Did You Know

 Did you know that if you had a really OLD window, like one of these,

And you cleaned it up...

And then you took a scenery picture (say one from a recent trip you took to someplace wonderful) maybe one you enjoyed enough to share on your blog-- say HERE  and had it blown up to fit the window.

Then you fit it and attached it to the back of the window and placed a hanger there,

Then you could hang it on your wall. 

Then whenever you walk by it you could imagine yourself looking out the window to that beautiful place.

Yep thats what I did!

Wordless Wednesday Ahh Edition

Art Project

We got to keep Avery at our house for a few days last week.  Fun times!  I had several things in mind for us to do while she was here.  This was one of them.  I saw this idea on the idea place... Pinterest of course.  Anyway here is what you need.  (Those are sticky backed letters) 

 

 So you just get a canvas and spell out the name.  Then let them paint all over it.

 

She chose to start with pink.  I wasnt surprised.

 

We let it dry a little in between colors so that it wouldnt turn into a black mush.   

 Paint the whole thing.  Dont forget the sides, and then let it dry.

When its completely dry just carefully peel off the letters.

After that I put a shiny sealer over the top.   She was quite pleased with her art project and couldnt wait to show mommy and daddy.

 After a day of activities with Nonna (or Nonny, as she seems to be calling me now) a girl gets a little worn out.

It's HOT yall!

 What do ya do in Louisiana when its HOT and you dont have a pool? 

 Head on down to the riverfront and splash a while.

 The water flow was a little low for whatever reason but Avery had fun anyway.

Avery knew that Uncle Mickey worked over there and hollered, "Uncle Mickey, are you at work?"  He didnt answer...

Our little bathing beauty!

We only stayed a little bit but enjoyed it while we were there.  Then we went to get a Sno Cone, but they were closed so we decided on Sonic and a slushy instead. 

Beach Time

 Last week we made a trip to the beloved BEACH!  I do love it very much.  We had a reception to go to for Ben and Brittany that I blogged about earlier.  At the reception some friends suggested we go on and head that way instead of sticking with the plan to leave early the next morning.  So thats what we did.  The first picture is the tunnel in Mobile AL.  Thats how far we made it.  Pretty good for us seeing as how we didnt leave until after 5 PM.

We had a wonderful time as we usually do on our "getaways".  There was this little matter of a hurricane forming in the Gulf, but we went anyway.  Praying for good weather.

 The first day as you can see from the above picture was pretty windy!  Very windy actually. Sunny though!  :)  I did try to stay out on the beach in spite of it, however I finally gave up, since my ear was full of sand.  I did get a nice exfoliation though sitting out there.  When it started to sting, I decided to hike it back up to the room.  We enjoyed the day anyway, with food, shopping, and walking out on the pier seen above. 

 The next day was soooooooo much calmer.  I was able to wear my sun hat so that proves the wind had died down considerably. 

 One of my favorite things to do at the beach is get up really early.  I love the sunrises!

 Early morning has to be my favorite time there.  I always bring a cup of coffee and something to read down.  I never read much at all though.  It is just too beautiful to look away.   Morning is always when I see the dolphins.  I love the dolphins.  So glad I got to experience that again.

 The waves were bigger this time than most.  I am sure "Debbie" had something to do with that. 

 The water was so much nicer this time to me.  I usually dont get  in much.  Just a little to cool off.  But there was NO seaweed, and even better,  NO jellyfish.   So I ventured in and had a great time.  Loved jumping the waves and swimming out with Todd.  We floated and played and had a great time.

 Isnt it just gorgeous?  I told Todd to go ahead and book the room again for next year.  This should definitely be a yearly thing.

 Equally as beautiful as the sunrise, are the sunsets!  We walked the beach after a delicious dinner one night.  So peaceful, and relaxing.

 This was the view from our room.  Here is the last picture we took before leaving.  :(
Todd and I have just finished reading this book called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.  It is teaching us to be more thankful and find the joy in every situation. 

Now leaving the beach would not normally be something I would be thankful for right away.  But I was VERY THANKFUL as we were leaving.  Thankful that we were able to go and if we hadnt gone we wouldnt be leaving...

** I know it is hard to believe but I left my camera home for this trip.  Not on purpose.  I was in a bit of a rush since I wasnt planning on leaving until the next morning.  My iphone did nicely though.  :)

AMAZING

Isaiah 55:8 & 9 

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

As we were flying above the clouds on our trip to and from Pittsburgh I thought of this scripture.  It was really eye opening to how much greater God is.  Things we know but love being reminded of now and again.  I thought of how we are in our own little world, our own little Louisiana, our own little Vidalia.  Then I thought of how much more there is than just my little world.  How awesome God is that he created it ALL and how much He loves us ALL.

 I just think these clouds are amazingly beautiful!

On one flight I looked out and saw this.  By the time I got over the amazement of it and remembered to grab my camera it was almost over.  But you can sorta tell here what I saw.  It was a circular rainbow around the shadow of our airplane.  It was truly awesome and breathtaking .  This picture doesnt do it justice AT ALL as it was fading away by now.  You could most definitely see the complete perfect shadow of the plane in the center of that circle.  The picture just shows a gray spot.  Still pretty cool though.

 

And now almost completely gone.

 

 

GOD IS AMAZING

FUN

 While is Pittsburgh we had the morning off to do whatever.  So once we had a little breakfast, where Todd was disappointed there were no biscuits and grits :)  we ventured out.  To our dismay it was Sunday and not everything of course was open for tourists.  After getting lost and back on track we met up with the rest of the crew and decided on a "Museum".  We thought that would be cool.  Turns out it was more of a childrens museum.  Well, a science museum.  The other guys had more time that we did since they didnt have to be to the wedding early for pictures so they decided to move on and since we didnt have much time we decided to check it out.  We had fun, however Avery would have had a BLAST!

This room in particular was a hit with the KID we did have with us.  Todd has some weird fascination with Train sets.  This was a HUGE train room.  It was really cool and had a lot of history going on.

He really enjoyed it.  There was so much to see.  Each little section had so many many details from dogs with wagging tails to people walking around in the houses.  So so much to see.  This little house had people moving upstairs where the light was on and the girl in the swing on the right of the house was actually swinging.

This was some sort of heat finding video camera. Thats me with the camera!  Pattie in the middle and my sweetie with the glasses.

This was a check your reaction time machine.  I lost.

This is to check and see how far you can jump from being flat footed.  I didnt win this either.  Todd beat me but I beat Pattie!  :)

This was chin ups or rather hang time.  You pull yourself up and see how long you can hold on.  Todd beat me on this too.  It was MUCH HARDER than it looked.  I think I hurt my shoulder.  Thankfully not too bad though.  You see Todds time here was 8.1.  He went a little longer than that though.  I think I went like 4.  Not sure but definitely not good.  :(  At least I gave it a try.)

I also gave this a try.  It was WAY up there. You cant really tell how high up it was in this picture but believe me it was high!  You got on and pedaled backwards to the net and then back where you started from.  I was fine, no problem, until it started wobbling on the way back.  Pretty scary then so I pedaled fast and got back in quick!  I say I won this one since I was the only one to try it!  :)

So all in all we had a good time in that Science Museum.  I think Todd and I, and Pattie too are of the thought process that you can have fun where ever you are if you choose to.