dle!" and in her cute little baby voice she makes my heart happy! Brian tries to correct her, but I love it so much I don't want her to say it right! She'll learn it soon enough...

Something new and fabulous is that Brian and I have started a new business venture. I would go into detail, but it's very difficult to explain in blog format, but I'd like to invite my readers to contact me should you be open-minded and interested in working with us in a fabulous e-commerce industry! It's something we're doing to supplement our income during this very unstable time, neither my job nor Brian's is secure right now and when we found this organization and we saw our potential, it really made good sense to jump on board! We are now able to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is called retirement...yep, I said retirement. I'm on facebook (Kristy Gray - Athens GA network) and myspace (www.myspace.com/bkg1403) or you can email me at bkg1403@yahoo.com. We've even got a website: http://www.grayglobalnetworking.com/ if you'd like to check it out. Come visit us! We've got some great products on our site (for those of you looking for some fun and unique gifts).

I guess that's about it for us for the past two weeks. I know there's more I've forgotten to mention, but it's late. I hope you all have a fabulous week! Be sure to pull for UofA in the SEC Championship this weekend! It's gonna be a goodie!

If I did scrapbooking like I want to...

...I'd have at least a whole book devoted to just this one event. I don't know how folks can downsize a trip they take to 5-10 photographs and believe they have fully archived all of the memories... (I do have a horrible memory though, so that could be why I have to take all these pics) To all of you out there that scrapbook, forgive me, but I MUST have tons of pictures for each moment, it will be obvious in this post.

A few weeks back, the Monroe church of Christ sponsored a youth retreat to Camp Inagehi (just outside of ATL). It was hosted by the Monroe young adults, but it was planned for the youth. I am certain that the young adults got as much, if not more, out of this retreat as the youth did.

There were a total of 8 youth, and 13 adults...hmmm. Granted, it did start out with a much grander scale in mind...being planned with hopes that several area congregations would bring their groups, however, the invitations came back with no reply. Maybe they can all come next year. Ty and Korey worked hard in the planning and I know they are glad it went well.

I don't know if I mentioned it in my post about going to camp in June, but I LOVE CAMP. I love everything about camp (ok, except the shower house) I love the dirt, I love the cabins, I love the adventure, I love the memories made, I love the bible study, the sermons, and the especially the singing. There's nothing better than waking up in the morning and having to do relatively nothing except learning about and worshiping God and helping young souls find their path (or maintain their path) to God. How special is that! There is no other place on this earth that is as carefree as I would expect Heaven to be. The next closest place would be one's local church; three days a week is just not enough...

So you get the idea that I am fond of camp...

Brian and I originally thought that we would have a car full of youth, but it turned out that everyone had a ride except one...Miss Caidy Miller! Oh yes...she's fantastic! I was so glad she came with us. She made the ride to camp more fun! [Funny side note: Back in the summer, a friend of a girl that goes to church with us came to Six Flags with our group. Somehow, Brian got to going on about something or giving someone a hard time -- as usual -- and the girl called him "creepy." Of all the adjectives I can think of to describe my husband, that isn't even close to one I would use.] I mention that story because Caidy thought that was the FUNNIEST thing in the world and at every opportunity calls Brian creepy. It's actually pretty funny hearing them banter. Despite the fact that Caidy calls him creepy and did so on the car ride down, I never thought Brian was creepy until I saw he and Ty do this nearly first thing after we arrived:



Yeah...that's a little creepy Caidy. Maybe there is some truth in there somewhere. What you are seeing balls attached to strings attached to clothes pins for the purpose of playing a very interesting game later. But no where in the game did I see these contraptions attached to anyone else in THIS way... Good going babe, very attractive.


As for me, the first thing I did was head for the coffee pot. By 7:00 I started getting a little tired, and when we arrived a little after 8:00, I knew the only way I would make it to midnight was a lot of caffiene and a good dose of the giggles. And I got both.

Here is Leslie enjoying her cup of joe. We downed the pot of coffee quick! Well, between four of us anyway.

The first game that was planned was a balloon pop game. There were several balloons and within each balloon was part of the theme verse of the weekend. They kids were to pop the balloons and get the pieces and put it in order.

This was one of my first pics and it's a little out of focus because my shutter was too slow for how fast these kids were moving around the room trying to get the balloons to pop. Wes and Sarah did good to stand still for me (unknowingly) for a whole two seconds...

I kinda thought that the verses would be bigger...you know, big print. Maybe I'm going BLIND in my old age, but for heaven's sake people...16 pt font is just too small for me on a game like this....hehe

Are you grasping how small these are? It must have been luck that none of these bits of confetti got lost in the shuffle of balloon popping!

