my love-hate relationship with fireworks

The love part:  

They are beautiful and sparkly.

They are fun to watch.

They remind me that there is something to celebrate 

(and if you live in STL you apparently celebrate lots of things.....at lots of different times during the year....St. Louisans LOVE their fireworks)

They usually mean that I get to hang out with friends and family for a night.

They make great photography subjects and are such a challenge to capture.

They give my boys great joy.

The HATE part:

They are loud.....really loud.....

especially in a neighborhood where the sound just keeps bouncing off all of the houses 

(or you are just really really close to them - as was the case this year).

They raise my anxiety level to new heights as I worry that someone is going to lose an eye or a house every year.

The cleanup the day after is never-ending.

They cause my kids to become beggars - like 24 hours a day they ask to go to the fireworks tent.

If only those red and white tents would just not show up every year!

I would say this year was mostly a "LOVE" relationship with the fireworks.

It was a beautiful night - we even had to get the blankets out.

We had our own personal fireworks show - thank you A and company!

And we got to spend the evening with some of our favorite people.

back in the groove

Over Christmas break, a friend texted me, with however much giddiness you can text, that she was engaged!  I cried.  I knew it was coming sometime in the near future but had no idea it would be then.  I've known her for several years, watched her grow into a wonderful young woman and watched this love blossom from the beginning.

This past weekend, you know.....Polar Vortex weekend.....she asked if I could meet up with them to photograph them in the snow.  I was a little nervous but so excited that she had asked me!  I hadn't really picked up my camera much since September.  I had started to feel like I had lost all desire to use a lens and a memory card.  Things were mostly contained chaos at our house the latter part of 2013, and photography was pretty much at the bottom of the priority list.

The night before I was to meet up with them I started scouring Pinterest for some ideas.  I am always able to find good ideas but not always able to remember them when I get to the shoot.  So I saved them to my camera roll on my phone this time so that they would be easy to find.  Of course I didn't really remember to look at it except for maybe one time.  But it didn't matter, because she had come armed with the best ideas anyway!  These two made this shoot so fun!  I can see why photographers love to shoot weddings.  The full-blown wedding makes me completely nervous, but I would love to do the engagement part - such fun!

So my hope was that I would be able to get at least two good shots for them to be able to use.  And her posing ideas turned out really adorable, so I think we met the goal.  

And I believe my love for photography has been rekindled.

Thanks for tromping around in the snow with me you two!

happy 50

Happy Birthday Lisa!

Actually, her birthday was over a month ago.

Our small group surprised her with some of her favorite foods

for lunch and a celebration after church on her birthday.

And Kendall even made a cake for her....what a thoughtful husband!

Fun fun day for a very sweet friend!

Love getting together with these guys!

georgia visitors

The Martins came to visit us in early August!!

Luke had a hockey tournament here, so we were lucky to have them all here for a few days.

AND, we even got to celebrate Luke's birthday with him!

There was a lot of hockey watching.

Which was fine with my kids.

We had not seen much roller hockey, so this was pretty

new to us.

And we introduced them to geocaching.

This was the beginning of what seemed like an epic hike in

search of the cache.

I had almost given up.

Of course it was one of the 100 degree weeks and the bugs

were eating us.

We finally found it, and it was a cool one.

Missing these guys too.  We always have such a good time together!

we love our neighbors

As much as I would love to have a private backyard with more space, I cannot dismiss the fact that we are incredibly blessed with great neighbors!

Most of the kids play together up and down the court almost daily.

In fact, the boys can hardly wait to get their homework and jobs done so that they

can rush out the door to play with their friends!

I love that they all have so much fun together

 and that I get to have adult conversations as we watch them play.

This was the scene yesterday....pretty typical day on our street.

You know, pile as many kids in a wagon as you can, add two kids on plasma cars, and then run

like the wind pulling them all behind you and see what happens.

I'll tell you there were lots of squeals and laughing and "let's do it again".

Ahhhhh......cooler, shorter days are right around the corner, and I don't think any of them are going

to be too happy about it.

