And So It Begins....

Destruction!!!!

Maybe we can plant a little flower on top until it gets leveled out?? It could be a new trend, perhaps!! Hahaha....oh the memories :)

Highs & Lows

Oh yeah....I have a blog. I had nearly forgotten :) I've been meaning to write for a while but honestly have been too lazy because.....

I'M ON SUMMER BREAK!!!

I know, I know...It's not fair to all of you who still have to work when it's 90 degrees while I'm hanging out at the pool, getting a tan, enjoying the sunshine with youth group girls. :) Anyways, enough about that, I thought I would give a quick synopsis of the last few weeks. We've had some highs and some lows in our week.

Highs:

*Senior's Night Out with our graduating seniors!!
*Sleeping in!!
*Running every day at the beautiful park in town
*My flowers are beautiful!! I will post pictures as soon as some more blossom :)
*Being able to stay up late without having to get up early!

Lows:

*Saying goodbye to our seniors...it was more sad than I envisioned it would be
*Last youth group for the year
And now...to the most significant low that has been occupying our time:

Remember the "little water damage" that I blogged about? Well, unfortunately, we found out it isn't such a little problem. We have a tree root in our sewer line and because of the extent of it, we will need to rip up our front yard and install a new sewer line.

We just looked at each other with complete shock because we will need to completely remove our beautiful plants we planted last year, our yard will be a mess until grass grows again and, of course, the money issue involved in fixing it. As any couple would be, we were sooooo discouraged. However, a few days later, I had this overwhelming calm feeling about the whole thing. I kept thinking "It's only material things...It can be replaced."

So, as we go into the process of watching our front yard be destroyed, I pray that I would remember how trivial of a thing it really is and how in the long run, it won't matter :)

There you have it.....the post I should have written a week ago! :)

Sadie to the Rescue!!!!

A big shout out to my courageous dog for saving our basement from major flooding action!!! She truly rescued our carpet today!! I was sitting at the desk in our basement and was just about to hang up picture frames to decorate when I decided I missed my dog. I ran upstairs and enthusiastically said, "Sadie, you wanna go downstairs??" Wagging her tail, she ran down the stairs as fast as her little Basset Hound legs could go and instantly started sniffing the frames I was about to hang up.

Suddenly, however, her nose shifted to another scent. I ignored her for a while until I heard her licking our carpet! I looked over to see her licking and sniffing a gigantic puddle of water on our nice new carpet! I, of course, freaked out and ran to our laundry room where the main drain is. Completely flooded. Ahhhhh!! I think about a 1/4 of our basement had water on the floor so I ran up to get Aaron. We spent the next few hours trying to clean it up...the fans are still going but we don't think anything is ruined!!

BUT, the moral of this post is to say that Sadie definitely saved the day because the water wasn't visible right away and I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed it that soon! A few hours later and the whole thing could have been flooded! Thank you, Sadie!

Week of Goodbyes

Today was my last day of school and I said goodbye to 20 little adorable preschoolers that I have spent the last 8 months with. I'm not usually a crier so I was okay until I saw a parent shedding a tear and I choked up for a second.

I'll miss the little girl that told me, "I didn't know you had a friend!" or the little girl that said "If you don't brush your teeth at the right time you get bacteria!" I'll even miss the boy that for the last few weeks has been a behavior problem and could probably take me down if he wanted to (oh, did I mention he is only 4? Ha!)

I will miss them but today I said "goodbye". Another year is done, another chapter is written, and I will move on to summer adventures!

It wouldn't be so bad if I just had to say goodbye to my preschool students but the goodbye I'm not looking forward to is saying goodbye to our high school seniors that are graduating this Sunday. This is one of our first graduating classes in youth ministry and we have seen them grow so much over the last 2 years!

These 5 students are so special to us and we really can't imagine youth group without them! Sunday is going to be a sad day but I pray that we will still be an encouragement to them even though they will be far away at college! Well, I must go...I'm working on a graduation video for Sunday and should probably focus on that so I don't get the pictures mixed up! :)

Plants

One thing I've been wanting to blog about is how much Aaron and I have become plant lovers. Aaron especially but I'm getting up there with my love for plants. Last year we took on the job of landscaping our yard. A friend from church was getting rid of some extra plants and offered us BEAUTIFUL plants to put in our landscaping plans. A week ago they shot up and add so much to our yard. This week we rearranged, planted new, and thinned out plants. It feels so good to get down and dirty with plants!

The funniest thing we planted new this year was a weeping mulberry tree. What happens when your neighbor adds on to their house and puts in a window that looks into your "secluded" backyard? Well, we planted a tree. However, from the looks of it, we don't have our privacy back quite yet.
Maybe in a year...it's supposed to get leaves pretty soon. This tree is like a miniature weeping willow..it will only get 6 feet high but if unkept, will look like a creature. Hmm..I think with my talented and tidy husband it will never look like a monster but that is something we have to be careful with.

Here are a few other fun things in our yard that are blooming right now:

Fresh Lilacs...Mmm, I love the smell!

Crab Apple Tree
Thank you to the former residents of our house that planted this gorgeous tree in our front yard!

Dwarf Flowering Almond

Purpleleaf Sand Cherry

Honesty and Painted Room

What a blogging title :) Let me explain though. Honesty: I've been a really bad blogger lately and it has alot to do with my attitude. It isn't that I haven't had anything to blog about, it's more I've been frustrated in the things I have to blog about. As I read countless other blogs/facebooks about people who have already started a family and have a cute baby to write about, I started getting down and not wanting to blog or facebook because I thought, "What is the point? I don't have a family." I feel so behind as I watch my friends announce pregnancy after pregnancy on facebook. As happy as I am for them, it has been hard on me lately and I haven't been wanting to blog.

However, I wouldn't be blogging if I wasn't working on this attitude of mine. I want to be content. I want to be happy in the exact place and time in my life that God has me right now. I am choosing to be content and I am choosing to accept God's will for my life. And, even though I'm in tears right now, I WILL be content.

In a strange shift, I didn't want to just end on a bad note so I wanted to leave you with a picture of my finished extra bedroom that I have made my scrapbooking/random room. The lighting makes it look yellow but it is actually a brown color.