Playing Catch Up

So it feels like since christmas, we haven't stopped. I haven't really had time to truly update our blog either. So today, on my day off, I'm playing catch up. Nate is working 2 jobs at the moment, so I have a lot of "free time". This extra time, this week, will be spent editing numerous pictures, updating our blog, spring cleaning, etc.

Last night I downloaded and edited pictures for about 3 hours; finally getting caught up on those.
This morning, I was lazy :-). Slept in until almost 9am, and then proceeded to stumble towards the kitchen for my morning brew. Once that caffeine started ripping through my system, my eyes opened a little wider and I proceeded into the office. Since then I have been re-editing pictures and now have finally arrived at the "updating of the blog". I know most of your are on the edge of your seat, anxiously awaiting the most memorable blog post ever. To your dismay, this will be just another blog post, crammed full of "tidbits" and pictures. Hopefully you won't be overstimulated after reading this post and can carry on a productive day as I have done thus far. Of course, the question still remains of whether or not I'm going to actually change into normal clothes or stay in my pajamas today... Hmmm quite a predicament. :-)



Alrighty here goes....



Christmas 2008 was spent with the Sommers family in Ohio. Lost of fun, LOTS of cold, lots of presents, and our first ever Sommers Annual Settlers Of Catan Tournament. Trophy taken home by our new addition, wendy sommers. Below you'll see a slide show of that fun time :-)








January brought a trip to WVa for my mom's surgery. She had a disc repaired in her neck, so I went down to help out for the week. words to describe this week: Thankful, Tiring, SNOWY, Drugged up (mom not me), OVER.!!








February started out good and ended awful. As in my previous post dad suffered a massive heartattack on February 21st. We high tailed it down to WVa to be with him and I stayed for the week with mom and him at the hospital. He got to come home on mom's birthday, February 28th, which was a great birthday present. The next 4 weeks were frustrating and tiring for everyone as we anxiously awaited his surgery. At the end of March he had open heart surgery, a quadruple bypass and a mitral valve repair. I again stayed there for a week and a half until he was released from the hospital and stable at home. April would end with us back at the hospital as he developed CHF and later atrial fibrillation. So I took a quick trip home to be with him while he was in the hospital and to get him home. May ended with a Memorial Day trip home to spend the week w/ the family. Typically mom and dad come here over memorial day; obviously that changed this year and we went there. We had a fun picnic at babcock state park and finished up dad's "Harley Garage". I'm thankful to say that today, June 9th, 2009 Dad is doing much better and everyday brings improvement. We owe all our praises and thanks to God as He is the Healer and the Saver that kept Dad here and alive and well. Thank you for all your prayers, they were answered!!








Other tidbits:



Admist all the craziness from February 21 until may - we managed to squeeze in a trip to New York City. I wanted to take Joel & lisa for a quick spring break trip and to see the Phantom of the Opera. We had an AWESOME time and only saw 1/2 the city. we walked our hind ends off, but loved every minute of it. Now where to next year??








Nate bought a Harley - and has been out of control since then :-). I am now envious and want one of my own. My lil brother taught me how to ride his motorcycle when we were home last, and I LOVED IT!! I much rather prefer driving than riding behind someone!!

Nate's brother, Andy and his wife Wendy will be moving up here to TN in 2 weeks. they've bought a house that's literally 5 minutes from our house!! We're so excited to have family near by and pray that they will love TN as much as we do. We're praying their transition will be as easy as possible.

Nate and I have started leading a small group on sunday nights in our home. It's a group of young married and currently we're studying fireproof and the Love Dare. God has brought some great conversations into our group and we've grown closer as friends :-). So that's a huge praise

This past weekend Nate and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Due to all of our unexpected traveling in the past year, we didn't plan a big anniversary trip. Instead, we rented a cabin in Gatlinburg and ran away to the mountains for a weekend. We had a great time, and have decided we want to buy a cabin there!! :-) It was the perfect setting for a couples get away.




