This is it for me

I have decided to stop blogging. I know, I know all of you are so sad you are going to miss my one post a month (if your lucky). I'm just more of a reader instead of a blogger. So I will keep my account open so I can comment and read everyone's blog, but I'm retiring as a blogger. I love you all and I look forward to reading all your blogs. God bless.

I'm finally posting

I was told Wednesday night at church that I needed to update my blog. So here I am. Sorry it's been so long. But we've been sooo busy.

On August 10-12, we had an awesome revival with Bro. Smith. It was such a joy to have him and Sis. Smith with us. They are so awesome and down to earth. I just love fellowshipping with them.

After revival we went directly into Vacation Bible School on the 13th-17th. We had a great VBS. It was called Avalanche Ranch-A Wild Ride through God's Word. We only had 13 kids in attendance but our kids really got alot out of this VBS. It taught them to be strong in the Lord and care for others. They have behaved a lot better since then. Especially my kids. Dalton has been helping me around the house without me even asking. That was worth a week of VBS by itself. HA

After that I spent time catching up on housework and washing clothes to get ready for the Assembly.
On Thursday before the Assembly, I got in my van, which was only a 2005 with 40,000 miles on it. And everything shut down. My electric doors wouldn't open, my windshield wipers wouldn't work, my speedometer and gas gage wasn't working and then a mechanical warning light came on.
So Friday we took it to the Service department and they said it would be at least $700 to fix and they wasn't absolutely sure that they had the correct part. So if it wasn't that part then they would replace the other part that could be causing the problem and that would cost about $500. And they would need to keep it the whole week we were at the Assembly, because they had to order the part. So we called around to some rental car places, and the cheapest van that we could find for the week was $450. So then we really started praying, because we were fixing to have to spend between $1150-$1650 plus whatever it was gonna cost us to go to the Assembly. It wasn't looking good at all. So while we were at the service dept., Will tells me to find a salesman and see what the rebates were for the new vans. Long story short we found out there was a $5000 rebate and Will gets a $2500 discount because of his job on top of that. After going to 3 car lots on Saturday, we finally found one that would work with us. We got a 2007 Town & Country van for only $10 more a month than our other van. God really answered a prayer. He saved us alot of money and we are back under a warranty with this van and no worries for a while. God knows what we need when we need it.
After all that, we finally got to the Assembly on Tuesday morning and was able to sit back and enjoy. The Assembly was great. There was such a spirit of unity and the Lord was very present. Some of my favorite highlights were the VLB march (of course I've got to croak for my own pond), the Bessemer bell choir (another croak), Sis. Princes' message (AWESOME), the tribute to Bro. Pruitt in the ABM program, Bro. Smith's annual address(another AWESOME), Bro. Hawkins message (we are so excited that he is Alabama's new state Overseer). There were many others but I can't quite remember everything right now. You'll have to order the DVD's (right, Becki). Ha!
When we left the Assembly, we took a very short trip to Virginia. Will's mom and dad wanted us to come and see if there was anything that we wanted of his Grandma's (she passed away last year). We picked out several things. I got 2 of her iron skillets. I am so excited. I've always wanted some old ones instead of these new ones that you buy that aren't really that good. So now I have 2 and I know how to cure them because there are instructions in the WMB Cookbook (which is very good too). Very good job Sis. Smith. You deserve some kind of medal for typing all of that.
So now we are home and I will post pics of VBS, the Assembly and my new van as soon as I can. Hope all of you are doing well. Till next time.
Kristal

Hey you guys! Nothing much is happening here. We had a lock in at church Friday night and I stayed up till 9 am, cause we were in charge and needed to wait until all the church kids were picked up and while we waited we cleaned the fellowship hall. We had so much fun! Last time we had one it wasn't organized, so we made sure we had something for the whole night. We played a lot of games, ate, had fun time. We also got everyone to bring white shirts and we got everyone to go around and sign everyone else's shirts. That was so fun! I made this iron on design for me and our kids. I thought it was cute.People started signing each others arms and marking on there head. Dustin Washburn looked like he had tattoos and he had class the next morning. I can imagine what his professor thought. Ha!

