What a great weekend we had at the beach with our friends! (Wanted to post some of our 1700+ pics from there, but the internet was down!) We had beautiful weather all three days and spent most of the day every day on the beach or at the pool!
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The little guys' first experience in the ocean!

The Jeffcoats had a really cool inflatable, shaded pool for the beach...But the boys had very different reactions!

And Jadyn's love for eating dirt...

And sticks!

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So much fun!

Here's some more of my favorite pics from the weekend...

So we're off this evening for a weekend at Hilton Head with the Lelands and the Jeffcoats! Can't wait! I'm just ready to be there, but since we can't leave til after work, I've got a few more hours to suffer through!

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Otherwise, nothing really exciting going on here...Oh, except for the opening of our new JoAnns!! Our formerly ghetto Joanns relocated to a huge new building and now has TONS of great scrapbooking supplies! Yippee!! Maybe now Michael's will step it up since they've finally got some competition!

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Well, it's about time to head out for my lunchhour nap! Then back to occupy myself for about 3 1/2 more hours...But then it'll officially be BEACH WEEKEND!! (Hopefully we'll have an internet connection down there, so check back over the weekend for fun pics on all our blogs!)

What a productive Saturday I've had...And it's only 3:30!!

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Due to some unforeseen events, I've actually had a free Saturday!! Of course I slept in this morning, but I've basically been going non-stop since then! I've gotten ALL of our laundry done (Including washing our sheets!)...I COMPLETELY cleaned out the fridge/freezer...And I backed up all of our 2007 & 2008 pictures to over 20 cds!
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Now, while Matt's helping his sister & bro-in-law move, I'm sitting here, taking a break, and trying to figure out how I can squeeze a trip to Olive Garden into my hubby's busy day! Mmmm...I can just taste some cheese ravioli! I hope I don't get disappointed...
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Last night was GREAT! Scrapbooking at the Scrap Shack! In all the craziness of the last couple of months I haven't even TOUCHED my scrapbooking supplies, so it was absolutely wonderful to have a whole evening just to get some work done! And surprisingly, I actually LOVE the page I did for "A Day at the Zoo!" (April zoo trip w/Grey, the Lelands, the Jeffcoats, the Whites and the Popes) - I would post it here, but I'd love to actually submit it for publication at some point...
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Well, that's life for now!
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But here's a super adorable pic of nephew Jackson that I managed to snap the other night...




And also my favorite pic of nephew Grey from the zoo trip...

So our last coed softball game last night...Yeah...

ABSOLUTELY FREAKING AMAZING!

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The championship was already ours since we were the only undefeated team, so this game was the one to determine whether or not we finished with a perfect season...

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We were playing the other toughest team in the league, so we knew going into it that this would definitely NOT be a easy one...They're some serious hitters! After the first inning, we were down 5-0, but as soon as we managed to close THAT gap they went up 10-5!

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Honestly, it's really all a blur to me! There are so many details I just can't remember at this point b/c I was totally running on adrenaline! (Oh, but I DO remember making an amazing tag at the plate to end an inning with a double play!!)

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Anyways, so back to the excitement!

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In what would have been the next to last inning, they walked the bases loaded and Cliff pulled out a much-needed grand slam! Now we're only down by 1 (10-9) with one inning to go to keep them from scoring and then get a run or two in ourselves...And so we do! We hold them at 10 and get up to bat ourselves with only 3 minutes left on the clock...Either we score to tie/win or we've gotta get out to force another inning before time runs out...With one out, Jimmy on, and Andy up to bat, I'm totally prepared to strike out myself if the second out is made on Andy's at bat, but luckily Andy gets a double for Jimmy to score the tying run! With no pressure on me now, I once again get walked...But unfortunately the inning ends in a tie and with the clock at zero we've force the extra inning...Once again, we hold them to no runs and just when it looks like they're gonna gonna do the same, with two outs and a full count, MY amazing husband gets a beautiful hit to bring in the winning run and end the game!

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What a perfect way to end this amazingly crazy season!

We were definitely excited, but unfortunately much of our joy was stolen due to the fact that since our game ran an extra inning our mens team (a dominating factor in their own league) were forced to forfeit their game since several of their players were still playing in our coed game when theirs should have started...It's actually whole lot of junk and most everyone's pretty dang angry about it too! (Including the other team who got the "win"!) Hopefully today the league will let them reschedule the game for tomorrow night and all will be well...But still, it's just the principle of the matter...The fact that the league told our coach, (while our coed team is fighting for our perfect season in the extra inning) that he should just pull the coed team and let us take the loss so that the men's team could start their game and not have to forfeit...Honestly, what does that say to us?!? "Thanks for playing! It's been fun, you're only one run away from the best season ever, but let's just go ahead and give it up!" Yeah...Like I said...A whole lot of junk!

