Please Vote

Hey friends, can you do me a quick favor and vote for our photo on my friends photography blog? We had family pictures done and whoever gets the most votes will get a prize...and we'd love to win!!! I'd post the picture here but I don't own the rights to it so bop on over to Cerise Photography and vote for #7 The Camps! I'd appreciate it!!

http://marciacerisephotography.blogspot.com/2009/10/october-photo-contest.html


Thanks, Megan

PS. I LOVE Marcia's photography and if you're local and are looking to have your pictures done professionally, please stop by for a preview of her work. You'll be happy you did!

Camping

The weekend after Labor Day, we went camping at a park nearby with two other families. We had a great time, great weather and the kids all got plenty dirty...especially Taeya. She was about 3x's as dirty as each of the other kids. Enjoy the pics.
Our little family right before we headed home.

See what I mean by dirty? She LOVED it.

Sliding down the dirt hill.

Taeya had fun dipping her hands into the creek. She wanted to do it over and over again.

A little dirt make-up.

The three "babies" had fun playing together.

Taeya watched the big kids and learned how to slide. She had fun climbing as high as she could and sliding down on her bum.

The big hill.

Taeya enjoyed riding on daddy.

Oh I Wish I Was An Oscar Myer Wiener

Oh I wish I were an Os-car Mayer Wie - ner

That is what I'd tru-ly like to be

'cause if I were an Os-car May-er Wie - ner

Ev-ery one would be in love with me.

Today, after Bible Study I had to stop at the grocery store for milk. When I parked, I noticed that there was an unusual, yet recognizable vehicle across the parking lot. After I got my milk, we went and took a few pictures of and with it. How funny is this?? It was just parked in the back of the lot. There were no workers around passing out free wieners or cute little kiddos singing the Oscar Myer song. However, I'm glad I stopped to enjoy the moment because how often do you see the Weinermobile?!

Note the license plate. Becca, Taeya and Amanda

Our friend Amanda was with us so she joined in the fun.

Life

Lately, things have been challenging in my life to say the least. I have been clinging tightly to the promises in Scripture. One verse that has been encouraging is Deut. 31:8 "The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

Life is often hard and I am so thankful for a loving God who not only cares about the sparrows but cares so much more about those He created in his own image. I am truly blessed to have a personal relationship with my Creator and know that He is trustworthy through the good and the bad and that nothing is out of his control.

Phil and I have been dealing with a property manager at our last place who has been difficult to deal with and has made it very difficult for us to be released from our lease, even though we spent a great deal of time and money finding new renters that she approved. As of this morning, it seems that we will be allowed out of our lease provided that they sign a new lease in the next day or so.

On a happier note, we are loving our new house and are definitely settling in at this point. We had a busy few days two weekends ago as I had some women friends over on Friday while our husbands played poker together, we had a family of six over on Saturday and our pastor's family of nine over on Sunday. I love fellowshipping with others and am so thankful for friends with whom we can share God's blessings. I neglected to take any pictures because we were having such a good time. I had fun planning and cooking the meals. We enjoyed eating Javanese, Thai and Indian food. I really like ethnic dishes :) I have fallen in love with homemade Naan because it's so quick and easy to make. If requested, perhaps I can put the recipe on a future blog post. Let me know if you'd like to try it.

I'll be working on a picture post next with pictures from our first ever camping trip since Phil and I got married 4 1/2 years ago! For now, enjoy some misc. pictures from the past month.

We took Taeya out to Sonic after taking her to the fair. She REALLY enjoyed eating the icecream...all by herself!


This picture was taken prior to the previous one. She's wearing a little less icecream in it.

Photo at the fair while she was playing peek-a-boo

Here she's eating a snack in our empty condo while I did a last minute touch-up cleaning.

Outside the condo with a flower she found on a beautiful Colorado day.

All Moved In

Well, we have finally moved into our new house after waiting for a few months for it to be completed. We closed on the house and moved in during the first week of August. Since then, I've been busy unpacking and getting things organized. We are loving the house and Taeya's having a lot of fun exploring all over the house. Everything is not quite finished throughout the house. There's still some trim that needs repainting, a mirror to hang in the master bathroom and some little odds and ends that need to be finished...including the whole outside yard and fence. Those will come but for now, we're enjoying being in our very first house! I haven't lived in a house since the one we rented in PA when I was 15. Since then, I've lived in apartments or condos so it is wonderful not having to share any walls with any neighbors and having a yard to call our own (even if it's not yet finished).

