Monday, December 31, 2012

Blessings Jar - 2012

Well, this was our second year of randomly recording blessings throughout the year and storing them in our blessings jar.  On New Years Eve this year, we were all sick, so we decided to stay home as we were trying to recover.  We had told the kids we would celebrate the new year with them and we played three rip roaring games of SORRY and then we both were so tired that we decided to cheat.  We never lied, but we did ring in the new year at 10:00 at our house, so we could all go to bed.  We even cheered in the new year, had a countdown on the microwave and then drank our special drink out of our special glasses as we hollered Happy New Year!  hahaha.  Then we called Grandma and Pappy Bumbaugh and told them happy new year, before heading off too bed. :)  Guess we can't probably pull that off next year, but it worked this year, until the next week when Ava realized from school that we didn't get to watch the New York Ball drop. ;)  woops.  Sorry honey!

So in our blessings jar for 2012, we found ourselves to be very blessed.  We didn't even place all the blessings in our jar and truly we were more blessed than we could ever record but we did record some for memory sake.  I felt personally that this was a tough year and it did me good to read through some of our blessings that had actually taken place.  Okay, but I am not recording all of what we did for some personal reasons. :)  Here are a few that were in our jar.


January - Daddy bought mommy roses just to say he loved her.
January - Ava feels blessed that her dog, Simba, gets to stay with Grandma and Pappy after all.  They were giving him to a friend and it didn't work out so they took him back. :)
January 13 - Court date was postponed so Baby J got to stay with us one more unexpected month.
February - Ava finally said a positive thing about the school bus and that she actually likes school and the bus.  She said home was boring to her now.  First time since September of last year.
March 20 - we received the call that stopped us in our tracks.  It was Baby J's dad, Jeremy and he called to see if we wanted to see our little guy sometime soon.
March - We found out about a huge tax return, much more than we were anticipating.
March 27 - Christian's Kindergarten Registration - so much excitement for him and he passed his test with flying colors.
March 27 - We finally get to see baby J after three long horrific weeks of missing him.  He remembered us and we even got to keep him over night.  His dad was extremely gracious.
March 28 - Good News for my dad. . . he was accepted into a program he had applied for, and changed his life.
May 18 - "Mommy was in hospital for her heart - I was excited she didn't have a heart attack" - Ava
May19 - Jason bought Micah a golf club he had wanted to add to his set, and we had a great opportunity to go four wheeling at the Justus homestead. . .the kids had so much fun.
July - Margaret and Harry called to tell us they were getting a pool!!!
August - Beach Trip with Jason, Kim, and Westin.  Then Scott and Lori came down to surprise us and hang out at the beach with us.
August 12 - Nate proposed to Danielle and Ava and Christian got to be a BIG part of that special moment (random blessing spoken from Christian - "Danielle Loves Christian")
August - We found out at their class orientations that Christian and Ava got classes right across from each other at school this year. :)
August 29 - Ava lost another tooth and caught it right before it went down the drain.  She was so excited about this little but significant detail.
August 30 - Christian's first day of school week of school went great!
September - We were blessed with FREE tomatoes, peaches, potatoes, and cucumbers from the Glessners and dad helped me can them, along with Harry and Margaret.  Free food and lots of help.
September - Christian finally lost his first tooth!!!! 
September - Christian also got his four wheeler a month early, for his birthday.
September 16 - We had the privilege of getting to keep baby J for four days straight!  Best bonding ever.
September 16 - Ava was baptized at church and it was an amazing day
September 22 - Matthew and Jean were married and we were able to go and be a part of the big day.  Margaret and Harry called and offered to keep our kiddos so Micah could go along with me.
October - We received a monetary gift of $1500 dollars and it couldn't have come at a better time in our lives.  Friends allowing God to use them in a mighty way.
October 19 - We had a very cool birthday surprise!  Ivvie M. came to stay with us for four days. . . little Happy Feet.
October - Dad paid for all our gas to Hilton Head SC and Back
October 27 - We got to be a huge part of Andy and One-L's Big day, their wedding.  We were the Matron of Honor, Flower Girl, and Ring Bearer and it was a fun wedding to be a part of
October 29 - We made it through hurricane Sandy without any damage to us or our house or property
November 5 - Dr. Quesenberry didn't charge us anything for our doctor visit to him, saving us close to $80 bucks, and then we also had our vehicle in to the garage and found out the repairs were only $200 and God fixed the back window on His own time. :)
November 7 - Kim Brought us meals to fill our freezer from her and a bunch of friends including Becky Sullivan, Erin Deihl and Linda Pedersen too.  They were wanting to help out with Micah not having work.  Such a major blessing.
November - Margaret and Harry took us shopping and paid for our groceries for that trip, again filling our cupboards and freezers.
November - Jim, our neighbor, told us we could use the hot tub whenever we wanted to.
November 27 - Johnny S. came to stay with us for a few months
November 30 - Jim, our neighbor, came over to tell us he had set an appointment and had taken it upon himself to order us a set of brand new tires for our Sequoia.  Merry Christmas he said!!!
December 24 - Christmas Eve in a hot tub with our family and Pappy and Jim, in a snow covered winter land.
December - Kevin and Amy spoiled our kiddos and blessed our families with an abundance of presents.  It was so amazingly sweet and memorable for the kiddos.
A few last random ones with no dates but they were there - groceries given to us, money dropped off for us, bills worked out without our knowing how, and so on and so forth.  A few of Christian and Ava's random ones to end