But on a fun note...

I leave you with a cute pic of some of us girls after the game!

(Yes, I would have preferred a pic with our trophy, but due to the angry chaos that was ensuing, no such pic exists!)

We're back from our anniversary trip to St. Simons Island! What a GREAT time we had...A much needed break!

We had beautiful weather Saturday & Monday, but were expecting bad weather Sunday and that's exactly what we got!

The initial storms woke us up during the night with some of the loudest thunder we'd ever heard, so we weren't surprised to wake to the continued downpours Sunday morning...No real complaints though! Like I said, we'd had a sunny day Saturday and knew Monday was supposed to be sunny too, so it was actually nice to take a break from the heat and relax in the comfort of our oceanfront room watching the storms move through!

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We were expecting the rain to last all day, but about 2:00 the sun actually came out so we headed outside for a while...We kept seeing how horrible the sky looked just a little ways down the beach, but since we had blue skies over US we figured we'd could wait it out until the storms made it down our way...At one point it got extrememely windy, but we didn't think much about it since it's typically windy at the beach! Finally about 4:00 we decided that even though it was still nice out we needed to go take showers and get some dinner...

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As we were walking past the pool, we heard a man talking about "where the torando touched down" but silly me just assumed he was talking about some tornado in Hong Kong or somewhere...(He WAS Asian!) - I mean seriously, he couldn't have been talking about a tornado there on the island b/c we'd been outside on the beach for hours!! Well, maybe our first clues should've been the electric gate not working or the elevator not running, but nope...Didn't even think twice about it all until we passed a resort employee on the stairs carrying a huge trashbag of glowsticks...Could that Asian guy have really been talking about a tornado here on the island and was the resort guy passing out glowsticks b/c our power was out?? Sure enough, the first thing we saw when we opened our door was a couple of glow sticks on our bed!! No power thanks to the nice little tornado that we obviously experienced while laying out on the beach...So much for thinking the wind had just picked up a little!

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Well, anyways, that was our trip in a nutshell! Totally relaxing with just a little but of random excitement thrown in! Now it's back to the busyness of real life! Tonight's our last softball game of the season...Kinda sad, but looking forward to it...Our game last Thursday basically sealed the championship for us, but if we win tonight we'll be the one undefeated team in the league! Can't wait!

Okay - So I'm a bad blogger! It's been a busy couple of weeks...

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Dad's surgery last Monday...Visiting the hospital every night since then...Softball games on Tuesdays and Thursdays...Leaders Retreat last weekend...etc!

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Crazyness!!

And it just keeps going!

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About to leave work, run through Chick-Fil-A, pick up Matt from his office, run down to my parents' house (dad went home today), visit for a few minutes, get back home, change clothes, get to the field, play softball from 7-9:30, go home, pack for our anniversary trip, sleep, go to work tomorrow, drive to Savannah tomorrow night and then finally get to St. Simons Island SATURDAY!!

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Agh!!

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Off to start the marathon!

Totally random...

But you know what can really get my blood pumping?!?!

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An amazing gospel choir!

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No, I'm not a 75 year old woman hobbling down the isle with my cane, but I've had my choir experience and I'm telling you, that's about the only thing I miss in a contemporary church!

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Throughout high school, I was a part of our church youth choir...And yes, we rocked! I have a few CDs and several hundred tour pics to prove it! As far as youth choirs go, we were recognized as one of the best and our director, John Link, was EXTREMELY well-known and sought after!

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With that being said, our adult choir at the time could also do some amazing stuff under John's direction also...One of our all-time favorites was his last direction of "Hallelujah to the Lamb"...

ABSOLUTELY INSANELY AMAZING!

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Well, the reason I'm thinking all this randomness while I'm at work on a Thursday afternoon, is the song I've been listening to on repeat for about two hours now..."Thou, O Lord".

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My boss brought me a rehearsal CD of songs that his choir is currently working on and told me to listen to #4...It get's to the chorus and I suddenly recall John directing this very song a few years ago...Another amazing song if done by the right choir!

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Like I said, totally random...But it all just made me think of the great experiences I had through choir and how great a good choir can be with outstanding direction...

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In case you care to hear the song, here's a link to a You Tube video of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir's performance...(Jump to about 3:25 to get to the really kickin' part!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y284YvkYrZo