It Had to Be You and The Worst Aquarium Ever- Day 2

Tuesday was our anniversary. 8 wonderful years. Our song is "It had to be you." But think Harry Connick, Jr./When Harry Met Sally. Not Darla/A League of Their Own. So, here was our day.

Our day started off by the pool. It was a very family friendly pool and Andrew was much more adventurous than we anticipated. Maybe I should look up some how to's for swimming on the internet.

After the pool was nap time. After nap time is was time to venture out to Hot Springs for our anniversary. We also tried to find something that Andrew would enjoy as well. We found a listing for the National Park Aquarium. We've always wanted to take Andrew to one. Sounded good...

The next 2 pictures are taken from just inside the entrance.

That's the whole thing. Best $12.10 I ever spent...or not.

Afterwards, we journeyed up the mountain to take a picture of Hot Springs.

We finished our evening with a night out at Outback. Fun times!

Our First Family Vacation-Day One

Well, we are officially on vacation!! We got here around 4:30 and are really enjoying everything so far. This lake is beautiful!!
This is the view from our room. The first thing Andrew said when we got here was "water", which means "I want to go swimming!"

Tomorrow we plan on heading to the pool in the late morning and then tomorrow afternoon we're going to drive to Hot Springs....it's only 20 minutes away. Tomorrow is our 8th anniversary!! Yay!
See Michelle, I told you I would blog again!! :)

Haircut & Pictures

I went to Dallas last weekend while Jay was at camp. While we were there I went to get Andrew's hair cut at this cool place that is just for kids. We took Andrew there in December when we were visiting and I was really impressed with them. Well, let just say that this time didn't go nearly as well as the first. It took three of us to hold Andrew down so the lady could cut his hair. He was screaming and thrashing about and it was probably one of the most embarrassing moments I've had with him. But she got the job done (fairly well considering what she had to work with) and I tipped her well hoping that would make up for the awfulness that she endured. This is the end result (on the campus of Austin College when we went to go see Daddy).

Later the same day of the awful haircut experience, Nana wanted to take him to get his pictures taken. I must tell you that I was pretty scared about this. Knowing my son and his unwilling spirit, I really didn't think he would cooperate. Well, he proved me wrong. He really did pretty well...maybe he was making up for what he put me through that morning! Here are a few of the poses.

Visitors from the East

Well, this post has been a long time coming. We have been super busy with camp and stuff that I haven't had time to blog until now. So LeAnn, I think this is within your week and a half deadline you gave me! :)
Janette and Perry came to visit in May and we had a wonderful time with them!! They got to come to church with us and hang out with the youth at our house. I'm sure they were ready to get home to their own beds and houses since Andrew woke them up very early every day they were here. Sorry guys! I hope it doesn't make you not want to come back! Here are a few pictures from their visit.

Notice Andrew's very long hair. In the next post you will see that he got a haircut. I will save the horrible details of that for later.

I don't have pictures of it because I forgot, but we also got to see Lyndel and Cheryl Thursday night of this week. (For those who don't know who they are, we were on staff with them in Tennessee) They were driving through on their way to San Antonio for the convention and they stopped and had dinner with us. It was so great to see them as well!! If anyone else from Tennessee feels like a drive, we would love to see you....we miss you all!!

Big Boy Bed

Since Andrew is now three, we decided we should probably change his bed into a toddler bed. This pretty much consisted of taking the front part off of the crib. I know it sounds crazy that we haven't done this before now, but he's never tried to get out of it and then we moved and yada yada yada. Anyway, he now has a big boy bed. We went in his room tonight and told him it was time for night night and he climbed right in. We prayed and then said goodnight and left the room thinking he would be up 2 minutes later. So far, he's been in there about 40 minutes and we haven't heard a peep. I think it would be hoping for far too much to think that he's not going to get up at some point tonight, but he may just surprise us!

Birthday Fun

Saturday was Andrew's 3rd birthday!! I just can't believe it. We celebrated by having a very small party. It consisited of us and our music minister, his wife and their son James who is Andrew's age. Even though it was small, Andrew had a blast! We had it outside since one of Andrew's presents from us was a swimming pool. Andrew's favorite thing is playing in the water and since Nana got him the water/sand table and we got him a pool, I think he's set. By the way Nana, we are just putting water in the water/sand table because there is so much splashing that goes on, the sand would just turn to mud.

Nana Comes to Visit!

Nana came to visit this past weekend and she brought presents!!! Andrew's birthday isn't until Saturday, but she has to work so she came this past weekend instead. He got a sand/water table, a big sandbox, some books, sunglasses and clothes. I might be leaving something out, I can't remmeber. But needless to say, he's quite spoiled by his Nana. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch on Friday where Andrew has a blast!! He is so funny in there...he just runs around pushing the buttons on each game. He did actually "play" a few this time. The would be him putting the coin in the machine and then running to another game one once it started whatever it did. Here are a few pics of the visit.



On a separate note, we are getting a dishwasher this week!!! I am soooo excited! It's been a long road getting to the point where they can actually install it though. When the cabinet guy originally came to cut out the place where it goes, he found mold. Thankfully it wasn't black mold, but they still had to treat it. That took basically two days. (This might be the reason Andrew's allergies and now asthma have been flaring up...hopefully this will take care of it) Then the electrician guy has been here in the evenings to do the wiring. The dishwasher will be here Thursday or Friday and then the plumber will have to come and do his part and then install it. So apparently a lot goes into putting one in when there wasn't one previously, but I know it will be worth it in the end! We are going to have another mini birthday celebration this Saturday and I will post some more pictures sometime after that.

