Abby in Orlando

Late Night Deep Thoughts

Well, I'm finally officially on Christmas Break!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!! And I made it to Lynchburg with my sweet family. Yes, the babies are here :) (don't worry, I'll post pictures soon) So last night when I got up to rock a crying Abby at 4 a.m., I had this deep thought...

I'm always struck by how we are commanded to have "faith like a child". There are so many ways in which we are like children and God is like the adults in our lives. I could go on and on. Of course, the analogy will eventually break down - as will anything that compares me to God :) But as I'm holding Abby, I realize that I'm holding her and she's sleeping on my shoulder. She's not holding on at all. She's just laying there, totally trusting that I'm going to keep holding her. She's so sure of it, she's gone back to sleep. And you know what the best part is? She's right to trust me that much. I would die before I let anything hurt her.

I bet you already know where I'm going here. Do I trust God that much? Do I just rest in him, trusting that he's going to keep me safe? Because he will. He died for it.

Football season and school begin!

Ok, let's start off with this awesome story.

So college football season kicked off this weekend in a less than spectacular fashion. At least for those of us who follow the ACC. (Carolina won - yay!- but let's not even discuss the Hokie meltdown) So UNC planned an exciting opening to the game - a parachutist was going to land in Kenan Stadium and deliver the game ball. Here is Kenan Stadium:


Apparently there was a storm of some sort and the pilot got confused and the parachutist landed in Duke's stadium. Where they were warming up for their game against my alma mater, JMU. And not expecting someone to fly in from the air. This is Duke's stadium.

So you can see how they made the mistake. Or not.

I had a great long weekend in Lynchburg with sweet Abby. My parents (BeBe and Bullet) and I got to keep her without those stick-in-the-mud parents in the way ;) My nephew will be here sometime next week and I can't WAIT to meet him!

Tomorrow the kids come back to school and I'm completely terrified. I have some idea of what to do with this week. We'll see how it goes. This job really feels like a grown-up, responsible job and I'm not so sure that I fit that bill :)

I'm going to leave you with this deep thought, provided this weekend by my grandfather. He was expressing opinions about the VP picks (I do NOT discuss politics), and he said this,

"Well, you know, we have a pretty great system of government. One man can't make that much of a difference. So it doesn't matter too much who gets elected. If you have a dictator, however, then you've got to be careful about who it is."

Back to Real Life

I was chastised tonight for my lack of recent blog posts. So, I apologize to both of you who read my blog :) I've been in Charleston, visiting some of my faves, which is why I haven't posted. And why I have a lot to say tonight. So watch out. It's going to be a long one!

(I have an incredible, childish urge to put "that's what she said" here. But I won't)
First off, let me note that at the moment I'm listening to "She's Movin' in with Rico" by the Monkees. Circa 1980-something. It's awesome, and if you haven't heard it, definitely check it out. Rico is everybody's hero-o-o-o.

I had an awesome time in Charleston! Most of the time it was just me with Kay, Bruce, and Abby but over the weekend Mom and Dad and my aunt Mary Kay came down as well. Mary Kay and Bruce went to the Bruce Springsteen concert Sat. night. Really sorry I missed that. Not. We had a busy week - we hit the children's museum, the aquarium, the park, and the beach several times. I love that child. I can't tell you how much. She's just so funny and sweet and cute. I realize I'm a bit obsessed :) But she does funny things like pick up a crayon - any color will do except green - run over to her parents, hold it in the air and proudly proclaim (loudly) "GREEN!" When her mom tells her that no, that's blue, she repeats "Blue", then runs back to me, holds it up, and proudly proclaims "GREEN!" She's awesome. She does not do things quietly. And the next time I see her she will have a little brother! My sister, the saint, is going to have her hands full...I wish I could be there to help her.

When I left them today at the airport with Abby screaming "Sarah!" (I choose to feel special because of this, but the truth is she cries when anyone leaves), I cried too. I cry every time I leave my family, even when Abby is not involved. Do you think this means I love my family or that I'm not so thrilled about my life that I'm going back to? I'm not going to think too hard about that one.

On the plane on the way back I sat across the aisle from Phil Stacey! In case you don't know who he is, he was on American Idol a few seasons ago and now he has a song out on country radio. I thought it looked like him, but it never occurred to me that it really was him back in coach with the likes of me. But I was sitting next to the flight attendant, and she told me it was. I didn't talk to him, but he seemed very nice. Here's a pic so you know who he is:

His single on country radio is called "If You Didn't Love Me" I don't really know how to post it here, or I would.


