Saying Farewell.......

.....to the oldest member of our family. Phillip and I bought this washer and dryer on April 1, 1993, when we bought our first home.....18 years ago. They have been in seven different homes, washed our clothes when it was just Phillip and I and then when we became a family of 3 and then a family of 4. I even placed a small heart sticker on the dryer dial so that the kids would know where to turn the dial to so that they could start the dryer for me. They were good to me, 18 years and I only called the repairman once and that was to tighten the agitator, which if I had known that was the noise I was hearing I think that I could have fixed it for $60. Of course I have to say that they were Maytags.

However, after 18years it is time to say farewell. The dryer was sounding like I was drying a load of belt buckles and to dry a load of towels was taking close to two hours. Our first thought was to go back with a Maytag and to go with the front load and if I would have let the first salesman I went to sale me what I thought wanted I don't think I would have been as pleased as what we bought after we did the research......
We ended up buying a Whirlpool, which by the way now owns part of Maytag (since they don't make Maytags like ours anymore, go figure). We ended up going back with a top loader without an agitator, it is an high efficiency, low water washer and has more buttons and gadgets then I know what to do with right know. So far I have no complaints for our new appliances but I not holding my breath on them lasting near as long as my Maytag. BTW......we are donating them to our church, the washer works great and with work maybe the dryer will be back up and working again soon so that a family in need of a washer and dryer can have one with much love attached :)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday. Mine was a little crazy but I guess that goes with all the storms that we had here today.

Blessing to all~

Carla

Flashback Friday

This was the everyday Jonah when he was little. He ALWAYS either had a hotwheels car in his hand or his pocket and if we were going to church he had a little blue Mickey Mouse backpack that was just big enough for a few cars and his Buzz Lightyear. He had a car rug that we bought from Lowes that stayed lined up with cars and these waffle blocks I bought at a yard sale for $2 when he was one, which he made more roads out of then blocks. He even made little ramps off of them (look at the blue waffle block at the bottom of the first pic). I love this picture because you can tell that he was making either that varoom or siren sound with his lips. Also notice how always has two cars going at the same time......I miss these days. I still have ALL the cars. Yes, he has never let me get rid of them and I won't. One day hopefully their will be a child of his to play with them......WAY down the road.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday. It is the last Friday in February so I guess I need to come up with something different for my Flashback Friday's for March......what will it be!

Blessings to all~

Carla

Jonah turns 15

I can not believe that my little boy is 15 as of yesterday the 19th, well he is not little by no means anymore. These days he is taller then his mom, pushing 5'5, if I had to guess. His birthday wish this year was to go to snow skiing as you can tell from the previous post, was a BLAST!! He then celebrated his actually birthday by having Andrew, Nate, and Trajan (a.k.a Xbox cronies) over for a night of hanging out and playing the Xbox.
I thought that it would be interesting to try an list 15 things about Jonah on his 15th birthday, so here goes....

1. he is 5'5"
2. wears a size 9.5 shoe
3. enjoys running
4. would play his XBox 360 all day long if his momma would let him
5. loves snow skiing
6. is working towards his Eagle scout
7. a ninth grader
8. could eat pizza or pizza rolls anytime of the day
9. loves sweet tea and coke icees (just like his momma)
10. is not a morning person, at all
11. is very outgoing
12. willing to try just about anything
13. has a heart for God
14. wants to learn to fly
15. would love to raise dwarf goats

Just a few interesting facts of my firstborn. Hope everyone in blogger land has an wonderful evening. Goodnight and......

Blessings to all~
Carla

Paoli Peaks

Last Tuesday, the four of us, plus one of Jonah's friends, John Mark, headed up to Paoli Peak for a day of skiing. For the last several years Jonah's birthday "wish" or want is to go skiing, which is usually a challenge to fit into our schedule because for some reason our weekends in February are just CRAZY. Last year, Phillip took Jonah out of school one day and he and Jonah, along with one of Jonah's friends went skiing. Well last Monday when they called school 2 hours early, Phillip started working on taking Tuesday off because we figure with it snowing school would be cancelled for Tuesday and we would take off and go skiing. So that is just what we did.

" Our snow princess"

The soon to be birthday boy, I still can not believe that he'll soon be 15!

This kid has only skied 4 times in his life but to watch him ski you would think he has been skiing his whole life. The first time we ever took him skiing him went down a black diamond and now he is doing jumps.

Courtney and her daddy, she was always racing him and winning!!!!

This was only Courtney's second time skiing. After her first fall, she looked at me and said I don't want to ski, I don't like it. I reminded her that it had been a long time since she skied and that it would take a while. Well by the middle of the afternoon she was off with the boys going down slopes by herself and even down a blue square. I was so proud of her.

There she goes......

There goes my hubby.....