I guess it worked for the yungins...they got it right. I guess it is just me getting old. They seemed to see it just fine. The verse was Romans 12:2. Take a look at it! The whole book is great, but first few verses of chapter 12 are pretty powerful! Our theme for the retreat was "Transformers." I thought that was pretty clever. Good one Ty!

A quick break in between games allowed for a very awesome photo in an impromptu photo shoot! Don't they look great for having been up for....well...who knows how long we were all up by this point. All I know is that I was delirious (hence why I wasn't in many pictures that night)

That Hannah...such a sweetie pie. Couldn't you just eat her up!?

The next game we did was called Amoeba. For those of you out there that can't bring your brains back to 9th grade science class [like I couldn't and had to be reminded], an amoeba (uh-me-buh), is a sort of organism that has no definite shape and moves around in a very random fashion. It has a flexible outer shell/membrane that is filled with goo (yeah, there's a scientific name for it somewhere) and has several nuclei so it contracts and expands in all kinds of formations trying to get from one place to another. Whoever thought up the name for this game must have been a smarty pants because that is exactly what happened in the game.

The kids were put into a group, tied together only on the outer edge with rope, and asked to move from one side of the room to another going through several obstacles. The object of the game was to move as a unit. It was a shaky start, but they made it back, all of them relatively unharmed. I don't have any pictures of this because I was busy keeping them from running over one another.

Then it was the adult's turn. It was our goal to beat the time the kids had, but to also be one unit...not killing one another like a stampede of hippos. Thanks to Emily manning my camera, we have more proof that Brian could actually be creepy, AND why an amoeba might have a good reason for having no form or direction....notice NO ONE is looking in the same direction. Maybe an real amoeba have too many nuclei like this one.

Here we are all be squished into a space about two feet wide...hmmm. Yeah, little me, see my head poking out in the back. Yep, I was the one getting squished into the pile of lunchroom tables. But, it was fun.

The last game was a relay. You can't really see it in this picture, but they have those clothes pins with the strings and balls on it attached to backs of their shirts. The goal was the squat down and sink the ball into the cup on the floor without knocking over the cup. Does it sound easy? IT WASN'T. The team that had all of their members complete the task first, won. Sarah and Jacob were the first to attempt this. I was the last...seeing it done doesn't make it any easier. LOL!

After the games, we had a short devo and then had about an hour to play and have fun before lights out. I'd forgotten how hilarious Emily was when she creaped up to us in her Tupac dew rag. What? Was she even BORN before Tupac died? She cracked me up all weekend.

The next day was way better than the first. Saturday was an awesome day. There was a bit of a nip on the air, but nothing a good pullover couldn't fix. We started the day with a great breakfast and had a lesson by Sean. He did a great job too! After that we had game time. Here, Jillian is trying her arm at "Who can throw a softball the farthest"-game.

I don't know that there was any real purpose to this game other than to give Butch something to do. He was the "outfielder" and such a good sport.

Brian did an OK job at the softball throw, but his form was a little to be desired. Uh, he looked like he was trying to throw the shot in a shot put competition. GOOOOOO Brian!

I was trying to stretch out my arm before I threw. I was making a silly face at Emily and it was captured. One might not put something this hideous about oneself on a blog for the world to see, but I figure...had it NOT been me, I'd be all about putting it up! So, to be fair...here I am. Nice right?

I think Caidy had the most fun playing with Sarge. They are both cute, but Caidy is beautiful...don't you think so? Since this pic, she's gotten her hair cut SOOO super cute. I'll have to get a new one up of her for everyone to see it.

Our fearless leader with a rake and a shovel. I think they were getting ready for the bonfire...making a big pit.

Here's Emily just before we had to go in for lunch, practicing her fast-pitch. She was a teeny bit rusty, but with a few more throws and an actual batter, she would have been whirling them in to the zone! Her hair flinging out made me laugh. Didn't notice it unti I caught it still-frame.

After lunch there was time devoted to singing. I took just this one picture. I love singing time.

Once singing time was done, the four-square madness was on. It was like Lay's potato chips, after one, you can't stop. Well once you started it was inevitable that you played again and again and again. Here's Jillian in her best four-square defense stance. She's a serious player too!

Nicholas was pretty intense too! It was unfortunate that there was no four-square ball. All they could find was a volley ball. Ah well...whatever works.

Caidy and I stayed away from the four-square madness, having a little fun with the camera.

Emily in her dew rag again. This time she decided to be ninja! AH HAHAHA! Well, maybe not a ninja. It guess it was more like Karate Kid.

Here's our newly weds! This was their first adventure after the honeymoon. They got married the weekend before camp. Aren't they adorable?

Ty and Korey plotted out a course for an activity for the kids called "Faith Walk." I'd not been involved in one of these before so it was awesome to see. Each of the kids were blind folded and were given an adult partner. The adult was to help their blind partner thru the path and the obstacles (which weren't easy). The course was planned in a way that you would go back thru the same obstacles coming back as well. Here are some pictures of the path and most of the kids:

This is before we started...Emily being a nut.

