You Have Got to be Kidding Me!!

So when you drive to our neighborhood, you turn in on a main road. The road comes to a stop sign. Then it forks to the left or goes straight. If you veer to the left, you go to our house.

Ty NEVER stops at the stop sign at the fork. NEVER. I mean, he doesn't even SLOW down. Not even a little. He just keeps driving. at full speed.

I always say, "Ty, that was a stop sign." To which he replies, "Yeah, but nobody is around. It's fine." whatever.

Well, Wednesday I was rushing home. I had stopped by the gym to run my 3 miles for my training program and was a bit late getting home. Ty had a hair cut at 7 pm, so I needed to have dinner ready by 6ish so we could eat before he left.

I came to the stop sign at the fork. I slowed all the way down. I "basically" stopped. I kept going.

Guess what happened next... Yes. I GOT PULLED OVER. And I GOT A TICKET for running the stop sign. MY FIRST TICKET EVER!! In 12 and 1/2 years of driving, I got my first ticket for "rolling through a stop sign." The same stop sign my husband ignores completely.

Are you kidding me? I believe this is God's way of saying, "Kelley, you should obey the law to the fullest extent. Oh and take the plank out of your own eye when you tell Ty to stop at the stop sign, because you roll through it, and that is ticketable too." Thank you God. I learned my lesson.

I now fully stop at ALL stop signs. Ty continues to ignore the one at the fork. And I bet he never gets a ticket for it either. just my luck.

Needing Time

I have LOTS to post on...

~ trip to St. Louis
~ Trip to the Yamboree
~ Pumpkin Patch Field Trip
~ Cowboys Party we had months ago
~ Fall Decorations

But for now... I'm going to eat dinner and read blogs. Just wanted to tease you and say... I have a lot of good (a bit outdated) material.
Over and Out.

So Far

This morning I got up at my usual time, but instead of going to school, I headed to the airport! I flew to COLD ST. Louis to visit my dad. He has a very special event at his soccer game tonight... I'll post about that later.

For now... My mother-in-law is subbing for me again today. And at 8:15 as I was boarding the plane she called. Remember school started only at 8:05. She calls to say, "well, Jacob and Daniel got in a fist fight on the play ground this morning. So we're starting the day really well."

Great. a fist fight. makes me feel bad taking the day off.

Praying for her day to get better. It can ONLY get better, right?

The REAL Mrs. Sawyer

So I've been fighting a nasty cold for a couple of weeks. It moved down into my chest and it was becoming quite hard to breath. So I finally took a sick day and went to the Dr. (I'm feeling MUCH better now.)

My mother-in-law was sweet enough to volunteer to be my substitute for the day. Of course, she is named "Mrs. Sawyer" as well. Here's what happened...

First thing we start out at Calendar Time and we all sit in a circle on the floor. Well my mother-in-law pulled up a chair to the circle.

Jacob yells out, "The REAL Mrs. Sawyer sits on the floor with us."
Daniel blurts out, "yeah, but SHE's too OLD to sit on the floor."

Needless to say, my mother-in-law pushed the chair away and sat on the floor.

then it took 3 kids to help her get back up :)

tomorrow I'm taking a day off to go visit my dad for a special recognition ceremony. And my mother-in-law will be subbing again. I'm certain there will be more good stories :)

Even Better Than an Emmy...

So C and C Baby Factory tagged me for this "award." I'm not sure what award it is, but I like it. I like having random questions to answer. and I like not waiting for my computer to post pictures so SLOWLY! So here goes...

Rules
1. Answer the survey below…you can only use one word answers (which for a blogger can be hard sometimes). :)
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers
3. Alert them that you have given them this award
4. Have fun!

