Mid~Week Randoms

* I LOVE blogging, but I also love reading blogs, I have a few blogs that I follow faithfully, and I feel so connected to them, although I have never met them!! One of the blogs that I recently came across just broke my heart. Her little boy has EB and I found myself getting lost in reading all her entries and watching home videos of her little boy... http://randycourtneytripproth.blogspot.com/

* I had a GREAT weekend!! Friday I picked Amber up from work and we went out to eat with Lindsay (a girl Amber works with), and then we all went tot he movies to see The Help... AMAZING movie!! Saturday I of course played Disc Golf and Justin, my cousin met us there to spend the weekend with us. I had a blast with him... Saturday, after Disc Golf, we went to Wilder's World for a while with the girls and Amber, and then headed home for an evening with family. We decided to go take a tour of the Still Pond Winery, first time ever to visit a winery and it was alot of fun, we got to see how they made the wine and all the equipment they use, they were so nice there and Abi and Ama loved their Muscadine juice!!  After our fun tour we headed back home for some chili, corn hole, and a movie night... we didn't get to bed till about 2:30 in the morning, but we had fun!  Sunday morning when we woke up we all got ready and headed out to the Holme's residence. We had the Polaris Razor packed and ready to go along with some fishing poles and several guns... : )  We rode the razor quite a bit, but spent most of our time shooting. Dad had made the comment about shooting some turtles and I thought "how mean is that", those poor turtles are just out there enjoying their Sunday not doing anything wrong to them... until I shot one... He was sitting on a branch poking up out of the water and it took me about 3 shots I think, and I hit him : ) And it was so much fun... so Justin and I sat out there with our deadly weapons daring any turtle to stick their head up out of the water, if I missed the turtle Justin shot him, if he missed, I was shooting at him. It was SO much fun! I shot Ritchie's .22 semi-automatic rifle first... then I shot Dad's Remington R-15 semi-automatic in a .223 caliber, that thing was bad to the bone.... Ama and Abi hated it because it was loud, so they wore some headphones to block out some of the noise. Took me back to my Army days when I was shooting that thing. Then I went back to shooting turtles with the .22 rifle, until I got to shoot a Ruger .22 semi-automatic pistol... that thing was fun! My first time shooting a pistol, I had the strong urge to do somersaults down the hills and pop up and shoot a turtle real fast : )  not even kidding.... my eyes were literally watching every bubble in the pond waiting for a turtle to pop up, in between turtle hunting we hit some golf balls with a baseball bat, that was a lot harder than it looked... I didn't hit too many... and then got frustrated, and went back to turtle hunting : )  I think it's official... I need my own gun!

 Ama and her Pops ready to go!

 Abi fixin' to enjoy her Popsicle

 Ama enjoying her "cold beer", something Ritchie taught her... it is just root beer...

The awesome Remington R-15 semi-automatic : )

 Justin with the .22

 Abi... NOT liking us shooting the guns

Justin trying to hit his golf ball over the pond... he did...

And I secretly took this picture with my phone, Ama constantly had her hand tucked inside Justin's hand.

* After my Bible study Tuesday I met Kelly Spilman and her grandmother at Cracker Barrel for lunch, it was great to catch up with her! So weird that we were both born in the same town, same hospital, and met in high school in Indiana! Abi called her grandmother, Granny, and sat in her lap and asked if she could go home with her! It was pretty cute : )

* Plans have once again changed with us Tabor's... Weston is now flying here to Georgia instead of going to Texas... which means we will now be moving a lot sooner than expected! Also means we will be moving not knowing when a house will be available to us... a lot of question marks, but everything will work out!

* My mischievous cat has broken his foot somehow... we have a sliding glass door and what I think has happened is that one of the kids slammed his paw in the door on accident.

* We will be making the trip to Indiana next week! Ama will be on Fall Break and we are taking that opportunity to visit family. The girls and I are super excited to see everyone!!

Hope y'all have an amazing week : )

Ashley

Mid~Week Randoms

* Good Beautiful Wednesday!!!!

* Monday we were treated to the Circus, it was so much fun, and our first time going to a tent circus! With it being in a tent we were so close to everything!! Ama like always cried at first, but then ended up loving it. Every time we go to the circus she cries and gets scared of the fire, and loud noises, and when it gets dark, but she wasn't quite as bad as she has been in the past. Abi was studying everything, she didn't take her eyes off of anything! And... Abi has been begging for me to take her back to the "big tent"!  I took A LOT of pictures since we were so close to everything, but here's a few pictures of the girls!!