Chritian - blessed - "mom was excited bceas(because) Ava slesa(listened) and I Lesa(listened) with my lesaing(listening) ers(ears)."
Ava- blessed - "thankful for my little brother for now, Johnny S."
Christian - blessed "Danielle Loves Christian" and "my mom loves me" and "that Jesus died on the cross for my sins."
Ava - blessed - "I was excited I saw Westin"


Malachi 3:10
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

There are many more that were in our jar and many that never even made it to our jar. The Bible talks about blessings that will be more than we have room to store. I think that God has done as he has promised. We did test him this year in our hearts and in our ways and He truly flew open the floodgates and poured out his blessings upon us and our home. It didn't mean that it was easy, or that He even took away all the pain of life, but He sure did richly bless us. Micah was without a job for the majority of the year and yet, financially God took care of us.  Life this year was hard for many reasons, and yet, emotionally God carried us through.   It is amazing and humbling and truly Only GOD.  If we have trouble trusting God after this past year, then shame on us and we will never learn.  God is the one and only thing we need in this life.  He takes care of our every need.    Thank you Lord for all you do and thank you for being true and constant and always there for us.  We love you and owe it all to YOU!!!!

Friday, December 28, 2012

Christian's Abstract Thinking

We have all been sick in our home, just as every other home in America this Christmas.  Micah and I have bronchitis and fevers, and the kids are showing symptoms too.  As I was running our little foster guy to the doctor today, I checked and sure enough he and I were both running fevers. I knew that I had to make dinner and I decided to swing through and get McDonald's Chicken Nuggets for dinner to save me effort and energy.  
It was a win win situation with Christian as I knew it would be.  He as he was eating them, he stopped and said (with a great surprised look on his face) "mom, those chicken nuggets made the bad stuff go down and the good throat come back up!!!!"  I love how he thinks.  I guess he was saying the chicken nuggets felt good on his throat and belly.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Jim's Hot Pool - Christmas Eve

I have really been struggling lately with wanting to stick with traditions for my kids sake and making things consistent from year to year.  Then I realized I have spent a lot of my time worrying about cramming so much into everyday and every holiday that I forget to stop and just enjoy the moment. I started wondering if they felt it, if they felt the pressure I was putting on all of us to have fun.  The pressure was so much for me that I never really could enjoy what it was we were doing anymore anyway.  Something has to change.  I decided to take it day by day.  Enjoy the moment and live life day by day and not event by event that has to be done a certain way cause that is what we did last year. ;)  We started tonight. . ..

It is Christmas Eve 2012 and the kiddos are excited as they always are about Christmas. We got up and cleaned and organized because the next few days are crazy hectic as they are for everyone on Christmas.  My dad came up to eat dinner with us and then we did something really exciting. . something that I could easily make a habit of.  After dinner, we called our neighbor Jim and asked if he would mind if we came over and spent some time in his hot tub. . or "Jim's Hot Pool" as the kids refer to it.  He is so sweet and of course said yes, so now we had a plan.  The kids overheard my conversation with him on the phone and that was all it took.  They talked amongst themselves about it all day.  They were overly excited and hyper all evening anyway, as the snow was falling on the ground and giving us a nice White Christmas! 

