There's a new sheriff in town...

Bad Boeeeyyy

...and if I ever get in a shootout with him, I'm in trouble because I can't even hit a clay target with a 20 guage.

Josh hosted some skeet shooting on his Dad's land. Vic Carpenter from Church, and his Dad and brother got to come too. We even had Josh's Dad and some dogs for an audience.

the family

The day after thanksgiving we went to Charlotte to see james' sister (Becca) and her wonderful family. The highlight was going to a tree farm and picking out their Christmas tree. We had a great time with all the kids - as you can see...

COLORADO!

So, I am a slow to get any pics of my CO trip up on the blog - no suprise :-) i thought this one of the three of us would be a fun addition. martha and i had a great time with katie, pete and sweet william. they were so gracious to show us around their beautiful state. i was constantly reminded what a wonderful artist God is.

He is mobile!

Our friends Josh and Kami have a sweet video of their baby Silas crawling. The audio for the video is very choice. You can go to their website by clicking
here, or just watch the video below.

We finally agreed...

After much searching, Sonya and I finally both found a dog that we liked. We got him from a rescue group called H.E.A.R.T. His name is Grady. The rescue group said that he was part Weimeraner and part Hound. To me that means he's cute with 2 parts naughty. I've definately noticed the hound when he keeps his nose to the ground when we go on our walks. And he sleeps a lot.

Bocce in the Park

Sometimes on Sundays our Sunday School class goes to Duke Park for a pic-nic. Josh sent me a picture of us playing bocce ball. I thought it was a funny pic.

Oh Honey

It's been a while since we've posted because it's been a busy summer. We got some honey from our bees, about 4 gallons total. It was more than I expected for our first year.



This is me cutting the caps off a frame of honey. I did the first one, but Sonya did the rest while I spun the frames in the extractor. (Sonya was better at cutting that I am)





This is me at the extractor. It spins the frames and gets the honey out.





This is some of the finished product.

The big move!

A few weekends ago we helped the McDonald's (James' sister & family) move from Greenville to Charlotte. The Lord has blessed them with a wonderful new home to live in while Dr. Curtis complete his residency there James and I had a lot of fun hanging out with them all and even getting in a little play time :-)

We were so glad Curtis went for the big truck so that we didn't have to be to careful about the packing technique ;-)

Uncle James is a pro with the iron. Afton finally warmed up to him over the weekend, even asking him to play with her - Sweet Afton

Fun on the Water

James got to have alot of fun with Josh Johnson this Tuesday evening. Josh's dad has a boat and they went to Sharron-Harris Lake to do a little knee boarding and wake boarding. James had a great time - but was crazy sore the next day and the day after that :-) He is turning into an old married man, nuts !

Up to our ears

My grandpa is a farmer. He has been all his life. And last weekend it was time for CORN!! Sadly we were unable to help "pull" any, but we did get to help "shuck" it. We decided we liked cut corn better than whole cobb corn (James loves stewed corn). So on Wednesday we boiled, cut, and froze about 13 dozen ears of corn. That's more than 50 ears of corn for those of you can't do math...more than 100 actually...so I'm not so good at math either. :-)


And while I was doing all the corn work, this is what James was doing.

BABIES

Praise the Lord for new lives! This is Grace's baby (a friend at my work) Hannah. She is one of the cutest babies I have seen! She is only about 4 days old in this picture and already has more hair than most babies have at 1 year - i love it.

BOSTON!

two weeks ago james and i got to go on a wonderful trip to boston. we were there for about a week and had a great time. he is there for a work conference but i got to tag along. we were able to walk around the city, do a little shopping, go to the aquarium and have some great seafood. our only hitch was on the return trip home i got stuck in boston (alone!) due to thunderstorms. but God worked it all out and it turned out to be a great evening.