I continue to be frustrated with my weight loss. I'm losing about 2 pounds a week, which is actually pretty good weight loss if I was doing Weight Watchers. However, one of the reasons that I chose this particular surgery is that I'm impatient. And it's a lot harder than WW. So it should be coming off faster. I'm trying not to get too frustrated and be patient, but it's hard. I'm eating real food now, which I love, but it comes with some challenges of its own. While in Charleston, I ate things that I'm allowed to eat, but I didn't make the best choices I could possibly make. Does that make sense? I didn't cheat, per se, but I could have done better. Another hard thing was eating slowly when I was with my family. I got food stuck after a lot of meals, which isn't fun. I actually threw up on the street in Charleston, which was totally embarassing. It just came out of nowhere.

That was yesterday, and food hasn't been sitting very well since. It's weird - I get hungry and then as soon as I get to the point where I'm going to eat, I don't want to eat it at all. Tonight I went over to a friend's house and I ate some chicken - just a little bit of chicken breast on the grill. I've been eating chicken for a long time now! But boy did I pay for it tonight. I was back and forth to the bathroom. I threw up 4 times, which is unheard of for me. I couldn't imagine that there was anything left in there to throw up! I had my papaya pills, and they helped some but it finally just took time. I have no idea why it happened - the only thing I can figure is that the chicken was too dry. (Not an insult to the cook, by the way!) They were cooking with barbeque sauce, and made mine without it b/c of the sugar in bbq. He seasoned it - it tasted good! - but maybe I need to make sure there's something giving it more moisture. Who knows.

Here's a little warning, which is going to contain TMI, so feel free to skip:
After surgery, pay attention to your poop. If you haven't gone for a few days, you're going to want to take some fiber or something. Don't just not pay attention and ignore it. Because eventually, it's going to want to come out. And it's going to hurt.

The other big to-do right now is that I have to go back to school tomorrow! Yes, in 7 hours I have to be waking up to do the going-to-work-during-the-day thing. Usually, I'm ready to go back but this summer I'm not. Part of it is enjoying the summer :) and part of it is not being confident enough with what and when I eat to be gone all day long. But most of it is that I'm completely terrified of my new job. Completely. Terrified. I've been so excited about it - and I am glad that I'm not teaching kindergarten anymore - but all of a sudden it's here and I don't have the first clue about what to do. I don't know anything, and I haven't heard from anyone about what I'm supposed to be doing. I know I need to get my room set up but there are loads and loads of paperwork that I need to learn to do and I need to get organized in a totally different way. Plus I'm not sure exactly what and how to teach. Or how to work with 3rd and 5th graders. I just keep feeling like I should be hearing about meetings or something to teach me how to do this and I haven't. I don't even know what time I'm supposed to be at school tomorrow! *whew* Imagine that all said in one big breath. Because it was typed that way. I've been incredibly cocky about how much I know about teaching reading and all of a sudden I'm realizing that I don't know what I'm talking about after all. Or else I've forgotten it. I was talking to my sister about it the other day and how worried I was that what I did would be boring and the kids wouldn't like me. She said, "Sarah, since when do you care if the kids you teach like you?" And she's right. I never have. Not at all. But now it seems really important. It might be b/c before with the little ones I knew they would like me no matter what since that's how kindergarteners are. Or because I'll only have this kids for short periods of time and I want them to be excited about coming to me. Or because I think they'll learn better and be more excited about reading if I make it fun.

Ok, slooooowwwww down Sarah. Here I go again. I can't even put most of my fears about tomorrow into words, but it may be why my stomach is so upset. I just want to go to bed and stay there. But I can't. So I'll go spend some time praying tonight and a lot more in the morning.

Ok, it's time to end this marathon post. I have to at least attempt to get some sleep tonight. I'll let you know how that goes.....

Trip to Lynchburg

I just got back to Richmond after 5 days in Lynchburg visiting my parents. Kay and Abby were there as well, which made the trip way fun. :) And, of course, all 3 of my grandparents and my aunt. And my cousin, but I didn't see him this trip. Just let me say for the record - obviously, I love hanging with that baby. But my sister rocks, too. I love hanging out with her - even when Abby's not there. Don't repeat that :)

Abby, by the way, is awesome. She talks ALL the time - mostly about how much she loves me! - and is always into something. She loves to watch Cars over and over and over again, and to read books. If she's not watching Cars, she mostly wants to be outside. I blew bubbles for her, and she would run through them and then stomp on them until there were none left. We went up on my dad's mountain, Thorn Acres, and had a picnic. We even took some goldfish up (we named them "Coy") and released them into a little pond that Dad and William made. Naturally I took the 4-wheeler out and it died at the bottom of the mountain so I had to hike back up...