My dad and I went over to prepare and then the Micah came running over in his swimming trunks and sandals carrying both kiddos so they wouldn't get their feet in the snow.  His feet were in some pretty severe pain by the time he arrived to the hot tub, but they soon warmed right back up in that hot water.  The water was so amazing and as I was sitting there in the hot tub with my family of four, I realized again how blessed I was.  The snow was lying on the ground and on the tree limbs and just made everything so pretty, soft and bright!  The world seemed to be quiet and asleep and here we were all in our own world of warmth while enjoying the freshly fallen snow.  Such an amazing experience.  The kids were so excited that they were bubbling over and just kept saying how much fun this was and thank you thank you.  It truly was a peaceful and beautiful moment that made my heart sing.  This past year, there have been many moments that I am walking through and though I am there for the moment, I often feel as though I am not really in the moment.  This special one caught me off guard though.  I didn't feel like I was outside of the moment at all, but rather I felt inside the moment all cuddled up with people I love with all of my heart. I am so grateful for my family and for all that God has blessed me with in my lifetime.  I am a blessed and happy woman on Christmas Eve 2012!!!!

Friday, December 14, 2012

Steeler Nation- and Pretzel Party!


 We had a little STEELER NATION get together at our house and while we were at it, we decided to throw some Aunty Anne's pretzels in the mix.  It was a blast, as per usual.  We had our little foster Guy, Johnny FIVE with us and we also had Julian over night that night too.  It was a great and busy night.  The kids were kept busy being entertained by dancing with Kelsey or making pretzels with Grandma.  Julian and Johnny met for the first time and they were not too sure what to think of each other, but Johnny sure did love being center of attention.  It was his first time meeting all the family and he warmed up to them quickly.  He was very happy to dance and entertain while in the middle of the living room.  Not a shy bone in his little body. 


Thursday, November 22, 2012

Christian Fathering Skills

I was having a random conversation with my little man and he asked me if I had the ring his daddy gave me on my finger still. I said that I did and he grabbed my hand and was examining my engagement and wedding ring.  Then he went on to inform me that when he gets grows up he is going to buy a ring like mine with "that white thing on it" (the diamond).  I told him that when he grew up he would have to get a job to make money so he could save for things like a ring for whatever girl he wanted to marry and a car.  He interrupted me and said,
"for my son?  So I can buy a car for my son?" then he went on to ramble and tell me, "if I grow up and up and up, I will buy my son toys and cars and he will like them and he will play with them. I will tell him he can't watch BAD movies and he will be sad and I will say I love him. He will go to his room to pout and I will put him on time out." He said this so matter of fact and I was impressed that he wanted to parent like us and he is sure his son will do exactly what he does and like exactly what he likes. I guess the thing that makes me happy is that he said he will tell his not to watch bad movies, instead of saying he will let him do whatever he wants to do.  Maybe he is understanding that we do what we do because we love him and not to hurt him.  I love how his brain works and when he has moments that he rambles about things, I feel like a get a glimpse of what is really going on in his little mind, a hint of how he is processing it all. :)

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Christian's Kindergarten Harvest Party

For Christian's Harvest party we had so many mothers' helping and a lot of them had kids on Christians soccer team.  The moms all donated food and we had SO MANY snacks that there were left overs to make snacks for the class for weeks to come. We started off with our food and snacks and then played some hot potato and hula hoop relays games.  Below is a shot of Christian posing with Jaden and Lexi, before starting on the games.  While playing Bingo, which was a huge hit, the prizes were a hit too.  Anna won a Bingo prize and she was very proud.  We also helped them make a photo frame they decorated themselves.  Then we got a group picture so the kids would have something to put into the frame and hang on their fridge.  Christian was blessed to have a great Kindergarten year with many of his friends in his class.  Anna Sullivan, Jaden Davis, Lexi Lawson and many more.  It ended up being a great first class party for the kids. 