Not much else that I can think of at the moment. This should be a good first post for the "catching up" with Nate & Becca :-). Have a great day!

Harley Fever

To Nate's great satisfaction.... he is now a Harley owner. He picked up his bike last night and it's all downhill now :-)heehee. I haven't seen him very much today; his time has been spent in the garage with his new girlfriend. He only comes inside to ask me to take pictures of him and his new girlfriend! :-)hahaha
So without further adue (I know dad and Joel are tired of reading this and just want to see the pictures already!).... I give you Nate's Harley Sportster 883

The new Harley Rider :-)
And of course I had to take pictures of the "custom" parts that have been put on it already





Custom gas tank cover...

Custom grips

Our clinic on the news :-)

Hey all :-)
Our clinic was featured on our news 2 days ago :-). I'm not in the clip - I was busy actually seeing patients - but it was still kind of cool :-)
Here's the link you can click on. http://www.wkrn.com/
In the right hand corner scroll through until you see the caption: "Doctors offer online house calls"

The week I never wanted to face

Many of you know that my dad suffered a massive heart attack this past saturday, february 21st. Below is a run down of our ordeal and where we are at now.
My mom called me at 2pm and told me his symptoms, I had her give him an aspirin to chew and take him to the ER. In my gut his symptoms sounded like a heart attack, in my head I rationalized that it was probably nothing and that she'd call me later and tell me it was just anxiety or something else. So I proceeded to stay put where I was, in my pajamas, watching a movie in bed. 20 minutes later I got the call that crashed in on my happy little world, "Becca, you're dad is having a heart attack right now".
Turns out mom tore out of the house like a bat out of hell & rushed dad to the hospital at the top of the hill. They had him pumped full of morphine, nitroglycerin and "clot busters" :-) in no time flat, hooked to an EKG and were watching the heart attack as it was happening.
As soon as mom called, I immediately called nate and told him to get home (he was an hour away). I started screaming and crying, scaring skipper half to death, praying harder than I ever have prayed before that God would save my dad, it wasn't his time. I threw stuff in a suitcase and started to throw skippers stuff in the car when my sister called and said they were life flighting Dad to Charleston.The hospital mom took him to did all they could. At one point they thought they had dissolved the clot, but his Vfib picked right back up; turns out the clot only moved. They had enough sense to know that this was over their heads and called for the lifeflight. Within 20 minutes of leaving that hospital and driving to the pick up point, they were touching down in Charleston at CAMC.

Sooo skipper wasn't going with us b/c we were headed straight to Charleston, an hour away from my parents house. We're blessed to have AWESOME friends, so I immediately called my friend Jess and she said her and her husband could house sit and watch skipper. Not 15 minutes later, her sister in law Jen, another one of our friends, was knocking on my front door. She'd come by to give me a hug and wait with me until Nate got home. Our angels, that's all I can say.

Nate made it home in 35 minutes and I had the car loaded. We left our house at 3:00pm and drove through 3 hours of snow downpouring. I was getting antzy b/c I hadn't heard anything and all I could think of was that if my dad had died, they weren't going to call and tell me that on the phone. They'd wait till I got there to tell me. So it was THE longest drive of my life; and we made it there in 7 hours! The whole family had already made it there before us. My grandparents and all dad's siblings and then of course our immediate family were there waiting when we got there.

Once dad made it to Charleston they took him straight to the Cath lab where the put a stent in his LAD and retrieved the clot. Only to find that 2 of his arteries were 100% occluded and there were 3 smaller ones with plaque. They put him in the coronary care unit and told us he was critical. They were going to try and let him rest and recover from the actual heart attack. We were then looking at open heart surgery for a triple bypass.

saturday night we went to the motel across the street. We all piled in one of our 2 rooms and tried to eat a little something and tried to unwind a little bit. No one wanting to voice their fears of what the next day might hold.

