Pop-Ups and PopPop's Surprise...Oh My!!!

To all our family and friends in bloggerville. Dan and I would like to thank you for all your prayers and we are VERY excited to announce that..."THE ONE" has arrived. Yes, you read correctly. We are the proud parents of a 2000 Rockwood Pop-Up Camper.YEAH!!!!! Rocky is 13ft 6inch long FHEEEWWWWW).Weight? 1,650 lbs..WOW. Anyway, we are extrememly ecstatic, overjoyed, ...yada yada yada. Rocky just fell into are lap very easily.

After our last adventure out in the boondocks looking at a overused pop-up, Dan and I were alittle discouraged. Yes, we were. AWWWWW. But after much thinking through, and realizing, this is not a need, but a want...Then, O.k. if we find one...good, if we don't...good. Either way, we will still enjoy our time together on our anniversary regardless.

Anyway, Kristen and Haleigh were watching our friend Charlene for the week. And one night we were over there talking about our last pop-up viewing. UGGGG. Well, Ruby, Charlene's mom, mentioned her friend at works sister had a pop-up for sale. So, a week later, we went to her house, and saw ROCKY. What a cutie. Rocky has been gently used and has had only 5 fun trips under him.He's in mint condition. He does smell alittle like moth balls, but that's o.k. Nothing alittle Clorox Cleanup and air freshner maybe won't fix. Apparently moth balls keep critters out of your pop-up. So, I guess I'd rather smell like my great grandmothers old house than have an encounter with a curious critter.

Now, I'd like to say I have pictures of Rocky to show all his wonderful details, but I don't. Living in the city limits has it's challenges and ridiculous statutes. The city does NOT want to see our little Rocky, parading itself proudly out in the front yard for all the world to see and know...."I'm home, I'm home". Nope, nope, nope.

SO, we closed Rocky up and parked him on the side of our house so the city officials would not develop an ulcer or lose sleep over the "EYE SORE" residing on Quail Roost Drive". But don't be discouraged. The next time we bring Rocky out for his bath, we will take pictures and let you see the new little bundle. Until then...

Sean, our oldest son decided to give Dan a father's day gift that will have to go down in the baby book for later. He wrote in the card something like this...for all the times you pulled out your hair over me and my poor decisions. I thought I'd give you some hair back...SO, Sean SHAVED HIS HEAD BALD!!!!! Yep, completely BALD!

School's out, School's out...umm...YEAH?

Summertime is officialy here for the boys according to the Citrus County school calendar? UGGG. I mean Yippy, Horray, Yeah...Lord help. O.k. pardon the sarcasim, but, gone are the days when a simple, ordinary, plain, boring to adults, cardboard box would easily entertain my children. Oh I miss those times. They have moved on to the more advanced "boxes" now, which have all the frills, chills, and whatever my teenage boys are looking for . The graphics on some of the video games they play are extremly realistic, too much at times in my opinion. They would literally sit there in front of this "box" for hours, no days, if there dad and I let them. Whatever happen to having to use your imagination to entertain and occupy ones self. Now it comes in convenient "boxes" sold by the hundreds, at Walmarts around the world for various amounts of money and it will do the imagining and entertaining (if you can call it that) for anyone who brings it home...How can you compete with that? whinning? We used to, when we homeschooled, we would do school during the summer as well. Only during that time we would do something called unit studies. Pick a topic...Pop-up campers. Then we would find spelling words, vocabulary, history, etc...that related to the topic. It was SOOO much fun. We really had fun. Not to sure if that would fly this summer. One of my custormers was telling me that when she lived in India, they went to school ALL YEAR, Yes, even during the summer. YIPPY....Get the Uhaul ready. WOW. I think they still do that today as well. They go for a certain amount of time, and then they would get a few days...not weeks off. They even went on Saturdays.
Regardless of what is ahead, I do have hope that all the previous hours the boys have sat in front of the "box" hasn't completely turned them into couch potatoes...because, in celebration of the last day of school, Sean was telling us about an experiment that involved Mentos candy and a 2 liter bottle of Coke. Apparently, when you put the mentos in the Coke bottle, something AMAZING is SUPPOSE to happen. Are attempt was... It was a flop..no go...etc...However, what seemed like a failure was a success after all. We bonded,had fun actually together, and looked forward to conquering this scientific mystery some day together. Be afraid little mentos...we will meet again, ready to conquer and watch you explode or whatever your suppose to do...AHAH!!!!!
Finally...Dan and I are going to look at a Pop-Up camper tommorrow. We looked at one that we thought for sure was going to be "IT",but when we go there, "IT" needed ALOT OF HELP to be camping ready. But, we both determined,it's o.k. we will just keep looking. The next day a friend told us about a coworker's relative that had one for sale. So, we are going tommorrow to look at it...we'll see.