"Coy"

I'm still frustrated with having to eat "mushy" foods. It's the same old thing - I'm not hungry, I just am tired of having to do special things. I just love the social aspect of eating together, and it's a pain not to be able to do that. I'm definitely experiencing "head hunger" where I want to eat things that I can't, even if it's not because I'm particularly hungry.

My dad bought me a new iPod over the weekend (I know, I'm completely spoiled - my old one got stolen out of my car in Lynchburg months ago), so I'm spending the afternoon reloading all of my music onto my iTunes, then onto the new iPod. I'm way excited, because I REALLY have missed mine!

soft foods

So I've been able to "eat" again for 2 days, and I'm already over it :) Ok, to be fair I haven't exactly branched out yet. I've basically had eggs and cheese. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad to have them. And I have a whole list of other things I need to try. It's just inconvenient. It's hard for me to be patient enough with this thing. Dr. E says that my pouch is still swollen and needs mushy foods only to help it heal. And I believe him, I just.....am anxious. To see results, and to be released from all of these food restrictions. (There are some lifetime food restrictions involved, obviously, that I came to terms with long ago. )

I think I'm tired tonight, and that's contributing to my frustration. I spent most of the day playing games with my friend Theresa and her awesome son Cameron, then went to the pool and played games with some other friends. So while it wasn't exactly a stressful day :), it was full.

I'm leaving for Lynchburg in the morning - my sister and my favorite kid in all the land are coming. I'm excited to get to see them for a few days. The favorite kid, by the way, turned 18 months old today!

Ok, I can't come up with anything worthwhile to say so I'll sign off for tonight. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite!

Thunderstorms and Dishwashers

Is there a more comforting or satisfying sound than a running dishwasher? Of course mine is so loud you can't hear anything else..... still :) It reminds me that I actually DID SOMETHING AROUND THE HOUSE. Not a strength of mine!

We've had periodic thunderstorms the last few days and I'm loving that as well. They're a double blessing these days b/c I enjoy watching them and when it's not bright and sunny I'm not as sad about the fact that I can't go hang out in the pool.

Plus - tonight I ate oatmeal!!!! It took me about 45 minutes to get the whole bowl down. (I'm using a toddler spoon, which I fill about 1/3 full for each bite) Which is fine except that the oatmeal was cold by the time I got to the end. Which is not quite as yummy as hot oatmeal.... Still, it felt like food and not a protein shake. Isn't it odd that oatmeal is considered a liquid?

When I see Abby next week (yay!) I'm definitely going to be her favorite - as if I wasn't already - because today I bought her....... a Cars t-shirt! It has Lightning McQueen PLUS you can press a button and he says something like "Speed? I am Speed" She's going to love it. Cars - movie, book, whatever - is her absolute favorite.

So, although I've been tired and anti-social today (which was ok, I kind of needed that), when I look back on it, it's been a good one.

home visits

Today the A-team spent their last day working in Gulu.  They leave tomorrow for Kampala.  Today's prayer topic is home visits, so I assume that's what they're doing.

James 1:27

     "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Zechariah 2:10-11

     "Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion.  For I am coming, and I will live among you, declares the LORD.  Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and will become my people.  I will live among you and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you."

Today also marks the halfway point of their trip.  So in addition to praying for the work they are doing, I am praying for stamina for the team.  Having been there a week, I can imagine that they are missing home and getting tired, but it still seems like a long trip in front of them.  

The baby will be up soon - Kay and Bruce have left to run errands and I'm baby-sitting.  I can't wait for her to wake up :)

Running around in circles!

