Our Table

Okay class, it's storytime!!

(Haha! Just kidding. About the class part. Not the story part.)

So pretty much everyone who knows Jon and me knows that we attended (and loved) Harding University. We started dating in September of senior year. I graduated in May and that fall I moved back to Searcy to live with 2 girlfriends and be closer to Jon.

My friends and I shared a 3 bedroom apartment, and we all contributed to try to furnish the thing...which to 3 broke college girls was HUGE! The last thing we needed was a dining room table, and even the cheapo sets at the big box stores were at least a few hundred dollars! No way was that happening!

One Saturday afternoon Jon and I decided to go out to the flea market. In the country. In Arkansas. Nothing else like it...anywhere! We had wandered around nearly the whole place and didn't see a table that was worth much of anything, until the very end.

Jon spotted it. "It" was an old solid oak table, buried under a daunting load of ridiculous old collectible (to some, maybe!) junk. It was dirty and beat up, but it was a table. A solid, wooden table. And it was $50.

"Don't worry," Jon said. "We'll fix it up! We can sand it down and stain it. When we put a nice coat of polyurethane on it'll look good as new!" (We have a long, long history of having high hopes when it comes to getting big projects done in a respectable amount of time!)

That December we went to Michigan for Christmas break. Jon proposed! Now the table that I had bought for my apartment was now going to be "our" table! It was such an exciting time!

For Valentine's Day, he gave me this....
Inside it had coupons for offers like this...

And this...

And this...

and this...

One of my most favorite coupons was this one, because, well, what girl wouldn't want a coupon like this:
But it also had this one:
He really did have good intentions and high hopes to help me finish out my table! On our honeymoon we actually spent a lot of our time shopping in Amish woodshops for handmade wooden chairs go with our table and make a set. It was our wedding gift to each other.

One Saturday morning he acutally got started by getting out the sander and cleaning up the top. (He also didn't think about actually moving the table outside so the sawdust wouldn't get on everything else in the dining room, but, o-well!)
But then this happened...

And this happened too....and who can keep a poor, old, dirty, unfinished table clean under these circumstances??

But did we let it get us down? No sir-ee!! Because we stick to our goals! This summer, almost eight years since I first bought the table, I made good on that coupon and we got-er-done!

We spent a couple days sanding it down, then started putting coats of stain on it...

And I may just be a silly girl, but now, whenever I walk through my dining room I just glance over and my heart pours over with pride. Not just because now it's a beautifully finished oak table.

There's so much more to that table. It has a story--it's part of our history. It's been with us from the beginning. It was gross and dirty and ugly, but now it's just lovely.

It's not just any table. It's our table.

Cookin' girl

Who couldn't use a helper like this in the kitchen???

Point Mallard

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to Point Mallard in Decatur. I have always pictured water parks as unreasonable expensive places that we would never get to visit. A friend clued me in, though, that during the summer Mondays and Wednesdays are half-price days, and kids 4 and under are free! That meant the 3 of us got in for only $8! To me, that's a GREAT deal!

My kids first tested the waters, but after that they went right in, thoroughly enjoying every part of the kiddie section. It really is set up so nice...there is lots of room for the kids to run and play, but you can still see the whole area to keep an eye out!

There are 2 areas specifically for kids. This one has several small slides, and a few sprinklers and water features, as well as some swings. Jordan especially liked just floating around in her floatie and relaxing. The water's only a foot deep! They both loved going down the slides. Here they were both going at the same time! They have soft foam pads at the bottom so kids don't just splash in and go under the water!

Here is the bigger kid area. It is more like a playground playscape with water splashing everywhere! They really had so much fun on this too....Jordan liked playing in the splashing water, but Lawson LOVED the slides on this one--they're more like real water slides! (He really wants to do a BIG waterslide...when we were in MI he was SO upset when he learned he was too short to ride a slide at a pool we went to!)

Again...it cracks me up that Jordan will be playing her heart out in the water, then just find a spot to lay out in the sun.

This girl is STRONG!! They had ropes to grab on to and swing. You are supposed to grab one and swing like Tarzan...Well, Jordan reached, grabbed both and pulled herself completely out of the water! At least I know she'll be able to hold her own when she gets older!

Splashing her heart out...

We were at Point Mallard for about 3 1/2 hours and the kids thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! We really had a great time! We finally headed out at 3...planning on stopping by Sonic then heading home to get a quick nap before church.

Too bad when we got to the car we found this...

Yep, that's my van stuck in the middle! When I got there that morning I parked behind the car in front of me, on side 2 of the improvised parking line. Well, when I got back to the car, some geniuses decided to make a 3rd row...trapping an entire row of cars, including me!

I called Jon's dad, who looked up the phone number so I could call and get the owner paged to come move his car. So that left us waiting. For 45 minutes. Well, the kids were just a little too tired to handle this so fo 30 of those minutes I was treated to Frantic Crying, in harmony! Lovely.

They wanted their blankies. Did I have their blankies? No. Why not? Because who would think you'd need them just to go to a water park for a few hours. Who expects to end up sitting in the parking lot for an hour? Luckily they settled for the wet beach towels. They cuddled up and finally fell asleep.

And finally the guy came. Blah, blah, blah. And we were on our way for the short, 20 minute ride home.

