Yep, he's all boy...

...bouncing balls are a BIG hit :) ;) :)

Meeting Family :)

 On Saturday my sister Bethany and her family were able to stop by on their way home from vacation. I haven't seen them since April and neither of us had seen the others' baby. It was so much fun to be able to swap babies :)

 Here we are with the others' little treasure :)

Jimmy and Emma together, now we just need to get Seth (my brother's new baby) in with them and it will be complete.

I think that this ones looks like they are sharing secrets, Emma looks kinda traumatized by it too :)

And here is one that I just had to throw in 'cause I think he is just SOOO cute ;-)

And I finally caught him laughing on tape!!!  I never know when he is going to find something humorous and so haven't been able to catch him on tape yet but today he just thought that the strap on his changing pad was hilarious and he laughed long enough that I was able to get the camera and still catch him giggling :)

Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving Curtiss and I had our plans changed a bit. We had thought that Curtiss's family would come and stay and celebrate with us here in Ohio but the Lord had other plans. Last Monday evening Curtiss's grandma (who had been struggling with Alzheimers for years) passed away to be with her Lord and Savior.  So we ended heading to New York for this last weekend. It was a very bitter/sweet time, it was great to be able to see people again and to know that Grandma Bohall was no longer suffering but everyone will still miss and her greatly.

It was a lot of fun to see Nate and Jimmy together again.  Jimmy was old enough to actually notice Nate and Nate kept us all on our toes to make sure that his loving care for Jimmy didn't end up detrimental to one or both of them :)  I thought you all might enjoy some pictures of our time there.

The above picture isn't the one that I originally wanted but blogger kept messing up on the one that I did but this one was still cute and shows the two boys together.  Jimmy looks kinda shell shocked and that is most likely because we had about three cameras going at the same time and we felt rather like celebrities with all the flashes going off.  Usually when Jimmy was that close to Nate he was trying to touch his face and hair and Nate spent the time trying to dodge Jimmy's little fingers :)

Here is Grandma and Grandpa with their two grandsons.

  While we were there we celebrated Christmas since Curtiss and I are planning on going to my parents house at Christmas time and it wouldn't work to fit in both families in one trip.

Jimmy LOVED wrapping paper (whenever mama wasn't fast enough and he got some) it was almost as good as pizza crust or cookie crumbs :)

 Nate was a lot of fun to watch, he is old enough now that he really likes presents and simple things like M&M's really make his day :)

Jimmy did extremely well in the truck both on the way there and back, especially considering the fact that he usually is screaming after a couple of hours shopping and driving around town. I always thought it was the carseat  that he didn't like but maybe he suffers from the same thing most men do and he just doesn't like shopping???

My thr3e weeks: Tennessee Hobos ( Final Part )

I finally got around to posting my final post on our vacation in the hills of Tennessee, and I must warn you that it will be a rather random post, using up the last few pictures.

One day we all just went into Gatlinburg to go walking/shopping down Main Street. And somehow all of us ended up taking a picture as this mountain man, and I figured it was the perfect set of pictures to show us off as the Tennessee hobos.

:: GRinddddd :: Every time we started the Expedition up and started driving this is the sound that we heard coming from the rear right side tire. I guess a vacation is never complete without a break down of some sort. The truck was still drivable but it made horrid grinding noises that made you cringe and wonder when the tire would just fly off. Knowing that we needed to find out what the noise was, Dad, during on of the sessions at the conference, went out with Micah to pull off the tire to find out what was wrong with it. It ended up being the wheel bearings which they would have been able to fix themselves if they had the right tools and parts... but we were on vacation and obviously didn't have any of the tools needed. So, Dad asked at the conference where we could find an auto shop, and ended up finding a guy who was local who recommended a good place. So having only Christine's car to work with we were kind of in a pickle, for you see it was lunch time, the truck was in the shop, and we had eight people and a five passenger car. Now, don't get me wrong, we were still very thankful we had a car, but we could only fit five people at a time into it. We couldn't eat at the conference center, they didn't allow outside food in. And Mom had packed us stuff for sandwiches but we really didn't have anyplace to eat it. Especially since it was 90+ outside and there really wasn't any shade around the conference center. So it was decided that five people would climb into Christine's car to go find a place, and three people would stay and wait to be picked up as the second load. Now I was among three people that stayed at the center so I was not a party to the group who was driving around trying to find us someplace to eat. I was able to stay in the nice air conditioned building, while the other party sweated to death in the non-air-conditioned car. I really do think us three got the better end of the deal. Forty-five minutes after leaving us, Christine came back all wet and very weary looking to pick us up, and she said that after searching for a food court at the outlet malls which they found out didn't exist they had finally decided we were eating at Wal-mart. Hmmm... I don't believe I have ever had a picnic lunch at Wal-mart but I suppose there is a first time for everything. When we arrived I gave Dad a call to find out exactly where they were we finally found them outside a little bus stop in the Wal-mart parking lot. The lady inside Wal-mart said it was the only place she could think of that we could sit down and eat. Apparently they didn't even have picnic tables for their employees. So, she had recommended the bus stop, but it was about the temperature of a greenhouse and smelled worse then a cigarette pack. So, looking very much like homeless people we ate out of a Wal-mart grocery cart. It was an adventure to say the least, and provides a lot of memories.

