Here, There and Everywhere!

Even though we've been trapped in Jackson all summer due to my travel restrictions, that hasn't kept us from staying VERY busy!!  Here's a quick (long) recap of what we've been doing over the past several weeks.  

A few weekends ago we met up with my BFF Betsy and her family as they were in Nashville for a quick trip to see their cousins graduate from college.  It makes me sad that our kids don't get to see each other more than they do because they always have a blast when they get together.  Not to mention it's always great to spend time with one of my very best friends who I miss very much.

Just for fun, here's a comparison collage of our kids that Betsy made.....

 We had a few options for our time together in Nashville but the weather was threatening us with some bad rain so we played it safe and decided to try out the Adventure Science Center.  I highly recommend it!  We were there several hours and didn't even come close to seeing it all.  The kids had a lot of fun, and as you'll see the adults did too.....

Elijah, Koby and Kyndall

Friends since elementary school!

 My favorite part of the museum was the human body simulations.  I showed Kyndall this replica of a surgery and told her this is what Mommy will look like when they cut my belly.  She didn't seem too shocked by it....

The dental hygienist nerd in me came out when I saw this exhibit....

The space/astronomy area was also a favorite of mine.  The kids wanted to try this weightless simulation but they weren't quite tall enough, so the "other" kids tried it out and let us watch

From the top of the museum we had some incredible views of downtown Nashville.  Look how sweet Kyndall and Koby are as they admire the scenery!

Thanks for a fun morning, Booten Family!  (And thanks for letting me snag these pictures from your own blog, Betsy!!)

Since we were already in Nashville we decided to make a day of it and let Kyndall spend her gift cards to Build-A-Bear at Opry Mills Mall.  When we walked in she nearly had a come apart when she saw this display on the wall.....

Though she wanted ALL of the ponies, she was forced to choose just one.  Of course, there was no question that it would be Rainbow Dash

Thirty minutes and nearly $40 later, this is what we walked away with....

  

We did some shopping and took a ride on the carousel before calling it a day

Kyndall has also enjoyed several play dates this summer with friends.  Micah is one of Kyndall's best friends and her sweet Mama Rebecca (Uh-Becca, according to Kyndall) always has such fun things for them to do.  It's no wonder Kyndall loves going over there!  A couple weeks ago she went over to Micah's and came home with her very own "Rainbow" oil blends!  We love essential oils in our house and Kyndall has really gotten into them too.  She knows that they help her feel better, sleep better and even ACT better and now that she has her own kit, she is super cooperative when it comes to using them.

How cute are these little aroma scientists??  Rebecca is such a super Mom!

Kyndall said she wanted a "rainbow" oil blend so Rebecca being the quick thinker that she is, simply lined up the bottles in order of a rainbow and told Kyndall to have at it!  (I admire her for her being so generous with her oils and letting the girls have their way with them---I am super protective over mine because I know how expensive they are!)

She even printed out cute little labels for the rollers and then put them in a neat little case!  I'm telling you, she's my hero!  

One of our biggest undertakings this summer was the renovations we had done to our kitchen last week.  We moved into this house in November and I've been itching to paint the kitchen and add a newer, more bold tile back splash.  Since I'm too much of a perfectionist to attempt it myself, we finally settled on hiring someone to do the work for us.  The hardest part BY FAR was just deciding exactly what it was that I wanted.  I created a Pinterest page, spent hours upon hours in Lowe's and Home Depot and nearly ruined my eyes comparing and studying hundreds of paint samples.  It was enough to make me crazy, and I wasn't even doing the work!  I was simply overwhelmed with all of the choices!

I finally settled on the two (general) colors that I wanted.  Green for the kitchen and red for the dining room.  However, there are still thousand of shades of green and thousands of shades of red!!!  Aaaahhh!!!

Once I finally made my decision, the demolition began.  If you know me very well, you know I'm a fanatic about my house being kept orderly and clean and free of clutter.  I almost had to just check myself into a hotel and hide my eyes for the entire week!!  Each time I peeked into the kitchen I felt my blood pressure rise as I saw the MESS.  Not to mention, it was in the middle of all this that I was called away for transplant.  Do you know how stressful it was to leave my house behind in such disarray??  It took everything in me to just walk away and let it go.  

Here's the before pictures.....I was never crazy about the bead board and the walls were just so blahhh.....

And after....much more bold and warm, which is what I like!

(This picture makes the walls look way more green than they actually are!)

They are more like this.....

The dining room was just tan before so I LOVE how the red really pops against the white!

Now the really fun part begins....picking out a dining room table and new matching accessories for the kitchen!

 A few weeks ago I decided to get a head start on Kyndall's 4th birthday party plans.  She's decided on a Rainbow Dash themed party, of course.  This has actually proven to be quite easy and a lot of fun, since rainbows are pretty easy to come by!  

We took some pictures in the backyard for her invitations and these two ended up being my favorites....

The invitations have been sent and received, now we're just in countdown mode until the big day!  She comes into my bedroom EVERY morning and asks me if it's September yet and how many more days it will be until her party.  I think she's slightly excited.

Last week Kyndall and I had our 6 month check ups at the dentist.  I'm such a proud hygienist Mommy because my girl LOVES going to the dentist and even gets her teeth cleaned without me in the room with her.  We are in and out in half the time because we are both seen at the same time.  I could hear her from down the hall in my friend Brooke's operatory asking a million questions but I never heard any whining....only giggles!  

Waiting in the lobby, she spelled her name with magnets and was very proud

Another great check up!  No cavities for either of us!