Muny trip

I've actually been fortunate to go to the Muny twice this summer, but for some reason have no pictures from the second time with good friends.  They may be thankful that I wasn't the paparazzi that night :)

These pictures are from the Aladdin production.

Leslie and I took some of our boys and they loved it!

It was really good - the genie was hilarious - it kept the boys' attention.

So fun to spend the evening with them.

Boulder

One of our last stops was Boulder.

Fun place to be in the evening.

Lots of street performers,

good food,

and people watching!

The view out of our restaurant.

Waiting patiently for our table at the restaurant.

Waiting patiently for the rest of the crew to finish dinner.

I thought this was a great place to take a picture of all the kids.

I think my photography skills must have been affected by the high altitude.Or something like that.

This guy was really cool.

He had people in the audience shout out their zip code, and he would place them in the correct location on his USA map that you can see outlined on the ground.

You can see that Elliott is standing on Lake St. Louis there.

Then, after he had pretty much filled the map, he would recall what zip code each person had told him and then tell them which city it corresponded with.

Pretty amazing!

reconnecting

We loved our Colorado trip.

Loved getting to see everything.

But the real reason for going was to reconnect with friends.

We watched Luke's baseball game

Elle let me paint her "ponytails"

And what to say about these two goofy mustache boys?

Race for the Cure St. Louis

Did my first Race for the Cure with these ladies a few weeks ago.

It was very humbling, to me, as a survivor, to see this....

a sea of people all walking for the same purpose - to raise money for breast cancer research.

I'm forever grateful to them.

For giving up a Saturday morning to help those of us who have been on the receiving end of "You have breast cancer".

I don't know all the details about how much money goes where.

I think they said 75% of what was raised here in St. Louis stays here in St. Louis.

I'm certain, though, that if it were not for organizations and events like this, that the breast cancer research would not be as advanced as it is.

Which would have left us with a much different outlook last May when we first heard those words.

So, THANK YOU to any of you who have ever been a part of this or any other event like it!

The bubble bus. 

 Never seen anything like it. 

 It was supposed to mark the halfway point.  

I think their GPS was off, cause we were almost to the finish line by this point.

Either way, we were happy to see it cause it was starting to get pretty warm by this time.

Loved the view leading up to the finish line.

We saw lots of tutu-wearing guys supporting their girls (wives, moms, sisters, daughters, etc.)

Lots of love here.

This guy definitely gets best supporting male in my book.

I don't know if he was there for a certain person or just supportive in general, but he definitely took it to a new level!

There was a special "survivor" finish area marked by this banner.  I'm glad Larenda's mom was there with me cause I don't know that I would have seen it.

She had told me that last year some of the Rams cheerleaders were there to greet them and that they were able to take pictures with them.

We all kind of thought that the Rams football players would have been a better choice, and look what was waiting for us in the survivors' area.....

Yep, someone else must have thought that was a good idea too.

Unfortunately, we watch college football at our house and I have no idea who these guys are.

But they were so nice and fun to take a picture with!

I can't quite put my finger on the emotion that I have about this shirt.

For some reason I feel that I will never part with it.

It's almost as if I earned it, like it's a prize.  An accomplishment.

But it's difficult to earn something that you really had no choice in trying to earn.

To me, it's just something that God gave us to deal with, to teach us, to bless us, to bring us closer to him.  So I really don't feel that I've "done" anything.

Except that it was a long hard journey.

And with a lot of help I was allowed to survive it.

Maybe it's like a reward or a diploma.

Maybe this shirt just symbolizes the end of that part of the journey for me and the beginning of the next part.

Or maybe it's none of that mush and it just reminds me of a fun day with these ladies.

Regardless, I'm happy to have it.

P.S.  If you ever have an urge to take a tour on the MetroLink.......we're your gals!!

wrapping up the school year

They've been out for a few weeks now.

The last few days and weeks were fun, but I'm so

glad we're on summer flex time now!

Elliott and some of his friends at the Zoo during their field trip.

Meet Aluminum Guy

One last project for the year.