After our picnic lunch was over we visited Chic-fil-a and got a few milkshakes to cool us all off, and then we started Christine's tram service back up. Five of us went back to the conference center and three decided to go shopping at Wal-mart. This time I was in the first five to go back. Upon arriving back at the conference center we all found a couch or chair and made ourselves comfortable and took a nap. When the second "tram" run arrived, we found out they had gone and rented a car so we could go home that night without Christine having to drive for three hours to get us all back to the cabins. Thankfully we only had to rent the car for 24 hours 'cause our truck was fixed and ready to be picked up the next afternoon.

After spending four days in the conference center the plan was to take it easy on Friday, our last free day before heading home. Our plans changed very quickly when we were given 7 tickets to Dollywood. We would only need to buy one ticket for all of us to go and they were selling them for a special price at the conference. So, we all got to go to Dollywood for thirty-eight dollars. It was a fun theme park with several roller coasters and a few water based rides. One of the last things we did there was ride on their steam engine/coal powered train. This was the perfect ending day to a very nice but busy vacation. The next day we loaded the truck and trailer up and drove 14 hours straight home. Thus ended my three weeks in Tennessee which were exhausting but awesome.

My thr3e weeks: The Hike (Part 3)

It 'twas a fine day for a hike and one of the only opportunities that we would have to go... So we all loaded up into our Expedition and went to the nearest State Park headquarters to get some maps and figure out where we wanted to go hiking. After looking at some of the maps we realized that we'd better find a hiking trail that was nearby as it was getting later and later into the afternoon and getting lost in the Tennessee mountains at night on vacation did not sound like fun. So we chose a trail that had an old homestead somewhere along the way... that is if we could find the right trail. Finding the park entrance was the easy part... being in Tennessee was a little bit different then being at home where every trail is marked with many different signs and arrows showing you which way to go. There were no signs telling you how far to go or where the trail started. So we just drove, and drove, and drove. Now the road that we were on seemed to get narrower as you went on. And it was a two way road, so occasionally we would come upon an oncoming car or truck and sometime I think I could feel our car cringing as we squeaked by the other cars with just inches to spare. But needless to say we finally got to a gate blocking a pathway and a parking lot, so this must be the spot. It had to be the spot, wherever we were, we were going to go hiking, whether we found the old homestead or not, we would at least get our hike in. It was a beautiful day, only slightly humid... which is better then other days when it was unbearably humid. And so on this beautiful only slightly humid day we took our hike.

There were a couple very cool trees that I had to get pictures of... (Above) A tree that was right by the creek and because of the rush of water all of its roots were visible. (Below) A tree that Dad said probably grew on top of another tree stump that had over time rotted away, as there was a big cavern that the tree grew on top of.





A spider web that I nearly wore as a mask, thankfully I ducked away before I met the web and its maker.



After all the wondering and wandering we finally found the old homestead, which was actually a barn that was built in 1875, and over a little stream was a hikers club cabin that was built in the 1930's and a little cold spring cellar that they must have used for refrigeration. The cabin was actually built using logs from a nearby Whaley family cabin. Our hike was successful and was pretty cool to boot.

"Located along the Porters Creek Trail, the John Messer Barn was constructed in 1875 by Pinkney Whaley. The only remaining structure of the pre-park community of Greenbrier Cove, it was added to the National Register in 1976. The Messer Barn is a type of double-cantilever barn unique to East Tennessee and rarely found outside its immediate vicinity." ~ Wikipedia

My thr3e weeks: The Cabin (Part 2)

This post should be labeled "The Cabins," for we did have two. One cabin was a three bedroom and the other was a two bedroom. Christine and I stayed in the master bedroom of the two bedroom and Isaiah and Nathanael had the second bedroom. Mom and Dad had the bigger cabin, where Micah and Colin both had there own rooms.