The Fun Part…
1. Where is your cell phone? unreliable
2. Your hair? down
3. Your mother? loving
4. Your father? listener
5. Your favorite food? chocolate
6. Your dream last night? clueless
7. Your favorite drink? coffee
8. Your dream/goal? Christlikeness
9. What room are you in? guestbedroom
10. Your hobby? running
11. Your fear? incompleteness
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? mommyhood
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren’t? perfect
15. Muffins? delish!
16. Wish list item? camera
17. Where did you grow up? Missouri
18. Last thing you did? teach
19. What are you wearing? sweats
20. Your TV? off
21. Your pets? zilch
22. Friends? Monica
23. Your life? content
24. Your mood? blah
25. Missing someone? yes
26. Vehicle? bug
27. Something you’re not wearing? socks
28. Your favorite store? banana
29. Your favorite color? pink
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? Saturday
32. Your best friend? Ty
33. One place that I go to over and over? hobbylobby
34. One person who emails regularly? megan
35. Favorite place to eat? glorias

And the Award goes to...
Brandi
Jane
Jill
Sarah
Joann
Val

Looking forward to reading your answers!

What's Wrong with this Picture?

If you said, "The lady in the bright reddish-orange dress." You are correct!

When she walked through the doors at the chapel, all of us passing out programs just stood still. Our mouths fell to the ground. I mean, seriously? IT's an ALL WHITE wedding. The "attire card" clearly stated - wear white or NEUTRAL colors. Please tell me how this dress made it in her suitcase...

Poor thing. Poor out of place dress. She stood out everywhere she went.

And I took a picture to remember it by.

Finally, the Reception...

I know I know... I'm a slacker... let's just move on and enjoy this lovely reception in Santa Fe, shall we?

The reception was at Roy's place and this was the lovely view we walked up to...

The Garden Cocktail Hour I just love the simplicity of the all white decorations against the gorgeous natural backdrop!

Do you see the hanging ribbons on the right? Big chunks of ribbons were just casually hanging all over the place, and flowing and blowing in the breeze. It was amazing. So simple. yet so elegant.

More beautiful ribbons surrounding Megan's mom, Sally. I love dear Sally. I have many of her recipes that I make often! Growing up I always loved her cooking! In fact, she is the master mind behind the morning cookies!

Here we are anxiously awaiting dinner! I mean the arrival of the bride and groom! (doesn't Ty look handsome in his seersucker jacket? remember it was his anniversary gift from me!)

Here's the garden, all full of guests in white. Lovely.

Mr. and Mrs. Bride and Groom

I know, she really should be a model somewhere. But then I might be intimidated of her. So maybe I'll just call her my "model friend" but I won't let her actually be a model.

A mariachi band played throughout the cocktail hour and then led the parade of guests over to the tent!

The wreath welcomed us into the reception.

Wow.

And from another angle. It was a LARGE tent. Full of White EVERYTHING!

These displays greeted us at the entrance.

Each table had 3 vases on it. Each vase was full of 1 type of white flower. But every vase was different from the one sitting next to it. I loved it! Simplicity is so underestimated! But it is just gorgeous! Here's another table with a different combo of flowers. Megan and Roy walked in and immediately had their first dance. It was super cute, she was singing to him, he was singing to her. They were seriously "alone, in their own world" on that dance floor.

Here's the crowd of onlookers. Now honestly, I know you first read the words "all white wedding" and thought to yourself, "I'm not too sure about this." But you see a picture like this and think, "when can I throw an all white party?"

Am I right?

Megan's dad welcomed the guests and gave a quick speech. Mr. McMonagle was my first soccer coach. Over the wedding weekend, he told me how thankful he was for my long friendship with Megan and what a great influence I'd been on her. I just said "WHAT? I mean, thank you." So if you know some bad influence things I did, please don't tell Mr. McMonagle. Thank you.

The Cakes.

Yes- that is a cake. It is a spice cake made to look exactly like Roy's adobe house. Remember the wheelbarrow full of birds seed in his garden? Well there it is in the bottom right corner.

Here's the delicious and beautiful white cake.

The couple cutting the cake.

Did I mention the adobe house cake also lights up on top, just like Roy's house?

The white cake was lemon with raspberry filling.

Spice cake with chocolate icing. I think this was my favorite. but it was really hard to decide.

I didn't take a picture of dinner. But we had buffet style delicious food.

Buffalo Tenderloin

Chicken stuffed with Cactus (yes seriously. and it was good and soft)

Potatoes

Grilled Veggies

Rice

Salad

I can't really remember.