I went to bed that night crying with my mom and then cuddling up to Nate. Crying out to God to keep my dad safe while we all slept and to help him recover. The next morning we were told that Dad had suffered a massive heart attack and that he was in critical condition. We held our breath and prayed silent prayers for healing. His heart was working on a 20% ejection fraction (perfectly normal is around 75%). It was imperative that his heart beat normally and not have anymore arrhythmias so that his heart could start to recover from the actual heart attack. Because it was such a huge heart attack, he was restricted to bed - NO walking. He was allowed to get out of the bed and sit in a chair and then back to bed.

He was in a good deal of pain Sunday and Monday in his chest and sore all over. They FINALLY got his pain under control monday and moved him to a private room (HUGE praise) where he could finally start resting. He had the most horrid "roommate" the previous few nights and wasn't getting any rest. His nurse went to bat for him up against the charge nurse stating that she'd "had enough" and that her patient needed rest. Praise the Lord he got him his own room and gave him a wonderful night's rest.

Our family left on Monday (all but me and my sister) b/c dad was improving. My sis left on Tuesday to go back to work and I stayed with mom the rest of the week. Each day dad started feeling and looking better. The cardiologist warned that he take it easy and as his cardiac enzymes started to fall we'd talk about moving him to the "step down" unit where he would be allowed to start walking. On Wednesday they walked dad around the unit and decided to move him to the step down unit. We took a few walks (with his holter monitor on) down the hall once we were on the step down unit and spent some time chatting with his new roomie, a fellow nazarene who was undergoing bypass surgery on Thursday. Thursday mom and I spent the day at the hospital, surprise, with Dad up in his room. We took more walks than on wednesday and made it a little farther :-). The cardiologist said Dad was well enough to go home and continue his recovery when we got his "lifevest" ordered. That excited us all but was frustrating b/c all we were waiting on was his vest. The lifevest is an external defibrillator that will shock his heart if it goes into any sudden cardiac arrhythmias.

Friday morning came and his nurse told us all we were waiting on was his insurance to approve the lifevest and then they'd send someone out. Mom jumped on the phone and called the insurance company. Turns out they never received the forms! Soooo we started the day process of tracking down the forms and getting them into the right hands. Once lifevest received the approval we hounded them to get someone out to the hospital and get dad home. There are only 2 people in WVa that can fit him for the vest. One was sick, and one was out of town. Sooo they started calling to the other states. At 4:30pm we heard that a lady from Richmond, VA was leaving to drive up the WV to bring dad his vest and wouldn't be there till 8am the next morning.

Friday was the most frustrating day of all b/c we were all anxious to get dad home and knew he was well enough to get home. We just weren't going home b/c someone dropped the ball 2 days prior on ordering what we needed. But bless the lady who drove all that way so we weren't sitting there for 3 more days!

Saturday morning we got him fitted, got him discharged, and took him home.... on mom's birthday! :-) Happy birthday mom! All of us kids were able to be home with dad that weekend, which really made him and mom happy :-).

All of that history to say it's been a crazy, long, exhausting week!! I came home yesterday (Tuesday afternoon) and am sitting here at work still in disbelief of the past week. It's a week I never wanted to have, an event I never wanted to experience but a week that God revealed himself to me and my family over and over. I don't believe in coincidences, I believe in providence.
1) Dad could have had a heart attack numerous amounts of times when he was working, by himself. Even the day before he was out in the woods, home by himself, cutting wood. But it happened when him and mom were sitting at home together.
2) The lifeflight team was ALREADY together. They had just made a run when they got the call for dad. So there was no lag time inbetween the call and actually coming to get him, they were already together and in the helicopter when they got the call
3) This all happened before the snow storm hit. Had it happened later in the day/evening, he wouldn't have been able to be lifeflighted b/c of the snow - and my dad wouldn't be here
4) The doctors at our small, dinky little hospital have practiced enough scenarios to know exactly what to do to hold him over until he could get to the coronary hospital in charleston. God's angels
5) God got the whole family there, intact, in record time to be there for dad.
6) God got the word out within a few hours to numerous churches in numerous COUNTRIES to start praying
7) God held my dad in the palm of his hand, keeping his heart beating
8) God let them get the clot that was causing the heart attack and helped them see that he needs surgery before anything else happens
9) God got him a private room and a good night's rest to help his enzymes fall and his body start to recover
10) God sent us an angel from Richmond VA to give her time to get us home
11) God is still God.