A lot of our time was spent in the bigger one mostly because they had most of the food... but we did have the snacky type food in the smaller cabin, and we had the pool table.

It had beautiful pine interior and exterior. It was gorgeous.

The cabins looked about the same with a few differences in layout and furniture set up.

The Master Bedroom, had the most comfortable, huge, ginormous bed. It was like laying on pillows, you literally sank down into it... Christine said she had to really look for me the first morning, only my head was partially visible.

I didn't get a picture of the back porch which had a hot tub, and I also didn't get a picture of the super cool pool that they had at the resort, or the huge hot tub they had right next to the pool, which because it was so big, was pretty much a hot pool. It was a truly beautiful vacation spot. To bad we couldn't pack it all up in our suitcase and bring it home with us. But then it really wouldn't be special if it was normal, so I suppose we will have to leave it where it is. :: sigh ::
But anyway, enough about how wonderful the cabins were, forward to the next post...

My thr3e weeks: Summit (Part 1)

How do you sum up three weeks of awesomeness? You cannot do it in one post, I can tell you that much. So I will be doing a few posts on my last 3 weeks. Some of the content will be taken directly from my journal, so bear with me.
July 4th, Day 1: (Diary entry 1) "Chattanooga, T.N. here I come... Christine's alarm went off at 5:15 this morning. Dad greeted me with a "Happy Birthday!" and an omelet at my bedroom door. I donned my red, white, and blue star-spangled shirt, Dad grabbed my 48 lb. suitcase, Mom grabbed my really heavy carry-on, I gave Christine a hug and we were off. We made it to the airport by 7:00 am and I was through customs and at my gate waiting at 7:30. The flight was uneventful which is good. The only thing that happened worth some notice, was, as I sat down in my seat in the very back of the plane, I looked down and I had egg and cheese clinging to my shirt, breakfast left-overs. I quickly wiped them from my shirt and thought, "is this as embarrassing as egg on my face?""
~~~ Making it to the college campus late afternoon on Sunday, I then settled into the dorm room
met my room mate, ate dinner, and then I headed to orientation. Looking at the schedule I knew the two weeks were going to be exhausting. This is what the first full day looked like:

• (Diary entry 2:) ~ "5:40 - get up, get stuff out and be ready to take your shower at six. Read your Bible, take a 12 minute shower. Get ready to go to breakfast.
• 7:00 - Walk down to breakfast in cafeteria
• 7:15 - eat breakfast.
• 8:05 - Classes start. Ben W---'s does a couple sessions with a couple of breaks.
• 10:20 - Scott K---- does a couple of sessions
• 12:00 - lunch
• 1:00 - Another session with Ben W.
• 2:00-5:00 - free time to join in with the group activity or whatever you want to do.
• 6:00 - Optional-open forum with Scott K. I go play pool with a girl in my small group.
• 7:00 - Worship with Josh B---'s then last session for today.
• 9:00 - Get out of session, and walk to dorm to take your contacts out, that are starting to bother you after wearing them since six-something. Write in journal.
• 9:45 - small group meeting, which goes to 10:30
• 11:00 - Lights out."

Pretty much this is what everyday looked like, just different speakers and different topics. Over 72 hours of teaching and many different topics were covered. It was a truly awesome challenging time.
~~~

On Saturday after being at Summit for almost a week, Kami (my room mate) and I decided to join in a hike through Pocket. It was a beautiful day for a walk/run in the heart of Tennessee. I think it was a six mile hike, and it was extremely warm for this northerner. It was fun though... and Kami and I realized we were dressed alike which was pretty funny.

The two weeks went by very quickly... and before we knew it we were sitting in the last sessions... Friday night they had a graduation ceremony which we got to dress up for, which was cool. Kami and I were reunited with our families, and we both stayed in the same hotel Friday night.

This was my small group... we would meet every night and discuss the stuff that we were learning. Jessica (the one standing next to me) was the small group leader, and she would direct stuff and ask questions. We had fun together, they were a cool bunch of girls. It is weird to think that our paths might never cross again, after spending two weeks together I feel like we should live closer... it is kind of a strange feeling, knowing that they live a long way away, and I might not see them on this earth again. I am thankful for the time we had together though.

Well, that just about sums up my time at Summit... there is a lot more I could write about worldviews, and post-modernism... but I think that is better in person, and it would take forever to talk about even half of what was taught there. So this will be my last post on Summit, but family vacation (part 2) is coming shortly...