Kindergarten was a fun year for little man.  We got to see him grow up so much and yet he still had so much further to go.  ;)  He did have a day that he actually punched a girl because his chair fell and she laughed and he thought she was laughing at him, so he punched her.  We had to have him write a note the girl (ended up being a girl named Emily) saying he was sorry for punching her.  He got a slip of paper home from school making us aware of what had indeed happened.  :(  The funny thing was that when we confronted him and tried to find out who he hit, he said, "um, the girl with the white squiggly hair."  We thought he was talking about Anna, so we immediately contacted the parents and were apologizing only to find out that it wasn't her. :)  What an event.  Kindergarten is quite the experience for us and Christian. :)

Ava's 1st Grade Harvest Party

 Harvest Class Party for 1-4. . .Ava's 1st Grade Class. The kids were very excited!!! They couldn't wait to see what they were going to be doing.  When we got there, we started with a fun craft where they put together a foam turkey on a paper plate.  The kids loved this activity and Mrs. Brubaker was still there to help because she hadn't gone on maternity leave yet.  Above Ava is getting assistance from her favorite teacher, Mrs. Brubaker.  The finished product turned out great.  Then they went on to do a dance line around the room to get rid of some of their energy.  They were practicing cheers and break dancing as a class too.  The girl sitting across from Ava at the desks was her best friend Jennifer.  Jennifer was in her Kindergarten class and her first grade class. :)

 We did manage to capture a group picture at the end of the party.  The kids were so funny and were all too busy to catch them all looking at the camera at once. :)  They did have a good group this year though.  Kylan and Trevor were the two boys that loved to fight over who was going to marry Ava.  She told them they had to bring her a ring before she would agree to marry them.  They both chased her at recess too. :)  Ava's Best Friends in Frist grade were Jennifer and Uriska!

 

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Christian's Short Stories

On the first day of school, we got a special note from the teacher and she was saying how she had to make a small correction with Christian that day.  Apparently, he was in the front of the line and while in the hall, he turned around to yell at the kids behind him to "GET IN LINE" She thought this was kind of cute but had to correct him, so she asked him who was in charge here.  He looked at her so seriously and said, "ME & YOU". . .she said she was trying not to laugh as she had to correct him and tell him exactly who was the teacher.  The next morning, before he went to school, we asked him who was in charge.  He said, "Mrs. Boward."  Then he said, "I tried to be the teacher, but she told me to get in line!" :)

Christian - "mom, I got my star flipped today."
Mom - "Christian, what did you do?  Why did she have you flip your star."
Christian - "because I had to throw the pieces across the room."
Appears to me that sometimes the compulsion of doing what you want to do even when you know it is wrong, is worth the consequences because you just have to do it!  Hopefully he learns his lessons before he grows up. :)  He knew his star would be flipped but for some reason it was a necessity to throw those pieces.  Sorry Mrs. Boward.

At the kitchen table one morning, Christian and Westin were having a conversation.  Westin asked Christian why Ava didn't like school.  Christian said, "Well, Ava is just SCARED of school."

I was helping in Christian's class the other day and his teacher asked him why he had an ice pack in his mail box.  I listened as he explained it was from the nurses' office.  She reminded him that he was not to take the ice packs home and where to put them so they would get back to the nurse.  When we got home, I asked him why he was at the nurses' office?  He said he fell on his butt while running at Recess so he needed to get "fixed up"  I started questioning him and here come to find out he must visit the nurses' office frequently.  Anyone who knows Christian very well knows he ALWAYS has some sort of boo boo or reason to "need to be fixed up." as he calls it.  So what I realized is my son, the boy full of ailments, goes to the nurses' office for band aids and ice packs quite often.  I love that boy!!! I tried to explain it to him, that if he is not bleeding he or something isn't broken, he doesn't need the nurse but I am pretty sure that when I am not there to help him make those judgement calls, he will feel that anything warrants him the right to the nurse. :)

Christian's teacher pulled me a side the other day and asked me if I had issues with Christian paying attention, and if when he was asked questions did he give appropriate responses that made sense. I had to chuckle as I shared that yes this was an issue for us too.  I told her he was easily distracted and by that I meant, when carrying a toy from the living room to his room on a mission to put it away, he may stop and be distracted multiple times on the way back the hall.  :)  She said okay and that she was wondering if it was just with her or when he was in trouble.  Then she went on to share with me that the other day, she moved him to the front of the carpet so he wouldn't be distracted by the kids in front of him, but she thinks he may have seen it as a privilege. I laughed and told her that yes, he did think it was a privilege because he came home so excited and said, "mommy, Mrs. Boward moved me to the front of the carpet!! Aren't you proud of me?!?"  :)  Micah says at least we know he will be easy to please for his employer someday!!