This past weekend I traveled to Memphis to attend the Beth Moore Living Proof Live conference with some of my Englewood girls.  I can't even put into words what a blessing it was to be there!  It was a weekend full of much needed refreshment and encouragement in the Lord and I walked away with a completely different outlook on life.  If you've never done a Beth Moore study or been to one of her wonderful conferences, you are truly missing out.  She is by far my favorite Christian author and speaker and I am always amazed at what I gain from her teachings.

There were 9,500 women in the FedEx Forum Friday night and Saturday morning and the Lord did not disappoint!  The Holy Spirit was moving all weekend long in the hearts of everyone in that building.  It was also neat to see Englewood's own Travis Cottrell and his praise team in action.  We are spoiled by having him lead our music every Sunday at EBC, but it was even better seeing him as part of Beth's ministry.

I love these girls!!!

It was also pretty cool to see EBC's choir in the audience helping Travis lead worship.  There were many familiar faces, including Glory and several others from our Sunday School class. (That's the EBC choir in the spotlight)

What happens when you release 9,500 women into downtown Memphis on a Friday night??  Six of them cram into the back of my car and we go for a joy ride on a mission to find Glory and end up totally lost in some pretty shady parts of town!  And, we never retrieved Glory---she gave up on us and took a cab back to the hotel!  Fun memories!

On Saturday when we were released from the conference we were forced to say our final goodbyes to Glory, as she was leaving straight from Memphis to drive on to Texas where she will make her new life and set off on the next adventure for the Raley family.  We had a long teary embrace on the front steps of the forum before we went our separate ways.  It was such a sad ending to an absolutely wonderful weekend.  Bittersweet is the only way I can describe it.  Even though we will all miss the Raleys, we are excited to see what's next for them.  

Anna took this picture of Stacie as Glory and I had our "moment".  Sad faces all around.

One final picture

Here are some random pictures that I pulled off my phone that also document what we've been up to this summer......

Close enough, I suppose.  

In an attempt to be healthier, we made our first Saturday morning trip to the farmer's market in downtown Jackson.  After wandering around in a fog and feeling a little lost, we settled on a loaf of sourdough bread and a bag of kettle corn.  We are hopeless carb-a-holics!

Kyndall spotted this mini recliner at a furniture store as we were shopping for a new dining room table.  She said "send this picture to G-Daddy"

I got really tired of seeing all the junk (DVDs, Wii parts, remotes, etc) through the windows of our TV cabinet so I covered them up with scrapbook paper.  I'm not very crafty or creative, so I was slightly proud of this idea that I came up with all on my own!

For several weeks it felt SO good in the evenings so we began taking nightly walks up and down our street.  It was great until this week when it turned miserably hot again.  I think we'll hold off on this family activity until the fall in order to avoid heat strokes!

Helping Daddy water the grass after one of our walks

She has been wanting to dress herself and pick out her own clothes lately and I've had to try really hard to just let it go.  This day wasn't so bad.  At least she matched....

I've enjoyed LOTS of these over the summer.  Yes, both of those were for me!

Every Thursday we've gone to story time at the library

We had one final BR ice cream date with Caroline and Glory after story time a few weeks ago

Dressed herself again.....

There were a few days when all it did was rain, rain, rain!

So we spent a lot of time inside coloring and playing

(I was pretty impressed by how well she stayed in the lines on this picture)

When the rain stopped, it was time for some puddle-jumpin'.  I'm sure people took me for a fool when I told her to have at it in the Old Navy parking lot!

The Icee machine was broken on this particular night (story of my life) so we had to settle for a milkshake instead

A pretzel dipped in mustard and an Icee at Sam's is this little girl's idea of a dream lunch!  She's a simple one....

Ballet will be starting up again soon, which means we had to order a new leotard!  Super proud of myself for finding this one on Wal-Mart's website for only $10!

Another impressive coloring job, in my opinion

My friend Maggie sent me this picture of her sweet baby girl enjoying her very first Icee!  It made me smile so big when I saw it!

This is NOT an Icee lid....get it right, BK!

Another day, another Icee.  This one came from the Wal-Mart in Milan which in my humble opinion serves up the best Coke Icees in town.  They have the perfect Coke to ice ratio--not too syrupy but not too dry.  Does that make me sound crazy??  Probably so.

Aside from Coke Icees, another of my favorite things is fresh, hot fried green tomatoes!  I could eat them by the pound (and then regret it very much later!)  My friend Glory had several green tomatoes she had to pick off her vines before moving and she gave them to us.  My Mom fried them up while she was here and we had a greasy good feast!

I didn't think my super picky eater would even touch the things, but to my surprise she LOVED them---which was kind of a bummer because then I was forced to share.  Ugh.  (By the way---that's kiwi on her plate, not raw tomatoes!)

This past Sunday after church...

Everyone knows I'm not a morning person.....at ALL.  However, I can't help but smile when my alarm goes off each day when I see this.  A few weeks ago Glory got ahold of my phone and had her way with it.  She set these captions on my alarm and now each day that I wake up I am reminded of her sweet sense of humor.  =)

Dressed herself again.  This one was REALLY hard for me to let go of, but I did!  (Thankfully we were just running a few errands that day and not going anywhere important!)

So as you can see we've had a pretty fun summer.  Now we are looking forward to the start of school next week, followed by a  new year of ballet class which starts the following week.  Then it will be Kyndall's birthday, the beginning of fall (yay!!) and before we know it the holidays will be upon us.  We have a lot to look forward to!