Happy Birthday Little Man!!

Today is this Little Man's birthday. Logan Scott turns 4 today and is becoming quite the little man.  He is growing so big and learning so much every day.  We think he is one rock-star of a nephew!

We love you, Logan and cannot wait to celebrate with you!

River Trip 2010

The Creed siblings took our second annual River Trip the last weekend in July.  Landon, Ash, Brandon, J and I loaded up and headed south for a day float on the Guadalupe River.  We had a blast!  Last year we got rained on but this year it was perfect.  We only had one or two "raging rapid" moments.  Perhaps the best of the day ... J took a tumble at one point and lost one of his Croc shoes.  A couple hours down the river a very nice lady saw that J was floating with only one shoe (nerd) and asked if we lost the other because she picked one up!  Who would have thought!?   We learned a lot last year and were much better prepared this year.  Music, water, food, drinks, and the best siblings around....it was a success.  Now, if we can take better pictures next year...

Yep, that's me.  Basking in the sun and maybe eating a Rice Krispie treat.

Superior.

Superior Lawn Care was back in full effect this past month for two different Saturdays.  Ashley and Landon built a BEAUTIFUL home and moved in this past spring.  My husband volunteered himself (which included all of us) to put in their sprinkler system.  J has done sprinkler systems a time or two (or 100)... no big deal, right?  Well, it is a BIG deal when it rains a monsoon the night before.  Let's just say we all could not move after day one so we had to postpone the front yard to a few weekends later.   I do not think any of us realized how big their lot was until we were digging in dirt and raking in trenches.  It is LARGE.  Perfect for a pool (hint, hint).

Here are some sweet treats I made for Day 1 (Backyard) which happend to be July 3rd.

And that is the extent of pictures from Day 1. 

Just imagine the four of us... wet, covered in mud, and grumpy. 

Ahh Day 2... much better weather.  Yep, that is my hardworker in the picture below. Check out the background.  That is the Smith House... isn't it beautiful!  Can you tell we are over-the-top excited for their new place!?

The Smith Boys.  Chance, Landon's youngest brother, helped us out on Day 2. 

After two long days, we were done! I have to admit, there were times I took the "I am a girl" way out of certain tasks but my sister...jeez. She is not afraid to get dirty.  I think we all made a great team. I know the Smiths are very happy to have it finished but I think their dogs may be more excited. 

No matter what we are doing, we always find a way to smile and laugh when we are all together.  J and I love spending time with the Smiths. They may only live an hour away, but we can always find a reason to still have sleepovers and I think it will still be that way when we are 50....

Summer Highlights

Where did May, June and July go? The summer sure has flown by for us. Here is a quick recap of our summer fun.

MAY: A month for two miracles.

I became a Godmother and the Garrey family grew with grandchild 21. Kate Isabel was born May ... . We are very excited for the Garreys. Aunt Amy and Uncle Bill make such great parents and Joe is quite the big brother already. Kate is such a blessing to our family and is loved very much.

Aiden Cole was born May .... I happened to be in Texas on business the morning Mom got the call from Heather. After a couple phone calls and tears thinking I had to head back to Oklahoma and miss Aiden's birthday, I turned around and met Mom just south of Dallas and off to Temple we went. What a fabulous day!

We headed back to Temple over Memorial Day weekend to see my brother and his family again. It is always so fun when we all get together. We find ourselves starring at Logan play half the time but what a fun sight that is!


JUNE:

In early June, we got to see some of the extended Garrey family at Kate's Christening in Terrell. Bill and Amy asked me to be Kate's Godmother.

Dad took us to the George Strait concert at the NEW Dallas Cowboys Stadium. A construction masterpiece, especially to the men!

JULY:

Sprinkler - no better time to put a sprinkler in your yard than over July 4th. Josh and I put a sprinkler system in our yard over the holiday. Yes - I really did dig, shovel and haul. Needless to say I was sore for about a week. There is a reason you pay people to put those in.

Happy Anniversary to the Smiths!

Float Trip 2009

Happy Anniversary to my man!

AUGUST: Here we are...

4 Years

Dear Josh,
Thanks for asking.
Love always,

Lindsay

Our Life in Boxes ...

What a crazy past couple of months...  crazy enough to put me a couple months behind here. 

So...let's get caught up, shall we. 

Josh and I arrived to Texas with our life packed in a Penske truck on May 26th. With the help of my cousins, sister, brother-in-law, mom and dad - we unloaded the majority of our life in storage and the rest at our temporary home. Not knowing what the next couple months were going to bring, we decided to stay at my Dad's for a bit until we could decide who we were going to build with and where. The house hunt (January to present) was not going too well. We felt all odds were against us since we had been looking for five months, a couple offers that didn't go our way, and the pleasure of meeting some crazy wonderful builders and Realtors along the way. Now we were "homeless". I never fully grasped how HUGE the Dallas metro was until we were looking for houses. Take North Dallas, draw a 30-mile circle around it, and there you have where we were "hunting".

(Disclaimer: iPhone picture (not the best). Josh is holding up a bumper sticker A & L got him for graduation. It reads, "I may not have been born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could".)

 Get on with it right!? We arrived with our life in boxes on the 26th of May, as I mentioned before. We set out on the 27th to look at a house with our realtor that had just came on the market.  One more shot before we focused on our commitment to build.  We liked a lot about this house but it ended up being a "who lives like this" house on the inside.    Needless to say... we thought the odds were still against us but we were willing to wait and "watch it".  A little home improvement project didn't turn us away.

Fast forward to 2:00 pm the same day.  Josh and I are still in the area and I receive an email from our realtor with some more listings.  I browse the listings and come across another house.  I tell Josh literally, "I think we should go see this one.  The pictures are really nice."  Knowing our realtor had another commitment in about an hour, we call her quick and see if she could set up a showing.  Booked.  2:30 it is.

Josh and I got about five feet, maybe ten, inside the door and looked at each other - "this feels like home".  Praise the lord.  We found a house!  Not so fast...we were up against another offer.  And now the game of house hunting really drove me mad gets fun.  Yes, I cried.  Any women would, right?

Long story short.  We got the house!!  We are officially Texas residents as of June 25th.  We had so much support from our families along this crazy ride.  Sounds kind of silly that finding a house was so hard for us.  We cannot thank them enough for their encouragement along the way.

I promise more pictures are on the way...

Mrs. Smith

I have to brag.  Ashley was recently recognized as Decatur's Teacher of the Year which was on top of being named Carson Elementary's Teacher of the Year!   It takes an incredible gift to be teacher and I have so much respect and admiration for Ash, for her kind nature and patient hand.  What a difference she is making in the lives of her second graders and their parents. 

We love you Mrs. Smith and so do your kiddos!

Photo found here: http://www.decaturisd.us/10261022119218957/site/default.asp