Bitter Sweet Goodbye

Daniel and I bought our first home in August of 2006, the housing market was normal. We were beyond excited as I'm sure most of you can understand. We had only been married 5 months, and naturally this was our next step. After two years of living in our home we were ready to move on to our next home where we thought we would raise our family. Like so many others though we found ourselves in the middle of a housing market NIGHTMARE! There was no way we could sell our home, and to make things worse we were now living in a neighborhood where I would say good 50% of the people in it did not like Daniel or I. Mostly because Daniel was a cop, and it didn't help that Daniel had arrested 3 different neighbors of ours! Yea.... So after sticking it out for 5 years, God introduced Daniel and I to the BEST realtor on the planet "Martha Crew". I could write pages on how Martha came in mine and Daniel's lives and how amazing she is, but I won't. All I have to say about her is that she is a total ROCK STAR!
Anyways 4 months ago Daniel called her, and told her our situation, and she simply said that she felt like she could help us. I've wrote all this to say that tomorrow at 4:00 we close on our home. We have to hand over the keys, and that will be it. We will no longer own the house at 10 Camelot Dr. I didn't realize how emotional this would be for me, but it was extremely hard tonight for Daniel Ella, and I to go over there for our last little moment, and memory we will get to have there. As much as we wanted to sell the house and move, that 1200 sq foot home held so many memories, and so many firsts.
So it is a Bitter Sweet goodbye..but Daniel said it best as be drove out of the driveway for the last time tonight that We are so ready for this next chapter of our lives...wherever that may be.

Easter

Is just me or is hard to believe that it is already April. I have a feeling this year is going to fly by!  I wasn't going to write a blog about Easter this year. Until I was sitting here today thinking about the last 2 years that Ella has been apart of mine and Daniel's lives. I remember her first Easter she was 3 months old and cried non stop. That's literally all I remember about that Easter, if someone looked at Ella she screamed. Ella's second Easter last year was when things started to get fun. She still didn't grasp the whole concept on what it was to hunt Easter eggs, but at least that year people could look at her... lol. This year, Ella's third Easter is by far the BEST Easter yet. Started off Easter Sunday at Church where Ella's sweet Sunday school teachers had a "Shepard"  come in their Sunday school class to look for his "Sheep". I thought that was just such a neat idea! Ella got to hunt Easter eggs after church, and this year she knew what to do! Oh what fun it was to watch her giggle and run from egg to egg with excitement! Like always I've been looking back at old pictures from Easter's past and love to see how our sweet girl has grown over the last 2 years.



                                                                       2010

2011

2012

Feel the Music?

    There are so many times that I am driving down the road and out of the corner of my eye I can see Ella moving in the back seat. I'll turn around and see her with her eyes closed and swaying to the music. Now I know most kids like to dance and jam out , but something is different about Ella. There are times when she closes her eyes and gets so caught up in the moment, you can just look at her and see that she is feeling it in her soul! This morning I finally caught one of those moments of her on my phone. It's a little long, but if you watch the whole thing you will see what I mean.

                                                                            

2 Big Birthdays!

This past weekend our family celebrated two big birthdays.  My grandfather Jack turned 80 and my Mom Wendy turned 50! They share the same birthday March 11th, so it has always been really neat for them to be able to celebrate together! This one was just extra special because of the age milestones. My Grandmother, Aunts and Uncles planned a special Dinner at Grand Oaks. It was so nice and the food was AMAZING! The best part of the evening was the speeches, especially the one from my grandfather was soooo amazingly touching, and made me so thankful to have him as the Matriarch of our family.  I made sure I took video of all of them, so I will never forget these priceless memories! (Sorry the camera was so shaky I was crying like a big baby :))

My Mom wrote this to Pops and read it to him...

6 Years... Ready for 60 more!

I love the picture above... I think it's my favorite picture from our entire wedding. We look so young and naive... Sometimes I think if someone that day had shown Daniel and I in a quick slide show what was to come in the next 6 years of our marriage, that we might have both screamed and ran in opposite directions!! LOL No in all reality Daniel and I have not had this perfect fairy tail Marriage. I believe that the thing Daniel and I have going for us is that we have ALWAYS learned from our mistakes. We have walked our fare amount of valleys, but we have always walked them holding each others hands. I could go on and on about what Daniel means to me, but I"ll spare you the mussy stuff!

..."This is my Lover, this is My Friend..."
Song of Solomon 5:16 NIV

3:30 Wake Up Call

At 3:30 this morning I woke to what sounded like an explosion. It was loud... loud enough to make Daniel roll over ( and it takes a lot to wake that man up). At first I really didn't think much of it. Its not out of the ordinary to hear a shot gun go off around here at all times, so I rolled back over. A few minutes later I heard it again. This time I knew something wasn't right. I sat straight up in the bed, and as soon as I did I could hear sirens coming from off in the distance. I slapped Daniel's arm in a panic and said "Somethings Wrong". I didn't know what was wrong, other than Something was not right. I hopped out of the bed and as soon as I stood up I saw a BRIGHT glow from the front window of our house. I went running to the window and literally I am still trying to wrap my head around what I saw... Our neighbors house across the street was Fully engulfed in flames. I screamed for Daniel, grabbed the baby monitor, and ran outside... My first thought was to find out if anybody was in the house. Praise the Lord though, the family was out of town! You want to talk about a humbling experience.. Standing outside in the middle of the night watching your neighbors house burn to the ground. I literally stood there with tears in my eyes watching there curtains burn... I could not even begin to imagine. So if you find yourself with a free moment today, say a prayer for this family.   Here Is a video I took when I ran out the front door of our house. Sorry for the heavy breathing I was in full on PANIC MODE!

5 Year Pin

Today Daniel along with a lot of other Bartow County employees were pinned in a ceremony for their years of service. Daniel received his 5 year pin. It was special and I was proud of him. Not to mention that I can't believe it's been almost 6 years sense he started working at the Sheriffs Department.  It was a milestone of sorts that he passed today... Only 25 more to go!  In my typical fashion I had to take the camera regardless if I was going to be the only one snapping pics (and I was the only one lol). Here are some Pictures from today...