Home again

Wow its been a long time since I posted last! And lots has happened! Well we moved back to TN, as most of you know. The move went really smoothly. We had to wait about 4 days longer than we had hoped for our stuff to be moved in, but this provided time for Adam to refinish the floors in our basement! Thanks to our lovely friends the Alexanders for letting us live with them during that time! So the week of Thanksgiving was spent basically throwing things in cabinets and closets just in an effort to get rid of boxes! Then we spent about 5 days in Franklin for Thanksgiving! We had a great time. We got to see lots friends and family but still managed to have a relaxing time. Now we're back in Knoxville and our house feels like one unorganized mess (because of the before mentioned throwing of things in closets and cabinets in an effort to get rid of boxes.... maybe that wasn't such a good idea?). But, alas, Christmas is upon us and that brings lots of shopping and traveling for us in the next few weeks!

All that being said, it's been a crazy time, but we are so glad to be back in TN. Parting with all our sweet friends in TX was hard, but being home is a sweet consolation. I think I've decided to try to keep the blog up though, if anyone is still interested in reading it, haha! But, I guess it needs a new name and design?? :) I'll work on that one. Here's a good pic of Judah playing in the leaves in Franklin. Yes, I am that mom that posts embarrassing pictures of her child. Thanks for continuing to read... actually leave a comment if you're still interested in our life. That will give me some encouragement to continue! Ha!

Not much going on around here

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, there really just hasn't been much going on around here. Most of you are thinking, shouldn't she be packing??? Well, after Adam talked with the moving folks at the base it looked like it wasn't going to be worth our time to move ourselves. So, we're letting the Air Force move us. Yay for me! So they'll be packing us up in about two weeks and heading out the day Adam graduates! We're so excited to be back in Knoxville!

Chocupacka

...is one of my new favorite words. Anyone wanna guess what it means? Here's a hint:



In case you didn't catch on, that means chocolate milk. Which is actually carnation instant breakfast. Dr.'s orders, Judah needs to gain weight. Ha!

Let's play catch-up!

Sorry, I haven't posted in like two weeks. Judah's has been doing some new fun things, and we're in the middle of my grandparents visiting us!

Judah has started "counting". It mainly consists of "Two, five, six, seven". Here's a video of his efforts:


We also took Judah to his first Texas high school football game on Friday night. He wasn't very interested in the game, but when half time came he was mesmerized by the marching band.





Then Saturday we met my grandparents in Austin. We visited the Zilker park botanical gardens.






And the Texas capital building.

Getaway to Fredericksburg

This past weekend Adam and I went on a getaway to Fredericksburg, TX. The town was one of a projected series of German settlements from the Texas coast to the land north of the Llano River, originally the ultimate destination of the German immigrants sent to Texas by the Adelsverein, which is the society for the protection of German Immigrants in Texas (http://www.fbgtx.org/other/history.htm). Therefore, we got to experience some wonderful German food (which I ironically never tried when we were in Germany), experience a little German charm, and hear some German accents! The town is very quaint with loads of shopping. We also traveled to a little place called Luckenbach, TX. There's not much too Luckenbach except a post office, bar, and their specialty: live music. It was an experience, but very fun. We had a great time and owe much thanks to our friends who watched Judah for us. We are so thankful to you all!

Spaghetti Dinner

Well, I've been afraid to start the whole Judah feeding himself thing for a while now. I'm just not looking forward to the mess. However, I know I need to give in. I think it will help his eating habits and not to mention be nice that I don't have to feed him! So the other night we had spaghetti for dinner and we let Judah dig in. It was messy to say the least and I think he managed to get about a teaspoon full in his stomach. Most of his feeding himself consisted of him putting spaghetti on the spoon. He also didn't like the ground beef in the sauce so every time he got a little bit in his mouth that was swiftly spit out (we're working on "no spitting" too, oh geez!) All in all, Judah had lots of fun. But it did take me a LONG time to clean up this mess. At least most dinners he feeds himself in the future won't be as messy as spaghetti!

Zoo Trip!

On Saturday we went to the Abilene Zoo. Judah's last trip to the zoo was almost a year ago and he really wasn't able to pay attention to the animals. This time was different! He was a little scared looking by the snakes, thought the peacock was funny, and kept calling the giraffe a "Horsey!". The most exciting part is we decided to visit the zoo on Vulture Awareness day, unawares to us! We got to learn about how vital vultures are to our world (without the there would be dead animals everywhere!) and we got to watch the vultures (not buzzards) eat a hog head. Yummy :). Overall we had an exciting trip. Here's a few pictures of us and our friends who came along!

Coming to a close

Well, we're close to two months until we leave Texas. Our time here has flown by (which everyone told me it would). Its hard to believe! While we're so excited to be back in Knoxville, I'm sad to be leaving our friends we've met here. It would be so nice if we could corral all our favorite people into a close proximity to us but that's not the way God has made life, is it? Our friends here have some fun adventures ahead of them and I'm so excited to hear about them!

But, in the next few months we still have some exciting things happening! In September we have a trip planned to Austin where we'll meet my grandparents and tour some of the hill country. We're excited to see them! Then all the excitement of packing will begin (woo hoo!). Can you tell I'm not excited about that? Adam will graduate and then we'll begin our journey home.

But until then, I'll keep posting!

Farmer Dan

So fun to see Judah really starting to play. He gets so excited!

Rain!

We're so thankful we got some rain last weekend. We have been having a really bad drought here for a while. I figure you know you've been experiencing a bad drought when you take pictures of the storm as its rolling in. Last Thursday night it was so beautiful. We just watched the storm in the distance on our back porch for a while. Honestly its the first time in a long while we've been able to sit on our porch in the evening and not be sweating bullets! Saturday it rained pretty much all day. Which led to pretty significant flash flooding around town. We are the dummies who got out that day and were driving around in the crazy weather. We're so thankful for the rain, but we're still praying for more!

