Spring in Tennessee

Here is my synopsis of a normal spring in Tennessee...

April's crazy weather brings powerful tornadoes,

(hail outside our house during Good Friday storms)

May brings buckets and buckets of rain, (this picture was found on the internet, but happens a lot on campus where I work)

Brings June flowers, 85-90+ degree weather (with 90%+ humidity), and afternoon thunderstorms.



I wrote this post a month or two ago and forgot to post it so now it's the end of July, when it is usually mid to upper 90's(or hotter), and we are having unseasonably cool weather (70-80's) and relatively low humidity! We better enjoy it while it lasts... August is just around the corner!! Despite our crazy weather, I still enjoy each of our distinct seasons!

These are a few of my favorite things!

Of course I couldn't pick just one!!! After browsing pictures on my computer for a while, I finally just picked the one of each of my nieces and nephews that jumped out at me most, old or recent...

This is Josh last October:

Here is Jade on Memorial Day of this year, it took her a while to finally get situated on that float!

This is Ben enjoying a ice cream pop on 4th of July this year, pretty much every picture of Ben is my favorite because it is so hard to get any!

This is Grace two years ago on Memorial Day, she and Ben had a blast in that little pool!!

Sydney REALLY enjoyed her ice cream pop too!

This is Samuel wearing Chris' Titan's Santa hat on his first Christmas, this is probably one of my all-time favorite pictures!!

This is also one of my favorite pictures of Alexander, it's from a visit to Mimi and Paps' house back when he still lived in NC.

This is a picture of Colin from about a month ago when he was four months old... all smiles :)


Aren't these the CUTEST kids you've ever seen!!! :)

I HEART My Wedding Dress!!

I L.O.V.E. my wedding dress!!! Chris and I have been married three and a half years and I joke with my him all the time about wanting to wear my dress again... of course not because I want to get married again, but because I love it so much!! When I started looking for my dress I knew I wanted something simple but not boring, and I think I found the perfect combination for me!!! It's a shame we spend so much on our wedding dress but only get to wear it once :( Another great thing about my dress was that it needed ZERO altering, how's that for some luck!!

Here is a view of the back as I am going to see Chris for the first time on our wedding day!

You can see a little of the detail on the back here, it laced up and had just the right amount of beading on the back!

This is probably my favorite picture from our wedding, not really sure why but I just love it! This was right after the ceremony.

Some of the bead work on the front... which I also loved!

It also had just the right amount of bead work going down the front of the left side.


Away we go!!


I hope you all like your wedding dress as much as I like mine!! Head on over to Kelly's Korner to check out some more beautiful wedding dresses!

FINALLY...

a trip to the lake!

My mom, dad, Allison, Jade, and I want to the lake last weekend! It was the first time I had been in several years and I was so excited to finally get to go (despite the overcast weather and chilly water!!) All of these pictures are with my cell phone so they are horrible quality, but later this summer we plan on taking a better camera.

The only good way to get in the water when it is cold is to just go for it and jump in... Dad's got pretty nice form:

Jade had fun playing on the knee board, she would swim out and make granny pull her in.

It's hard to tell but that is dad skiing, I think he was sore the next day!

That's me, I knew I would be sore if I did too much so I took it easy!

Allison found this bottle of Tylenol on the boat...

Good thing none of us got a headache, it expired in December of 1996!!


Allison and Jade relaxing on the front of the boat.

This is Jade trying to keep her hair from flying all over the place when we were on our way back to the marina.

Allison, Jade, and I almost back to the marina after a fun day at the lake!

Hopefully we will make it back a few more times this summer so Jade can learn to ski and knee board.

4th of July

Chris got up REALLY early and went with a friend to run a 10k in Manchester. Once he got home we made our way over to his parent's house for some lunch. After some good food and fellowship the kids were ready to play in the sprinkler! They were all a little hesitant at first, but most of them warmed up to it after a few minutes.

I think Ben definitely enjoyed it the most!!

This pose cracks me up... I'm not sure Samuel even got his little toe wet!!

Double trouble turns to...

TRIPLE trouble!!!

Gracie had fun cooling off in the sprinkler too!

Caught in the act: mean 'ole dad holding Alexander in the water!

Sydney kept a safe distance and MAY have gotten one foot wet.

too cute :)

Russy's turn... we had to stop him before he broke it!

Josh giving Ben a good hose down before calling it quits.

Mimi brought all the kids ice cream treats so they left the sprinkler to water the grass (and it did a pretty good job!)

Treat time-- I think it's safe to say they enjoyed them, as I am sure you could tell by the chocolate ALL over their faces!!





This is one of the best pictures I have EVER gotten of Ben, he usually avoids the camera!

Sydney VERY slowly ate all the chocolate from the outside and then decided she was through; a girl after my own heart!


A trip to Mimi and Paps' house is not complete without blowing a few bubbles... I love the concentration Alexander has as he was trying to demonstrate to Samuel how to blow the bubbles properly!


Colin mostly hung around inside where it was nice and cool, he is getting too big!!

Josh and his girlfriend Nikki playing a little soccer while the little kids ate their ice cream. Aren't they sweet...

Brian's mother was in town to visit and spend some quality time with her grandchildren. She has a picture similar to this holding Alexander so she wanted one with Colin too.

Ben and Alexander decided to join in the soccer fun!

Chris' uncle Wayne came up to visit too but I didn't get any pictures! He doesn't get to come very often, so I know everyone enjoyed chatting with him. We had a great time visiting and watching the kids play.

After leaving, we loaded up and headed to Matt and Allison's house down by the lake. Matt and his family have had a 4th of July fish fry for as long as I can remember! It was always so much fun to play with Matt, his brother, and all my cousins out on the farm. They have a beautiful waterfall on their property and everyone takes turns making trips back there. It is fun to see the next generation (I can't believe I just said that) enjoy it like we did. Since we got there pretty late (and since I knew Allison had taken 1,000,000 pictures), I only pulled out the camera for the fireworks!

This is my cousin Jasmine (she won 1st place at her local 4th of July beauty pageant-way to go!!), she was really waving that sparkler (and REALLY scaring her grangi {grandmother})!


Ethan playing with a sparkler.



I thought this picture of Jana and her sparkler turned out really neat!!




As always the guys put on a great fireworks show! I hope everyone took time to remember how lucky we are to live in America and have the freedom that we have!!