Visiting my Grandmother

One of the highlights of our weekend in Charlottesville  VA was getting to visit Mimi Payne.  It had been a couple of years since I'd seen her and we were able to spend time with her twice while we were there.  We were sad the kids weren't with us, but of course we took plenty of pictures to show her and had many stories to tell of them.

Mimi is one amazing woman!  I am so blessed to have this wonderful woman in my life and to be named after her.  I am so thankful for the time I had with her this weekend!

Wedding Weekend

Almost 2 years ago, Matthew was called by one of our previous youth from East TN to be a part of her wedding.  She was marrying a young man of Jewish background and they wanted to have both elements in their wedding.  So Matthew agreed.  

One of the reasons it was so far into the future was because Brittani went to the University of Virginia School of Law and really wanted to be married on the UVA Campus.  They have a lottery to get the chapel there and there is a long line!  But she got it so we had it marked on our calendars.

We are great friends with her family so we intended to take the entire family to the wedding, however Summer Youth Camp ended up being that same weekend so we changed our plans, sent Julianna off with GiGi and ended up on a long weekend getaway of our own.  We were quite excited.

We had a wonderful time at the wedding - we met some very nice (and interesting) people and thoroughly enjoyed our time away.  I didn't take too many pictures but I'll share with you some that I did.

Matthew & I outside of the Chapel

On the campus of UVA

Enjoying the beautiful campus of UVA and the amazing history of it!

Isn't it a beautiful Chapel?

Our Bride to Be - love this girl!

Matthew with Brittani & Sam

One more picture of us (had to get my sexy shoes in this one!!)

Youth Summer Camp

Christian and Rebecca got to go to Summer Camp again this summer in Chattanooga at Covenant College.  We dropped them off at church and let them ride in the van to camp.  In the meantime, we also drove to Chattanooga with Julianna and dropped her off with Gigi.  (See next post why....)  Then we drove that evening to Covenant's campus and got to see the kids and spend the first night of worship with them.  It was great and I'm so glad we did.  Not sure what our kids thought at first, but when they realized we WERE leaving, they were okay with it.  So of course I had to shoot a couple of pictures to document it!

The crew before hitting the road

Gotta have that silly picture

We caught up with the kids right after dinner, so they showed me the scenic view - this is Rebecca with Morgan & Hope!

I was SO excited when she let me take a picture with her!!

These 4 girls were roommies for the weekend!

Even Christian let me get a picture of him before the evening was over!!

Rebecca's 13th birthday party

Rebecca informed us that we had never let her have a big birthday party (like Christian has), so we decided that we'd do one for her on her 13th birthday.  She invited a bunch of friends from school and church and we had it at the church.  We had all sorts of fun outdoor games, including water balloons for the kids to play.  Please remember it is June 1st.....well, a cold front moved in and it was in the low 50's.  So needless to say, we FROZE spending hours filling up hundreds and hundreds of water balloons!

But she had a great turnout for the party and all the kids had a great time.  We have some favorite outdoor group games from our "youth group" days and everyone loves them.  So we spent lots of time playing them outside!  

We are thankful for our sweet Rebecca and her group of friends from both school and church.

Happy 13th!

Rebecca was a Jedi, but based on her sitting, apparently she was killed!

It took some of the girls time to warm up to play the game

Rebecca's friend Hope got the hang of it!

Travis & Kimberly Dotterer (friends from Bryan College) came and dropped of their sons!

Michael & Morgan Locke love this game!

Starting a new game - getting ready!

Love this picture of Rebecca

Trying to avoid being hit!

The second game was Storm the Castle which is a water balloon game.  They love the launchers!

My Sweet Julianna!  (just had to sneak this one it!)

Happy Birthday!

I think one person had left, but this is the group!

Rebecca & Lauren had just defended their castle by smashing incoming water balloons!

Matt & Rebecca got into a sword fight - it was so funny!

They just whacked the heck out of each other - Matt's Mom was appalled that Matt would fight with her, but it was hilarious!

Our sweet 13 year old, Rebecca

Another Teenager in the house!

Yep - it's hard to believe but we are now parents to 2 teenagers.....  I guess that's what happens when you have two kids 14 months apart!!!  Sweet Rebecca turned 13 on June 1st.  We are so proud of the young lady that she is turning into!  Here are a couple of pictures of present time!

Julianna giving her a birthday hug!

Rebecca LOVES Christian music and wanted some CD's

We gave her pearl earrings - and permission to get her ears double pierced!

Maggie loves the birthday girl too

We took her that afternoon to get her ears done!

She didn't even cry!!  :-)

Do beautiful!

Fun in Ohio!

It's always fun to go away with this soccer team.  We always have so much fun.  We have such a great group of boys and families and we are really proud to be part of such a great team.  

Fun in the jacuzzi!

A couple of Warrens in the pool

Man, we willed up the hottub!

....and the pool!!!

More Warrens

Julianna and some playmates!

My Girls loved the balcony!

Julianna and her sweet friend Zeke

Enjoying pancakes for dinner!

The girls were supposed to share a bed, but this is where I found Rebecca each morning!

Now that is some party hair!!

We always do a slide show and fun night at the end of the season.  Coach John had special awards for these 4 - he called them the "Founding Fathers" of the team - these four are the only ones left who have played every year since our first year in 2007!

Goofy, I know but I'm learning to French Braid and I was quite proud of the results here!

Pooped out on the way home but what a great weekend!