SOMEONE'S THE BIG 3-0....

And that someone is my wonderful hubby Joel!

On Friday night I had a surprise party for him at his parent's house. It is so hard to surprise him because he can read me like a book. Everytime he would mentioned something about his birthday I would giggle like a little girl, but he said what tipped him off to the surprise is when I called my mom when we were almost there "just to see what they were doing". He said my phone call was WAY shorter than normal. Go figure! It was a lot of fun. We always enjoy weekends filled with family, friends, and food!! (Pictures to come later...I forgot my camera cord)

On Saturday we pretty much spent the day with Joel's family. His brother and sister-in-law were in town with my favorite (and only) nephew Jay. We stayed around the house just catching up. Our plan was to swim all afternoon, but the hail storm kinda put a damper on that! Saturday night Joel and I, along with our class at church put on an Elder's Appreciation Dinner at church. I think they really enjoyed it. We did a luau theme and played games like the "Not-so-newlywed game". It was such a special time to interact with Christian men and women that we look up to so much.

Well, that pretty much sums up our weekend. We always enjoy weekends filled with family, friends, and food!!

Congratulations!!

I just wanted to let everyone know how proud I am of my hubby. He has been studying so hard over the past several weeks for his arborist certification. (I learned just recently that he can be a nerd when he wants to!!) Anyways, he got his certificate in the mail yesterday...HE PASSED!! We just want to thank everyone for all their thoughts and prayers. God truly our answered prayers!

Have a great weekend!

Happy 25th to me!!

I know it is about 2 weeks late, but on June 20th I celebrated my 25th birthday. Joel makes a really big deal of birthdays (which is a great thing becauseI like to celebrate for at least a week). He planned a wonderful weekend in Nashville. On Friday night we stayed at the Loews Vanderbilt and went to eat of the Melting Pot. The hotel was so fancy. It was too fancy for Joel though, he could not understand why a cup of coffee in the room would cost him $1. He insisted that it be free after all we paid to stay there! Our dinner at the Melting Pot was AMAZING. We spent Saturday with our Nashville family and friends. And for the record don't let Joel tell you that he beat me at a friendly game of cornhole because that is so untrue!!

Thanks honey for making my birthday and everyday so special. I love you bunches!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, long, 4th of July weekend!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Daddy, thank you for always being there for me and supporting me in everything that I do. Thank you so much for the example you have been to me, not only the Christian example but also the father/husband example. I am so grateful for that it helped to show me exactly what I wanted in mate and I am so glad that I waited until I found just that. As much as I call you a "dirty old man" when you are around mama, I want you to know how much it means to me that you show her that you love her, even around us. Thank you for being such a hard worker and always providing for our family. You are the best daddy in the world...and I want you know that I will always be your little girl no matter how big I get or think I am. I love you!

Never a dull day in our house!!

The past month has been a whirlwind for us. We went to the beach for Memorial Day weekend for our first family summer vacation. It was so wonderful laying out on the beach all day and eating seafood every night. In case you didn't know it, my husband can out away some shrimp. One night we went to the seafood market and got them to steam us 3 lbs of shrimp and a pound of crawfish. We took it to the beach and ate every bit of it. The only thing left was the shells...which we buried in the sand (come to think of it, I bet some kid was pretty freaked out the next day building a sandcastle and finding a crawfish head :) We had a great time getting away from the day to day life here and home and spending quality time together.

Joel finally has the fence and deck built in the backyard. He has worked so hard on it. It look so good and we are looking forward to entertaining out there this summer. I am so thankful for Joel and his "handyman" abilites. Macie Mae is enjoying her backyard, too. She loves going outside and sitting in the sun and chasing the birds.

And now here is the inspiration for the title of this post...Joel has been in the hospital once again!! In case you are wondering...yes, this makes the 2nd time in the 8 months that we have been married. He starting getting sick last Sunday. He was running 102 fever, throwing up like every 15 minutes and complaining that his leg and foot was hurting. He went to the doctor on Monday because his foot was so swollen that he couldn't move his toes. They gave him and antibiotic shot and sent him home. During the night he started running a fever a again, so I took him back to the doctor Tuesday morning. They have him another shot and sent him home. By that afternoon, his foot was so swollen it has turned completely purple. I called the doctor and they admitted him to the hospital. After being there for 2 days, they said that he had an infection in his foot and he was allergic to the infection. That is what caused all the swelling. At one point his foot seriously looked like Adam Sandler's foot on Mr. Deeds!! But we are home now and he is getting better. I really think that he is just testing me on the "in sickness and health" vow I took. I hope I have proved to him now that I will stick with him no matter what. I don't know how many more hospital visits I can take (or afford)!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Ash

A Day at the Zoo

Joel and I spent the day in Birmingham a couple weeks ago. After working EVERY Saturday for 4 months, I wanted to get out of Huntsville and do something fun. So, when I woke up on my first Saturday not to work I looked at Joel and said, "Let's go to the zoo today!" I know random...but you have to understand how much I LOVE the zoo. I think the only way I got him to agree to go by telling him that he could see the alligators and that we would eat at the Cheesecake Factory on our way home. Here are some fun pictures that we took:

It was kinda funny that day because you don't see many young couples walking around the zoo without kids. I think we were the biggest kids there. We were more excited to see some the animals than the all the little kids were :)

There is the update...not much else going on around here!

6 MONTHS OF MARITAL BLISS...

Now that we have been married for 6 months, I guess I should catch everyone up on what has been going on in our life. First off, our wedding was absolutely a fairy tale. Everything was exactly how I had always dreamed my wedding would be. Here are a couple pictures from our wonderful day...

We left the next day for Cancun, Mexico for a week. It was the best week just spending time together and laying out by the pool. Joel got so burned on the first day that he had to sit in the shade for the rest of the trip. We went snorkling out on the coral reef one day..it was amazing! One day we decided to venture away from the resort and we got a a city bus (it was only $1 to ride). We told them to take us to a flea market. The bus driver took us into the main city of Cancun (out of the hotel zone) and we did not see a flea market anywhere. We were lost for about an hour just walking around trying to find another bus to take us back. Joel kept trying to act like he wasn't scared for our lives, but now he says that he really was. I mean we pretty much just screamed "tourist honeymooner"! But we made it back and we never left the resort again. Enjoy the pictures...

I guess being married was a little too much for Joel and he ended up having heart surgery at the end of December. He had started having problems with his heart racing and feeling like he was going to pass out a couple weeks before the wedding. He went to the doctor and they told him to just take it easy and come back after the honeymoon. Well, it didn't get any better so we were off to Birmingham for surgery after Christmas. He recovered really quickly and is now 100%. The surgery fixed the problem.

Now that I have caught up up to 2008 this is what has been going on...Life has been pretty normal with the exception of the dreaded tax season and 10 hour work days for me. Joel has been the best husband a girl could ever ask for during the past 4 stressful months. I would come home to a clean house and dinner most nights. But then the great laundry room renovation occurred...we had the the idea to make our laundry room a little bit bigger since it is the main entryway that we use coming in from our garage. It turned into a HUGE project and I learned a lot about my hubby's construction abilities. My man can do everything from knocking out walls, sheet rocking, electrical work, tiling. You name it he can do it!

Well, I believe that is it. Sorry it is such a long post...I'll try and keep it updated more often!

Have a good weekend!