He had to use at least 8 (I think) different shapes

to construct a creature.

I thought he was pretty cool!

The supplies began returning home.

I always put what we need in the homework cabinet,

and then the rest get put away for next year.

My absolute favorite part of the end of the year!

JOURNALS.

Each year I have been given this gift of a 

window into what is important to them in the form

of a written journal from September until May.

I LOVE what I find in there.

FIELD DAY

It was wacky olympics themed.

This was my station.

Japan's Chopstick Chicken Relay Race.

The kids had to pick up this rubber chicken

with chopsticks only.

Run with it to the frying pan.

Drop it in.

And the next person would go and get it.

Fun times, I tell you!

Autograph Party

Our PTO hosts an autograph party every year where the kids can get together with

other classes in their grade level and sign yearbooks or autograph papers.

I remember doing this in middle and high school, but not elementary school.

Good thing since I was always frantic about saying just the right thing in each person's book.

Didn't want to say the same thing as everyone else, wanted it to be fun or nice, and didn't want to say the same thing in each book.  

Whew!  Lots of pressure.

I will say that I have some very long paragraphs in my yearbooks, and I bet my classmates do too :)

The boys......pretty much just sign their name and they are done.  Hmmmm.

awesome surprise

So Friday night I get a text from this girl:

who says that she's coming to whisk me away for the day on Saturday and to be ready to go by 7:45 AM....... and dress appropriately for eating out.  

I say I can't go, the boys have the Read, Right & Run Marathon that morning.  

She says Brian is taking them. 

 I'm pretty stern to Brian about the fact that I really wanted to go see the boys run the last mile of their marathon.  

He tells me that I pretty much don't have a choice and reluctantly lets me know that there are several people involved and it's really not something I want to miss 

(and that he's jealous of the place we're eating and that that's all he's going to say about it).

Hmmm.......Okay.  My mind churned most of the night - I didn't sleep well.  I couldn't figure out why I had to be dressed to go out to eat at 7:45 in the morning.  So early!

But, sure enough, around 7:45, this group of wonderful women surprised me at our front door...

in the "big white bus" as we affectionately called it the rest of the day.

Super glad to see them, but still wondering what was going on.

We did a little repair job on Mom's glasses after a minor mishap with the seat in the big white bus 

(note for the future:  getting instructions from the rental place on how to work the seats is always a good idea - especially if it's pouring down rain when trying to fix said seats so that persons can actually sit in them),

and then we rode around much of West County.....

with Amber at the wheel.....

and much more whispering than I was comfortable with :).....

until we arrived here in South County 

(I think.  Maybe Southwest?  Too much turning around.  Totally confused by this point)

So, as you can see for yourself in this picture, my great deductive reasoning skills clued me in to the fact that we had arrived at a huge event at a church....

for lots and lots of mostly women....

who were willing to stand outside in the rain to wait for the event to start.  Hmmmm.....

About an hour later we were enjoying this scene....

 Laura Story.

Wonderful, sweet girl.

Loved worshiping with her.

You may remember, from many months ago, me talking about her song, "Blessings".

It was very much a part of our cancer journey, and I was so excited to hear her sing it live!

And then this cute girl....

 Britt Nicole.

Again so sweet and such fun songs.

Love that she is a great role model for all the little girls out there.

And then this lovely lady....

Mandisa.

I don't know if I ever wrote about this last year, because of the timing, but Amber and I went to see her at Hoffman Estates last May.  She is so entertaining, has a beautiful voice, is a beautiful girl inside and out, and shares her heart so freely about the struggles that she has endured.  I left that concert a fan, but had no idea that just a week or so later we would be living our biggest struggle yet, and would be remembering that night as God's way of preparing me for what was ahead with her songs of inspiration and her stories of God's healing and deliverance to also give me hope in my situation.  We had wavered about going to the concert that night.  We knew it was a long drive home that night, and we thought we would just see how our time went.  Well, we had plenty of time, of course, went to the concert and loved every minute of it!  I am in constant amazement at how God orchestrates his plan for us.  How things come together at just the right time and just the right place.  I'm incredibly thankful that every once in a while he allows us to see how a tiny part of that plan is coming together - like this concert right before my diagnosis.  