There's a song on my ipod by Seventh Day Slumber called "Every Saturday". Nate shared with me that he was listening to this song on his way home when he left me in Charleston with my parents and how it had spoken to him, and the feelings he was having. Since then I've listened to it numerous times and it couldn't be a better fit to describe some of our feelings. The chorus states "I'm barely hanging on. With all these empty feelings. I'm hurting in so many ways. And though I can't pretend; to understand your reasons. I still believe that you're God".

Though I can't still comprehend why this happened. I can't grasp the fact that my dad shouldn't be here according to all medical reason. I can't let myself really think about my dad not being here with me. I'm angry that it's happened, I'm still hurting that it's happened and he has to have surgery, I can rest in the knowledge that God is still God. God is still holding us in his arms, he's still looking over our family, He's still walking with and holding my dad's hand. He's still God.

In this knowledge and in Him I have to let myself rest. Though i'm scared for him to have surgery I know that God can take that fear from me.

Please continue to pray that dad will continue to heal from the heart attack and regain his strength. Pray that the surgery goes even better than we anticipate and that his recovery is a pain free as possible. Thank you so much for your prayers thus far and words of encouragment.

Thoughts

So I haven't written on here since the beginning of December!
1) I can't believe it's already January 21st!
2) We've been super busy with all our traveling but are finally done traveling for a while
3) We had a GREAT time with nate's family in Ohio for christmas.
* We started a new tradition of a Settlers of Catan tournament with the prize winning trophy of a snow globe! This year the trophy went to Wendy.... time will tell which household takes it home next! :-)
** We were able to go to the Swartzentruber family Christmas and it was great catching up with the family that we rarely get to see. It just keeps getting bigger from year to year. I think grandma and grandpa Swartzentruber have a "magical house". Each year the crowd gets bigger and yet there's always enough room??
***I got a new photo editing program from mom and dad sommers; so as soon as I have time to sit down and learn how to use it.... I'll get some photos from christmas posted on here :-)
4) My mom had her surgery almost 2 weeks ago tomorrow. She had a discectomy/laminectomy with fusion of C5 and C6 (neck vertebrae). It was stressful for us, who sat in the waiting room worrying about her, and for her b/c obviously she's the one having surgery. Despite a huge snow storm that kept nate and I stranded on the highway for 2 hours at 6am that morning; mom and dad just barely made it to the hospital before 6am to get her checked in for her surgery. The surgery went well and she spent the night in the SICU. We brought her home friday and I was able to stay over the weekend to help dad nurse her back to health. I left reluctantly Sunday to return home for work but Dad has done a great job of taking care of her and watching over her this past week. :-) She's doing much better, even after getting sick on top of her surgery :-(. She's up and walking, her voice sounds normal now and she's off her pain killers. She still has her stylish C-Collar to wear intermittently throughout the day; and when she starts driving for a while. But she's doing well and has already noticed a complete difference in the arm pain she was experiencing pre-surgery. Praise the Lord for surgeons and medicine; it helped bring healing to her :-). We're just glad to have a safe and healthy mama :-)
5) We hit the ground running when we got home. Nate is thankfully staying busy with work, and my job is secure b/c there will always be sick people :-).
* nate continues to play in the praise band at church and leads worship for the youth on wednesday nights. he's gearing up for our church softball league to start up again in the spring =). He's currently finishing up a project for me, refinishing our kitchen table. In a compromise we came to, I wanted a new table and he said we needed to wait until we move into a different house to spend the $$ and make sure it fits, he said he would refinish it so it would match my decor better. It was a light oak top with white legs. He's restained it darker and painted the white, black. I'm extremely impressed with his skill b/c it looks like we just bought it from a store! :-) I think he should consider painting for a living :-)heehee
** I'm starting with a new praise team at the beginning of February for church; and probably will start singing in the choir now that my schedule allows it. Work continues to be busy at times and a few slow days for rest :-). I was blessed to get a raise this year which will help us pay those school loans even faster (and fertility expenses :-) ). I serve on our women's council at church and have helped plan a few events thus far. This coming weekend I'll be speaking at our "birthday bash" for the women's birthdays for the year. It should be a good time :-)
*** Nate and I will be joining a gym down the road in a few days, in an attempt for him to "bulk up so he can hit some home runs this spring", and me to lose some marital weight :-). It should be fun b/c we're both going together and being "accountability" partners
****Fertility - continues to be an uphill quest it feels like. We've had a rough few weeks together as emotions are "peaking" so to speak after trying to get pregnant for 1 1/2 years. needless to say, God is good and has helped us be transparent with each other in an attempt to support each other in this journey. Though we are both growing tired of "trying" we have found renewed hope in the past few weeks that God has a purpose for us and will be faithful to reveal it. We are going to continue with at least another round of IUI and then possibly more testing. Adoption is in consideration at the moment and we're praying that God will soften our hearts to this possibility and lead us in the direction he wants us to go.

