This time last year...

Really wishing I was there right now...Who's with me?? :)

As our anniversary approaches...

Mine and Brad's first wedding anniversary is this Sunday, and as I've been doing my devotions this week I have just had this prayer on my heart, and I wanted to share it with all of you.

Gracious God...Thank you so much for an amazing year. You have given me the greatest gift you could ever give anyone. You have blessed me with my soul mate, best friend, and husband. You took everything you knew that I would need and you created those things in Brad. God, I don't deserve this kind of grace, but yet you give it freely. Lord thank you. Thank you that Brad will just sit and listen, thank you that he's attentive to me, thank you that he uses the gifts you've given him, thank you that he is EVERYTHING that I need. Most importantly God, thank you that he loves you more than he loves me, and that he's teaching me everyday through the way that he loves me, how to fall deeper in love with you. Continue to protect us individual, and to protect our marriage. Help us to remain in your will, and show us what your plans are for us, God shows us how you would have us serve you.

4th of July

This year Brad and I celebrated the fourth of July from Thursday until Saturday!! It was loads of fun, and we spent it with two of my most FAVORITE people :)

Thursday night Brad, Lincoln, Lindsey and I ventured down to the lake (my favorite place on the face of the earth) to stay the night and play all day Friday. Let's just say after a rough start involving a stop sign, a friendly game of Risk, and some bodily functions from Lucy the stay turned out to be a BLAST!! Linz learned how to ski, we relaxed on the dock in the sun, tubed and did a lot of Jetski riding!! Here are some of the pictures from the fun...






Then Saturday after spending a fun day at the pool with Mom, Haley and Riley...we had a cookout with Linz, Linc, Chris and Ben. And from now on you can feel free to just call me Martha :) We then watched fireworks from the roof of Parkway...It was kind of a VIP experience!

D.C. Trip Pictures

We love our Ghanaian :)


And then we began to feel like nerdy tourists haha...




This is the part of the trip where Brad got embarrassed...I know its cliche but come on you've gotta take this picture when you go to D.C. right??

Monday Night T.V.

Okay, I know I still haven't posted the pictures from our trip to D.C. but hopefully I can post them this weekend on a NEW laptop. Which, I must add, that I have been VERY patiently waiting for...sort of. During the fall I am engulfed by the drama of Grey's Anatomy, and I was really worried that this summer I wouldn't have any good shows to watch, but boy was I wrong. I have been religiously watching Jon and Kate and The Bachelorette. But the point of this post was not to inform you that I am horribly addicted to T.V, but rather to complain about this past Monday night's shows.

I'll start with The Bachelorette... First of all Jillian just gets on my nerves. This is an AMERICAN show, so why is the stinkin Bachelorette Canadian??? And her accent gets on my absolute last nerve, this hatred could possibly stem from the fact that I'm more than slightly jealous of her killer body and her wardrobe...but still she gets on my nerves. I mean seriously what does she see in Wes??? He's obviously there just to get some publicity for his band, which I personally think is less than mediocre in the first place!! But what really ticked me off is that she let my favorite Bachelor, Jake go...I was SO sad. He stated as he left that "the good guy always finishes last", and boy was he right! She's an idiot, and until I saw that Jake was coming back to inform her of Wes's intentions I was going to quit watching, but I guess I'm sucked in for at least one more week...

And then there's the trainwreck that is Jon and Kate's marriage. I am so so sad about this!! At the beginning of their show they had friends and family, but now there is no mention of any of their previous friends or even of the family they were once so close to. But what upsets me most is the fact that it appears they have abandoned their faith. There was no mention whatsoever during any episodes so far this season. I am DEFINITELY not watching this anymore, because at this point I feel like watching it would be advocating their situation. They need to stop the show and work on their marriage and their family! I guess I'll just have to go over to Linz's and watch her DVD's of the "good days". SO SAD!!

Okay, enough complaining from this end...what shows are you guys watching this summer?? Looks like I need some replacements...

Only in D.C.....

Would it be normal to see approximately thirty NAKED guys and girls biking down the road. To protest what you might ask? Apparently dependence on foreign oil???? Wow...and needless to say I do not have any pictures of this to post, and yea you can thank me for that...

Bennie Boy's Big Birthday...

I know you were all extremely impressed with that alliteration :)

In honor of Ben's 18th Birthday I thought I would list some random/embarrassing facts about my baby brother, and I deserve to have a little fun since my last post about him was VERY nice, right? (And yes I did steal this idea from P-Dub)

1. He used to play with barbies and babies, and by used to I mean up until last year.
2. Once Ben bit me and I blackmailed him with that for YEARS.
3. Once when we were playing hang man Ben used the "F" word and I also blackmailed him with that one for YEARS.
4. He's almost as emotional as me.
5. He wipes his nose on his shirt frequently.
6. His room smells, and I mean B-A-D!!!
7. His feet smell worse than his room, but he claims to have solved that problem...I don't really know though since I don't live at the house anymore...we'll let Mom give the final verdict on that one. And while we're on the subject of his feet...he has a HORRIBLE golfers tan on his feet and its really funny looking :)
8. He's scared of snakes, but so am I, so who am I to judge?
9. In life when he thinks something bad is going to happen he closes his ears, he's always done that for as long as I can remember.
10. Once when we were younger I told him to jump into the pool with all his clothes on, and he did it...I don't even remember if he could swim at that point...Oh and along those lines, when he was about 3 he fell into the lake at Easter and our Uncle Kurt had to jump in after him.
11. Which reminds me about Ernie. He had a beanie Ernie from Sesame Street and wherever Ben went Ernie went...Ernie also went in the lake, Uncle Kurt saved him too.
12. I beat Ben at everything...except golf, OBVIOUSLY!
13. In kindergarten Ben mooned his whole music class...sorry Mom :)

And I can't think of anything else, so 13 is all you're getting...besides I have to save some dirt for some other time!!!

But seriously Bennie...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Congratulations you're a real adult now, you can vote!! Thank goodness you're a republican we need more of those in this world, come to think of it we could have used you in this last election...And now I'm rambling because its late, but happy birthday, thanks for letting me embarrass you on my blog (don't worry nobody reads it anyway) and you know I love you!!