The entrance into the Circus

Ama right before her and Abi rode the ponies

Ama... crying....before the circus even started

This was Abi's facial expression throughout the whole Circus

Me and Ama

All their clowns looked a little freaky...

*I'm getting pretty good at using the grill : )

* We went to Dollar General yesterday to get some charcoal and a few little things I needed and one of Ama's friends from school and her mother were behind us in the check out line, I spotted some lighters for sale on the counter and grabbed one to buy (I've been needing to get one for a while to seal the ends of my ribbon for hair bows), when I grabbed the lighter Ama's friend said, "Ewwww, your Mom smokes..." when I turned around Ama was telling her that no I do not, and I explained to the girl what I was getting the lighter for, but neither her nor her mom looked like they believed me, it was actually kind of funny.... kids are so honest.

* I am officially a member of the PDGA : ) my number is 50229! How exciting!! For those of you that don't know what the PDGA is... Professional Disc Golf Association.

* For those of you who have not heard, Weston has gotten his official orders and we will be officially moving to Ft. Hood, Texas. He also has his plane tickets to fly home and he can't wait, he is obviously SUPER excited about coming home. I can't believe that it's been 18 months since we have lived together as a family... Ama and Abi have grown up SO much since Weston has been gone. The girls are very excited about their daddy coming home, but they also don't want to move. I imagine it will be the hardest on Amariah, she has made a lot of friends and she loves her school, it will be hard on her to leave and start all over in a new school. It will definitely be different not being around family... but I'm ready for our family to be together again, it's been a long time. Here's a picture the day Weston left for Basic Training, the girls look so young! Ama had just turned 5, and Abi was 22 months old!

I don't remember why Abi has no pants on... we went to eat before this, maybe she spilled her drink??

* Abi's southern accent has only grown stronger, and Ama just now is showing a little southern twang : )

* I don't know where it's coming from, but I have all these creative ideas coming to me... THANK YOU JESUS... finally : )  My mom is SO talented when it comes to decorating and redoing things, she can turn something that looks awful into something amazing. I think just maybe I might be getting a little of that. I've had several ideas that I have shared with Weston of some projects I want to do when he comes home, I will definitely share them with you as we complete them!!

Ashley

chocolate and sprinkles

I bought everything I needed to make brownies for Ama's fundraiser at school tomorrow... and we decided to do chocolate covered pretzels instead. We even had a couple of pretzel molds that my mom left at my house a long time ago... although you should have seen them they looked horrible : )  So we melted more chocolate and just dipped them and had fun with some sprinkles!! We tied them off with ribbon, green and black to show school spirit!! Ama is super excited to share her pretzels with everyone : )

Ashley

Mid~Week Randoms

* Very productive week!! It's always nice to have such a clean house... it gives you lots of time for fun things : )  Before leaving for my tournament this past weekend I cleaned and organized each room in our house. So this week I worked on shampooing carpets and our couch, and organizing my own little craft area!  I started my craft area last week, I actually got rid of the play room in hopes to make it my craft room (since the girls always drag their toys to their room to play), but of course I got it totally emptied and went to move the table into the room... and it wouldn't fit down the hallway. You would think that I would have thought about that first... So no new craft room... : )  But I have my own space in my room, and it works for now!

* Last night Abi and I were making lasagna and she held up a lasagna noodle and asked if we could take some to our neighbors : )  She made me smile because although taking the neighbors some hard lasagna noodles sounded silly to me, it was her heart that was so touching. So I promised her today that we would make some goodies to take to the neighbors, and we did. We made some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and took them to a few neighbors and family. It was so sweet watching Abi walk up to a persons door that she didn't know and be so excited about giving them the muffins she just made!

* Ama and I will be making brownies together tomorrow evening for her to take to her fundraiser at school on Friday. I let her pick what we make, and she wants brownies with chocolate chips in them?? Never made brownies with chocolate chips in them, have you? Anyone have any good recipes they might be able to share with me : )

* I'm getting excited about our trip home in October, can't wait to see my family and friends!!

* I'm SO ready for these gnats to be gone so I can actually enjoy being outside...

* I remember how me and my brother were when we were little but I don't remember fighting as much as both my girls do. My girls can be SO mean to each other, here the past few days it has been extra bad. They love each other and are giggling one minute and then the next Ama is screaming at the top of her lungs and Abi is crying at the top of her lungs : ) 

* I pray with the girls in the car ride on the way to school in the mornings, and we pray for all kinds of things, but one thing we always include is how much we love God and how we want to glorify God in everything we do that day. It's so rewarding to me as a mom to watch my kids pray with me and listen to their hearts. I talk to God throughout the day constantly, but I have tried to be more vocal so that my kids can see and hear me pray. Ama is getting to the point now that she is starting to get comfortable with praying (besides praying for the meal) and I can't help but smile when I hear her pray. Abi is so cute she will say a few words and then say amen, say a few words and then say amen : )

That's all my randoms for now!!

