July 2, 2009

Isn't he a funny one?

It's just like "Happy Feet"!

Emory loves those goats. She makes sure to pet every single one!

This goat seems really excited about all this petting.

Hey, buddy. How's your day been? I can help you escape
if you won't tell my mommy.

Cool playground








Big guy





Jonathan lost a tooth while we were at the zoo.
Does the tooth fairy visit hotels?

Emory...watch out! You know what one of those lorikeets

did to mommy!

Jonathan's new friend.



Jonathan braving the heights on the

Sky Trail High Adventure Course



Are you Tarzan?

Calistoga Splash Park at the Zoo. By far the coolest I've seen at a zoo.

Whee!!

Here I come!!

A great way to end a perfect day at the zoo! Thank you, God for my precious family and the wonderful times we share together.

Our first stop in Louisville, Kentucky

July 1, 2009

This bat is huge. It's right downtown in Louisville.

It's taller than the entire museum.

Huge ball and glove! Big enough to hide inside.


Jonathan, you look just like Ken Griffey Jr.!

Benjamin and Emory trying to look like Babe.

They might need to put on a few pounds.

Sitting in the dugout!



Hank Aaron's #700 homerun bat

Mickey Mantle's bat



We loved visiting the Louisville Slugger Museum. Touring the factory is great. You can see the actual bats they are in the process of making for the major league players. Each player has his own cubbyhole full of bats that have been made precisely for him. Pretty cool!

Our Little One

Our summer got off to a great start! As you can see, our last post was June 19th. Well, after that...things got a little complicated.

We left on July 1st to go to Louisville, Kentucky, Indiana, and Cincinnati, Ohio. We had a great trip and I'll post pictures from that trip later on. However, while we were in Louisville, I discovered that I was expecting. This was a HUGE, but wonderful surprise!

Phillip and I whispered back and forth about our little secret and laughed about how surprised everyone would be. We told the children on July 13th and we went to the doctor on July 14th. The kids were so very excited about having a new brother or sister!

We had an ultrasound and saw and heard the baby's heartbeat. Everything looked great! We left the doctor's office and immediately went to share the news with family. Wow! Were they surprised, but very happy about the news. We let the children tell everyone and they were smiling from ear to ear as they delivered the news. They loved the fact that they had a HUGE surprise to tell!

However, a few days later, I started having a little trouble and on July 27th, we had an ultrasound which revealed that our little one had passed away. We lost another sweet baby two years ago on June 26th. So, we now have two precious little ones that have gone on before us.

This has been quite difficult for all of us, but God never fails to give us the strength we need to go on. He is always faithful, always loving, and always there when we need Him.

We are so blessed to have three beautiful children. They bring so much joy into our lives.

We had a terrific trip to the beach with my parents and my sister's family the first week in August. It always amazes me that in the midst of sorrow, God is capable of providing tremendous joy.

I'll try to post pictures from our trips soon! We had our first airplane flight over Labor Day weekend. What fun!!

Swimming Lessons

Here we are at swimming lessons. It is a lot of fun. Emory and I even jumped off of the high dive! Benjamin jumped off the diving board too! We can't wait to go back.

A Beautiful Song

This is my new favorite song! It was originally recorded by Sandy Patti, but has more recently been recorded by a new group called Prelude. It's simply beautiful. Click on this link and you can hear the entire song.

http://www.onlylyrics.com/hits.php?grid=11&id=1009888


V1. I hear you calling out my name
As only you can do
Your voice it covers all my shame
The old you turn to new
No matter how things look to me
You see a destiny a perfect promise

Ch. You call me beautiful
You call me righteous
You call me worthy of Your Son's own precious blood
You call me holy,
You call me strong at my weakest
Forgiven and pure
You call me Yours

V2. It's hard for me to understand
Exactly what You see
I slip and stumble every day
But still You say believe
You say You will finish what you start
You see me for my heart and not the bruises



Karen

Second place!!

I got picked to be on a tournament team. We lost two games and we won two games. If we had beaten the other Hartselle team we would have gotten first place!

Beau on my team didn't know how to slide and put his arms out in front of him and ran into the catcher and got thrown out of the game. That was the sad part of the night, but then the other Hartselle team got first place in the tournament and we got second place! Our whole team got silver medals. That was the happy part of the night.

You can't see the score on the scoreboard in the picture because of that tall coach, but we beat the other team 19-4 last night. That was our best game of all. The coach even gave us nick names and mine was WILDMAN!!!

This was my first time to play shortstop. It was a lot of fun. I really like to play baseball.

Posted by: Jonathan

The Wildlife Refuge

We went to the Wildlife Refuge last week. We had a lot of fun. We saw some cool animals. We saw egrets, sandhill cranes, and American kestrels. We even saw four baby ducks under a bush.

On the way to see the red tailed hawk, we saw a huge black and brown snake! We couldn't get by him because he was stretched out almost all the way across the trail we were on. We started throwing sticks at him and he finally slithered away. I'm sorry we don't have a picture of him, but mommy was too scared to think about taking his picture.

We love going to the Wildlife Refuge. We see something new every time we go!

Posted by: Jonathan Carnes