Oh my goodness. I haven't posted in a while. My life feels like total chaos right now. It's the last week of school and I may lose it before it's all over. I'm not going to even begin to describe what I've been doing, but let me say this: I literally work on one thing or the other from morning until late at night and somehow end the day farther behind than when I started. It's only by the grace of a very loving God that I am not curled up in a ball in some corner babbling at this moment :)

So it's the last week of school, which explains much of the craziness. I got an assignment for next year! I'll be working at Fair Oaks Elementary, doing reading work with 3rd-5th graders. Scary. Apparently there's a girl who's been there a really long time who everyone says really, really good things about who works with the younger kids. She is supposed to be retiring next year. So I figure I'll give it a try. I may really like working with the older kids (the way my kindergarteners have been acting this week, it seems like a definite possibility) And if I don't, then I can ask my principal to switch me next year when this girl retires. I met with the principal and toured the school already and she and the school seemed very nice. And they have a bookroom! It will be about a 20-30 minute commute, though.

Tomorrow my mom, my sister and my favorite baby in all the land are coming to visit! I'm soooooo excited :)

Ok that's all the thinks I can think for tonight. Hopefully once I get through this week - which also means getting through this school year! - I'll be saner. Well, closer to my normal level of saneness. Or sanity. However you like to say it. Time shall tell...

P.S. - I do still think about doing those 4 things every day and I'm trying hard. Many days I'm getting them all in! There. Let out that breath you've been holding now.

Life goes on

I think I'm going to kill my internet connection. I don't know if that's possible, but I'm going to hunt it down and try. It's going soooo sllllooooooowwwww lately that I keep giving up on getting the blogger page to load and posting. Tonight I waited it out. And this super-exciting new post is YOUR reward!

So I've just been plugging along. Doing well with the eating and exercising some days, not as well the others. Still working on it.

I had a GREAT time in Charleston with my whole family over the long Memorial Day weekend! They're all fun, of course, but Abby is just cuter and sweeter and funner and greater every time I see her. She's saying lots of words now (like "Say-Say") and repeating everything. She has a definite mind of her own. She likes to drink from a straw, but her mom makes her leave the cup on the table. She does NOT want anyone to help hold the cup or arrange the straw. You should see her try to get it all arranged and then lean down to take a sip while the straw is where she wants it. She's such a little girl now, and not a baby at all.

I gave my first Henrico Assessment Test (HAT) today. I am apalled that Henrico Co. expects us to give these things (and with several other things about them), and have been completely stressed about it. But I think my kids did well, so that's good. I'm not even going to go into the details of the ridiculousness of it all because it will probably bore you. But, trust me, it's completely awful.

So here's what I've decided. Each day, in addition to the normal getting-through-the-day life activities, I'm going to try and accomplish 4 things:

1. Something with God (prayer, devotion time, an act of service or caring that clearly doesn't come from me, etc.)
2. Something for my health (exercising, trying a new recipe, meeting with one of my many support people, etc.)
3. Something for school (make progress on an ongoing project, clean off something, etc)
4. Something for my house (clean a room, pay a bill, organize something, etc)

Obviously that's a lot of et. ceteras. We'll see what comes up each day. I'm not going to try and accomplish big things each day. Just small things in each area of my life where I need to make progress. And I'll see if that helps me get hold of it and bring my life under control a little bit. (I'm such a control freak - why do you think I became a teacher? Who's in charge in that room all day? ME)

Stay tuned for the results.... (but don't hold your breath. It may be a while. And I don't want to be responsible for any deaths and/or brain damage)

Abby's Favorite Aunt!

Guess who said my name today?!?!?! I was talking to my sister, and she told Abby to say Sarah and she clearly went "Say-Say!" She was excited, too. You could tell :) Kay said they look at my picture when they practice saying it. I am soooooo excited! I will happily be Say-Say, or whatever else she wants to call me. She's so sweet - I can't wait to go down there this weekend!

I had a busy weekend. I had some friends from Charlottesville graduate from med school (and they're younger than I am - scary!) so I went down for that party. I also spent a good bit of time working on cleaning my house. It is such a disaster - I am lucky that it's so small :) But tomorrow they're coming to clean the carpets,so I have to have everything in order.

I've started tracking my meals at http://www.thedailyplate.com and I've found it really easy to use. My nut wanted me to do a food diary and you know me - why write it down when I can do it online?

Off to Bill's to spend my teacher appreciation gift certificates for dinner!

Sgt. Bryan strikes again!

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I worked out with Bryan yesterday and I am sooooooooo sore today. My abs, butt and thighs are mucho painful. I don't know if it's because I didn't go last week due to being sick, or just because of something extra we did. He said he almost made me do 3 sets of lunges. If we had done that, I don't know that I would have been able to walk today :)

Didn't do as good a job today with the Nutripoints system, but I'm determined that tomorrow will be a better day. It was still better than a day before I was on it, so that's something I suppose.

