July 4th Celebration!!

We enjoyed a fun 4th at Newnan High School for the fireworks!!

Our little family! :)

We met up with some friends from church

Isiah and his American Bald Eagle Face painting!!

Chase, Jenna, and Lexi wearing their glow in the dark accessories!!
Chase's earrings, Jenna's bracelets, and Lexi's necklace

Chase's earrings finally glowing!!

The fireworks finally started a little after 9pm / and that's about the time the rain started to sprinkle....

I managed to get a few pictures before the bottom dropped and

 we were drenched in a matter of seconds!! :)

Here we are back at the Tahoe:

At least we're all still smiling!!

 All in All it was a great day celebrating America's Independence Day!!

Our Sweet Elyn Grace

We have a friend that is starting to learn photography, and she has taken some great pictures of 3 of our grandkids! She went to church with Nathan and Hester and has watched the kids grow, so when Hester found out she was into photography, she had her take some pictures of the kids! Well, when we knew Brittany, she was just a little girl, so after seeing the wonderful pictures she did of Jacob, Kinley, and Elyn...I decided to have her take some pictures of Tommy, Chase and I...unfortuantely her camera was broken at camp, so we had to put off our shoot for another time! Hopefully soon, but last night I happened to be on her facebook page and she had uploaded this new picture of our granddaughter Elyn! It is just so precious I had to share it! I just love it!! :)

Is she precious or what??

LIFE...As We Know It!!

Life as we know it seems to be constantly changing these days!! I suppose most people would think that things go on as usual, but for us there has been several changes that have affected us and it seems as life as we know it...is changing!!

What changes you ask?

• for starters our baby girl is a Sophomore in high school and is learning to drive!! This has been a huge change, I never drive anymore, if Chase is with me, she wants to drive and since my ride is the Tahoe, when Tommy is with us, he of course wants to drive!!

• Chase is growing up so fast and I have to admit....Mom is going through "Empty Nest Syndrome" just a little early! I did the same thing when Matthew moved out too and I still had Chase, so as you can imagine this is harder, but Thank you Lord, I still have several more years to enjoy my daughter at home, and when the time comes I will send her off to college and be happy for her (I will only cry when she is not around) lol! I tell her it's her fault she is such a good kid, and funny too!! We have such a great time just the 3 of us! Tommy found some Lone Ranger movies on sale at Target for $1.99 and he and Chase stay up late and watch them, she only does it to humor him, but it's cute!! He has started to call her Tonto because she's his side kick, and she calls him Kemo Sabe...which funny enough means "trusted friend" in Native American...and her daddy is definitely her trusted friend!  Some other changes are that Chase has taken on the responsibility of doing the laundry! It's been a huge help to me, when she's home that is...Chase's schedule is pretty full with band practice and such, but she has had the last 2 weeks to play too and she has taken full advantage of having no band!!

Swimming with friends every chance she gets!

Underwater picture...Too Cool!! :)

Six Flags with Friends!

Just hanging out with friends at the house!

and last but not least playing with her nieces and nephews
this is a sweet picture of Aunt Chase and Elyn on Father's day weekend!

• Another change this month has been that our Minister of Music at LBC resigned effective the end of May, so since Tommy has led music in the past, he has decided with the permission of the church to lead the music until a Music Minister could be found...We don't know how long that will be, and besides being totally exhausted on Sundays from handling all the music as well as preaching the sermon, Tommy really has enjoyed being involved in the music! He loves to sing and I think he has missed singing!! He is trying to build the choir up and he is even getting the kids involved coming up to do a song on Sunday mornings every now and then! Tommy started the first Sunday in June leading the music. The next Sunday we found out that our piano player had been diagnosed with detached retina, so she had to have surgery and was going to be out for a few Sundays. We are very fortunate to know several woman that play piano, so I contacted a girl (woman now) that was in our youth group years ago, and she was available to play for us the past 2 Sundays! We are just so grateful to Afton and her husband Doug for making the trip to Luthersville to play for us! It was a great joy to have a former youth to come and play and to see her with her husband and children and how she is serving the Lord! What a blessing for Tommy and I and her playing was a blessing for our church as well! Tommy has also recruited our Student Pastor's wife, Dana to play her flute, she does wonderful solos, as well as accompanying the piano, she has been a great addition to the music program and I hope she continues to play for us!! :)

These are not all the children at LBC, these are just the ones we could coax up on stage!

This is our Adult choir with Tommy leading! Looking Good! :)

Dana accompanying Afton with her flute

Dana's solo...very beautiful!

Thanks again Afton and Doug for coming out to LBC to play for us!
We appreciate you more than you know!! :)

• As for me...the first of June I started teaching the 4th - 6th grade SS class...I have always said that I didn't want to actually teach a class because I am not a teacher, but I am really enjoying this class! I enjoy studying the lesson, finding new ways to share the lesson each week, and fun ways to make SS enjoyable as well as the kids learning God's Word. It's been fun! I had a slight set back this week. However, this is only a temporary change thank goodness! I started having some dental problems last Sunday, Tommy took me to the dentist on Monday, and we found that a tooth that I had a root canal on had re cracked and was abscessed, so the dentist felt our best alternative was to pull the tooth and then after that heals in a few months to do a fixed bridge...the bridge work is pretty expensive, so we are just taking it a little at time, praying the Lord will provide the needed funds as we need them! The toothache was painful, the extraction was even more painful, then I ended up getting a dry socket which is extremely painful, so I have been out of it all week! I am so thankful for Tommy and Chase taking care of me, especially for Tommy dropping everything to take me back and forth to the dentist, I had to go 3 times to have my socket packed with medicated gauze! Now that I am finally on the mend...This is one change I will be happy to see go!!
• We also have been meeting with CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) about starting a Good News Club in our local public elementary school...This would be an after school club for grades 1st - 5th where our church can have one day a week and share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the kids!! We are so excited about this opportunity and we are gearing up to get started this coming school year! This is not only a wonderful evangelistic outreach to the community to help possibly grow our church, but first and foremost we are excited about getting into the public school and growing the Kingdom of God! We already have a good working relationship with the elementary school, Tommy and I have been over there on several occasions for different reasons, so we are excited about working further with the Good News Club in this school! Please pray with us as we take on this project we need several volunteers and teachers to be involved each week from September - April.  As of right now I am going to be the Team Coordinator, so I covet your prayers as I take on this new role! I pray God will give us just the right people, ones that will faithfully be there to help teach the boys and girls about Jesus!

This is Life...as we know it...right now!!