Alright well this is just like a journal entry without pictures. I'll close for now and update later with some fun pics. I'm sure more entries will come as things happen in our lives. For now I'll say bye and we love each and every one of you. Thanks for your prayers and encouragment. Whenever you need a quick vacation, Nashville is always open and we've always got room to spare! :-)

Christmas Party

We've started the tradition of having our own "Annual Sommers Christmas Party".... aka "Ribfest and Nate & Becca's".
Last year we had some couples over for a christmas rib dinner and bingo. It was such a hit, we had to plan it again this year. This year even more came and even more food was devoured :-)!
This year we had 11 people. It would have been 13, but a couple is out of the country on a mission trip. We chowed down on some ribs and other good food.
Played Christmas Bingo; with lots of fun gifts this year.....

Then played some "figure out the secret game" like "selling apples", "pick the book", and my personal favorite "who has the towel". Some figured out the "trick" of the game, and some didn't. Those that didn't will just have to wait till next year :-).
Now onto some pictures of course....
Missy (baby alvarado) and Roberto

Christina NOT figuring out the secret of the game

Cheryl enjoying herself while Roger concentrates hard to figure out the secret :-)

Come on Roger....don't rule out the obvious

I'm selling "mighty fine apples"

Apparantly Chris and Sharon find it funny....

This year we had our first ever cookie and dessert contest. Everyone brought a cookie and dessert, then we voted for our favorite. The winners got to take home a ghetto, home-made trophy to have and to hold, and to bring back next year. This year Sharon took home BOTH trophies! :-)

And so the night came to a close but not before we took some group pictures... This year everyone was "almost" on time :-) so the food didn't get "too" cold..... and the last left at 11:30. All in all, this year was a fun success - and we're already looking forward to 2009. +

Can you sell apples??

Becca/Nate, Missy/Roberto, Brandi/Ryan, Cheryl/Roger, Christina, Sharon/Chris

Merry Christmas!!

Hostutler "Christmas" at Thanksgiving

Well this post is going to be a lot of pictures.....I know, I know; what a surprise?! :-)

Sooooooooo here goes nothing

We spent Thanksgiving with my family, the hostutlers, for a week in the W.V. :-). It was a much needed, relaxing, get away. Nate went hunting with dad, almost every day. Unfortunately, he didn't see any bucks, just doe. There was enough evidence that there were bucks around, but they were hiding from Nate :-(. Dad certainly had fun filling, and refilling, the feeder we got him last year for Christmas.