(Just needed to insert a reminder here that Abby is SO FREAKIN' CUTE! I just happened to glance up at her pictures on my spinning cube above my desk. I don't have as many pics of her here in my bedroom. Out in my living room, it's a different story. My friend Lave walked in one day and said "Speed. It looks like your sister's kid exploded in here." It's true, but she's just so amazing! If you want to see a picture of her, let me know. I'll email you some!)

I had a heard time searching for God's purpose in my children's behavior today. I got an extra half hour of lunch time because of teacher appreciation week, and when I got back the mom who was covering my class went "Oh my God. I could never do this again!" My children were clearly showing their colors for her... I also had to make the dreaded "I've put your child up for child study" call today. Despite the fact that it's tedious and much-legislated, which is hardly ever a good thing, I truly think of child study as a positive process - and a great resource for me and the child. But it's a scary and intimidating thing for a parent to hear and to go through. I try to "be there" for the parents as much as I can, since I'm the one that they know, but nothing can really make hearing that your child is having trouble in school easier. Definitely not a part of my job that I'll miss next year!

So, well there's Sarah's day in a nutshell. Here's the most exciting news I've had in a long time - I have four days on my calendar with nothing written on them! I'm sure that I will find things to do - actually, I hope I will - but wow. It is exciting. Next week, though, is going to be killer. Not much I can do but keep taking it one day at a time. And let God lead me through it.

Not my will, but Thine be done, Lord

My weekend with Abby

I got to spend the weekend with the sweetest niece in the world this weekend. Mom has off next week, so Abby is staying with her to give Kay some time off. So Mom and I drove down to Charlotte and picked her up Sat. morning.

Abby is 15 months old now and TOO cute for words. She has all these sweet curls and big blue eyes. And she's so much fun...she runs around everywhere. Mom says she has two speeds - fast forward and asleep. It's completely true. She's starting to say a few words - "bird", "dog", "baby" but she randomly applies whichever word she's saying at the time to everything she sees :) She does call Kay Mama, say "uh-oh" when she drops something, and yells "Yay!" when she's happy.

We took her to a playground where she got to do three of her favorite things - climb, go up and down ramps (the child loves ramps), and slide. She can do the slide completely by herself - climb up, go over, sit down and slide, get down, and go back and start over. More proof that she's gifted! (At least to this proud aunt) Today we took her swimming, which was so fun. She likes to walk up and down the ramp into the water (shocker), but is not such a huge fan of her face going under the water.

And she's having a baby brother in September!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have I mentioned lately that I love that baby? She's a little shy when she first sees new people, but she recognizes my parents and me right away when she sees us. I'm going to go see her a lot after surgery so she still recognizes me as I get skinny :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

The title of the sermon at my parents' church today was simply "He Is Risen!" And that's it - because Jesus rose from the dead, he affirms that he IS God and that he has come to die for us and make us right with God. It's an overwhelming, mind-blowing concept. The chorus of one of my favorite praise and worship songs sums it up for me:

Because he lives I can face tomorrow
Because he lives all fear is gone
Because I know he holds the future
And life is worth the living just because he lives


I've spent the day hanging with the cutest baby in all the world. We went on an Easter egg hunt yesterday at Amazement Square and today we went to church and opened her Easter basket. She's so cute - she loves to play outside and will go stand at the top of a step and hold her little hand up, just waiting for you to come help her down. In the morning, I'm heading home with her and her mom (my sister) for the first part of the week since I'm on Spring Break.

Her parents have asked me not to put any more pictures of her up, so since they're her parents :), I'm taking them down. So just imagine the cutest baby you've ever seen, and that will be her!

Ah, beautiful baby headbands...

If you're one of those people who think that babies look cute with those elastic headbands with a bow, I apologize. But Kay put some on Abby and her baby doll today - wow. Is this a look or what? (She did not buy them, by the way - someone gave them to her when she was pregnant)




In other exciting news, Kay felt the new baby move today!

Welcome to my life!

I'm a little unsure about this whole blogging thing, so here's the plan - I'm going to start one and not tell anyone about it. Makes good sense, right? Well, maybe I'll end up telling people. We'll see.

