What a Month.....

Wow what a month!!!!

I am so glad to see the month of June go...  We started the month off in the hospital.  Adam had another bad episode with his kidney stones and had to have one surgically removed.  He recouped quickly as he always does and officiated his first wedding ceremony.  The ceremony was beautiful.  The girls enjoyed dancing the night away.  We left the next day to travel to Orange Beach.  I had to attend a seminar at the Perdido Beach Resort.  Adam and the girls enjoyed a vacation and some fun in the sun.  During this time we were still pondering and praying about taking on a huge responsibility.  It was at this time it was confirmed to us and we decided to move ahead with the next phase of our lives.  We will be moving out of our home and into another home to take care of children who have been taken away from their families until they can be permanently placed in the care of the state.  So with this decision came lots of things this month.  We have had meeting with the foundation that we will be working with, we had to have fingerprints and back ground checks done, we also have had to start a training class.  This will be week four of ten.  There is a light at the end of that tunnel!!!  Because we are moving into a home that has literally sat vacant for years, we are in the process of an Extreme Home Makeover!  We have been working in the home trying to clean it up and get it ready for the Johnson's.  Our small group at church has been outstanding in supporting this project.  They had been supporting for about a year but have really stepped it up since Adam and I have decided to do this.  Church this month... well let me see what I can say....  It never ceases to amaze me what goes on there!  We have had a wonderful small group.  Adam decided to stop doing the college bible study on Wednesday nights.  This was a decision that was hard to make but with him in school and everything that we have going on it was the best decision for our family.  The girls enjoyed Bible School this month.  They LOVED going every night and we loved watching them perform the Sunday night.  Taylor is getting to the age where she is not as thrilled about doing things like that but Tillery was super excited.  She loved performing and screaming through the church at us in the balcony.  IMAGINE THAT!!!  Tillery has also kept us on our toes this month.  She began the month with a gash on her eye.  We took her to the Emergency Care and they dermabonded it.  Since then she has had numerous bike accidents.  She is without training wheels this month so we knew this was going to happen.  She looks like she gets along well with the pavement.  She has a toe that is skinned up and a knee that every time we get it about well she falls again.  Taylor is usually pretty good when it comes to accidents, she is not as rough as Tillery.  She spent the night off this week and came home with a black eye ( pics to follow).  She fell into a fireplace!  WHAT!!! Thank God we have AFLAC accident insurance.  Adam has stayed busy this month.  He went with some friends to Panama City Beach for a fishing trip and then went again to finish their scuba certification.  So he is now official.. I can't wait to see him and Bryan Brown go...  We also celebrated a few birthdays this month.  WE had a few parties to attend and we had one at home for Adam.  The girls gave him their presents and we enjoyed this time at home together.  As for me this month.. nothing really special other than the fact that my vehicle shut down on me and had to have a new transmission.  The girls and Adam have kept us busy this month.  I am ready for June to go and welcome July.  Please July don't be as busy as June was!  Until Next Month....

Saddle Ridge Ranch

This week the girls enjoyed Vacation Bible School. They enjoyed learning more about the bible, arts and crafts, spending time with their friends, and singing new songs. Tonight we went to church so the girls could perform all of the songs that they learned at the Saddle Ridge Ranch. Here are a few of the pics that I took of the girls tonight!

Disappointment... ;(

So this week we had a MAJOR blow!  We knew that the "SWAGGER" wagon as a few of you call it... was beginning to act sick.  We kept pondering what to do with it....TRADE, KEEP, TRADE, KEEP...  We knew if we kept the vehicle we would need to put some money in it to get it healthy again...  Well that decision was taken out of our hands.  It totally broke down on us.  Tuesday morning on the way to work, as I pressed the gas... the vehicle would not go!  I called my mom to pick me up and a tow truck to pick it up.  At that point I knew that it had to be fixed regardless of what we decided to do with it.  Come to find out, my transmission is TOTALLY SHOT OUT!  It had to be completely rebuilt.  So we just put a lot more SWAGGER in the wagon and will be driving it for a while longer.  But on the flipside... no beach this week.  AS devastated as we were to tell the girls.  It was the right thing to do right now.  Transmissions are NOT cheap and neither is a trip to Panama City Beach.  So we will be postponing our trip for a few weeks and enjoying the Fourth here at home.  Adam already has the weekend planned out for us! 

OIL!?!?!?!?!?!

I think the main question from everyone has been

"DID YOU SEE ANY OIL WHILE YOU WERE AT THE BEACH?"... 

Let me go ahead and answer that... 

NO and YES. 

No we did not see sheens of oil washing up on shore
No it did not smell like oil
No the beaches were not closed
Yes we saw lots of small tar balls

Yes we got to swim in the ocean
Yes there were Hazmat people in white suits there working in Tent Cities
Yes they had boons everywhere you could see

I think I answered a lot of the questions, Here are a few of the pics we took.

