TGTG

When we came back from the nephew weekend our church had a very big event; the launch of small groups!  We are calling them Transformation Groups because that is part of our church's mission statement (connecting people to Christ in a way that leads to life transformation).  So for the launch we had a TGTG or Transformation Group Tail Gate!  This was a crazy day for Neil.  He is the staff liaison to the Growing team (who is in charge of the entire ministry) and that team had put in soo many countless hours of preparation to make this event special and to make sure that the transformation groups will be a ministry of excellence.  So on this Sunday it just happened to work out that Neil was leading worship, preaching and then emcee-ing the TGTG event!  Talk about a busy morning!  Amanda made him this name tag :)

Right after church the congregation was invited to come out on the church lawn for a burger picnic.  After fellowshiping at lunch, we headed inside to sign up for a transformation group.  There were a lot of different types of groups for different ages and interests.  To start off we have 8 groups but we are planning to add more as more leaders step up.

Amanda put in so much time organizing this event and thinking of every little detail!  She did an amazing job and it was such a success!  Through this event our church completed one of our huge goals which was to have 100 adults in a small group by the fall of 2009 and at the end of this day we had 92 signed up and we are expecting to get the other 8 from adults who couldn't attend this event.  Great job team! 

Nephews

The "Griffin" weekend was full of fun!  I got to hang out with Brycer a lot.  He is four years old and quick as a whip!

Bryce really likes being a big brother, Lisa said that he was showing Griffin all of his books :)  If you ask Bryce what his brother's name is he said, "its Griffin George".  Now he's got me saying that! People ask what my nephew's name is and I'm like, "Griffin Geor-... Presley lol!"

Bryce is such a sweet sweet boy.  One time he was sitting on my lap and I was just squeezing him and loving him and I said, "MMmmm! Why do you feel so good?"  he squeezed me right back and said, "why do you feel so good?" :)  I love my nephews!

Bryce took this picture of us:

That weekend we also celebrated Neil's birthday with my family!  We had a really good time and Neil got just what he wanted: a dashboard confessionals cd, the new Hillsong dvd, some LSU cups, a gorilla pod for his camara and a heaping handful of 2 dollar bills!  

Griffin

On August 21st we got to meet a very special little man, Griffin "George" Presley Looper :)

He was born on August 16th and weighed 8 lbs!  Neil and I got to go down and see him when he was a week old.  

He was born on a Sunday morning and Neil and I were practicing for the worship service.  I heard my phone go off, and then someone called and I thought something was up.  I went to check my phone and Bart had texted me, "Its time!"  I texted him back to tell him that we would be praying and he wrote right back saying, "He's here! He is wonderful" :)  what a proud father! 

My dad was in Mexico when Griffin was born so we got to meet him on the same day.  It was so special to see my dad hold Griffin, his second grandson.  He had me and Lisa both crying, just out of the overflow of emotion!

I love being an aunt :)  Its so cool to have two awesome nephews and I can't wait to have more!

5-Day-Super-Extravaganza-Anniversary Celebration Continued

Early the next morning we headed to the Fish Hatchery!  It was really cool.  They gave us a tour of the whole hatchery that is right by the dam at Table Rock lake.  They had all different sizes of trout at this hatchery.

They sorted the trout by size in different pools.  They had pool after pool of fish!  The trout in this pool (below) were about 10" long.  We got to feed the fish and they just dog piled over each other to get to the food!  The surface of the water looked like it was raining because all the little mouths were trying to get to the food first!

After the hatchery we went to Table Rock lake for a picnic lunch!

I love just sitting with Neil.  We have so much fun just doing nothing!

That afternoon we hit the outlet mall!  Wow we found some good deals and even started on our Christmas shopping!  

After the mall we went to Silver Dollar City!  If you go after 3pm you get the rest of that day and the whole next day for the price of just one day!  

We got there and jumped right on the Wild Fire!  It has all kinds of loops and cork-screws!  I thought I was so tough and even commented to Neil how cool it was that we both enjoy roller coasters!  Well I spoke too soon because as soon as we got off I felt sooo dizzy and then we had to take it easy for the rest of the time!  We only rode one other ride :(  Poor Neil!  He said that next time we will have to go with a couple so that they boys can ride and the girls can just hang out! lol

We saw lots of demonstrations, like glass blowing, knife sharpening and blacksmithing.  We also got to see the magic show, some cloggers and a cajun band!  We had a really fun time and made some wonderful memories for our first anniversary :)

Grow old with me, the best is yet to be!

