Merry Christmas to All

Another scrapbook by Smilebox

Weedon Island

Mike and I had the privilege of keeping 2 wonderful boys this weekend. Friday night we headed to CiCi's Pizza. Saturday we headed out early to our normal breakfast spot, The Clubhouse. The boys wanted to go to a park, so we decided we would go someplace new. We drove to Weedon Island in St. Petersburg. WOW--what a hidden treasure. The boys were able to borrow backpacks from the museum there for the day. Inside were cards indicating what creatures we might see on the island, magnifying glass, and binoculars. The binoculars were the hit of the day! (Including Mike and me.) We had a great time walking on two trails and spying on all of God's creation. We saw a snake, lots of birds and fish, jumping fish, 2 tortoises, and caught 2 lizards. We even learned about the food chain and what "scat" is!!

We climbed up one of the observation towers and were able to see Clearwater, Downtown Tampa, and Downtown St. Petersburg. We had a great weekend and ended today with church and the famous chicken and yellow rice. Looking forward to our next adventure with the boys!

I Can't Believe It---

It was today a year ago when I was lying in a hospital bed recovering from my hysterectomy. God was faithful then, just as He is today. So much has happened this last year: cruise over Spring Break,
worked 2 weeks after school was out, traveled for 3 weeks during the summer, 15th year high school reunion,

2 weeks of rest before heading back to school, serving as a cooperating teacher for a student intern, 2 new nephews-Mike's sister and hubby Nephew Landon
AND my brother and wife, Nephew Michael
Mike has started to travel some with his job. WOW, I'm tired just typing this.

I'm giving thanks this Thanksgiving God for healing me and continuing to give me good health this year!

Weekend in South Carolina

Mike and I were able to make this weekend a long weekend away. The two main reasons why we were making the trip was for me to attend my 15th high school reunion and to met our new nephew, Michael. I had a great time at the reunion. I thought it was going to be weird having not seen each other in 15 years, but that was far from the case. It was a small group, but we enjoyed talking about high school and what is happening now in our lives. Three of my friends were on the homecoming court and we even had the queen with us. :-) It brought back lots of memories. It really made me think about how the friends you make can be friends for a lifetime--if you choose the right ones. I was so privileged to attend Southside Christian School from Kindergarten to 12th grade. I made so many friends and glad that after 15 years, we could talk and see how God is continuing to work in each of our lives.
My brother and sister-in-law just adopted Michael and I could hardly wait to get my hands on him. He is adorable and a very easy baby. He only cries when he is hungry. We enjoyed meeting him and spending the day with him and my niece, Maggie at Strawberry Hill USA in Chesnee, SC. We ate lunch there, went on a hay ride, picked out pumpkins, ate ice cream, feed cows, chased piglets, and so much more!

Summer Highlights

I can't believe the summer is over and I go back to work tomorrow. This summer seemed really short, but I've been busy in this short amount of time. I will give you a quick update of my summer.

New nephew, Landon James, born on June 3

Trip with Mom and Grandma to Ohio to visit family and friends.
Leslie, my Grandma, my Mom and my Grandma's sister-Joann in Kentucky.
My Grandpa's side of the family: Barb, my Mom, Diane, and my Grandma looking at a scrapbook from my cousin.
Mr. and Mrs. Watson long time family friends who still live in Norwood, Ohio.
Another one of my grandma's sisters, Mary Lou

July 4th was celebrated with my family at the Magic Kingdom!
Maggie and Abby getting ready for the fireworks on Main Street USA.
Thanks Mike and Maggie for taking the picture. :-)
Happy Independence Day, America!

July 11th was Maggie's 2nd birthday!
Maggie's friend, Mia, came all the way from the Dominican Republic to celebrate Maggie's birthday! I was glad I got to see Mia's mom and meet her dad for the first time. Welcome to the USA, Luis!!
YUMMY!

Finally, my brother and sister-in-law are adopting and just on Saturday, August 7th, my new nephew was born! I don't have any pictures yet of him. Praying that all goes well with the adoption. Everything will be finalized on Saturday, August 14th. Pictures will come after Andrew and Katie are official parents!

Wow--I'm worn out just thinking back about my summer! Tomorrow starts another year of school. I'm excited and blessed to be a part of St. Petersburg Christian School. Looking forward to another wonderful year in second grade!

11th Anniversary

We celebrated our 11th Anniversary on June 12th. We celebrated all weekend though. Friday night we kicked off our celebrations by going out to dinner with some dear friends of ours, Brian and Anastasia. These are our friends that we like to go to different steakhouses and special restaurants. We decided to try a Brazilian Steakhouse in Tampa. It is all you can eat MEAT and salad bar. Mike and Brian skipped over the very detailed and extravagant salad bar and cut right into the meat. The Gaucho's walk around with skewers of meat. They serve 14 different types of meat that they slice and place right on your plate. You also got all you can eat warm cheese bread, mashed potatoes, and fried bananas. (They were better than I thought they were going to be.) It was a great way to spend our Anniversary!
On Saturday, the date of our anniversary was fun and casual. We have a tradition that we go out for breakfast on Saturday mornings, so this Saturday was not different. We headed to our usual place, Clubhouse. Mike's Dad and Grandma joined us too. We enjoyed some yummy food and headed to the mall to do some shopping. We were at Countryside Mall in Clearwater and realized that there was an Ice Skating competition and soon found out that Olympic pairs skaters, Jeremy Barrett and Caydee Denney were there and going to be skating within the hour of when we were there. Jeremy and Caydee did a great job skating and loud cheers were heard throughout the mall. The Olympics are special to me because I remember many years spending time with my Grandma and Grandpa and watching the Olympics together. I was also fortunate enough to attend the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and see the USA Women's Gymnastics team win the GOLD medal. The Olympics always take me back to my childhood, so it was a treat to "Remember When..." while I was watching them skate. (And believe me, I took more than one picture!!!)

