memorial day ---

Memorial Day weekend was a lot of fun. Lots of time with Matt! It was nice to see Tj and Susan and Daniel and Christy. We had good visits, fun shopping trip, great food :), and fun doing wedding stuff. We were able to work on wedding projects on Monday afternoon and got a lot accomplished.

The kids always love playing in the sand...

Attempting to blow bubbles:)

And there is ALWAYS a football game... wouldn't be a family gathering without it.

These two didn't really get along, but they had on cute matching dresses.

My man and I...

 People eating ice cream, throwing football, talking, laughing, planting flowers...

This little girl loves "Mac"! She is so good at pronouncing words, but she still calls Matt - "Mac". It's so cute!

Olivia just wanted to drink the bubbles :).

change.

Change. Change is something I’ve been thinking about recently. There are a lot of changes going on around me and I guess that’s what prompted it. Change isn’t always bad, BUT sometimes, actually most of the time, change is bad.  For Christians when things start changing that’s usually a bad thing.  I’m seeing people around me change -- what they use to say was wrong and sin, they are now doing. Why is that? To me it is very scary. It first makes me look at myself to make sure I’m doing what I say I believe. Yes, things did change with me once I begun thinking about this myself. Second, it scares me for those people that have changed. I’ve realized that these people aren’t all of a sudden changing, but it’s what has been in there hearts all along, but now for different reasons it is coming out. What I’ve also observed is once one thing in their life changes (this may even be small to most people), they begin slipping and before they know it they are doing, saying, etc. things they never thought they would. A lot of Christians these days say that the outward appearance doesn’t matter much, but only the inward. That statement isn’t a complete lie because that’s how the devil works -- mixing a little truth in with a LOT of lies. Yes, we are suppose to be most concerned about our heart, but that doesn’t mean we forget the outward. The outward appearance is what reflects what is in our hearts. I think people completely forget about this or they close their eyes to it because they don’t want to change the way they are living. It is easy to say what you believe, but it is completely different to actually live what you say you believe. When we claim to be Christians, but we look no different then the world than that shows that our heart is really in the world. We might be able to talk “godly”, but the way we live out our life will show who we really are. With the changes going on around me, the two “beliefs” I’ve thought about most is 1. Why do I wear skirts, dress modest, etc. 2. Why do I do, and strongly believe in courtship? I don’t do these things because it’s what my parents say I need to do or because that’s what my sisters have done. Those reasons aren’t good enough and with time it would show how I really feel about these things. No, I do these things because this is what I believe is True and right. This is what God teaches and therefore is what I want and need to do. I’ve really appreciated my dad’s messages on Wednesday nights about God’s commandments. There are so many that I’ve forgotten about or that I haven’t seen as being a commandment from God. And what comes to mind is the verse “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15

I’ve had this on my mind and I decided to write out some of my thoughts and post them.

Sun n' Fun 2011

I realized the other day when I looked at Hannah's blog that I never posted pictures from Sun n' Fun. I had switched out camera cards in my camera and completely forgot to even download the pictures. I figured it was better late than never. So here you go...

It was cool to actually be able to go with Matt this year. :) We went with Patrick and Hannah and I had a really good time.  

Brandon with his mom's sunglasses 

Dancing with the music...

Blue Angels--- 

With all the storms that went through Lakeland around the time of Sun n' Fun, it was very muddy and we saw lots of stuck cars.

too cute

When I was taking pictures of Analee the other day, I got this one of Alayna. I thought it was too cute not to post.

I've seriously neglected blogging lately:(. Life is so crazy! It's really hard to believe that next week, I will be 4 months away from getting married. Time has really flown by and I know it's not going to slow down. It's really exciting, but also kinda' scary when I think about all the stuff that has to get done before now and then. When I got engaged, I pushed a lot of stuff to the back of my head and decided I wouldn't worry about it until May or June. Well May is almost here!

It is so nice to now have a house! The closing had been scheduled three different weeks, but the third week it actually happened. The Lord really blessed in that situation as Matt and I never thought we would start out in such a nice place. Now I'm looking forward to cleaning the place this weekend! I love seeing dirty things come clean.

It's also been nice to have my future in-laws around for a little while. We've enjoyed getting together with them and the three J's.

Well, I'm sure y'all are tired of me rambling -- until later...

roses

Here's just a quick picture I took with my phone's camera of the beautiful roses Matt sent me. These are so huge and they aren't even all open. Thank you Matt -- I love you!

some faves

Here are some of mine and Matt's favorite pictures that Susan took for us. I loved all of them and it was really hard to pick out some favorites. The ones she put on her blog were on the top of my list, but here are some more that the two of us really like. You'll probably be able to figure out some that were his and some that were mine. :)

This is the spot we got engaged...

Thank you so much Susan for taking our engagement pictures! You did an amazing job and we are very happy to have these.