Thursday, November 26, 2020

Thanksgiving!

Stephen waits all year to wear his favorite shirt!

Thanksgiving  prep is a family affair for sure around here :)


Amelia and Addison made so many delicious pies, pumpkin, chocolate, apple crumble and cherry!  

Happy Thanksgiving!
We are so thankful to God for the abundance of blessings in our lives!

Yummy!

 

Sunday, November 15, 2020

ELLIE BOO!

Well, we also did this in 2020 :)
Stephen and I decided to listen to the kid's pleading for a new puppy.  Addison had been unrelenting for two years, she wrote persuasive speeches, raps, poems, comics, drawings, power point presentations, etc about why we were ready to welcome a new dog into our family.  
Stephen and I decided in the summer, we were ready to start the puppy journey and we found the perfect breeders and breed,  a sheepadoodle.  They are so smart and do not shed and are beautiful.  (Not that Sadie and Wrigley aren't their own kind of beautiful, ha!)
So, we patiently waited for our puppy to be conceived and born and we did not tell the kids!  It was the hardest secret to keep ever!
The day for pickup finally came and Stephen and I could not wait!  We told the kids we were going out of town on a date day and we would be back in the evening because the puppy was three hours away...each way.  


Sweetness on the drive home!
Surprising the kids with Ellie Boo goes down as one of my favorite all time family memories and we have a lot.  They were all completely shocked and Addison got so overwhelmed by true joy that she started sobbing uncontrollably.  It was such a sweet moment.

Ellie Boo!

Crying with joy...

Still crying with joy...



No more tears, just joy :)



Amelia remembered this precious story.  So when she was 6, Santa brought her the above stuffed animal for Christmas.  Santa explained our family was not ready for a puppy but when the time was right, we would get a puppy and thought this stuffed dog was a good friend until then...
the resemblance to Ellie Boo was unbelievable!


Amelia that Christmas with the stuffed dog from Santa!
Too cute for words.

 

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Team FILA!


Some exciting things did happen in 2020!
FILApickleball gave me a sponsorship!
It is mind boggling, flattering and funny to me that this 44 year old mom of three kids has a pickleball sponsorship but I LOVE it!!
So FILApickleball provides me with all sorts of amazing apparel, shoes and gear and I tell them how much I love it :)  


FILA then posts me on their social media pages :)  
Fun, fun, fun!
There I am, in the blue dress!  The other girl on their page is Lucy Kovalova, the number 2 player in the world!  And then me!!!  






And every time a new bag of gear shows up at the house, I jump up and down like a kid on Christmas morning! 

Love being on TEAM FILA and representing such an amazing brand that I already loved, playing a sport I love so much!

Friday, October 30, 2020

Halloween

 

It is a tradition at Ocean Springs to have the seniors do Trunk or Treat for the elementary students.  And these kids go all out with decorating and their costumes!  It is such a fun tradition that everyone enjoys and we all desperately needed in 2020.  
We were so happy for Amelia because the school district decided to go forward with Trunk or Treat despite Covid.  And then...Hurricane Zeta came and schools were out for days along with Trunk or Treat.  These poor kids were devastated and had already done all the prep. 
Thank God, the schools rescheduled after Halloween so we still go to participate!

Amelia and Ashlegh were adorable as Minions and the kiddos loved it so much!

Halloween Night!
Most trick or treat and Halloween events were cancelled due to Covid but our friends invited us to trick or treat in Biloxi with them because their neighborhood was still doing it despite Covid and Hurricane Zeta.  (We still had no power)

Cutest Minion ever!

Addison as the Cat in the Hat!
Trick or treating with our friends Adrienne and Nolan. 
Happy Halloween!

Monday, October 26, 2020

Hurricane Zeta

 Hurricane Zeta hit us directly in late October.  It was forecasted to be a Category 1 and after all the hurricanes we had in the Gulf this year, everyone was a little storm prep weary.  Nobody evacuated, most did not prepare with the same gusto in the beginning of hurricane season.  Everyone said the same thing, how much more can we deal with in 2020?  

So we did not prep much, we did not have days of non perishable food or tons of water.  We knew we would lose power for a bit, figured we'd have some wind and that would be it.  We were wrong.  Hurricane Zeta came in 1mph under a category 3.  We always evacuate for category 3 and above.  It was insanely loud and we lost power hours into landfall.  We did not get power back for five days.  It was intense.  The water surrounded our house and we had waves crashing into the bottom of the house.  God's grace and mercy kept us from having any water damage to the house.  We did move everyone up to the guest house to keep us safe as the water rose.  


We lost power early on so we hung out by lanterns.

Early on, before the water rose and we had to evacuate upstairs we heard a lot of trees come down.

These are all taken at dawn when Stephen and I ventured downstairs.
The shed had been floating in our yard about 25 feet away from it's foundation.

A lot of tree and giant limbs fell.  Miraculously no damage to our house or cars.





Debris lines from the waves, all of it is sea grass from the ocean.

The trampoline lost it's life in Hurricane Zeta.  It flew to the front yard and got crushed even though we had it anchored with cement blocks.

Lovers Lane was impassable.  We were trapped.  With no electricity and not as much food and water as we would have liked.  

The debris was unbelievable.  It took weeks for the cleanup.

But look!  The sun came out, neighbors and church friend's arrived to help and after days and days and days we removed all the debris.

The trampoline became a debris mover attached to a pickup.

Stephen managed to make us coffee over an open flame, thank God for small miracles.  
Love this guy so much.

Amelia and I were twinning during yard clean up in our Valpo gear.

Not many pictures with this cute guy.

We had friend's bring us meals (most of Ocean Springs got power back day 1 or 2) but our street had extensive damage so it took almost 6 full days.

Thank you Castlemans for coming to help us dig out!!