To start with a scary fact about me - I am THIRTY years old. Yes, 30. That is a freakin' scary huge number for a fat single girl in a tiny apartment. Not so scary for a married woman with a house and a baby or two. But for me, yes. By the way, while I'm on the subject of my age, let me say this: I am really tired of people telling me that I'm still young and have plenty of time to have babies and most people are waiting until they're older now anyway. That's fine and dandy. I am happy for those people. I am fine with them deciding that they wanted to wait. It's just not how I wanted MY life to go. Oh, well. I suppose God has his own plan out there for me...I'm just working on finding it.

So speaking of God's plans for me...I've made a lot of major life changes recently. I up and quit my job teaching Kindergarten in Charlottesville and moved to Richmond, where I got another job teaching Kindergarten. So far, I love living in Richmond. Mostly because my best gal pal, Julie (yes, I know she would love being referred to that way), lives here along with her husband Jeff and my two other good friends Katie and Jon. So we hang out a lot and that's exciting. I love Richmond. Never thought I was such a city girl, but I love all the shops and restaurants and stuff. Maybe not all the traffic...

My job has not turned out to be quite as exciting as I hoped. I have definitely learned the Kindergarten is not the place I want to be. But luckily, I just finished my M.Ed. in reading so I have gotten a new job. Next year I will be a Title 1 reading teacher. I don't know where I'll be, but it won't be at my current school. (To be a Title 1 school, you have to qualify by having a large percentage of free and reduced lunch kids, and my school doesn't qualify) I will probably spend part of my time working with small groups of kids that are struggling with reading and the other part of my time helping teachers with ideas for teaching reading. I am SOOOOOOOO excited about this!!! It means I get to do my favorite part of my job - teaching reading - but not all the other stuff - behavior notes and looking for lost coats and lunch money and collecting field trip forms and conferences and the list goes on and on and on. It's REALLY hard to get through the rest of this year, but I'm spending a lot of time praying for a positive attitude about it.

Here's another major decision that I have recently made - I'm going to have RNY gastric bypass surgery this summer. This is a weight loss surgery that staples a small portion of my stomach off and bypasses some of my intestines to that even the small amount of food I'm able to eat doesn't all get absorbed. It's completely scary, mostly because I'm going to completely have to change the way I eat and be more serious about exercise. And if I cheat I get really sick. Here's where the whole process stands right now:

- My insurance does not have the necessary rider to cover the surgery, so I'm doing this self-pay. And by self-pay, I mean that my wonderful parents are paying for it. Deciding to accept this money from them was a HUGE obstacle in making this decision.

- I have gone to an orientation meeting, and met with my surgeon - Dr. Elliot of the Richmond Surgical Group. Another doctor in that group was actually recommended to me, but I ended up meeting with Dr. Elliot. He moved here recently from CA, but he performed WLS there as well and I have heard lots of good things. He's not particularly gregarious (big word!), but I think that he will be a good choice for me.

- On Tuesday, I'm going to another doctor to begin a nutrition program for the next 4 months leading up to the surgery. (I'm waiting until summer because you have to be out of work for up to 6 weeks, and as a teacher summer made more sense) They were recommended by Dr. Elliot's office and they said that they may be willing to take me on as my primary care doctor as well. That would be good, since they obviously work with WLS patients. However, in addition to being medical doctors they practice "holistic medicine" and I'm not sure how I feel about that so we'll see how it goes...

- On Wednesday, I'm having my psychological evaluation. *gulp* Who knows what they will say about me? ;)

I promise future posts will not be this long. I'm not even sure that my life will turn out to be interesting enough for a blog ;) OH WAIT.

I forgot to tell you the most important and exciting thing about me - I'm an aunt!!!! My sister, Kay (who rocks a lot) is Mom to this perfect, adorable, wonderful 13-month old girl named Abigail. Abby is absolutely my favorite person in the whole world. I love her SO MUCH! Unfortunately, my sister moved all the way to Charleston, SC which is really far away. I usually end up seeing her about once a month though b/c Kay is really good about coming here and letting us go there. AND Kay is having another baby in September! Abby is absolutely the focus of my whole family. You should see my parent's refrigerator - solid Abby pictures. She's been walking for a while now (I know, she's so gifted) and she just is on the move constantly. She's started saying "uh-oh!" when she drops things and imitating things that people do. She's amazing :) I'm including some current pictures because I can and I KNOW that everyone wants to see her!







And, for good measure I'll add one of my whole family as well, from this past Christmas



If you want to see videos of this cute baby, check out my youtube page: www.youtube.com/sarahruth23