Nashville snapshots

We went to Nashville last Saturday to see Zach. It was good treat at the end of Spring Break. We stopped by Loveless Cafe. Jolie always wants to have her photo made in these add your face to the hole in the board things....

Daddy hugs are the best.

Loveless is just around the corner from this bridge on the Natchez Trace. We walked across this very high bridge. It's creepily high to those who might be a little scared of heights.

We enjoyed the park near the pedestrian bridge in the downtown area.

Conquering the big mound near the Titans stadium...or grassy noll as my old college band director would have called it.

On the bridge

Karlie with the Batman building in the background.

Smile and act silly...mom's taking too many photos.

Can you say HAM?

Went to church with Zach at Jutson Baptist in Brentwood. Very friendly church. Loved it.

After church and lunch we talked dad into stopping by Antique Archaeology  Shek loves this show and records them all...so he always begs to stop. So we did. 

It was a quick little trip. We had fun. Now 5 ish more weeks of school and we can say SUMMER vacation. I can't wait.

A little Easter Memories 2013

Easter morning basket check....3 out of 4 kids checked their baskets before breakfast.

The kiddos in their "Easter Frocks" before lunch.

Karl prepares the bbq chicken for the grill.

The Egg Hunt...over the past few years the big kiddos have not wanted to be caught 'dead' doing the egg hunt..so this year, Gam and I decided to add a little 'green' to the eggs...and everyone was more than willing to participate. Pop and Karl hid the 30 eggs very HARD. It took them quite a while to find them all, and in the end we were missing one egg. Karlie, Gam and Pop walked the yard over and over until Karlie found the very last one. I must say, adding some cash inside the eggs was fun. We will have to keep up with the that tradition.

Hunting for those eggs, was difficult business...I think we need to have the hiders of the eggs use a GPS to hide them next time. Opening the door to the yard to hunt...there was not an egg in sight. This was hard core egg hunting...these kids had to actually  HUNT for them, not just scoop them up. ;)

This was the best egg hunt we've had in a long time. It was fun, and I didn't get any of the cash filled eggs.

Pop and Karl try to point the kids in the right direction of where they hid the eggs...but toward the end of the hunt they had to start looking for the missing eggs too.

The kids count their cash. 

Easter2013 was fun. It was great watching the kids check out the Easter baskets, and then heading to church together.  It was awesome coming home for a great Easter lunch, then hiding and finding $$ eggs, but the real treasure of Easter is JESUS!

Thank you Jesus!

John 3:16

"WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM?"

Earlier this week, Jolie and I headed to her weekly speech appointment. Our appointment time is usually in the morning, but this one time it had been shifted to after lunch and I forgot to change the time in my phone calendar and we soon found ourselves two hours early to our appointment. There was no time to come home and go back, it would have been a waste of time, energy and GAS, so we just decided to go around the corner to Lifeway Christian Bookstore until time for her appointment. Jolie loves that store, and was soon rushing around looking at the Bibles, books, and toys. She had brought me many things asking for if she could get it "next time"...when she ran upon a huge panoramic photo of Jesus carrying the cross. It was a  bloody scene, one similar to the one here only larger,and right on my girl's eye level. It was quite bloody, graphic, and tramatic especially to my three year old.

She turned back to me from her side of the isle, and screamed astonishedly,  What did they do to Him? So standing across the isle, I said they put Jesus on the cross, He died for us. He died for all the bad things we have done. She peppered  me  with many questions as we made our way out of the store. As I buckeled her into her car seat, She asked,"Did God kill him?" I answeered "No, God sent His Son Jesus for us."  "Who killed him then?" I said, "The people did, but the good news is HE rose again...He came back to life three days later. AND when we believe in Him and place our trust in HIM, he becomes Savior and when we die we go to heaven  to live with Him there."

Later that night, when Dad got home, we told him of our experience at the store.

The conversation went like this," Dad I don't want to do that."
" Do what, Jolie?"
"I don't want to die on a cross."
"Jolie, you don't have to, Jesus has already done it for us."

It's time to PLAY ball again

It's Time for that familiar phrase:

PLAY BALL

This season, Shek has spent some time in several different positions. Here he is at catcher. He's been lobbying for a new catcher's mitt. I guess he will get one of those soon.