We had our Hostutler Family Christmas "rib fest" Thanksgiving night. Friday night we opened our Christmas presents (from us and to us) since we're going to be in Ohio for Christmas. I received some SWEET presents from my parents that they handmade for my favorite game, settlers of catan.


Here's some pics after we set the table - Lisa and I worked hard to make it "pretty" :-) A lot of the food had to go on the island beside the table b/c we were cramming to fit around the table :-) with all 9 of us (Joel/Lisa, Rach/Jeff, Me/Nate, Mom/Dad and Kristian - Joel's exchange student friend from college)

Do we look hungry??!! :-)

Naturally Joel and Nate busted out their guitars and jammed a little bit. Lisa then busted out her acoustic bass and wowed us all (unfortunately I didn't get any pics of her jamming)
The boys

Then I wanted to get some "creative" photo shots..... so here's what I came up with
Joel playing...... & Nate playing.....

Then of course I had to get some family pictures. Dad and I went out Saturday around the farm and found some AWESOME places to take some unique family photos. We didn't want your typical, pose and smile pictures where everyone tilts their heads to the left and puts on a fake smile. So we set our time for sunday at 11 before we all left. We all were dressed and ready to go shoot "on location". I got the camera set up (it was a bit cold outside but we vowed to throw the coats when the timer started on the camera)...... and then it started sprinkling. Ok, it's just a little sprinkle.

One photo down; move into position again, a little more than a sprinkle now..... keep going people we've got to get cool pictures this year. THROW THE COATS!!! ......

and then the downpour (did I mention my camera is sitting out in the weather during all this??!! aaaaggghhh ).

Sooooo we only got to do one location, then we had to go back to the house and try and figure out how we could get us ALL in a picture and how to adjust the lighting (easier said than done). Bummed that we didn't get the location shots; but these turned out OK, I guess.
So the picture after picture on the stairs began ... and the attempt after attempt to get the lighting correct..... aaaggghhhh I prefer natural, outdoor light!! :-) I sooo need an external flash for my camera....it'd make my life easier

can you even see Joel and Lisa's faces up there?? aaaggghhh I need an external flash :-(

Gotta get kristian in the pic :-) now that he's an adopted son :-)

And now to close with some cozy decoration pictures

The Judds

So I thought it was pretty cool and worth mentioning on our blog. Yesterday Nate painted at Naomi Judd's house; and spoke with her for a while. We love this celebrity spotting stuff; it's kind of fun :-). Apparantly they own a lot of land (over 500acres) by the Natchez Trace Parkway. Ashley and Winona live on the property as well but he painted in Naomi's house. He said it was GORGEOUS with intricate woodwork everywhere. What can I say, I'm proud of my little painter :-)

I've been tagged???

So I was reading on my friends, Kim, blog and she had an entry that began with the above picture. She then listed random facts about herself that made me giggle, and some I already knew about (cotton.....she hates the feel of cotton; my class knew about this and covered her office in cotton :-) ..... agh memories :-) sweet sweet memories)... Anyway at the end of the post she had a list of 7 names that she "tagged". There was a name "Becca". I wondered - is this me, Becca? or another Becca? Curious I clicked on the name and it took me straight to my blog! Wow I guess it's "me becca" and not another one.
So in keeping with the tagging..... I will now list 7 random facts about myself