Caidy had the funniest blindfold...a wound up t-shirt because all the bandanas were taken! LOL! She looks pitiful!

Nicholas did well. I was to surprised to see im walking with his hands in his pockets. I would be feeling around trying to find something to touch...or at least trying to keep my balance. He did a pretty good job.

Here's my sweet blind boy, Wesley! He did so good, and was so cute doing it! He was the youngest of all the youth there and I was proud of him on this course! He's about to step onto a bridge here. We weren't allowed to physically touch the kids with the purpose that they find their own way. But just before this picture was shot, I had to save Wesley from taking a plunge into the creek. Two or three more steps and Sheila (his mom) would have had me for lunch!

All the kids made it out of the obstacle course unharmed, except for Emily. Apparently she blindly found a yellow jacket hive and one of them decided to attack. She was a big sport and kept on going thru the course. That's a beast for ya! She's a strong girl!

Later that day I found Sarge playing at the lake's edge. He wanted nothing more than to swim out to the middle of it! He would inch out and then come back. Then sniff around and find a bug to jump around to catch. After the bug left, or he caught it, he'd come back and play at the water again.

Wouldn't life be grand as a dog...no worries.

One of the last activities before dinner was skipping rocks. The boys had fun. Of course, it wasn't a planned activity, but it made me smile to see them doing it. I guess it goes to show you that video games and television aren't the only things that kids can do these days to have fun. At camp we learn about God, but we sure do have a way of learning about ourselves and each other. Life goes by way to fast.

Across the lake

Of all the things we did and shared at camp, I think I'll remember our breakout session the most. That was when all the girls got together in a group and the guys got together in a group and we discussed what it meant to "conform" to the world. We had so much discussion and laughs in the class! I couldn't help but be moved and encouraged each girl there. Even Kayleigh, who toughed out the class, even with a migraine. Poor girl...it lasted almost all day.

I'm thankful that the Lord allowed me to be involved that weekend! May there be many more opportunities to spend a weekend this way!

I'll end with one last creepy thought...

A visit to Grandmom's and four band-aids later.

I went to visit my grandmother in Birmingham his past Friday. I stayed with her and then had plans to go to my ONLY sister's first child's baby shower on Saturday. Friday was an enjoyable day with my grandmother and her husband, my mom and step-dad, my uncle, a friend, and, of course, Helen! We played and laughed with Helen for hours. We even went shopping for a new pair of shoes for Helen to wear to the shower. I was SOOOO excited, having planned to go for weeks.

Unfortunatley, after dinner on Friday night, I began to feel a little tightness in my tummy. I thought it was indigestion. I decided to go to bed and didn't sleep a wink. Tightness became ache, and ache became pressure, and pressure became pain. By midnight, I'd had enough. I called my mom and we decided it was best that we go to the ER.

At the ER, they took blood, but determined that everything was fine...except for my obvious pain. They wouldn't do an ultrasound due to that it was a Saturday and there was no immediate need or emergency. One would think a doctor would want to know for sure what was causing my pain, but not this one. So he gave me pain meds, saying it was "probably" my gall bladder, and sent me on my way. He told me to see my family doctor when I got back home. (How he thought I could physically drive home....I'll never know)

We got back to grandmom's about 6am to rest, but I couldn't, as the pain meds hadn't started working. Moma went home to rest. Little did I know that she would call an hour or so later, to tell me that she would be driving me back to GA. WOW. What a mom!!

She got Helen up, fed her some breakfast, and got her dressed. Then, she packed up and loaded all of mine and Helen's things into my van. Keeping in mind she's still had only a few hours of sleep, she gets all of us in the van and off we ride to GA....a four hour trip barring there are no stops. (Of course, with Helen potty training, we stopped several times)

The trip went well! The Lord kept us safe and without delays all the way home.

I was able to get an appointment with my doctor first thing Monday morning. By then, the pain had subsided (without pain meds), but as soon as the Doc pushed on my abdomen, she pretty much confirmed the ER's hypothesis that it was a gall bladder attack. She immediately called the lab and got me an appointment for an ultrasound. They confirmed that there was in fact a stone and infection (why the blood work in the ER didn't show infection, i don't know). So off to the surgeon's office for formality's sake.

Surgery to remove the gall bladder was scheduled for Wednesday (yesterday). It's long name is called laparoscopic "cholecystectomy" *co-lee-sist-ECK-toe-mee*. I don't remember anything after I left Brian, other than the nurse was nice and gave me a warm blanket...yeah...right out of the toaster! I woke up with cotton mouth, four band-aids on my tummy, and feeling as if I'd done 10,000 sit-ups while sleeping! Pretty good, huh? I felt way better than I did in the ER 4 days prior!