In one week I will get to see my sweet niece, Maggie. It's been since December since I've seen her and I can't wait to hold her. Hope she's ready for some Aunt Amy time!!!

Birthday Celebration

I'm going to share about my birthday celebrations! I had three surprise celebrations. My In-Laws had a family birthday party, my 2nd graders threw me a surprise party including cake and ice cream, and my husband invited some of our closest friends to celebrate my special day for breakfast. Mike "kidnapped" me and took me to Tiffany & Co in Tampa to pick something out!!!! I picked out a necklace. I don't have a picture of it because I had to send it to New York to get sized. I also bought a new outfit to wear to the Theater. My mom surprised me with tickets to see Mary Poppins and what a treat that was! I'm still talking about it!!! We went over early to eat at Maestro's Cafe. It was fun to sit by the water and eat.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to a very special Mom. It amazes me how God knows exactly what I need in a mom, even being grown up! I enjoy talking to my mom almost every night on Skype. I'm so glad we were able to take a cruise together back in March and I'm looking forward to vacationing again together in July. I love being with my mom and doing special things together or just chatting about school--which we do often. I also have the privilege of having our classes be pen pals. Its a tradition we have started several years ago. My mom continues to give selflessly of her time and energy for me. Over the last six years she has jumped on a plane or in a car to come be with me during difficult times. Even when I had surgery in November, she came and took care of me for a week and a half over Thanksgiving. (And as a teacher, we know how busy the holidays can be and she just wanted to be a mommy.) Thank you for your wonderful employer who knew your heart was with me. Thank YOU for coming and taking care of me.


This Mother's Day was different for me. For the first time, I knew for sure that I would never be a mommy to children of my own. My sweet hubby was sensitive to my feelings and had a special weekend get away planned. He had a sitter for Cooper, hotel reservations and packed the bags! We had a great time at the Happiest Place on Earth, Disney World. We stayed at Pop Century and had a wonderful dinner at the Nine Dragons restaurant at EPCOT. We went to the "Flower Power" concert and saw Davy Jones. It was a relaxing weekend away going to our favorite place to get away. Thanks Mike for helping me through a hard day.I keep believing that God has something very special planned for us this year and I'm waiting for God's perfect timing. I'm also praying for those of you who are hurting this Mother's Day.

SPRING BREAK!!

I have had a wonderful spring break. I've relaxed, read and rested this vacation. God has blessed Mike and I with the chance to travel on a cruise with family and friends. We had a blast laughing, learning and lurking at the food. I will be sharing more, but I wanted to let you know of one specific thing that I was able to do on the cruise. On November 18, 2009, I had surgery where my doctor found a small cancer tumor which could not be detected from tests and other surgeries. Mike and I celebrated after this long 6 year journey and now I am cancer free. This cruise was to celebrate the end of this chapter. Holland America Cruise Line participates with the Susan G Komen Foundation and I walked my first 5K on a cruise ship. I was able to have my friend, Jen, walk with me. I am hoping to be able to participate in another 5K soon.

We were able to travel with my parents, our friends-the Decker's (which is a story in itself--each of us booked a cruise and didn't know each were going until 6 weeks before the cruise!), and family friends-the Frans'.

I'm so thankful for Mike who was willing to spend time with my parents this last week. If I could describe Mike in one word, it would be SELFLESS. He is always thinking of me and how he can make me smile. He defiantly made me smile this week on our cruise. I'm looking forward to our next cruise together

Happy Birthday, Hubby!!

Happy Birthday, Michael. I'm so happy that I have you and am able to celebrate your special day. Today was an extra special day because I thought and prayed for you all day. I wanted God to send you extra blessings today and again you continue to show your love towards me. It was your day and yet, you wanted to know what I wanted to do. I hope you had a wonderful day. I know you are enjoying your birthday gift--your iphone. Looking forward to celebrating some more this next week on the cruise!

I love you!
Amy

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom! God has blessed me with the best mom in the world. God knew everything that I would need and my mom is perfect! I missed being with her today and miss being with her most days. I'm so glad we are able to Skype each other almost every night. I love to call and talk to her about her class and ask her what she would do in her class. We can spend hours on the phone talking about each others classroom. We both enjoy scrap booking, but don't get to do much of it during the school year. This year we both received MacBook Pros and love to Skype each other one them. (We like being together and on our computers learning how to use them.)
Even though we couldn't be together for her birthday, we will be seeing each other in 13 days. We are going on a cruise over spring break together! We are counting down the days and planning our days on the ship!

