My heart breaks.

Yesterday my mom called me to tell me the news that our long time family friends daughter lost her husband yesterday in the line of duty. He was a recent West Point grad and deployed to Afghanistan two weeks ago. We were very lucky to be at their wedding just a mere 18 months ago at Rosemary Beach. My heart is absolutely breaking for her and their families. I honestly can not imagine losing John. He is my rock.

I wish I could reach through the distance between us and give her a hug to let her know I am praying for her constantly. I have to admit I am not a big prayer person, but certainly send up my thanks often for what I have here with John & Anna, but I am in constant "talks" since yesterday to help her heart heal and find peace.

We are still waiting to hear about funeral arrangements and hope to be able to attend and give support.
Here is a picture from their beautiful wedding:

Sink bath fun.

Now, I know I am biased....but seriously, isn't this the cutest picture EVER?!?!

So much to blog...so little time.

You know that feeling when you have so much on your plate that you can't just even start to do any of it? So, apply that to this blog. So much to post, so little time. It has been a world-wind, crazy, madness past couple of weeks with traveling, work and little bit. I was in D.C for the AXO Convention from July 9-12, which was good, but was so ready to be home. We had some wonderful evenings with friends last weekend and this weekend is the CRAZY (insert car salesman voice) consignment sale on Saturday (60,000 sq feet of shopping fun!). My sweet friend, Sonia, has somehow agreed to go with me (she doesn't know I need an extra pair of hands)...although hopefully she will find some good deals herself.
On top of all that, I am teaching twice a week and have freelance design stuff on top of that. Whew!! Breathe, breathe...

We are gearing up for the upcoming August where I will be gone EVERY weekend. Either in Atlanta for showers/bachelorette parties or at the Lake for Matt's wedding. That's right, little Matty is getting MARRIED. Crazy. :)

I told you this post would be all over the place...so if you are still here, bless you.
Update on Anna. the littlest bit will be able to go to nights only in the helmet starting August 13!!!!!!!!!!! (can I add more exclamations!?!?!?). We are SO ready to be DONE. Even better is that she is starting to sleep on her belly... this is huge. She has become an excellent clapper and will clap at almost anything now. She is saying ba-ba, wa-wa, go-go, bwa, mmmm...notice anything missing? Yes, that would be ma-ma and da-da. Hmm...is she holding out on purpose?

She is so close to crawling too! She will pull her knees up under her and just rock back and forth. She also figured out how to sit up from laying down...which she does inadvertently while napping...which she doesn't appreciate. Hopefully she will learn to get back down gracefully instead of face planting.

Ok, last but not least I wanted to post a pic of John and his mini-me taken last night.

A wonderful 4th of July

We snagged up our wonderful friends, Joe & Jessie Werner, and drove on down to Athens, AL to John's Aunt and Uncle's lake house. I can say we have never had a bad time there. The weather was perfect, the food fantastic and the company even better. We made it a "helmet off" holiday for Anna! She very much enjoyed it...although she decidedly did NOT like her lifejacket. She has to get used to it, I know, but man it was hard! Here are some wonderful pictures from the day!

(will post more...getting pulled away from the computer!)