Petting Zoo and Stuff

Life is crazy busy right now, so we're sorry Tessa that we can't blog as much as you'd like. We'll try to do our best when we can.

These are some pictures of Andrew at the petting zoo. He loves animals and we thought this would be so much fun for him! He was so excited as we were going in:

But then he wouldn't get close to any of the animals once we were inside. Some of them were kind of scary looking. We got him semi-close to this camel you see in the background, but he was really scared of it.

It took him all of 3 minutes to figure out that the floor was made of dirt and apparently this is a lot more interesting to a 3 year old than cool animals:

After about 5 minutes of him playing in the dirt we left.

Everything is going really well...we are busy all of the time it seems. The youth are over at our house a lot and Andrew LOVES it!! He thinks they're here just to play with him. Here are a few pictures:

They've nicknamed him catfish and pretty much spoil him rotten.

So that's life right now. We're getting ready to celebrate Andrew's 3rd birthday in a couple of weeks, so look for that blog soon.

Easter

We had a really great Easter this year!! Jay and I watched The Passion of the Christ on Saturday. That movie really brings home the visual part of Christ's suffering. Then Sunday we celebrated that He overcame that suffering and death and rose from the grave...amazing!! We didn't have church that evening so we just spent some quality family time together relaxing...it was wonderful! Here are some pictures of us and Andrew...I tried to get him to just stand there for one so you could see how cute he was all dressed up, but he refused. I guess that's a two (almost 3) year old for you. Hope all of your Easters were as great as ours!

Andrew Beerley- "God of Second Chances"

World premier video of Andrew Beerley singing "God of Second Chances" from Jonah: A Veggie Tales movie.

Settled

Well, we are finally settled here in Texarkana. We got here last Thursday night and started moving stuff in Friday. When we walked into the house, we found a great surprise:

Isn't this great? Andrew LOVED it! The youth did a great job decorating, don't you think? It's all down now, but we really felt welcomed! It's been a full week and things are going great. Andrew is adapting way better than I thought he would. We did have one incident with him while we were moving in. Warning to all of you mothers and grandmothers...this is scary! The movers were here moving stuff in and we set Andrew up in the front bedroom with Star Wars (whatever captivated him to keep him out of the way, right?!). Anyway, we were in our bedroom telling them where to place stuff and came out and realized Andrew wasn't in the room. We started looking for him and he wasn't in the house at all!!! We ran outside and he was no where to be seen. We were really panicking by this time. Jay ran down the street and found him six or seven houses down just hanging out with these people. The man was on the phone and we're not sure, but we think he may have been calling the cops. It was by far the scariest moment we've had with Andrew. All of the what ifs started going through our minds....our house is just two down from a fairly busy road! It gives me chills just re-telling it. He got a good scolding and of course we were more mad at ourselves than anything. Cheryl Littleton had told me some horror stories one time about people moving with small children.....now I know why she told me.
Anyway, everything else has been great. We had a great first Sunday and Wednesday. We had a VBS rally Wednesday night....see if you recognize any of the cheerleaders:

I think the gotee gives him away! This is all of the staff....they made such cute cheerleaders! Well, that's about all I have for now. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Two-State Paradox

Ok, so there is this weird dichotomy right now whereby Christi and I are "living" in two places at one time. At least with our hearts. Too weird to really talk about.
But here's the physical reality of being in two states at one time! This is us with a few of the search committee from Wake Village. Good times...

New Blog

Ok, here is the new blog that everyone keeps asking for. We have been crazy busy and well, sometimes I just forget about blogger. I will work harder to keep up with it. As most of you know, we are moving to Texarkana, Tx in a little less than two weeks. We have loved our time at FBC Joelton, but know that God is calling us to new ministry at FBC Wake Village (it's about five minutes outside of Texarkana). We are sad and excited all at the same time, which is a weird feeling. They are hiring movers to come and pack us up so I'm not having to pack everything, but I do have some closets to go through and stuff to get rid of. It really stuns me how much we acquire even when living in such a small apartment. Anyway, I will try and keep you posted as we move and get settled.

I don't have any new pictures to share with you. But I will tell you that Jay and I went out the other night with Danny & Michelle and Travis & Elizabeth and saw Amazing Grace.

It was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend that you see it. So that's about it for now....I hope this isn't my only blog for March! :)

Snow day and Airplanes

It snowed Thursday night, but since Andrew was battling a little cold, we didn't go outside and play in it. Well, it snowed again Saturday night and so as not to be deemed horrible mother of the year, I decided to let him go out. He was not nearly as impressed as he was last year. Here are some pics:

As you can see he basically just stood there....he was a good sport about us throwing snow at him though!
Andrew also has a newfound obsession in airplanes. He loves them more than cars now, but he really just loves all forms of transportation. Jay let him watch Star Wars one day and he absolutely loves the pod racing scene. He now calls that movie airplane because that's what he thinks they are. We are in the process of trying to find a documentary on airplanes so he doesn't become obsessed with Star Wars at the age of two and a half! As seen below, he always has a plane attached to his hand during the day now.

On a quick random note, he came up to me the other day and told me poo poo. I'm sure all of you non parents out there will find this disgusting, but as I approached him I realized he had indeed poo pooed! Maybe he's finally going to start this whole potty training thing...I bought him some big boy underwear just in case!
And finally, I just thought this picture was cute, so I'm adding it too.