There I go and I am upright......you laugh! I wasn't very talented that day. The snow was very slick because of the low temps which made you go fast. Lets see, I landed in the woods once, cutting my glove and thumb and I can not tell you how many times I fell getting on the ski lift. Oh and skied into the caution fencing twice. If only someone else was hand my camera beside me during those times. You would really have some pictures to laugh at.

The kids on the ski lift coming up from the bottom of the slope.

She looks like a pro.

Let me just say after being there since 10 a.m. in the 20 degree weather Phillip and I were done, Phillip and I were done by sundown. I could not feel my toes any longer and my face was numb. So Phillip and I went inside and sat by a fire, well it really wasn't much of a fire and it really didn't put out much heat at all but soon my toes did start to thaw out. Interesting enough we did run into someone there from BG, I mean out of the whooping 50 people that were there that day, we run into someone from BG. Finally around 8:30 we were able to round up the kiddos starting thawing them out and head back to BG. I know that Jonah would have stayed all night if we would have let him. Good thing it closes at 9.

Blessings to all~

Carla

Flashback Friday

Doesn't he look so young? Some days it seems like just yesterday and then other days, well, I realize that my baby boy is about to turn 15 in just 8 days. Looking back at this picture of Jonah, I remember this day like it was yesterday. It was December 2000, Jonah was just shy of turning four and our play group had went to O2B kids in Gainesville for our play date. Jonah loved to play with the tools, he was drawn to them. He has always enjoyed anything he could do with his hands.
This was also the day that I lost an half carat diamond out of my wedding set. We had spent the entire morning and O2B Kids and on our way home, I looked down at my hand on the steering wheel and notice that my diamond was missing. Yes, I freaked out! LUCKILY, we had insurance and it was replace without any cost. WHEW!!!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. It is suppose to warm up a little this weekend, anything should be better then the freezing temps that we have seen the last two mornings, -3 degrees has been the low. Our driveway and road still is covered with snow.

Blessings to all~
Carla

Day # 12

Tomorrow will be snow day #12, SERIOUSLY!!! I can't believe it. We dismissed school today 2 hours early, letting the students leave at 12:30. Since I am a school employee I have to stay until my normal time to leave, which is 3:30. Our principal let me run the kids home at 1:00, which at that time it was only raining, NO SNOW. I then returned back to school. Shortly after 2:00, our principal announced that the roads were getting bad and we could leave. Well this is what it looked like on my way home. This pic was taken on our street. What a difference a hour makes. It is a beautiful snow I will say that, a wet snow, one that sticks to everything. In 12 days Jonah turns 15 and more then anything he wants to go snow skiing (not that he didn't just go with his Adventure Crew), so in the morning, since it is a snow day, Phillip has taken off work and we are heading to Paoli Peaks to hit the slopes. Wish us, I mean me luck. I'm not a BIG skier like my son is. I promise to post a few pictures.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday!

Blessings to all~
Carla

Flashback Friday

Since this month is the birth month of my first born, I thought that I would share a picture of Jonah and his dad taken the spring of 1997. Jonah was just over a year old. This picture was taken in our backyard in Starke, Florida. Jonah loved to play outside and loved to swing on the hammock that hung between two tall trees right beside our patio. He loved to go high and always would say "again, again"!! Hope everyone has a wonderful Friday!

Blessings to all~
Carla

Cross Country Adventures

Back in September, actually it was the first Wednesday in September during 7th period to be exact, a gentleman came into my office, kinda in a hurry might I add, asking me if my son ran. I had to have looked at him kinda puzzled and said no. He then rephrased his question and "can your son run." To that, still a little puzzled I answered, "kinda." By this time I realized who he was, Coach Eaton the Cross Country Coach and I did not have the time to sit and "play" his games. So I said, " Jonah is in the gym, you can go and talk to him." Well that is how all this got started. Shortly both Jonah and the Coach was in my office and that afternoon I was taking Jonah to his first cross country practice and little to my knowledge the next day would be Courtney's first cross country practice. It was been nice having both kids in the same sport, same practices and for the most part the same races.

Even with joining the team after season had started they both did very well for their first year and very little conditioning. We traveled to Louisville for one of the largest races in the area and both kids went to Lexington where they ran in state. It was an awesome season for us all, the kids made new friends and so did Phillip and I and it was fun to travel with the team.

South Warren's First Cross Country team

(making history)

Courtney ran a PR of 15.46 for the 3000m and a PR of 21.10

for the 4000m. SHE ROCKS!!!!

Jonah's PR for the 5000m was 19.20PR. WAY TO GO!!

The varsity boys won AA Region Champions. We were all so very proud of them.

Of course I could not resist including a family photo. This was taken on 01/11/11 at their banquet. Can you believe how fast my kiddos are growing?

Blessings to all~

Carla