Ri-i-i-i-ght....you think it was that easy?

Good thing the kids were asleep, because we ran into this...

on the other side of the interstate a dump truck had hit a semi truck into another semi truck into the median. The median cracked in half, and the concrete crumbs fell onto our side of the road. Backing us up for about 45 minutes. At least we were not in the backup on the other side of the road! By the time I passed the end of the line up it was at least 5 miles long!!! Ouch!

Two hours after leaving the water park we finally arrived at our house!! Despite the crazy parking lot and traffic drama we really had a great day. I would totally suggest you go! :)

My favorite quote of the day...when we got to the kiddie area and Lawson started walking around he looked at all of it, and looked at me and said,

"Mommy, this place is woooooooooooonderful!!!"

More Summer Fun

"Hmmm...Which lure should I use today???"

"This wiggly worm just might catch me a fish!"

She's starting to look like a pro!

I love pics of Lawson and Jon doing stuff together!

And Lawson wins the prize for "First fish of the day"!!!

He cast his line, caught the fish and reeled him in all by himself!

And of course, a beautiful skyline makes the whole evening more enjoyable!

Duck Girl

Back in the spring the kids and I picked up our friend Jenna and went up to Green Mountain for a picnic. I had bought some Pringles, and Jenna wasted no time in teaching my kids how you can make duck bills out of them, put them in your mouth and make annoying quacking noises. My kids LOVED this lesson! They spent the rest of lunchtime working on this new, um, skill(?)!

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. We had given the kids some chips for a snack while we were driving somewhere. Hardly any time had passed before I started to hear a little 'quack, quack, quack.' I turned around, and sure enough...

Thanks, JennaLu! :)

Three Stacy Boys

When Jon's parents were here after our Honduras trip, I couldn't help but chuckle when I noticed this one night:
Jon's dad works for IBM. He is always on the computer...whether for work or recreational browsing. One night after dinner, Papa got on the computer. Shortly thereafter Jon got on our computer. Lawson, seeing what the other guys were doing ran over, got one of our toy laptops, and set up shop on the couch. You can't tell me kids don't learn by example! Ha!

Relaxin'

We have been so crazy busy this summer! It seems like there's always something going on. There have been a few days, and nights, though when we've just spent some time watching some TV and relaxing. Here are a couple shots of the kids hanging out at home...

A day in the park

A few weeks ago the kids and I headed downtown to feed the ducks and fish some stale bread, then head over the the fountains. It was a HOT day, but we had a ton of fun!I hope the day when my kids tire of these fountains is far off! We love coming up here with a picnic lunch and spending the afternoon in the sun and water!

Jordan played her little heart out for a while, but after a couple hours she had had enough. She walked over and laid our towels out, then laid down to soak in some rays and rest. I guess she really is her mother's daughter, because I'd rather be in the sun than in the water any day! :)

Water Babies

I shall just warn right now that there will be many posts about water activities this summer. Last year, Lawson wouldn't trust a floatie for anything, and Jordan screamed her head off is she so much as got splashed by a pool or sprinkler.

This year I was worried about how our water activities would go...I didn't want a repeat of last year, and my kids did not let me down! This year I think they have turned half-fish! We have been swimming, sprinkler-ing, water-park-ing...if they hear me talking about anything that is about water, they get so excited!

I pulled out the pool we bought last year, and they have had SO much fun just playing in the back yard! Jon and I have actually spent a couple Saturday mornings working on projects on the back patio while watching them swim and splash and play for 3-4 hours!

I think next year we will do some real swimming lessons to help them try to get even more confidence and maybe start to swim some on their own. Until then, though, I'm glad they have so much fun in just a foot and a half of water!

And how do I get my kids out of the pool without an amazing display of fits?
That's right, I bust out the popsicles!! Gotta love summertime!

TeeBall 2009

Here is the start at my attempt to catch up! A few weeks ago Lawson finished up his second season of tee ball. He had so much fun being on the team with his friends, and Jordan and I loved watching him play. Here are just a few pics from his season...

Go Marlins!!
Then we enjoyed the end-of-the-season party and awards ceremony at one of Lawson's teammates' neighborhood pool!

Great season, Lawson!

Do you ever...

feel like you have gotten so far behind that you will never ever catch up and it's not even worth trying?

I'm telling you...since my last post, on (embarrassed, blushing face) June 5, I have taken the kids halfway to Oklahoma, gone to Honduras, received the kids back, participated in 2 weeks of VBS, enjoyed visiting with Jon's parents on and off for 2 weeks, and worked on a couple BIG projects...not to mention trying to catch up and keep up on laundry, dishes, and regular household things.

I have a daunting list of things that I need to do. I am continually going through it...trying to figure out what's urgent, and what's important, and what's both...and praying that some of the stuff on my list is neither! :)

June has been a dismal month for the blog...but I have so much to catch up on! I am hoping that I can get myself motivated and fill July up with all that's been going on!

Until then...have a great week!!

Oh. Wait. July's tomorrow. Never mind. :)

Check in next week...

I can officially say that it will be a while before another post comes around...I had fully intended on lining up posts for all next week but you know how my intentions go... :)

Anyways...there won't be much activity from michigancutie this week, but check back later for (I'm sure) a ridiculous amount of information and pictures!!!