Growing Spurts, and Life Lessons

HELLO EVERYONE!!!! Look at little Haleigh bug. She is growing and changing everyday it seems. I can't keep up with her with my camera. She is 10 weeks old now. O.K. 2 and 1/2 months old. Question?...When do you start to refer to your children and grandchildren in months and years instead of days and weeks? Oh, you want to know how old she is.Well, She's alittle over 70 days now. Or how about her mommy...7029 days old now. AWWWWW! We'll keep how old Gramzie is to myself thank you...Something about answering in weeks just makes Haleigh sound so little. But no matter what I say, whether in days or weeks, the inevitable still happens...Babies grow up to be toddlers, then school age, then teenagers, then adults...
even wives and mothers too. How did that happen...so quickly too.

I enjoy seeing my daughter interact with Haleigh and love all over her. It's precious to watch. She's such a good mommy to Haleigh and Jared is a wonderful father and husband. God's grace is sufficient, thank you Lord for Your plan for our lives.I have to be honest though, I truly thought God had NO clue what He was doing when Kristen and Jared told us they were expecting. I kept thinking about how it was for Dan and I, and I don't want them to struggle like we did.Oh, the stories I could tell...We'll save those for later perhaps. But,once again, I'm reminded that He...God, the creator of the world, the one and only God who loves me,my family, and this world so much that He gave His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us so that we could have eternal life in Christ for those who believe.,He DOES have a plan, even if it doesn't make sense at the time, and if I would only learn to trust Him more, His character, and keep my thoughts focused on Him and His word(BIBLE), I would begin to know Who He really is, and finally understand more about His grace and mercy.
Do I want my family to struggle? Of course not! You don't ever want that for you family. It has me wandering though...Dan and I are going to be celebrating, rejoicing, etc...this summer 20 years of marriage. Yes, 20 years...it doesn't seem that long. The odds were against us. He was 18 and I was 16 when we married. 19 and 17 years old when we had Kristen. I was still in highschool! He worked a long and hard job for hardly nothing. At times we had only $10.00 a week for groceries,on a "good" week it would be $20.00 for groceries and household supplies. And don't get me started on our Maine experience. UUGGG UGGG UGGG UUGGG UGGG. Seriously! Looking back now, I honestly don't know how we made it. Dan and I both agree, back then, we had NO clue what love was. We've grown to love each other, and we're growing more and more in love with each other the more we learn about each other.We were not thinking about LOVE back then. It was the other L-word. The hormones were ragging, need I say more...Moving on. It would be great to not of had to struggle the way we did. And I'm sure there's others out there that struggled in worse circumstances than what we did. Still, why must there be hard times? I've been thinking about that question alot lately. And I think the lightbulb is finally going off at the moment in this brain of mine. If we (I) never have any hard times, then how do we (I) ever learn, and growup (in character)as individuals and as a couple. If there are never times of uncertainty, doubt, and fear, then how will I ever learn to truly trust God with my whole heart and life? Not just in my life, but in Haleighs, Kristens, Jared's...my WHOLE family.I'm still struggling, believe me... I can only hope and pray I'm learning through this process...

Oh and finally...an update on the pop-up camper. We are still hunting for "THE ONE". Dan and I, surf the net everyday, sometimes twice dudes!!!!TOTALLY! We've had a few almosts... but they turn into not todays...we called a day to late...etc...UUUGGGGG. Oh well. I don't care if we are in a pop-up camper or out under the stars, I'm SOOOOOO looking forward to spending a few weeks, ALONE, with DAN DAN MY MAN. Until July 17th, we will continue to eagerly check -craigslist.com , and other various newspapers, for "THE ONE". We almost had one with the Florida Gator logo and colors, but I'm kind of glad we didn't get that one. Nothing against the Gators, but I'm not sure if that would of been a wise decision towing that through Georgia Bulldog country...