Summertime Odds & Ends

Thought I'd post some pictures from the last month or so... a few things we've we've been up to other than working =)

Reedy River in downtown Greenville

We had a sweet evening together with my family at the end of May before Will and Sarah left to drive to Miami, pick up their Spanish visas, and fly to Spain!

Family pic

A few weekends ago, Andrew and I got to spend another weekend in the mountains with Laurel and Billy and their church!  They were having a church family retreat, and Andrew had been asked to play guitar for their bonfire time of singing, devotion, and sharing.  We got there Saturday afternoon in time to join the zipline fun and play some frisbee golf before supper!

So you climbed up the cargo net, and then transfer to the zip
cable for the ride down!  This is Billy and another man in the
church, but Andrew and I did it together too =)

Billy waving hello

A group of us played some frisbee golf... and
unfortunately had several close and closer
than close encounters with water!

There was a rope hanging from this tree so...
someone simply can't pass up these opportunities =)

My parents have been on a trip for the last few weeks, and I volunteered to "babysit" my mom's sourdough bread starter... i.e. feed it every 5-7 days, etc.  So thought I'd give making her bread a whirl too and was Thrilled it turned out Great!!!  Will be making some more this weekend! 

One evening last week Allene asked if we wanted to join them for supper at their neighborhood pool.  Storms kept us at the house for supper, but it cleared off and we still got to go swimming...

Marshall all ready to get in!

Sadie too!

And this week I made an ice cream cake for Canada day =)  Super easy when you use ice cream sandwiches and Cool Whip!

work in progress...

Happy Canada Day!

My Canadian and his ice cream cake =)

Our 1st Anniversary!

A year ago today, my daddy walked me down the isle and gave his little girl away... to the man God had so incredibly blessed me to marry....

It was undoubtedly the Lord who had orchestrated Every detail from the first time we met under a palm tree outside the Teen Missions office all the way to this point 6 years later!

In some ways it's hard to believe it has already been a year, and in others, I'm a little astonished it's Only been a year!  God has blessed us in so many ways and yet it is so easy to forget or take that for granted.  As I have been dealing with more medical issues and peculiarities over the last 6-7 months, I know God is teaching me dependence on Him.  I've never had health issues, and my instinctive response is to try and "figure it out" when I do.  My focus so quickly shifts entirely away from God who is in complete control to anxiety over what I can't figure out and perhaps am not to know right now.  But He never lets go of His children; He is faithful; His love is enduring.

So this weekend as we decided what to do for our anniversary, we opted to spend some time in the mountains.  It was a refreshing weekend away... time together and time with the Lord...

1898 Waverly Inn B&B where we spent Friday evening.

Decided to try some zip lining nearby =)

All ready!

Ready for the first line...

Pretty view from one of the platforms...

After zip-lining, we stopped by this cute winery!  We had found a few online that were in the general area, and this turned out to be a fun stop.  6 acres of vineyards - started and owned by a retired couple who used to live in Fort Lauderdale and ran a plant nursery, etc... beautiful property, needless to say, and they are still working on some aspects of it.  Anyhow, we spread our tastings out over a few hours, mixed in with checking out their new brick ovens, patio, and deck, and a stroll through the vineyards and to the top of the hill to check out the view =)

Cute entrance

View of some of the vineyard from the new deck above the patio...

At the very top of this hill... they plan to have a grassy picnic
area up here... great view of the surrounding mountains! 

It only takes us a bunch of tries to get a decent one, lol...

Another shot of the vineyard

 All in all a very enjoyable time away, celebrating 1 year of marriage!

Camping!

Weekend before last, we took our new tent and spent a few days camping at Croft State Park, about an hour away.  It was a very relaxing weekend, and despite a decent amount of rain, we stayed dry in our tent and had an enjoyable few days =)  I had a half day at work that Friday, so we were able to leave and get to the campground by mid afternoon.

Getting set up 

Andrew getting the fire going to cook our supper...

Mmmm... in progress... 

The contents of our foil hobos...

And the Delicious final product!
Grilled Kielbasa sausage with roasted potatoes, green beans, & onions 

Enjoying the last bit of daylight in my hammock... so peaceful =)

We slept well and got some Much needed abundance of rest... waking to the sound of rain on the tent both Saturday and Sunday mornings.  A good sound as long as it isn't accompanied by Getting wet, which we really didn't =)   The temperatures were perfect for camping... cool enough in the evenings to enjoy a campfire, warm during the day for hiking and being outside, and not so warm that the bugs were out to get us =)

By middle of the day on Saturday, the rain was done for a while, and we were able to go for some short hikes.

Rushing [muddy] river 

This lake was just down the hill from our campsite.