My Silly Nephew

Man this baby-man is cute! Andrew is about 6 months and getting his first tast of carrots-it didn't go over so well :-) anyway we are excited to have him residing in the wonderful state of NC very soon.

the sweet hairline and ears are compliments of his dad - the eyes are from mom :-)

Anniversary Trip

For our two year anniversary (back on May 22), Sonya and I took a trip to the mountains of VA on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a relaxing time. We visited a winery, and a grain mill. We saw some backwoods-hillbilly-folk-singers. We took some pictures of cows, and I caught some delicious bass. We are very thankful for our gracious hosts that let us stay in their beautiful farm house.

I am a dork

I am a computer dork. I recently got a free upgrade from my Abit-Vh6 motherboard to an Abit-VP6 motherboard (a dual processor motherboard for which I have 2 PIII 733 Mhz processors). I was so excited about it that I told the guy ringing me up at Intrex all about it. He said, "wow, that's cool just to have that around."

So when I cam across someone on the internet who was way more of a computer dork that I am, I had to blog it. Whoever you are, in whatever country you're from, I give props to the guy that made this...Coffee Computer. He is what I wish I was, and what my wife is glad that I am not.

Happy Birthday Sonya!

Today is Sonya's birthday. So leave her a comment letting her know how much you love her ;-)

We've known eachother over ten years now and each year keeps getting better and better.

Sonya is like a fine wine that grows more enjoyable as it ages, while I, am like a soft cheese, that grows more stinky, yet somehow desirable.

I hope your day is a lot better than this blog post.

Love you sweety!

A queen and 2lbs of bees

On March 19th I set up my first apiary. One of Sonya's co-workers keeps bees. One day he brought some in to her work. I got to see them, and it sparked an interest in me. I talked with Sonya's dad about the bees and I guess he got interested too, because now he's got a hive at his house that I look after.

Tomorrow will mark 1 month for the bees. This is their fifth week. The eggs that the queen started laying the first week should have hatched by now. From this point on the hive should start to grow in numbers as we progress into the honey flow.I'm excited. They're fun to work with and watch. They're so productive as well.

I'd love to go into lots of detail, but I think I'll save it for another post.

B-day Party

This is a pic from James' recent birthday party at our house. We had a great time with everyone. And as you can see the old roomies were reunited - soon we will all be wed :-)

Sickos

A co-worker pointed out to me that our blog was not getting updated as often as he'd like. Unfortunately the pictures that I would like to post are on a different computer than the one I'm using, so I have no appropriate photos and comments to post. So...

Yesterday my wife and I were talking in the car about how there are a lot of sickos in the world. She was referencing a particularly horrible article she read in the N&O, but I think this picture speaks volumes on the subject.

Puppy mistreatment by monkies has been going on for too long in the country where this picture was taken, while on-lookers just...look...on. It's so sad to see a puppy whose energetic free will is sapped by the choke holding strength of necklace wearing apes....Sonya please post something soon.

Ladies and Gentlemen, He's a cook!

Can I encourage any of you that may happen accross this blog to check out the life of C.B. "Stubb" Stubblefield. While I personally have not, I am wearing a t-shirt paying tribute to this fine american gentleman.
http://www.stubbsbbq.com/stubbs/stubbs_about.htm

Visitors!

Our great friends Steven and Allegra and their two wonderful children recently moved to Va. because he was recieved a pastorate there. The Lord was gracious in giving their family this opportunity to serve his church but we have missed them dearly- about 2 weeks ago the whole family was in town and came over to have dinner with us - we all had a great time together. Baby Josiah is one of James' favorite babies (i think because he is "sturdy" :-)

Calf. Baby Man

In late Dec. the Lord blessed my family with our first baby. Stasha (my sister) gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Andrew. Stasha and Roger live in LA so the family wasn't able to be around for his birth. But in mid-Feb. mom and got to see him for the first time. We babysat while Stasha worked - he was a great baby and it was so fun to see him.

The Message? What?

There are several reasons why I don't like the book about the Bible called The Message. Here is one of them. For Proverbs 3:3-6 they put,

"Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track."

What if I slip and cut the bottom of my heart while I'm carving the initials of Love and Loyalty in it?