Gotta love American technological advancements! After they removed the organ, they found that the stone was actually blocking the exit to my pancreas and that the actual gall bladder was only filled with infection. I'm so thankful that I got rid of that thing before the stone made it's way into my pancreas. I think we all know what a detriment that could have been!

They say I'll feel better in 48-72 hours! And I believe it! Even without the narcotics I feel pretty good! Thank the good Lord for a successful surgery! Thank you to the seven wonderful people who came to visit me before they took me to surgery: Larry, Essie Mae, Harry, Mary Alice, Richard, Pat, and Tommy. It means so much that they came! Thank you also to my wonderful husband for being with me through this whole thing and for making me feel comfortable and cherished. Thanks to my mom too for the unending list of helps and for being at home taking care of my sweet Helen when I couldn't. (I'm sure it was hard work being with her grandbaby for days...lol)

Thanks for all your prayers and thoughts!

I can't leave you without a picture, so see it below. (second post for the day...see next) Have a great weekend everyone!

Two people I miss so much....Lori and Kim.

They always make me smile!

Beach Trip 2008

Orange Beach, Alabama...aaah. Nice! I love the beautiful beaches there and the laid back atmosphere. We usually go in late summer or early fall after all the nutty kids have gone back to school! This year's beach trip was so beautiful. The beaches were so clean, and the water was so clear. Even the jellyfish stayed away so that Helen could get in the ocean. (as a side note from a previous post, Helen called her swimming pool "Daddy's water") When we went to the gulf, I wanted her to know the difference, so we called the ocean "God's water" and she seemed to understand that.

The trip had two legs. The first leg was to Notasulga to drop off Nathan to PawPaw and Mimi's house and spend the night to start our second leg the next day to the beaches. On the way down, the kiddies got a little restless! We sang songs and at the last few miles, all we could think of to do was to make silly faces and "bobbing heads" to the music on the radio. Here are the pics of all of us sticking our tongues out, then of the head banging. (because head bobbing is a motion, none of us really look like we are doing anything! LOL)










That night for bath time the kids wanted bubbles....well I gave them bubbles! There was more bubbles than water! LOL They had a blast. But Nathan REEEEEALLY liked it! Here's the funniest shot!



We went with Brian's brother Eric and his wife Haley - two super, wonderful, sweet people! We all came in on Friday, but Saturday was our first day to play. Most of the morning, Haley and I played with Helen at the beach and in the ocean. I'm not sure if Helen ever really understood why the water wouldn't stay still. She knew that the waves would come in but didn't undestand why they didn't stop. She stood at the water's edge for a while just kinda looking at it while she sunk further into the sand. She didn't like that at all, but she didn't care until she realized she couldn't get her feet out! LOL! Of course I was standing with her, but it was funny to see her trying to pull herself out. She played a while in the sand with the sand castle stuff, but she mostly spent her time trying to put as much of the beach sand back into the ocean as she could. She'd run and throw as much goopy sand that she could hold with as much force as her arms could thrust into the ocean. She probably did that for twenty minutes without stopping!



The pools at the condo were fun too! Helen enjoyed the "walk-in" pool. Helen played in this most of the time. There was also a kiddie pool for the little ones, only a foot and a half deep all over, with a giant mushroom waterfall at one end. Helen liked the pool, but didn't care much for the shroom. Something about the water falling on her head she didn't like. We tried it with her several times to show her that it wouldn't hurt her, but she fussed, so we just let her swim.



She couldn't quite understand the innertube, but she left it on long enough to get a picture.

This was a fun fountain pond thingy for the kids to play in. The fountains would come up and go down. Helen bent down to look where the water went and when it came back on it hit her in the face! HAHAHA! (I mean, poor girl!)


We ate lots of seafood, but mostly at The Original Oyster House. Man, that place is good! This is a picture where Helen was looking at a big boat coming in or a bird...or something. Doesn't she look just like her daddy!!! That face is all Brian!

I think the best seafood we had was actually homemade at Haley's mom's house. Helen calls her Ms. Angel. They had a big shrimp broil with corn cobs and potatoes and sausage! OH...it was "slap yo' mama good!" Everything was wonderful! They had a little pond out back where some ducks had taken up residence. Helen loved to watch the ducks. She says "cack cack cack!" She's not quite gotten the "Quah" sound!






Sadly, we only spend a couple of days in Orange Beach because Gustav chased us away. But maybe later in the year we can go back before it gets too cool. Although, once a year is about all that I can get Brian to go to the beach. He's not much for it. He'd rather be at the lake. For me it's the atmosphere. I love everything about it, from the sand and the smell of the ocean, to the people and the fun little shops, from the fresh seafood to the endless starry skies. Ah.. It makes me relax just thinking about it! :)

I hope you all have had a fabulous summer. I hope you enjoy the pictures...more below.