Tara!

We were so excited to have Tara come visit with us! Having her here really made it real to me that life is still going on in Knoxville. Some parts of that realization were sad, but it mainly made me excited to get back!

There's not a whole lot to do in San Angelo, but we tried to give Tara an idea of what our life is like here. We shopped downtown, went to church, and on her last day we just drove out into the Texas wilderness. I wanted her to get an idea of what West Texas is like and I think she did :). Here's a few pictures!

Tar!

Most of you are probably confused by the blog title. Well, it comes from Judah's new favorite toy, his guitar. But he just calls it a "Tar!", and always says its name very excitedly and high pitched, like you might call someone's name when you're really happy/surprised to see them. Judah loves to play his tar, usually using another toy to strum (last night his pick of choice was one of his stacking rings). But he also loves to let Adam and I play the guitar. Adam actually sounds pretty good on Judah's guitar, even though its a little out of tune. My guitar playing, however, is a totally different story. Typically I just strum as hard as I can on the thing.. but Judah loves it! I think he's going to be a musician!

Looking for a Hobby

As if I need more to fill my time :). But I am looking for a hobby. I want to make sure I'm using my time wisely and frankly I can't read all the time. There's just some days I need something else to fill my time with (and no I'm not ready for baby #2). So I've been thinking of hobby's lately. Here's my thoughts:

1)Blogging - but my life just isn't really that interesting and we've all seen I'm not so good at this!

2)Sewing - I think I could talk Adam into buying me a sewing machine. Honestly I'm afraid of sewing across my finger though!

3)Scrapbooking - ....I just don't think this is my thing!

4)Extreme Couponing - couponing just kinda stresses me out though.

So now I need to take a poll. What do you guys think? Which hobby seems to suit me best? Any other hobby ideas I didn't mention? Or do you think I should just focus on growing in Godliness :)?

We miss our friends

It's been almost two weeks since they left, but life has finally died down enough for Judah and I to realize how much we are missing our friends the Perreault's. When I brought Judah downstairs on the first morning after they left town he looked around the room just waiting for someone to greet. Thankfully we picked my parents up in San Antonio the same day, so he wasn't too stricken with grief. Nonetheless, we miss you Anya, Jude, and Lilia. Here are a few pictures of the stinkers :).


They were playing King and Queen!




Giving Mrs. Anya a big hug goodbye. He gave Jude and Lilia a big hug too but I wasn't fast enough to catch those on camera.

More pics from San Antonio

Some say I've been neglecting the blog... here's an effort to post more :)

San Antonio

My parents flew into San Antonio last Friday to come visit us! We were excited to have them here and to get to see San Antonio for the first time. The river walk is really fun. The first night we ate at a great Mexican restaurant on the river. Judah loved the mariachi band that came to play on the patio of the restaurant. Here's a video of when they played to Judah... he definitely liked them better when they were further away.

How are we doing?

I've posted a lot about Judah, but I just realized the other day I haven't really given an update on how we're really doing.

I've been thinking about this post for a while. I tried to start it a while ago, but I guess you could say I was having a hard day :). We miss Tennessee a lot, but God has been so kind to us since we've been here. I feel like my days have been full lately and that is good. Time goes by so much faster when the days are good and full.

God has provided a very biblical church for us here. That is a huge answer to prayer. Our souls are being regularly fed and challenged on Sunday mornings. Not a Sunday goes by where we aren't reminded of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, how Jesus died for our sins on the cross. This has been so comforting to me, seems like I am very desperate for this message by the time Sunday rolls around. I actually got the idea to right this post on a Sunday morning as I was listening to the message and so aware of how God has specifically cared for us by leading us to this church. However, we are so anxious to be back at Cornerstone Church of Knoxville!

Adam and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on June 16th. God has also provided a wonderful babysitter for us, so we were able to have a delicious dinner to celebrate, just the two of us. Adam has also been getting home around 3:30pm every day, so needless to say we've been enjoying the extra time together. There are days here and there when he has to stay late, but I'm going to be spoiled when we return to Knoxville and is getting home around 5 or 5:30.

We love and miss everyone in Tennessee and are desperate to hear how you all are doing. Please call or email anytime to fill us in!

Pool Time!

Judah was invited to play in his friend Savannah's pool. In Texas, kiddie pool water doesn't stay cool for long. Hence why I think he actually enjoyed himself.





Judah had several face plants in the water, but he handled them well. Overall it was a nice way to end a 100 degree day.

"Wake up Savannah!"

J's first haircut!

Our little boy was starting to look more like a little girl recently. I love his curly locks, but after the third lady in the grocery store calling him a "beautiful little girl - i mean boy!" we knew it was time for a hair cut. One of our new friends in Texas used to be a hairstylist before she became a full-time mom so she was kind enough to cut Judah's hair for us last night! There were no tears or cut off ears so I would say it was a success. Here's a few pictures:

Before:



After:



a

Austin

Memorial Day weekend we visited some wonderful friends who live in Austin. Mike and Adam have know each other since before high school. Amazingly, Mike and Laura had a little girl, River, just a month after Judah was born. As you can imagine it was fun seeing those two together!

We got to see the Texas state Capitol:

and eat at some wonderful restuarants (the brisket was amazing!), but I think by far our favorite part of the weekend was spending relaxing time with Mike, Laura, and River at their home. It was great to get to know them better! Here are a few pictures of our time together!







Judah and River holding hands in the car. They were amazed about getting to ride everywhere together, haha!