Ever since school started Christian is working so hard at learning.  He LOVES learning which I wasn't sure whether he would or not.  He gets mad when Ava has homework and he doesn't and he cries when we have a day off.  We actually have found that the most effective threaten of punishment is to tell him if he doesn't stop, we won't let him go to school the next day.  It works every time!  So different than his sister.  He had his first sick day from school the other day and he cried because he didn't want to stay home with us, he wanted to go to school with Ava. :( He makes me smile all the time.  He is simply HIM!!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tresure Hunt With My Pirates

Hurricane Sandy gave Ava and Christian two days off school.  This was fantastic for us since we didn't get home from Hilton Head until really late Sunday night.  Pappy spent the night Sunday into Monday which was exciting in itself but then he had to go home and make sure Grandma Hunsberger was taken care of, so we spent the rest of Monday hanging out as a family and just cleaning up and unpacking after the mini vacation from Andy and Michele's Wedding.

So, needless to say, the kids had lots of energy and playing outside wasn't the greatest option at the time.  We decided to play pirates and make up our very own piratey adventure.  We started by making a flag for our ship (Christian's bed was our ship) and by making a Treasure Map.  We even burnt the edges and corners a bit of the map to make it look cooler and more realistic.
 
 
We started off in the BOAT and our goal was to find the Treasure!  There was a pirate after us, a Mean one and his name was Pirate Petey.  While we were out on the water, we came across a message in a bottle.  The message in a bottle lead us to a clue in the tub, "mossy alligator swamp" and there we found a clue that took us to the Pirate Snack Shack where we had golden NUGGETS (tator tots) Ava read all the clues and Christian helped us figure them out.  Finally, the last clue was behind one of the deer heads hanging in Christian's room, (the enchanted forest) and as it read, it lead us to God's Word which was daddy's Bible. 
The kids knew right where daddy kept his Bible so they ran in and there was the final part.   A bag of Treasure and a piece of paper that is pictured below.  There were some golden coined candies and some mints and other piratey treasures.  Then as the kids were eating their hard earned treasure, we read the verse about storing our treasures and talked about where God wants us to store our treasures.  This was such a fun activity and as you can see, the kids were most def. in character. :)  We had so much fun.  After dinner that evening, the kids performed a small dinner theater as they walked Grandma, Pappy and Daddy through the adventure and lead them to the treasure. Every clue we found, Christian would try and read out loud like Ava had earlier but he kept saying in a loud voice, "and now find daddy's bible!"  This made Ava so mad cause he was "ruining" it for her.  So funny.   At the very end we asked them what they were thinking, if they wanted treasure on Heaven or Earth, Ava wanted treasure in Heaven, but Christian said he still wanted candy for now!!!!  We did have so much fun though. 
 
 

Monday, October 29, 2012

Hurricane Sandy - Frankenstorm

We have never had a storm that has hit so hard as the storm that hit this year, October 2012.  The name she went by was Hurricane Sandy (some called her Frankenstorm) and she was said to be 800 miles WIDE!  She was a raging storm and we had days to prepare, not knowing what exactly we were preparing for but knowing it was going to hit hard.  The predictions were so huge that the schools across a rather large region closed on Monday and Tuesday of that week.  We were away for Andy and Michele Burge's wedding in Hilton Head, South Carolina when we first were warned of the crazy approaching storm.  We considered staying an extra day because we were afraid we were going to be traveling through the storm to get home.  However, we decided to leave on Sunday and take our chances.  The weather was rather nice for the first 10 hours of the trip and then we did manage to run into some rain but nothing more than we have driven through on a regular stormy day.  The one thing that we were told by numerous people was to grab some extra jugs of water and non perishable food.  They were calling for power to be possibly out for days, so while we were traveling we stopped in Virginia to get some water at a local Wal-Mart.  The water aisle was bare. . .  .leaving only a few seltzer waters on the shelf.  It was a little alarming to see that but then we were told the local Rutter's up the road form our house had water still. 

We got home at 11:30ish that Sunday evening and immediately started to prepare.  We all bathed and got all clean so we could be clean to start our week without power. ;)  Then we filled the bath tub full of hot water so we could have water to flush toilets in case the power went out.  I filled a bunch of plastic containers with water and put them all in the freezer so they would freeze and then help pack them around the meat in the freezer so they would hopefully prolong the meat if we were out of power for awhile.  Then we tried to make sure we had flash lights and candles near and off to bed we went.  The next day we watched the news as the storm was rapidly approaching.  We kept waiting to lose power.  Christian finally got tired of waiting with us and went to bed.  Around 9:30 Monday evening we lost power.  The wind was howling around outside and it was making quite the ruckus.  The darkness was so dark and took us awhile to get the candles and flashlights, but then it was fine. 

