I look at this picture of a sweet little girl.  No baby for sure anymore.  Her personality is the best! She is by far the sweetest human being I have ever known.  She makes me smile each and every day and I adore her.  Thank you God for blessing us with Taydem. 


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Lots of Laughs

This past Friday night we headed over to Shreveport to watch an 80's band.  Good times for sure.  This is a picture of Danin and I before we left hotel:

And this is a picture of us in the club.  Obviously something was pretty funny here. I have no idea what and I'm not even sure who took this picture with my phone:

 

I can't remember if I posted this picture of Taydem and I.  But we did a mask last week and she thought it was the funniest thing in the word.  She thought she was so scary! Girls are too fun!

And here's one of my favorite pictures of my nephews Aidan and Ashby:

Leven started his volleyball camp today down in Carthage.  He had around 57 girls show up to attend his camp.  Awesome number for sure! I just hate it because he is having to drive to and from Carthage every day.  Our house needs to freakin sell! It's so frustrating for sure.  We are headed to Mexia this Friday to visit with Leven's Mom and Dad and Gwen! Keep his Mom in your prayers still.  She said each day is getting somewhat better without Mike, but it's still hard.  Also keep Leven and I in your prayers. We need this house SOLD!

What a Week

As you can imagine, this week I have been super busy at work.  Vacation is good, but sucks when you get back to work.  So much to catch up on. So I am just now blogging for the first time since our trip to Tennessee.  It was fast, busy and beautiful! Leven loved it.  Cold rivers, good country food, Smokey Mountains, Tennessee Volleyball, etc.  Leven and I headed out after I got off work on Friday.  We wanted to drive as close to Nashville as possible.  We ended up getting in bed around 3:00 am.  There was a huge wreck 10 miles from our hotel and we were completely shut down for over an hour.  So.......that made for a long trip up.  We woke up bright and early Saturday morning and drove about 20 more miles to Nashville! Neither one of us had ever been and we can't wait to go back! We were only there for about an hour and go back on the road headed towards Knoxville.

We stopped in Knoxville at the Universtiy of Tennessee so Leven could finally meet one of the volleyball coaches he had been in contact with for a few months.  While we were there, they asked him to come back and help coach their team camp! Super cool and he jumped on it.  So Leven actually worked while on vacation!

We finally made it to my Meme's Maryville home around 4 that evening.  Everyone was already there and had settled in.  We have a big family whom I love dearly. But let's just say that after 5 days, we were all getting a little tired of each other.  It's so much harder now with all of our kids.  We stayed in Maryville for two nights then headed to our Gatlinberg home for two more nights.  We swam in the cold Tennessee rivers, drove through Cade's Cove (http://www.nps.gov/grsm/planyourvisit/cadescove.htm) and had a picnic while we were there, spent a day at Dollywood, walked around downtown Gatlinberg, ate good, and our parents even babysat the kids our last night there so we could all go out together! Fun fun! Here are some of my favorite pics from the trip:

Smokey Mountain

We leave for Tennessee tomorrow afternoon.  My parents left this morning and my 3 siblings and their families will all leave out sometime tomorrow afternoon as well.  Leven and I are taking the northern route while all of them will drive the southern route.  Leven and I are going to spend some of Saturday in Nashville and then head on over to Knoxville and check out the University of Tennessee campus.  These past few months Leven and the volleyball coach have been in contact with each other over one of Leven's ex players.  So Leven is going to try and set up a time to meet this coach and get a tour of the gym.  I would love to run into Pat Summitt!! Wouldn't that be cool? Knoxville and Maryville are less than an hour away from each other so our final stop will be in Maryville with the rest of the clan.  My Meme and Papaw grew up in the hills of the Smokey Mountains in East Tennessee.  The last time I went up there was about 9 years ago for my cousins wedding.  So it's been awhile.  Leven has never been and of course, neither has Taydem.  While I am so excited for Leven to finally come up there with me, he's not as excited! I know him and I know what he likes.  He's going to love it up there.  If anything, it beats this 100 degree humidity down here in Texas. We will spend Sunday visiting with all my dad's cousins.  Monday we will head towards Gatlinberg and visit DollyWood one day, Cade's Cove (have a picnic) one day and then spend extra time site seeing around the city.  Leven made reservations for Orange Beach on Thursday and Friday.  So if the weather holds up, we will head south and let Taydem get wet and wild in the gulf. Oh and me too of course! Road trippin' here we come.  I am going to try and do my best and take tons of pictures of our entire time. Pray for our safety while traveling and pray to keep those bears away! 