Happy Birthday, Mom. Wish I could have been with you today to celebrate, but I guess we will just have to celebrate some more on the cruise! I love you!

What was I thinking. . .

My sweet sister-in-law, Katie, wrote on her blog that she was going to challenge herself to walk 280 miles before her vacation at the end of May. She chose 280 miles because that's how far the destination is from her house. So in my excitement for her, I wrote her and told her that I would "walk" with her. I should have done the math before I said I would walk with her. I have to walk 3 MILES EVERY DAY FOR THE NEXT 90 DAYS!!! YIKES, what was I thinking! I bought a pedometer 2 days after I committed to this journey. I am excited to say I have walked over 7 miles since last Thursday. I'm going to update my count in the top right corner of my blog. Stay posted for updates. I wish I lived closer so that I could walk with Katie and not just long distance.

Sweethearts

Today Mike and I are taking it easy because we celebrated Valentine's Day earlier this week. Mike is always pulling surprises and this Valentine's Day was no exception. We took a drive to International Mall in Tampa to look at the iphones (which I knew this is what I was getting Mike for V-Day, but he didn't know). We didn't purchase, but just looked. And what girl can pass a jewelry store, so we went to Tiffany's it just happened to be across from the Apple Store. Mike introduced himself to someone and she asked if he had picked up a package, he told her no. She said, "I'll be right back". She came back with a little blue box(we had to take pictures at home b/c I was shocked and didn't take pictures in Tiffany's)and said, "This is for you Amy". WHAT??? I opened it up and it was a beautiful pearl bracelet, she put it on my wrist and said it's all yours!! YOU MEAN I CAN LEAVE THE STORE WITH THIS ON???Mike sure did surprise me on this! We went back two days later and got Mike's iphone!What fun memories!

I'm so glad he is mine. Mike is so thoughtful, caring and helpful. He is always thinking on how he can put a smile on my face. He is caring and compassionate even when I don't know I need it. He always seems to pray with me just exactly at the right moment. I'm amazed to see how God answers our prayers. Mike has been so helpful in our marriage, he has had to take care of me on many-and I mean many-occasions due to my health. He never complains and I'm so grateful, even when I don't thank him. I'm so glad God brought Mike and I together.

I LOVE YOU, MIKE!

Loving You, Mike!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

God's timing is perfect

I don't know what I want to write about, but am missing writing on my blog. Just wanted to stop by and say that God's timing is perfect. I'm so thankful for friends who are willing to share and say things that are hard to hear, but are just want I need to hear. I was telling a friend today that Mike and I are looking into adoption. I told her that we were going to go to a free informational meeting on adoption next week. Then she was telling me from experience to really try to be submissive to Mike and let him take the lead. I knew that already, but God was using my friend in his perfect timing to remind me that He is still in control.

Next, I came home to read an e-mail from the adoption agency stating that they were not going to have the informational meeting and furthermore, were not doing home studies for Florida any more either. This again was God's way of telling me his timing is perfect. This was all the confirmation that I needed to know that God was preparing my heart to talk with Mike.

Again, God's perfect timing because Mike has been out of town all week with his work and was coming home tonight. So I knew I needed to talk to him regarding adoption and how the Lord has been directing my thoughts and prayers. Mike got home as I had typed the first two sentences of this blog. God is never late, never early, but always on time! I had prepared myself to talk to him about adoption and then knock me off my feet--Mike mentions the adoption meeting next week. So I knew this was God giving me the opportunity to talk to him about what He been teaching me this week. I kept telling him that I was sorry for having a serious conversation after he had just walked into the door. He was patient and understanding to my conversation.

I know after today, experiencing God's perfect timing, we are to continue to seek Him and use his timing and not mine--which is sooo hard. Please pray for me to be submissive and respect Mike as the leader of our home. Pray for Mike as he researches different adoption agencies. Pray for us as we wait to experience God's perfect timing in our adoption journey.

Busy Weekends in 2010

It has been a busy beginning to the new year the last two weekends. The first weekend in 2010 we had Mike's best friend from NC come for a visit. Cade and Mike got reconnected through facebook. They have seen each other several times and Cade came for a long weekend. It was fun to see Mike and Cade together talking about the past!

The next weekend in 2010 Mike and I went away to celebrate the good news from my surgery in November 2009. There was a cancer tumor and it was taken out. This was the cause of my health problems for the last six years. We went to the Herlong Mansion Bed and Breakfast in Micanopy, FL.
The movies Cross Creek and Doc Hollywood were both filmed in Micanopy and at the Mansion. It was a wonderful weekend away.
We drove to Payne's Prairie and enjoyed the cool wet weather and God's creation, but didn't see many animals as I had hoped. Maybe next time we will see some bison or spanish horses.

We went to The Yearling for dinner and tried lots of new foods: gator, frog legs, and quail It was all interesting and fun to be able to say that I have eaten "that" before.

The weekends have been busy, but wouldn't trade them for anything. Looking forward to a wonderful week.