Brother Kevin's Birthday!

Today is my little brother Kevin's Birthday! He's 24 today- all grown. Kevin is an Assistant Golf Pro at Old Marsh Golf Club in Florida. (we're so proud...) Here's a picture of me and Kevin when we were little!

Birthday Girl!

So, I'm 26 now. Time sure does fly! It seems that birthday's just start becoming less important as I get older- I actually had to try to remember how old I was- that's sad! I had the day before my birthday off from school, so Liz and I went out to breakfast and then my mom came out and we had "high tea" at the English Tea Shoppe in Intercourse. It was really fun to have a little tea party! On my actual birthday I had class until 8pm, so that made celebrating on my birthday a bit challenging. Justin got me a little cake and sang happy birthday to me, and our friend Steve stopped by for some cake. AND- I got a whole new set of dishes for my birthday! WOOHOO!

Oh my applesauce....

Liz, Julie and Bess on the front porch turning the cooked apples into sauce- we felt like frontier women cooking outside!

Bess and Bobbi canning away....for the record, Bobbi is standing on a stool to be able to reach the bucket!

There's me with some of our mountains of apples!

So, 300 pounds of apples later, we currently have more applesauce than you could imagine- I only wish that I had gotten a picture of the mountains of apples at the beginning and the rows of jars at the end! We decided to have this great apple adventure- Julie, Beth, Liz, Bobbi and I, as well as other people that we recruited throughout the day (like Jen, Jenna, Steve, and Chris). It was a long day of mostly fun, and all in all, the apples were turned to sauce, so I'd say it was successful! Now its time to start gearing up for next year!

All the way from Mexico...

Justin's cousin, Mandy, and her husband, Ernesto recently moved back from Aguascalientes, Mexico where they have lived for the past two and a half years. (This was the cousin that Justin and I visited this summer when we went to Mexico...) So, they're back in the states and came out to visit us for the day- we took them to do all the "Lancaster" things.... when we were with them in Mexico, we joked that we just "ate our way through Mexico", so Justin and I figured that we could proably do the same sort of thing here (and, if you've ever been to Lancaster, you know that wouldn't be a stretch to make happen!) So, we went to Central Market, picked apples at Cherry Hill Orchards, stopped for a snack at Bird-In-Hand Bakc Shop- you know, whoopie pies, shoofly pie, sticky buns... we tried a bit of everything. Then, as if we were actually hungry, we had dinner at Dienner's. All in all a great day...

Here's a picture of Mandy being attacked by Bo while we were trying to digest...

Ricketts Glen: The Music Video

my other link didn't work, but try this!

Animoto.com

This is the coolest website! You can go on and create little "music videos" from pictures and music that you have! You just upload the pictures, pick a song and the website arranges a music video for you- its soooo cool! The "shorts" are FREE (includes 10 -15 pictures) and then you can make a "full length" with as many pictures as you want, but that you pay for.... so, try it out! Have fun!

Here's a video I made in class tonight from our weekend in at the mountains:
Ricketts Glenn: The Music Video

Mountain Weekend

We packed up this past weekend and headed to the Ricketts Glen area (near Bloomsburg, PA) with our small group from church and spent the weekend at Justin's aunt and uncles cabin (thanks Cheryl and Jim!). We had a blast hiking the waterfall trail, relaxing, playing games and, of course, shooting. Let me tell you, Bobbi Garrett is a little "Annie Oakley" with a shotgun... she didnt miss a clay bird! And of course it wouldn't be a weekend at the cabin without the boys blowing up something- fortunatley this time it was just a pumpkin getting its guts blown out! (see the video below...) I shot one gun- I can't believe how pregnant I look in that picture! I'm a pretty terrible shot though, so Bo and I just played around in the fields most of the time!

17 Weeks

Here's the lastest picture- my belly is getting good and round- I quit wearing regular clothes a few weeks ago... its just not comfortable to rubberband your pants shut! My stomach muscles feel like they have just been through an intense workout... they're so sore! I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow and will likely be scheduling my next ultrasound. Woohoo!