I took these pictures a few days ago so things have progressed even more since then. I will try to repost pictures in a couple more weeks when everything is more finished. We're nearly done decorating but I'm still needing to get some bookshelves so I can unpack my tutoring room.

Our master bedroom.

One side of Taeya's room. I love her room. It's exactly what I was hoping for. Now I just need to figure out how to make curtains for it.
Our front entryway and dining room. Excuse the messy table please. We chose to make the front room our dining room and move the living room next to the kitchen because our couch would fit better and it worked better with our furniture overall.

My bright and lovely kitchen. I am loving having an island!!! I've already used it for baking cookies, muffins and brownies. I love the dark granite and dark tile as well.

Our livingroom.

I still need to take/share pictures of the basement, laundry room, guest room, back patio and tutoring room. Oh, and the front of the house when it's finished.

Visiting the Animals

We went to visit some ducks, lamas and horses that live near us. Taeya loves seeing all of the animals, especially the ducks. She didn't mind getting splashed by them. She loved pointing at them and saying "quack, quack."

Taeya with her friends Annie and Bethie.
Bethie, Taeya and Becca.

I love this one.

There's the duckies taking there bath.

A Little Busy, Okay, A LOT Busy

Okay, so I know it's been absolutely forever since I last posted. I've definitely been keeping busy though. We are living in "box city" right now and Taeya is loving it. She has discovered the joy of playing in boxes. I have some pictures and a video of her playing in her box but alas, they are still on the camera. I would say I have our house probably 75% boxed and ready to go.

Moving day is coming up. Not exactly sure when it is still although it is probably within a week. The house is nearly done (on the inside). They were rushing like crazy to get the garage sheetrocked today and some of the last minute things done. The inspector is supposed to come tomorrow to issue the certificate of occupancy (CO). Loan paperwork is well underway and our lender said closing is probably set for Monday, August 3. WE CAN'T WAIT! This has been a long and sometimes challenging process. We have enjoyed many parts of it and Phil and I did really well working together and making choices that fit both of our styles. We definitely love the finished product and will love our new home. I for one am looking forward to getting reorganized. I'm also excited to have a tutoring room where I can put up bookshelves and pull out all/most of my teaching stuff. I told Phil, I don't know what I'm going to do when we're in the house and we don't have any more building/design decisions to make and we don't have to visit Lowe's three times a week. It was a fun process and I'm glad we did it but I'm really looking forward to being done with all of that though and focusing on other things.

We have been doing some fun things lately. We went on a family walk down by the river one evening last week. We also stopped by the biggest wave in CO and watched the surfers (yes it's true! you can surf in CO) and kayakers practice their skills on it.

I took Taeya and a little boy I was babysitting to our local parade a couple weeks ago. Taeya received a paper nurses hat which she proudly put on her head. Her friend and babysitter, Annie, joined her for another future nurse picture.

Strawberry Shortcut-Race #2

On Father's Day, I ran the Strawberry Shortcut 5K with 2 of my friends, Tracy & Joy. Phil graciously got up extra early to cheer me on and watch Taeya during the race. Since this race was only a 5K (3.1 miles) I tried to push myself on my time. I averaged about a 10 minute mile. My goal was to finish around 30 minutes and I came in at 31:10. Not too bad. Tracy finished about 45 seconds ahead of me and Joy was just behind me (AND she's 3+ months pregnant!) Joy's husband, John, ran the 10K and finished about 58 minutes I think. We had a lot of fun and all went to a pancake breakfast that the Kwanis club puts on every year after the run.

Taeya and Melanie enjoying a snack together. Melanie's going to be two houses away from us once we move and I'm sure the girls will be spending lots of time together. :)

John & Joy. These are our friends who got us into our new home. We always have a great time hanging out with them. Joy, Megan & Tracy

We run quite often on Sunday afternoons. We might continue in the evenings as the days have been getting too warm to run.

Right before I finished the race.

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Caring for Baby

Taeya's becoming a good little mommy.

Here she is taking her baby for a bike ride. I love that she was kneeling the whole time she was pushing her baby.

...and when baby would fall off, Taeya would pick her back up and keep going.

Soft and Sweet

My sweet seriously studying some soft shoots.

Pondering picking the perrenial posyDisplaying her decoration for her dear daddy.

Better believe I like a bit of butter.
Caressing chubby cheeks with a chunky crown.

It's been awhile since I wrote any alliteration. If you'd like to leave an alliteration comment, I'd love to read them.