Saturday night Will took me & Madison out to Red Lobster for our birthdays, mine was Sunday the 5th and Madison's was Monday the 6th. We had a really good time. My mom and dad went with us. We had her cake there (I'm a horrible mom, I didn't take my camera), I got pics on my camera phone but can't post them here, sorry! She got a Polly pocket race track for her gran (my mom), a new bicycle from us, and money from her Grammy(Will's mom) and my sister. She loves presents, but she LOVES getting money even more. I can't believe she's six. She's still my baby though.

Monday night, Will surprised me and took me to Circuit City. I've been asking for a laptop for about 2 years now. Well he bought me one for my birthday. He said to consider it my Christmas present too. He's such a great husband. My desktop is getting old and locking up and so I'm gonna crash it and use it for homeschooling the kids. My laptop is awesome! I love it! My favorite part is, it burns CD's and DVD's and also has labelflash (where it burns the label on your CD or DVD for you. That is too cool!

Well I have a quick prayer request. My sister is going in for surgery on her back today at 10am. Please be praying for her. She is really scared. Thanks

Love you all.

Here are the pics I promised

Here is one of the nights of camp where everyone marched around the building. It was great!


Madison was so cute marching, that's her in the blue jean dress.

Dalton loves to march. He marched the whole time, from beginning to end. I know they marched around that building about 50 times or more. Dalton is in the red shirt.

This is the start of our vacation pics. This is Will and Madison on the go-carts.

Here's Dalton on his go-cart. He won't ride with anybody, he says he has to drive. Crazy nut! He's growing up too fast!

The kids talked Will into getting on the bumper boats with them. They all got soaking wet. The boats had water sprayers on them to spray people on the other boats. The kids loved these!

Our motel had a river stream behind it and ducks were on the stream. So we went to Wal-mart and got food for them and we fed them everyday. Believe it or not, this was the kids favorite thing to do each day. Some days they fed them 2 or 3 times.

This white dove would show up just about every time we would feed the ducks, isn't it beautiful!

This is Madison pouting. She was sooooo tired, she said, and she definitely did not want her picture taken, as you can see in the next picture. She's still a cutie, though.

Hope yall enjoyed the pics though. Till next time.

Camp and our family vacation and updates on my mom

Wow! That's a long title isn't it? Okay I've been told that I'm a slacker (in so many words). I'm sorry, we've been so busy, you just can't imagine. It seems like when we get one thing done, something else comes up.

First of all, end of June we attended part of family camp. My family was only able to go to the nightly services, because we were leaving for vacation on Saturday morning. But the nightly services were really good. Bro. Brian Odell from North Carolina, was our Evangelist and he did a really good job. There were many people blessed including myself. I've tried to post pics of a march that they had one night, but blogger won't let me put any pics up. I'll try to post them soon.

On Saturday June 30- July 6 we went on our first family vacation in 3 years to Pigeon Forge, TN. We had a really great time. We did a lot of shopping (my favorite). We have been wanting to start camping for a long time. All the youth at our local church go camping and we don't have a tent. So we've been looking for a nice one that was pretty reasonable, so we could afford it. We went shopping at the Coleman outlet and looked at the one on display that was an 10 x 12 for $150.00. And we were looking at buying that one, because it had a lifetime guarantee, since it was a Coleman and guaranteed leak proof. Then we looked a little more in the store and they had a display with another Coleman tent that was an 11 x 17 and the regular price on it was $189.00, they had it marked down to $60.00 that day only. And we started not to stop in there that day. I'm so glad we did. It's a much nicer tent that any others we've seen and much bigger for the price. We haven't went camping yet but are looking forward to it after the Assembly.

The kids (including Will, he he), rode go-carts and bumper boats. We played Putt Putt every night, just different courses. There are so many to choose from up there you could probably play different ones for a month. We went to the Dixie Stampede for the 5th time. We go every time, it's one of Dalton's favorites. We also went to something that they have new there called the Miracle. It's a 3 hour Musical play that tells the life of Christ. I was really surprised. It was really good! They follow along right with the Bible. It was a blessing. They showed Satan being cast out of heaven and the fight between the evil and good angels. They showed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, Jesus' birth, many miracles of Jesus, and His death and resurrection. Madison despised the Devil all the way through the play. She said I don't like that ole devil, he's mean to Jesus. At the end, they had all the characters out in the hallway and she just had to meet Jesus, but the devil was beside him and they were both signing autographs. Well Madison gets up there and says I want Jesus' autograph, but I don't want that mean old devil's autograph. Well they didn't hear her and they both signed it and needless to say she was not happy. It was too funny!
Okay I think that's enough about vacation.