(this sign says come, but its wrong! lol)

5-Day-Super-Extravaganza-Anniversary Celebration

We had SUCH an amazing time on our anniversary trip!  It was awesome :)  On our way out of town we stopped at Busick State Conservation Area.  Neil wanted to check it out and see if it would make a good camp site in the future.  It was a really nice day and a beautiful park.  Neil got some really nice pictures!

We ended up going on about a 4 mile hike!  It was intense, uphill and down with a very rock terrain! 

For lunch we stopped by this little creek and waded in the cool water.  It feel so good on our hot tire feet.  We had packed a nice picnic and Neil gave me a sweet anniversary note.  How romantic!

We had the camera all set up to take this lover's shot, when suddenly I looked down and saw a crawdad!  Right in the water by my feet!  I scooted WAY back and yelled for Neil who was setting the timer on the camera!  He came running into the shot for the picture, oblivious to my yells about the crawdad!  When he finally saw what I was yelling about, he said it was too little to worry about and to just pose for the picture!  I on the other hand was too worried about my little toes getting pinched to pose for a picture!

Here is the result of that:

When we finished our hike we headed down to Branson, checked into our hotel and got rested and cleaned up for a big evening.  We went to dinner at Chili's and then to the Shepherd of the Hills play!  

By this time, Neil's knee was injured from our big hike and he had to hobble all over the Shepherd theatre, poor guy!  He still had a good attitude anyway :) 

The set of the Shepherd of the Hills is outside and they had livestock and a HUGE fire in one of the scenes!  Before the play started they had giant bullfrog races!  The audience was invited to get a frog and be the first to get their frog to jump outside of this big circle!  It was so funny!

Fourth of July

Better late than never!  

The fourth of July is just about my favorite holiday!  We always have so much fun, going to the Bethany parade and having a wonderful family lunch, then off to the fireworks show! 

This year was extra special because we celebrated Father's day a little late, 

and.... we had a surprise baby shower for Lisa! 

 Karen hosted it all at her beautiful house.  Her backyard is AMAZING!  Like a resort!  A perfect aqua blue pool backed by a wall of magenta crepe myrtles with a huge patio!  It is wonderful :)

Neil and I got her a Nursing Necklace.  That is a super sturdy, well built, specially designed necklace that babies can play with while they are nursing so that they don't tear out mom's hair, earrings, eyelashes etc. 

Also for her pregnancy celebration Lisa wanted to have a Henna Party!  For those of you who don't know, Henna is a dye that you can get in a paste and then apply to your skin in a design.  It stains your skin for a couple of weeks and slowly fades away.  So all of us girls got some henna!  I painted on Lisa's belly, a shell for Karen Schell, Lisa (and dad) did my back, Lisa did mom's shoulder, and Lisa and Karen did a bird on Lori's shoulder

Here's Lisa with the paste still on.  Isn't she beautiful?! :)  Its really dark and glittery at first while the paste is still on.  It has to stay on your skin for about 24 hours.

Here's me with the paste washed off.  This is the lighter stain that it leaves on your skin.

Here's me and my mom (with her beautiful Henna!  What a cool mom!)  

The flash kinda surprised her in this picture!

What a wonderful weekend!  I love my fantastic family!

(Bryce and "Haha" watching the fireworks.  Bryce pointed at every one and said "Wow!  Look at that!")

Everyday Love

Yesterday I got home from work, and this is the scene that awaited me

Some of you may ask, Wow, flowers and grilling out! What's the special occasion?!  

Well, I'll tell you..... it was Tuesday :)

I'd like to quote from one of my favorite Rascal Flatts songs now:  

It's ordinary plain and simple
Typical, this everyday love
Same ol', same ol' keeping it new
Emotional, so familiar
Nothing about it too peculiar
Oh, but I can't get enough
Of this everyday love

Thank you Neil for making "everyday" extraordinary :)