A Little Work...A Little Play

Last week I had to attend a 3 day conference at Perdido Beach Resort in Orange Beach , AL.  SO instead of going alone I decided to take my hubby and my 2 sweet little girls so they could enjoy a little fun in the sun.  We arrived and Adam and the girls immediately hit the pool/beach ( while I was inside in meetings)

The first evening they provided a poolside dinner with a band.  The girls really enjoyed this.  After that we went for a walk on the beach. 

We decided to get out of the hotel and do a little shopping...  The girls trying on shoes....

The next day I had class until lunch and was able to join the family in the sun.  We had a great time out by the pool.  The girls met some children from Ethiopia and quickly became friends

Tuesday evening we went to dinner at the Original Oyster House.  The food was great.  Seeing the sunset while we ate was amazing!

After dinner we walked around The Wharf and admired all of the large boats that were there....

After the conference we headed home... Making a quick stop in Foley for a little shopping and a great meal at Lambert's .  The girls enjoyed catching rolls!

15 Years!!!!

This weekend on facebook one of my old classmates contacted everyone in our class to try to start getting us together for our 15 year reunion.  They posted a couple of pics from our yearbook I thought I would share. 
This is the class of 1996 from Glenwood... One of our crazy class shots!

This one is from the pictures we put on our senior page of us as little babies...

Chez Ami Fall 2010

Here is a glimpse at some of the collections for Fall 2010. If you are interested in booking a party contact me... There are lots of new things this season!

What A Saturday!

Wow! What a Saturday! We woke up yesterday knowing we had a busy day. But little did we know what we were in store for.... We started the day off with a birthday party for Taylor's best friend Katherine Williams at the Phenix City Skate Center. The girls had a great time and were very tired when we left. We came home and as always the girls were begging to go outside and play with the kids that live on our street. We had a couple of hours until the wedding, so I agreed. About 30 minutes later the mom across the street walks all the girls home. Tillery is in the front, no tears, and looking extremely mad. I am thinking that they had been over there fighting and she is making Tillery come home. When I met them at the end of the driveway, they told me Tillery had busted her eye. I didn't see much blood so I told her to come inside so I could clean it up and she could come right back out. Well as Adam and I were cleaning her up we noticed real quickly that her eye had been cut pretty bad. She hit it just right were it had laid it open. I immediately threw her in the truck and off to the acute care we went. I did this because #1 it is cleaner than the ER and #2 we didn't have much time until the wedding. The doctor came in and looked at Tillery's eye and agreed that we needed to sew up her eye. She left the room and Tillery was upset. She returned to the room a few seconds later with her tray full of all of her supplies and told us that because of the location of the cut they were going to put dermabond on it. Thank You Jesus! The doctor fixed us up and we were on our way. The glue stung a little bit, but nothing like stiches ;)

We returned to the house to get dressed to head to Adam Mitchell and Katie Tooker's wedding. The ceremony was beautiful. And me and the girls were so proud of what a great job Adam did officiating the wedding. It was his first one and it went really well ( well other than one small thing ;) ). After the ceremony the girls enjoyed lots of dancing and we safely made it home.
We are looking forward to a couple of days out of town. To regroup from the week we have had. Please pray that we return home safely!

Tar Balls

This morning watching Good Morning America I was shocked to hear that Tar Balls had washed up in Pensacola.  We all knew this was going to happen but something in me said they would fix it before it had gotten to our beaches.  Here is a pic I found on the internet of the beaches in Pensacola.

As we head to the shore this weekend, I pray that we don't find this! We are headed to Perdido Beach and I am devastated that this will be destroying our beaches.

Hit Me Baby One More Time ;)

Our new blog has been up a running just a week...  And we have had over 100 hits!  I vow to keep blogging and I promise to keep this one up to date.

Home Sweet Home

We were discharged and sent home!!!  Adam is sleeping and has lots of meds to keep him comfortable!  We are happy to be at home and look forward to sleeping in our own beds.  I am excited that the girls are back at home as well.  Tillery told me that she got homesick because she had not been here in 3 days.  Thanks again to everyone for everything!

Rock Solid

Everything went well this morning.  The surgery is complete.  They were able to go in and remove the stone.  The doctor came out to the waiting room and presented me with a ROCK.  We are waiting no for the discharge process so we can go HOME...  Thanks again for those of you who have stopped by or called.  You have no idea how much it has meant to us! 

FEEL BETTER

Adam Update

Adam is feeling better today still in some pain but I think all of the morphine is helping...  We finally saw the doctor about an hour ago and they will be doing surgery to remove the stone tomorrow.  He used a lot of big fancy words but basically they are going to go in and pull the stone out.  That is of course unless he passes it before then. 
So one more day here in the hospital... I think I could write a book on the AMAZING things you see in the hospital.
Thanks to everyone for the prayers, visits, calls, texts, emails, etc.  We appreciate it very much!