On July 9th, as many of you know my mom went into the hospital with major heart trouble, and high blood pressure that was not coming down. Her doctor told her that her health was so bad that she could lay down to sleep and not wake up. None of us knew it was that bad. Her blood pressure had been bad for so long, that part of her heart had enlarged and started beating 3 times faster than what it was supposed to and the other part of her heart couldn't keep up.
Well immediately we called everyone we knew to start praying.

When she got to the hospital, the heart doctor told her that there was no doubt that she probably had multiple blockages in her heart and possibly a blood clot. They were going to start test the next morning. Our local church started a round the clock prayer all night. Someone was praying each half hour or hour that night. When they did the first test the next morning, they found NO blood clots nowhere. Then they did the 2nd test, they found NO blockages in her heart except one artery was blocked 25% and they can fix that with medicine.

The 3rd test is what scared us the most. They had to get her heart back in rhythm, so they had to STOP her heart completely and shock her back to life to get it back in rhythm. The day after the test we found out that they lost her on the table and couldn't get her back. They shocked her 3 times and the 3rd time they had it turned up to the max and she came back alive. God really kept his hand on my mom. He has really touched her during all of this.

She is doing much better now. She is still real weak and recovering, so please continue to pray for her. Thanks to everyone who prayed, you are a blessing to our family!


I'll try to post again soon! I'll also try to post those pics when blogger will let me. Hope everyone is doing good. Love you all! Until next time.........

Saturday was WONDERFUL!

Hey you guys! My husband gets the husband of the year award. As I've already explained our Anniversary was Wednesday, but we celebrated it on Saturday.

I woke up to breakfast in bed. I was very surprised. He did a really good job on it too. Then we went out and swam in the pool for a couple of hours with the kids. He told me we needed to leave the house by 4 pm, so we got out about 3 and started getting ready. My mom and dad watched our kids for us and we went to dinner. He took me to a restaurant that you have to have reservations. It's a really nice restaurant in Hoover, AL but it stays packed all the time. So he made reservations for 4:30. When we got there, the lady walked us to the table and there were these flowers sitting on the table. There is a yellow rose for each year that we've been married. He got the florist to deliver them to the restaurant so I would be more surprised.

I started crying as soon as I seen them. This was the most romantic thing he has ever done for me. The food at this restaurant was awesome. No wonder why they stay packed and the service was great. Anyway we had a great dinner and really enjoyed ourselves.

Next we went to our church and left the flowers there and headed to Tuscaloosa, AL. There is a college down there that has a Theatre (plays) on there campus. So we went to see a play called The Music Man. It was really good.

He made me feel so special Saturday. He kept worrying that I wasn't gonna like everything, but I loved it. It couldn't have been more perfect. I'm telling all of you, my husband was not like this before Couples Retreat. He didn't take time to think out stuff like this. God changed him tremendously. He was very romantic when we dated, but after we got married it all stopped. But now it's back to the way we were when we dated (almost, add 2 kids). He writes me love notes and shows me more affection and romance. God really did something for our marriage and we are happier than ever.

Hope all of you are doing okay and that you all had a wonderful weekend as well. Till next time.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Hey you guys! Just letting all of you know that yesterday was mine and Will's 10th Anniversary. Here is us June 20, 1997. We looked so young even 10 years ago.











The Lord has really blessed us these last 10 years. God has given me a great husband that I cherish so much. After the tragedy that has happened with Kasey, it really makes you wake up and realize that we need to cherish every day like it's the last. I never want to take anything for granted again. I was so saddened to hear what had happened. I don't know Kasey and Damon personally but I seen them across the room at Couple's Retreat. They looked like a very happy couple. My family and our local church is praying for Kasey and their families. I just can't imagine what type of pain they are experiencing. God only knows.



I hope all of you are doing well. We didn't really do anything special today for our Anniversary since it was a work day and church night, so we will be celebrating it on Saturday. He has something planned for us, but he won't tell me. So I'll blog about it when I find out. Not much else going on around here right now except school troubles with Dalton again and I will definitely not bore you all with that problem. Just pray for us. Love you all and hope you have great weekends.