Micah heard something downstairs so we went over to check it out. I walked around the corner and there he stood at the top of the stairs and he was scared.  He kept hollering, "Hello?" and then I started panicking.  He said, "the garage door is open" and sure enough, the door that went from the downstairs room into the garage was wide open!!!  I grabbed two LARGE knives and down the stairs we started, candles in one hand and knives in the other.  We went through the entire basement and then once we realized there was no intruders, we investigated the door.  Seems the pressure from the outside wind on the house had knocked the not so latched door open.  Made some sense but still rather scary.  After this, we prayed through the house and then went to bed. 


The most inconvenient part was that without power, our noise makers didn't work, so we had no white noise to sleep to. . . .making the wind sound so much worse, as we were falling asleep.  However, the next morning, 13 hours later, the power came back on.  We lost nothing food wise from freezer or fridge and we were so grateful for our power to be back.  We were blessed to also have no damage, but there were many that around us that did and we continue to think of them and try to rebuild.  Crazy when you think that the storms always seem to hit elsewhere and then all at once, they seem to be hitting us here more and more frequently. Grateful God kept us all safe. :)

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Aunty One-L Ties the Knot - Finale

When the Limo dropped us off at the church, we had to sneak in the side entrance so Andrew wouldn't be able to see Michele.  They snuck us in, and that is when the little glitch happened.  The one that almost did it.  Michele had been working with her florist for months trying to come up with what they wanted as the bouquets and the centerpieces on the tables.  The flowers were one of her most important details she was worried about.  The florist called her and said she had it figured out and she would drop the flowers off at the church Sunday morning.  The moment I walked around the corner to where the flowers were awaiting us, I knew and so did Melissa.  They were not right and they were NOT what Michele was envisioning.  She was pretty upset and she was emotionally intense at that moment anyway, five minutes before the wedding started.  Gary came back and had a pep talk to with her and then I had my chance. I reminded her that even if the flowers were ugly, and they were not, that it still wouldn't change what was about to happen.  She was about to walk down that aisle to marry her best friend and vow to spend the rest of her life with him and making a life with him.  That was why she was there and that was why he was there and why the rest of us were there to witness it.  She had finally made it!  She was getting ready to see her dreams come true right that very moment and No one and Nothing could take that from her!  We both cried of course and then dabbed our tears and she got ready to walk down the aisle to marry the man she had been praying for and waiting for years!  I was so proud of her and her attitude!  Everything was perfect!
 
 
 
Waiting to walk down the aisle. . minutes before our processional music starts.  Even captured the pep talk from Melissa, Gary and Tyler. :)  Oh, and Andy PRETENDING he was trying to get away. hahah

Mr. and Mrs. Andrew BURGE!!!!!

 

 On our way to the reception. . but wedding picture first.  The ceremony was a beautiful one and very well done.  There was crying, laughing and all the typical wedding stuff.  Then they were announced as man and wife after a long ROMANTICAL Kiss and then off to see them to the limo with their streamers. :)  Everyone else headed to the reception for cocktail hour as we headed off to face hurricane Sandy head on and get our bridal party shots! :)  So grateful for Micah, Brianna and Ryan who took the kiddos on to the reception and entertained them for the hour or so it took for us to get there. The photo shoot took awhile but was actually really fun and we all enjoyed the drama as we were trying to get clearances to get into the one part of the area we were suppose to get pictures done with.  Because of the extra crazy weather, we didn't get everything done we wanted, but we ended up getting some nice shots. :)
 
Then off to the reception!  Finally to eat and give our toasts.  I was really anxious cause Melissa had written her speech out and I had just thought about it a lot but not actually written it down. :)  I winged it but it was fun and I think Andy and Michele appreciated our speeches of how much we loved them and how much they meant to us.
 
What a Great Day October 27, 2012 was. . I saw One-Ls dreams come TRUE!  Yayy! Love ya girl!!!  Congrats to Mr and Mrs. Andrew Burge!