The day my hair turned gray...

Yesterday my hair turned gray,

For a day.

I was over with the boys cleaning the house and the vacuum was not working quite right, so I decided to check and see if the vacuum was full. It was not full, that was not the problem, but the filter looked like it had about 10 lbs. of sheet rock dust ingrained into it. So I promptly took it outside to shake it out. And as everyone knows this little town that we live in is prone to windy days especially in the winter... and yesterday was no exception. The wind was blowing and blowing and blowing, and I even made sure it was blowing away from me. But the next time the boys saw me, they asked what happened, as it looked as if the vacuum had blown up and then sucked everything including me inside it. As I was sitting at the supper table last night, the boys were commenting on how dirty I was, and we were talking about how I had taken the filter out to shake it and that the vacuum was working much better now, and Dad made the comment, "Three accidents happened today on Main St. in O- because of low visibility." For a second I looked at him in shock half believing him, until I remembered what we had been talking about and that the wind had been blowing towards the road, and that there probably were people wondering what in the world the white dusty stuff was pouring out from behind that house.

That was the day my hair turned a whitish sort of gray.

Yesterday was also Dad's birthday, and I would just like to say,

"Happy Birthday Dad! I love you!"

A Belated Birthday Song...

A very Happy Birthday to you Mr. Guthrie! I hope you enjoy it too Jake!

( I am posting the lyrics below for your convenience.)

We Saw the Lights

• We wandered so aimless down Guthrie Lane,
• We couldn't see through all of the rain.
• Then we were blinded by something so bright,
• Praise the Lord! We saw the birthday lights!

We saw the lights! We saw the lights!
No more darkness the cakes much to bright
Now were so happy we celebrate tonight
Praise the Lord! We saw the birthday lights!

• We saw the porches, your sons, they did make
• 54 candles on top of your cake.
• You won't need your flashlight to illuminate the night
• Praise the Lord! We saw the birthday lights!

We saw the lights! We saw the lights!
No more darkness the cakes much to bright
Now were so happy we celebrate tonight
Praise the Lord! We saw the birthday lights!

• We hope you've enjoyed this version of the song,
• And tell your 9 children they must sing along.
• So Happy, Happy Birthday, and enjoy your cake!
• Thank your newest son-in-law, This ones from Jake!

We saw the lights! We saw the lights!
No more darkness the cakes much to bright
Now were so happy we celebrate tonight
Praise the Lord! We saw the birthday lights!

Operation Dance Recital

Helping someone else get ready for a dance recital is so much easier then getting yourself ready. That is why it was very enjoyable to be able to help my nieces Havalah and Esther get ready for theirs. I didn't have to worry about forgetting my costumes or not being able to put my hair in a bun, it was lovely. And it was a whole lot of fun to boot!

Havalah having her hair blow dried as the clock ticks down to when we had to leave.

After getting Esther's eye makeup all done we sent her out to the living room to see what she would look like on stage and the result was, " She looks like a CAT!" So, after calming down her makeup to look good on stage but not cat like we were all set. Except for waiting for her toe nail polish to dry which is what she is doing in this picture.

I think that Esther looks like a frog in this picture, she is so adorable!

She danced to the song, "Singin' in the Rain" She did a really good job, she was the only one following her dance instructor.

Havalah had two dances one was her ballet which was called, "Egyptian Princess" Here she is in her costume, she did an awesome job.

Her tap dance was called "Freeze Frame" and here she is posing for me. Her dancing gets better and better each year, I can't wait to see both of them again next year!

Plus-and-Plus = Equals

Esther + Chocolate Fountain + Marshmallows = a very happy sticky little Princess

Jesse + Hide-and-Seek + Blanket = Big Smiles

We did have a slight problem taking pictures when we were playing hide-and-seek though, he thought it was a lot of fun to hide from the camera. So if I couldn't capture a still of him then I would capture him on video.

(I thought you would enjoy this Joanna)

Be Funky

What can I say this is one of my newest favorite things to do. It is so easy and it is cool to see some of the effects that you can do, and the best news is that is doesn't cost a thing. Sarah introduced me to the website and I am forever hooked. It is www.befunky.com

I thought it would be a fun way to share some pictures with Joanna while she is on the other side of the world.

This one of Curtiss and Joanna is one of my favorites

I wish I could paint like this

It is also a cool way to save fuzzy pictures, this picture was quite fuzzy and now it looks pretty good.

It is also a fun way to show my patriotic side.

Even Dad and Mom can get Funky. ;)