Another campfire meal!

Burritos! They were oh so good!

I'd done some searching for campfire meals... the hobos I knew about and had done something of the sort a Long time ago.  Easy and tasty.  The burritos however were a great and different idea!  Beef, black beans, red peppers, rice, onions, taco seasoning, mozzarella... and some salsa on top... Super easy camping meal since everything was done in advance.  We froze the burritos and by night #2 of camping, they had thawed and were a quick heat-up meal!

We had quite the fire Saturday night...

=)

While it was wet Sunday morning from some earlier showers, we managed to pack up before another round of rain came through!  All in all a great weekend =)

Memphis

April 5th we hit the road headed to Memphis, TN!  A good friend of mine from college was getting married, and since I hadn't returned to work yet after my surgery, we were free to make the trip.  It was a beautiful day, and we were having an great drive until... car trouble struck =(  We were just over 100 miles from Memphis, in the middle of nowhere, when we were forced to spend some quality time on the side of I-40... because...

Blown upper radiator hose (didn't realize what had happened for a some time)

=

overheated engine

=

engine damage (not always, but def did this time...)

=

No. Good.

The gash in the radiator hose =/

Thankfully, we do have roadside assistance, and they came to tow our car to the nearest town, about 10 miles away.  While sitting on the side of the road, we realized that we had entered the Central Time Zone, therefore gaining and extra hour (which proved rather important when needing a mechanic on a Friday afternoon!)

Loading onto the tow truck

We were towed to an auto parts store, Andrew replaced the radiator hose, etc, and we drove to an auto shop just a few miles away.  By this point it was almost 5pm.  They were able to quickly determine that we definitely had further engine damage (coolant was in the cylinders)... one of the managers there was incredibly kind, offered to take us to the closest car rental location near where he lived, so that we could hopefully make it to Memphis.  He called the rental place ahead, we threw our bags in his truck, left my car in the parking lot, and off we went.  We just made it to Enterprise before 6pm when they close, to find lots of people and us waiting for cars... that they potentially weren't going to have available for us... =/  Long story short, we did finally get a vehicle... a pick-up truck, and by that point most any vehicle was acceptable!  The auto shop guy stayed with us the whole time until we were set with the truck... talk about customer service!   We weren't too sure what we were going to do about my car, but headed on to Memphis...  So thankful for the Lord's protection and working out all the details... so many things that could have been much, much worse!

Despite the car issues, we had a great weekend!  While there is plenty to do and see in Memphis, we had a relaxed and enjoyable time wandering downtown, seeing a lot of the sights, and meanwhile not overdoing it with my knee...

The fountain with the Marching Ducks at the Peabody Hotel...
we didn't get there in time to see the marching of the ducks...

Beale Street

The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge

A barge pushing what appears to be a load of coal up the Mississippi River.

The Memphis Pyramid

Trolley Car

Enjoying the Beautiful weather!

After working up an appetite, we had a late lunch of delicious (world famous) ribs at Charles Vergos' Rendevous =)  It's in the basement of this building, the entrance tucked away in an alley...

We had a little more time after lunch to ramble downtown Memphis before heading back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding... It was a beautiful service, but this is the only pic I managed to sneak that turned out at all =)

Mr. & Mrs. John Michael Leppert =)

First Dance

Fun table centerpieces... and a great idea using the paper lanterns!

John Michael and I were the same class, major, and sport in college... we spent A Lot of time together, and it was super great to see him and meet his beautiful bride!  He had also never met Andrew, so it was about time that happened as well =)

Yay! A picture of all 4 of us =)

After a Wonderful Saturday, we had some time to kill on Sunday before meeting my brother David and his wife Brittany who made the long trip out to pick up us and our car.  We are SO thankful they were available and willing to come get us!  Andrew realized we could feasibly travel through 3 states within an hour and decided we really needed to take advantage of the opportunity, lol.  So... we left Memphis and entered Mississippi (somehow missed the sign =/), then from Mississippi, crossed into Arkansas...

This bridge was paralleled by 2 other bridges...

Can sort of see all 3 bridges

If you look closely, you can see a train on the 3rd bridge.

Memphis Bridge again

Memphis from the Arkansas side of the river

Crossing the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge back into Tennessee!

And a close-up of the pyramid... it is being renovated currently...

After our 3-state excursion, a bite to eat, and a few minutes of walking downtown, we were on our way to meet David and Brittany.

Ready to load!

My car fit perfectly on the trailer, which meant
the doors couldn't be opened once it was loaded...
so Andrew climbed out the trunk =)

We drove several hours, stopped for the night, and then got up the next morning and finished the trip... quite the weekend, and we were all glad to make it home!