Cooking Out & Cooling Off

whew !...What an absolutely exhausting weekend. We have had an awesome past three days.
Saturday, started out kinda normal. The sun was shining and the mercury was rising. We decided since we didn't have an agenda for the weekend, we would host a Memorial Day Bar-B-Q at our house. So after lunch a Cheddar's, we headed over to Wal-Mart to gather up supplies and all the food. We planned to provide everything and asked people just to bring their swim suit, but a few people just wouldnt come empty handed.
Since there was a pic-nic with our church, we got extra ingredients for pasta salad so I could take a batch of it with me on Sunday. I made the first batch on Saturday night so it would be ready for Sunday.
Sunday morning started with church.  Afterwords, the family and I took a drive to Franklin TN to take a look at this years Saint Jude Dream Home. It was immaculate as usual. After spending the afternoon in Nashville, we arrived back in Cookeville by 5pm to attend the church picnic. We had a great time there too. This is the first church that I have attended that I feel "at home" with. Thank goodness we found this church, or better yet, thank goodness this church found us.
We were at the church picnic till 8:30 Sunday night. Brookelynn wasn't with us because we dropped her off at a friends birthday swim party when we got back from Nashville. We had to go back to pick her up after the picnic and her friend came home with us to spend the night.
Stroker and I prepared food until after midnight Sunday night just to be ahead on Monday.
This morning we got up early and set out the tents to try to establish shade for those of us that were not planning to get wet. We got the tables set up, the slide set up and even a bounce house set up before noon.
At 2 pm the guests arrived (all 47 of them ) and the kids all had a blast on the water slide.
The menu today, consisted of Hamburgers, Hotdogs, Ribs, Pork chops, Cowboy beans, 7 layer salad, Veggie Bars, Pasta Salad, Chips,Corn on the cob,sweet tea and canned drinks. Mildred and Nan brought Potato Salad and Macaroni Salad.



The pork chop and hamburger grill

 Nan was assisting with the ribs

 Zander decided that he liked the puddle that the splash had created just as much as the water slide.

Matasia, Zander and Jett decided that scoring points at Cornhole wasn't all that hard.

 Jaiden came in for a big splash

 Heather Scott and Libby

 Jett and Matasia standing in the Splash Zone

The cicada's were loud and obnoxious today, but we ignored them the best we could.

Work

Here is an image that we don't see often. Devin spent the afternoon helping spread sand for Paradise's pool. We are used to Devin dodging work, so this was a nice change.

Cicada's

If there is one thing in life that I absolutely cannot stand, it's bugs. These cicada's have me sooo paranoid. When I walk outside, I am scanning the lawn, peering into the tree's, watching my back and making a mad dash to the car. Hopefully I can get throught the next three weeks.

Tired

One thing that I haven't had much of this weekend, is sleep. Friday night, my throat hurt every time I swallowed. I woke up all during the night trying to swallow. Saturday, it got a little better and today it felt congested, but Friday night was the worst.
Saturday was a good day. A man came and bought a Brake that I had listed for sale for my brother. The deal that my brother made with me is that I was to get any amount that it brought above my brother's asking price. Guess what!? It brought an extra $475 to my pocket. Cha Ching !!
We also got to check out my niece, Katlin's, new car. A 2010 Dodge Avenger.

I had intentions of doing some touch up painting around the house this weekend. I made it to Lowe's and bought the paint and supplies, but never got around to painting.

We went to my mother-in-laws to pick up our other trailer and hung around there for a while Saturday evening. Sometime during Saturday night, Brookelynn crawled in the bed with us. I was too tired to get up and put her back in her bed, but too uncomfortable to get any good sleep.

Today, we got up at 7:30 and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast before church. We also went to Sparta today. A thunderstorm snuck up on us around 2pm today. We had planned to go back to my mother-in-laws house for dinner, but never made it.

Did you check out the Herald Citizen Newspaper today? You can see the article with Brookelynn HERE

Five on Friday

1. I woke up this morning with a sore throat and it has bothered me all day. I don't know if it is my allergies causing drainage or if I am coming down with something. I have sprayed half a bottle of cepacol in my throat and ate a pack of cough drops, but neither seemed to help.

2. Stroker on the other hand, feels great. He had my car washed and vacuumed, then he waxed the whole thing by hand. Lucky ME !

2. I trimmed all the hedge around the house and Brookelynn helped me haul off the limbs.

I would show you how nice and neat they look, but I didn't take any photo's of them.

3. We also found time this evening to sit down for dinner at O'Charley's. It used to be our favorite restaurant, but not so much anymore.

4. Today was the last day of school for the kids. They are so thankful.

5. Brookelynn and I went for a manicure and pedicure to celebrate her straight "A" report card for the entire year and to relax before the weekend gets started.



Soccer Season

We went to watch Jett in his first soccer game this evening. We didn't want to be late, so I asked Jett last weekend what time his game was supposed to start and he informed me that it was at "eleventy". I also didn't know where the soccer field was in White County, so I asked Jett and he said... "it's in the big field, with all the grass". He cracks me up.

I think watching 3 year olds play soccer is too cute. I remember when Devin played soccer at 3 years old. Brookelynn was on a soccer team at age 3, but she had no intentions of getting out on the field LOL.

I still giggle when I look at Brookelynn's soccer photo. I had to work the day the pictures were taken. I thought I could trust Stroker to get her dressed that day. When the pictures came in, my first comment to Stroker was "Why did you have her socks pulled up to her thighs?".  He said he thought that was how they were supposed to go. I guess he didn't notice all the other players had theirs folded down over their shin guards. LOL

Daddy's were not meant to dress kids.