Happy Birthday Brian!

Today is my sweet hubby's birthday!  The girls and I are very blessed to call this man husband and father.

He is a hard working man that puts God before his family, the way it should be.  I appreciate him far more than I could ever show and I truly love him more each day.

I'll do a separate blog post about this at a later date, but after much prayer Brian has decided to run for Magistrate in our district!  This next year and a half will be filled with lots of hard work and we're looking forward to it!  Prayers are appreciated! :)

Happy Birthday Brian!!!

Our 17th Wedding Anniversary!

Today was our 17th wedding anniversary!  It seems like we just got married - I'm not kidding!

We can't believe how the years are flying by.  We were talking about how in 17 more years Anna will be 30 and Holly will be 28!  Yikes!

I'm very grateful for Brian and the hubby and father that he is.  I don't give him enough credit and I take him for granted, but I do praise God for the love He has give us for each other.  I can honestly say that I love this man more and more each day!

Brian had to work this weekend, so we celebrated early on Thursday evening!  We had a very informal date night. :)

Tonight I cooked meatloaf with all the fixin's for my honey since he had to work day shift.  When I opened an almost empty ketchup bottle that I had draining upside down, some squirted out onto the counter and it formed a heart!!! :)

Ephesians 5:22 

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."

Ephesians 5:25 

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;"

Proverbs 5:18-19

"Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth."

Here's My Heart

We were cleaning out our attic tonight and came across a little treasure. I made this box for Brian in my art class my Junior year of high school! It was for our 6 week anniversary! On the bottom it says: "Here's my heart" and on the note that was with it I had told him that I'd given him my heart with a reminder that it was breakable! :) I'm very happy that he is still my sweetheart 18 years later and my heart is also very much intact!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

18 Years Ago

18 years ago today Brian and I had our first date! I usually always do a post on this day, but I dug out our "old" (haha!) photo album from when we were dating and scanned in a few new pics.

This was the Sweetheart's Dance on February 25, 1994!
In Pigeon Forge, TN April 1994. :)

Brian's HS graduation June 4, 1994!

Holly called this our "Catfish Anniversary" tonight, because Brian ate catfish on that first date (I had lasagna!:) We have now been together longer than we've been apart. And I honestly don't remember much before January 29, 1994. I'm a very blessed woman to have such a godly and humble man to still love me after all of these years!

The Beginnings of a Man Cave

Tonight I helped Brian put up the first wall for his man cave in his garage. And of course I had to document it! U

#355 - A Small Lesson

Brian made the girls para cord bracelets and Anna wanted hers just a little bit more loose. So he showed her how to redo it.

He had to burn the ends to seal them. It did not smell good. :P

But they loved their bracelets!!!

Psalm 122:8
"For the sake of my family and friends,
I will say, “Peace be within you.”

#323 - From 2009

I took pictures today of a family and I didn't want to post their photos on my blog without permission, so I went back into my archives!

I found this picture that I took on this day in 2009! Our crawlspace access is under our porch and we got tired of crawling under our porch everytime we needed to do something. So Brian cut out an access from our porch.

I know, how exciting to post it 2 years later! Haha!

Proverbs 1:5
"A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,"

#312 - He's Finished!

The girls and I are very proud of Brian! He has been taking classes at Eastern for his work during the past 2 years and he got his certification tonight!

I love this man! :)

Ephesians 5:33
"Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

#290 - Another Round of Golf

After our homeschool co-op this afternoon we went to the Par 3 course and this time I got to join in on the fun!

We were able to warm up on a putting green before we played. I snapped a few pictures here because I didn't want to pack my camera around the course. Brian has been teaching the girls all kinds of tricks. :) Holly looks like a pro! Hehe!

We played on teams - Anna/Me and Holly/Brian. Holly and Brian beat us by 4 strokes. :) Anna and I were actually up for 2 holes, but we couldn't hold on for the win!!! It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back again!

Psalm 27:14
"Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!"

#289 - Trail Cam Update #3

After Brian and the girls got finished playing golf on Friday they ran over to the farm to get the pictures off of the trail cam. To their surprise there were 23 pictures this time! The last time we didn't get one single picture of a deer. :( But this time was a different story!

Out of the 23 pictures about 18 had deer in them!

Of course, these deer must know that they'll never be harmed by us. Or why else would they pose for our camera so much?!
Psalm 18:33
"He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places."

#287 & 288 - Golfing with Daddy

Brian took the girls golfing yesterday at the Par 3 course at Gibson Bay. They had a good time and remembered to get some pics for me. :)

Brian said that they did pretty good too!

They want to go back soon and I can't wait to join them.

While getting these pics off of his phone I came across this little gem of a photo: She is so funny!

2 Samuel 7:22
"Therefore You are great, O Lord GOD. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears."

#229 - A Few More

There were a few pics from my cell phone that I wanted to add from our TN trip.

Brian went out (with my new camera) on a rock in the middle of the stream to get a little better view than from the comfortable edge where I was standing to get some awesome pics! :)

We tried out the Mellow Mushroom.

We shared a pizza and a calzone. Pizza was pretty tasty....calzone was ehh....just okay.

Before coming home we had to stop by the Apple Barn to pick up some yummy apple butter!

Side note - it's already almost all gone:( We'll just have to go back and get more soon!

And guess where we stopped before hitting the interstate home?!
Did you notice my photo skills in this pic?! Pretty good huh?!.......haha!

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

#225 - Brian's Birthday!

We celebrated Brian's birthday today! We made him his favorite - cherry cheesecake!

Happy Birthday to the best father and hubby!!! We love you!!!

Ephesians 2:10
"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

#224 - The Anniversary Trip

Brian and I decided to head to Tennessee for our 15th Anniversary! We were excited to go, but sad to leave our girls. But they encouraged us to go and have fun....so we did:)

To start the trip off:

Brian totally knows my love language of Mickey D's Sweet Tea! I could almost swear they put some sort of drug in that stuff! Brian picked out our hotel and did an excellent job!:)

I'm not going to recap our entire trip, but I'll just share some stuff that I want to document.
The girls had given us a package to open on Wednesday the 10th - our anniversary date.

It was a very sweet card and a watercolor that Holly had painted of a beach. :)

Loved it!

We LOVE to drive through Cades Cove near Townsend, TN when we are down there and this time we drove through there and also discovered another motor nature trail near Gatlinburg. It was a shorter drive than Cades Cove, but it was very pretty and had some awesome views! Here are some pictures from our driving trips:

We've always wanted to see bears while driving through the Smokies and particularly through Cades Cove and we've never seen any. But this time we saw one....wink.wink.

Ha! Brian tricked me! "Jenn get your camera ready - there's a bear right over here!"

The views of the mountians are absolutely gorgeous!

There are some cabins and old churches there too.

And plenty of deer!

On our way out this one was standing right beside the road.

We were very blessed on this little trip we took and have lots of great memories! I love my hubby and am very grateful God placed him in my life. I look forward to the next 50+ years with him!!!

Ephesians 5:25
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;"