Oh, we decided to list our house with a realtor! Pray that my SIL Chrissy can get our house sold ASAP! Time to get things moving forward for us. I have idea after idea running throught my head on what I want this new house to look like.  I'm ready to get it down on paper.

Get it TayTay

My goal for this fall is to get my daughter in dance or gymnastics! This child cracks us up. After watching her dance like this, Leven looks at me and says, "there's something wrong with our daughter!" So enjoy her little hip hop routine and her own sound effects! Yo ma ma!

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What I'm Lovin'

I was home sick today with strep throat. In the middle of summer. Go figure. I'm glad I went to the doc though bc we leave for Tennessee in Friday. Feeling much better tonight than last night for sure.

My friend Amanda is a blogger and one of her weekly posts is "What I'm Lovin Wednesdays." So I'm gonna do the same tonight.

Bought this hair removal creme today and it really works! Upper lip hair is gone!!


This shampoo and conditioner is my fav at the moment!


Roll on perfumes. Great for your purse, work or car!


Leave in conditioner! This is the best out there. My sis told me about this spray! Great for your hair if you use tons of heat.


My niece, Brittyn!! Love that cheesin'!


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Finally Friday

We had a wonderful time yesterday out on the lake.  We have really enjoyed having Ann stay with us for a couple of days.  She is very interested in buying my parents lake house! She was so excited after seeing it Wednesday night.  She is headed back today and she said the first thing she's going to do is put her house up for sale. 

 

I had to come back into work this morning and stay until noon.  I'm actually the only one here and it's so quiet. Weird.  We are going to head back to the lake this evening for the firework show.  I have a lady interested in our house! She is going to call me later on today and hopefully come by tomorrow to look at it. Pray pray pray that she's the one! I'm so tired of getting my hopes up.

Buddy loves getting on top of the chairs like this! This cat is crazy.

Last weekend we had my niece Austyn come stay with us.  Here are a few pictures with her.

My dad's garden is big and beautiful again this year.  He's so proud of it and he should be! The watermelon was juicy and sweet! I love summer.

Us three went to the movies and watched the new superman show.  By the way.....awesome movie! Taydem didn't like it so much.  Happy Friday! Have safe weekend!

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Happy Independence Day

Excited to have Leven's Momma come stay with us for a couple of days.  She's going to come out to the lake with us tomorrow and do some relaxing.  Taydem can't wait to see her Grans! She wants Grans to sleep in her bed with her but I'm thinking Grans will want her own! It'salways nice to have a day off from work.  These past few days have been super busy for me so I'm ready for the lake myself.  But then I have to come back into work on Friday! Ugh!
Last night we headed over to Tyler Junior College to watch some of Leven's "new" girls play some volleyball.  TJC has been having Open Gym on Tuesday nights for some of the high school girls to come play with some of the college girls.  I haven't seen any of his team so I jumped on the chance to ride over with him. He had about 15 girls show up which is awesome! He didn't know how many would drive all that way and he was very pleased.   He's going to have 8 seniors his first year.  That's always tough.  And one of these seniors is a beast!! All his younger girls are pretty good themselves so that gives him something to look forward too.  I'm excited for August and getting back in the gym to watch some games!
Tonight at choir practice at the church we are practicing for our huge 4th of July performace that we are doing this Sunday.  I get excited when we sing songs I love! I love to sing harmony!

I'm ready for the sun! The water! The beach volleyball! Wind in my face! Food and drinks in my tummy! Fireworks! Spending time with family and friends!

Happy 4th of July folks!

4th of July pics from 4 years ago!

Pray for this sweet girl

Please take a few minutes and read the blog I have listed below:

http://ashleyadamsjournal.blogspot.com/

This is the story and life of Ashley Adams.  Ashley's older sister, Allie, was on my club volleyball team a couple of years ago and her older brother, Blake, has played baseball and basketball with Trever the past couple of years. Sweet sweet family! Allie and Blake are the kindest kids ever.  Their mother has been keeping up with this blog since Ashley was a baby.  She will turn 8 at the end of the summer.  I pray every night for healing for this precious girl and strength for their family.  I ask that you do as well.  I love reading her mother's words. Wow! Such a gifted writer.  I love all the emotion she pours into every blog and the love for her family.  Keep Ashley on your prayer list.....

Happy Tuesday!