1. I pretend to be computer savy by having a blog. Truth is I'm not computer savy and at the end of this post .... will have no clue as to how to "tag" other people and link their names to a blog :-)
2. I'm hopelessly addicted to the "Twlight series" books by Stephenie Meyer. In fact, I want to be a vampire and marry Edward. Nate is the love of my life; in fiction it's Edward :-)
3. I love to take pictures. I'm a picture feign and have a newly acquired canon D40 dig camera that I've been going hogwild with. I stink at nature photos but seem to be good with photos of people and expressions.
4. My favorite thing to do is..... turn out all the lights in the house...... light ALL of my millions of candles........and listen to christmas music by the shimmering christmas lights........most often belting out the tunes while the music plays and no one is around. (Favorite song other than Handel's Messiah would have to be Thistle Hair the Christmas Bear - that's right Alabama Christmas)
5. In keeping with the christmas lights in fact #4 - I'm a christmas fanatic and decorate my house on november 1st. people think I'm crazy, annoying, dumb, etc - but I say "Hey, what better season to love than the season that celebrates our saviors birth??" I love the smells, the lights, the smiles, the laughter, the sounds, even the crazy crowded stores. It seems like even through the chaos everyone takes the time to be just a little kinder to those around them, and give just a little more to those in need, more than they would any other time of the year. So yeah, I talk about Christmas in June - not b/c I love presents but because I try to keep the spirit alive year round instead of during one month. Isn't that what christ wants us to do? Love just a little more, give just a little more, humble ourselves just a little more - and keep the good news of his coming at the forefronts of our hearts and minds?? :-)
6. I've sang since I was a child and have had professional voice lessions
7. I love pets. I've had a guinea pig named "cotton ball - CB for short", 2 hamsters.... 1 named perky (who died and I exclaimed through tears... "perky isn't perky anymore") and haminator. I've had 5 dogs growing up and currently have a "yorkie-wah" named skipper (ask me about the "yorki-wah" breed - it's quite a funny story). Oh and I hate cats, hate them hate them hate them :-)

Ok so I would tag some people but
1. I don't really read anyone elses' blog - everyone is on facebook
2. I have no idea how to link to someone else's blog anyway :-)

So if you want to post in the "comments" section then that's how I'll tag you :-). The comments section is right under this entry (and all entries). Just click on "comments" and you can enter your facts :-). I can't limit it to 7 - that's not enough fun :-)
SOooooooooooooooooo............. I tag............ (drumroll please........)
1. Pattie Hostutler
2. Rosetta Sommers
3. Allison Hogue
4. Trisha Cooper
5. Cheryl Corle
6. Mim Roggio
7. Jessica Duranceau
8. Sarah Lazarus
9. Gina Peterson
10. Jenny Turner

October.....fall leaves bring a cool breeze

I can't believe October is almost over!! It's been a whirlwind of a month!
We celebrated Nate's 26th birthday; and believe it or not I forgot to take pictures!
Our church hosted our first annual women's health seminar, where I spoke for one of the lectures on depression. It was a touchy subject; but went well and the women who attended my lecture really learned some stuff that they didn't know. All in all it was a great day!
I had some girls over for a partylite candle party; to which Nate couldn't believe I needed more candles :-). I told him I know I didn't "need" them; I just wanted them :-)teehee
Then this past week Nate's parent came down for a few days. They were traveling to Florida for Andy & Wendy's wedding reception down there and made a pit stop here for 3 1/2 days. On Tuesday we went to the loveless cafe for breakfast (no celebrities were spotted this time....bummer) and then headed to the natchez trace trails to take in some pretty sights and fresh air. For some reason I thought it was only a 20 minute drive from the loveless cafe.......my 20 minute drive turned into a 55 mile drive to the waterfalls I wanted to take them to. I don't think I'll ever live that down. But hey, I'll be the first to admit my sense of direction and time aren't my strongest attributes :-). But hey we saw turkey on our drive there....
Not to mention we chased off a big deer in our back yard that evening! He actually charged skipper (who by the way was barking like crazy, flipping out) TWO times - right up to our back stairs on the deck. Flipped us all out - I thought skipper was going to be dinner for the deer!!
I promised to take some fall pictures for our friends, John & Jess, who are currently serving in Africa for 6 months. So some of the pics I'm posting are of us with nate's parents; but it kind of killed 2 birds with one stone, in that I snagged fall leaves in the pics as well :-). Enjoy....
Oh, and did I mention ..... It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas??!!! :-)yipee!!!! We're pulling out the decorations next weekend!!!

Have you ever noticed that I'm drawn to waterfalls??

The first set of waterfalls we hiked to...

After our first waterfall hike...onto the next...

I thought this bridge was pretty