Ashley

Valdosta/Thomasville Tournament

Good beautiful Monday morning!!! I feel like I've had the busiest weekend EVER!! Friday, my Dad, Papa, Dave and myself drove to Valdosta and went to Freedom Park and played the Disc Golf course. They figured with the tournament on Saturday and me never have played the course I needed to go through it one time, and they needed the practice and to refresh their memories : )  It was a pretty tough course... most of the course is in the woods and requires a lot of hyzer and anhyzer shots, which I am not good at all at. I got lucky on several of the holes just making it through the trees, and then other times my disc didn't go very far at all before it hit a tree. But the course is really nice, and was a ton of fun.  Saturday morning we pulled up into the park and I had the butterflies something fierce... There were a lot of people there... and once again I was the only girl there (that was playing).  My dad kept telling me I needed to get up there and practice my putting and throw a few discs and get warmed up and I was so nervous that my disc was shaking in my hands : )  We found out which hole we were to start at and went to find it so we would be ready at tee off time. We were paired with a great team, Andrew and Jim, they were super nice guys and I felt really comfortable around them, and my game was ON for the first round. Me and Dad finished the round 2 under I believe with a score of 52, which actually tied us for first place. I felt really good after playing the first 18, me and Dad did awesome... and of course after coming back from the lunch break I was told that the girl in the pink shirt (myself:)) was the talk of the table at lunch, so of course you know that I stunk it up the next round!  For the next 18 we were paired with the guys that we were tied with, and me and Dad just got off to a bad start and never fully recovered, which knocked us down to fourth place.  The third round was on Sunday and at Thomasville's park, the third round was 24 holes, 12 worst shot and 12 best shot. We didn't play horribly, but we didn't play great either, but we had a TON of fun and finished the tournament in 4th place. In Thomasville we got to play with Andrew and Jim again, I really enjoyed playing with them, they were great players, and great people! They ended up coming in second place! We did walk away with a prize though, Dad got CTP (Closest To Pin) and we got a couple of discs, a shirt, some gift certificates and Innova stickers.

Playing in the tournament was a lot of fun, I got to meet a lot of people and everyone was so nice! It builds up your love for the game that much more, seeing others play and how fun it is, and how supportive others are. I'm excited to keep practicing and getting better and better and improving my game! It will be a lot different but my next tournament will be a singles tournament, so I have lots of practicing to do : )

Hope everyone had a blessed weekend!!

Ashley

Mid~Week Randoms

*We woke up to a beautiful morning, it was nice and cool outside, and a high of only 80 degrees today!! The windows are open, the music has been on and Abi and I have been cleaning away. Trying to go through toys and their clothes and get rid of some stuff!

*I stayed up last night making Ama a couple of hair bows with her school colors in it, just for fun : ) And here's a couple pics...

 I just had to put this one in here to show off her cuteness : )



*I went to buy a disc golf towel for my upcoming tournament (just in case I might need one) and I just couldn't bring myself to buy one for the price they were, it would have been one thing had it looked somewhat decent, and been a little bigger...so I made my own. I got a blue bath towel that sordof matches my disc golf bag, and I also bought a hot pink striped towel. I haven't gotten the pink one done yet, I plan on finishing that one today or tomorrow, but here's my blue towel...



*We have our doubles tournament in Valdosta and Thomasville this weekend... we are leaving early Friday so that we can play the Valdosta course since I have never played it before. That way come Saturday at the tournament I won't be totally clueless about the course! Saturday we play the Valdosta course, it's an 18 hole course, the first round will be the best shot format, and the second round, alternate shot format. On Sunday we finish the tournament up in Thomasville, it's a 12 hole course, one round will be the worst shot format, and the other round I'm hoping will be best shot format again... either way, it will be lots of fun, and I'm looking forward to it!!

*I hung some letters on the back of my stove this morning and I got them crooked... I was in too big of a hurry, oh well : ) I still like it!

*I was pretty bummed, I didn't get to go to my Bible study yesterday, nor did I get to go see and listen to Josh McDowell because Abi and I had a yucky stomach bug. But it did make me feel good to get a call saying that I was missed at the Bible study...

*Now that I have gotten a taste of the cooler weather I'm excited for fall to be here, and I have a HUGE craving for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins... which I will be making in the very near future! (Thanks Mom for that recipe).

Hope everyone has a blessed week!!

Ashley