This is why I should have taken a picture, even if people thought it was weird.

The band was incredible!

I am a terrible dancer, and Ty gives me funny looks. So normally we don't dance much. But a storm came through after dinner started and the temperature dropped about 40 degrees. Okay maybe only 30. So we did dance some to keep warm. But I am soooo self conscious that dancing is painful.

We had fun.

Then it was time to go.

They gave out delicious trail mix from Santa Fe - kinda spicy really.

And we all grabbed handfuls of rose petals.

And they ran down the stairs through the sprinkling rain and the showers of petals.
And they drove away in this. I mean seriously, so much class all night long- and then just keeping it real. I love it.

They hosted a departure brunch the next morning. And then took off for 2 weeks in the South of France. Well Roy had a business meeting in France on the 1st day of their honeymoon, so they just HAD to stay there for the remainder of it. Tough life.

It was so fun. unreal. and delicious.

Update... they decided to extend their stay in Europe and are in Florence until November 3rd. I am officially moving into their house here and taking all of the clothes that Megan left behind. Please don't tell anyone.

When Lightning Strikes

Yesterday afternoon I had Bible study at Panera with my bestest friends! It was fabulous, we discussed the Psalms and our lives and shared prayer requests. Then I went and ordered some food to go, because I hadn't been feeling well and didn't want to make dinner.

As I waited for my order to be completed, I started noticing the changes outside. Within the 10 minutes it took for Panera Bread Company to make my dinner, the sunny skies became very very dark and the wind was BLOWING!! I mean the front doors wouldn't stay closed and you could see trees bending down to touch the ground!

So I quickly ran to the car and started driving home. By the time I got on the road, the rain started. and it was a downpour!! There was no warning. No sprinkles. No drizzles. The skies just flat out opened up and the rains came down!

So tired, exhausted, sick me drove like a grandma all the way home. The 15 minute trip took about 30. It was bad.

I came home, used 2 umbrellas to cover all my school bags, purse, dinner, and self. Ran inside and walked around the house to make sure everything was okay.

Then I went into the back sun room. And out of the windows, all I could see was leaves and branches. Those are not supposed to be there.

So I went out on the deck, even though it was raining to see a massive branch had fallen.... right on top of our POWER LINE and CABLE LINE!!

I ran around the house to check our power, all was fine. Then I held my breath to check the cable... I mean a new episode of The Office was about to come on. No problem, it worked too.

So I grabbed an umbrella and my camera and went and took some pictures in the down pour.

Notice our power lines coming out from under the branches on the left. You can also see in the bottom of this picture the railing of our deck. Yes, the branches were so big that they were higher than the deck railing.

more power lines going straight through a thousand branches

This pole on top of our garage is where the lines connect to the house. The pole USED to go straight up, it now is bent out at a slight angle. Fortunately there was no damage to our roof.

Oh man- this is bad.

Here is the whole thing. You can't get a good perspective of the size from this picture, but when 2 strong men tried to lift the branches off the lines- they couldn't, it was too heavy.

Here's where it snapped off. I actually don't know if lightning hit or it was just the strong winds. But the title "when lightning strikes" sounds better than, "i don't know what caused this problem."

Ty's dad lives for this "excitement." After dinner, he came over with a friend (who wore an orange reflective vest and a hard hat, as a joke, I think.). They "assessed" the situation. And then in "true man style" determined they needed to go to Home Depot to purchase some new saws. Within minutes, the tree branches were cut to smaller, more manageable sizes and removed from our power lines.

And we got to watch The Office after all.

Here I go again

I have decided to run the White Rock Half Marahon again! I wasn't going to do it, but a lot of my good friends are running in it. And I decided it'd be fun to tag along!!

Last year I did the White Rock Half Marathon and the Big D Texas Half. They were really fun.

And my goal is to run in as many DIFFERENT half marathons as possible. I've been looking for one in DC or somewhere fun. But, with my friends doing the Dallas one, it's just easy. And I think it will be a different experience running with someone in the race.

So... December 13th... here I come! The training began on Monday! Now if only I can kick this lingering cold... training should get easier.