No coincidence.  

Entirely His plan.

Her song "Stronger" has been my ringtone since being diagnosed.  It has been a constant presence in our journey.  So when she sang it at the very end of the concert I pretty much bawled like a baby.  It wasn't pretty.  And then I pretty much made everyone else cry too - no sense having red puffy eyes all alone, right?  I know they were all thanking me for that.  Anytime, girls, anytime.

Here we are at intermission.  I knew the concert had been sold out for weeks - actually I think it sold out within an hour.  But I just thought that Amber had heard about it when she was here one time and had been able to get tickets before they sold out.  Nope.  Mandisa's tour manager contacted her a few weeks ago saying that they wanted to give us tickets so that we could go to the concert!  Amber had contacted them a while back, telling them our story and the role Mandisa and her music had played in it, and they were so kind and generous to secure tickets for us!  Seriously they are the nicest people!  So Amber told me all of this at intermission.  I was really trying hard to process everything, but it all seemed kind of like a blur....all the surprises - my mind couldn't handle it.

THEN!!!!  The concert is over and all the girls are just sitting around.  Okay, I guess they just want to wait out the crowd.  They finally start moving toward a door, but it's on the opposite side of where we came in, but they don't seem to listen to me.  Then Vicki and Amber are almost at a run to get to the other door.  I'm so confused.  First they didn't want to leave.  Now they can't wait to get to the door, leaving us in the dust.  Then Amber pulls something out of the ticket envelope and shows it to the girl at the door.  And something magical happens......she lets us backstage!!!!

We got to meet Mandisa!!

How beautiful is she?? 

Mandisa's tour manager had arranged for us to come to a Meet and Greet so that I could personally tell Mandisa our story and thank her for sharing hers.

Although, I don't feel like I quite had it together to really say all the words that I really wanted her to hear from me.  Don't you hate when you know you have one and only one chance to do something and you really want to do it right and make it count, and that in itself makes you so nervous that you can't do it the way you want?  Is it just me?  Argh!!

I loved every minute of it, though - even when I stumbled all over my words :)

I hope she understood how grateful I was to her and what her music has meant to me this past year.

After we chatted a few minutes, she asked if I had one of her Stonger bracelets.  I said no (thinking in that split second, "why didn't I get the bracelet when Nyla and Vicki and Amber tried to get me to get one but I got a t-shirt instead?").

She said I had to have one and pulled one right off of her wrist.  Then she wrote a scripture on it (1Peter 5:10) and gave it to me.  Really?  Such a sweet sweet girl!

 And I was so excited that we got to meet Laura Story, also!!

She is expecting her first child, so she and Erin were talking baby stuff here.

I have no idea why I'm pulling on the bottom of my shirt or why I have that goofy look, but I was getting to tell her about how my friend, Lori, was friends with one of her friends, and Lori had actually gotten a CD signed by her for me last year after I had talked about how much I liked "Blessings" and how much I was relating to it.

She was so sweet to share on stage some of the struggles that she and her husband have been facing.  He was diagnosed with a brain tumor a few years ago, if I remember correctly.  "Blessings" came out of that journey.  Loved talking to her about that.   Such a fun, sweet, tender-hearted girl - wish her all the best with the rest of her pregnancy and her venture into parenthood!

  I hate that we didn't get a picture, but we also got to meet the tour manager that set this all up for us - great guy!  So glad we were able to meet him and thank him in person.

We did actually finally leave - although I could have stayed and talked for hours!

I loved listening to how God had worked in their lives.

So thankful again for their willingness to share their stories, their heartaches, and their blessings.

And the big white bus took us here:

The Melting Pot.

I love the Melting Pot.

Actually I love the cheese and the chocolate.

I had so much fun - hope the other girls did too.

I was stuffed and exhausted that night.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful memories!

Thank you for whisking me away ladies and making the day so special - love you!!