Kentucky Wedding

I spent the weekend in Lexington, KY attending the wedding of my dear friend Stephanee Stone (now Stephanee Sheets). Steph and I met while interning with Athletes in Action in Colorado and became fast friends. It was a beautiful wedding on a horse farm outside of Lexington- what fun! Congratulations, Steph and Lonnie!

The New Holland Fair

Justin's favorite time of year... The New Holland Fair! This is the best place to get some of our favorite treats: Hess's BBQ, waffles and ice cream, kettle corn, and more. Justin has been going to the fair for as long as he can remember, and I've embraced it as a "family tradition". This year Justin entered some cherry tomatoes from our garden and he won Second Place! (This was one better than last year's thrid place in the jalepeno pepper competition...)

14 Weeks

We're going to try to remember to take a picture every month or so until I have the baby. At 14 weeks, my pants are starting to not fit and I just got my first pair of maternity jeans!

Gino's Race Duathalon

Justin did a duathalon today- 2 mile run, 14 mile bike, then another 2 mile run. Last year we both did it, but this year, Bo and I were the cheering section. Justin did awesome, finishing second in his age group. This race is one of our favorites, so here are some pictures to tell the story....

The Bathroom Project

After long last, we are finally redoing the bathroom. We ripped the disgusting carpet out a few months ago, and now we're knocking the 1970's style tile off the walls, putting up wainscoating and painting, not to mention fixing the plaster and other interesting things that we keep running into. This has definetly been more of a project than we thought! It seems that the people who live here before weren't very good at home remodeling projects, so whenever we do something, we have to FIX it and then redo it!

Oh well, soon it will be beautiful!!

First Baby Picture!

Here's a picture from our first ultrasound! How cool! The whole time we were watching, it was moving its arms and legs almost as if it was running! It was really funny and amazing to be able to see this little baby- its actually real!

Heartbeat

We had our first pre-natal appointment last night, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat! It has a heartbeat! It was so amazing to hear what sounded like a train chugging along- both Justin and I were so surprised and excited to hear this little baby growing inside me for the first time. It was awesome! How amazing that we are able to hear that- even more, how amazing to hear how God is knitting together this little baby... this is WILD!

PS- we have an ultrasound later this week- I'm really looking forward to that!

Big News

Well, after a few weeks of not feeling so hot for an unexplained reason, and a few weeks of Justin saying to me "Are you pregnant?"... about two weeks ago we found out that yes, in fact, I am pregnant! We were shocked by the pregnancy test (so shocked that I did it again... and again...3 tests all together...), and a few days later headed to the doctor to find out if it was true... it was! So, we're gonna have a baby! They haven't nailed down an exact due date yet, but the best guess is March... so, stay tuned for more info!

Back to School- for both of us!

Lampeter-Strasburg High School is back in session... so, my summer of relaxing and having a grand 'ol time has come to an end... back to reality. I'm teaching two American Government classes and a World Culture class this semester- so far they seem like they're going to bee good groups of kids, but its far too soon to make those kinds of judgements!

Also, I should mention that Justin is back in school as well. A few weeks ago he gave notice to his company that he was planning on leaving to pursue a Doctorate in Physical Therapy- which translates into about 3-4 years of school. Though his company asked him to stay on part time for a year, he started classes at Harrisburg Community College last week where he will be for a year getting his science prerequisites in before applying to PT school next fall. His schedule includes Physics, Anatomy and Physiology and Biology... his academic advisor called it the suicide schedule! So, pray for him!! :) We're confident that this iswhat God wants us to do right now- better to spend a few years in school now than 40 years in a career that he hates!

New Blogger

So, I'm not a scrapbooker and I'm not so good at remembering to keep in touch with friends who live all over the country... so, we'll give this a try! I think I can be a blogger. Watch and see....