Merry Christmas!!

For Christmas this year my family was all meeting down in Houston, so we decided to drive down there and join in all the fun. We actually drove down, a nice 15 hour drive, that could've been shorter had we not gotten lost on the way down there. But we made it and ended up being very glad that we drove our truck because we brought back a lot of goodies with us.

Since we drove we brought Ace, and of it was a little chilly one day so we bought him a vest to try to help him stay warm. 

Lance opening his present

Zach and Alivia

Mom, Dad, Kacie and (kacie's baby) Cade

Poor Lance, in pain, in his sling....

Our current family photo, yes getting bigger, in fact I think I've tripled in size over the last couple of weeks. I'm hating it...

Chad, Becca, Alivia, and Ethan (their newest baby, born Dec 1) They were able to bless him while we were down there, it was awesome

Adam, Kacie and Cade

Haley and Alivia (we had family pictures taken one day, so thats why the purple shirts)

Christmas was wonderful, we feel so blessed right now and are so excited for the new year and all that it has in store for us. Hopefully this week we can think of some really great resolutions, and figure out some way to bring the new year in right! 

While Lance was taking finals....

I was done with work and decided that I wasn't needed at my house while Lance and Tate were finishing up school for the semester. So I jumped on the opportunity to go with my mom over to Geneva for a little while and see where they are living now. It was so fun and I had so much fun hanging out with my parents for a while. I hadn't ever been to Geneva, but it was beautiful and I can't wait to go back and visit again.

While I was there we did a little traveling around, I was happy to get a few more stamps in my passport. Here are a few pictures from the trip...

This is in France, we went to a really old town that had a huge castle. We spent the day walking, exploring and shopping. 

In France, across the lake is Switzerland.

The name of the town that we went to, I told ya it's really old.

Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain around there

My Dad had business in London, so Mom and I went. It was great, we spent a day just exploring and walking, and everyone was speaking english so we loved it :)

The tower of London bridge

Walking across the bridge to the Tower of London

 It was a great trip, freezing but great. Hopefully Lance will be able to come next time :)  And poor Lance... while I was gone he decided to have surgery on his shoulder. Now before you think I'm the worst wife ever to leave my husband in his time of need, he scheduled this surgery AFTER I was already gone. I asked him to wait, but he thought that was the best time to do it. Luckily Jeff and Lynn, our great neighbors, and Tate were here to help take care of him. But he is doing well, the doctor said everything went great and now he just has to let it heal. He actually had his first rehab therapy session today and things are on track and look to be healing well. 

Question

So my pregnancy has been going better lately, and I'm finally into the double digits with how many days I have left and besides the killer backaches and uncomfortable growing stomach, I am actually feeling not too terrible. But this week, I have been a little disappointed because I was running a couple of days ago and my stomach started hurting pretty bad. I had to stop and walk the rest of the way. The same thing happened the next day, so I had to walk some more. Basically, I feel like I have to only walk now. It makes me a little sad, but I was wondering is that normal that around this time to cut back? I feel like its almost too early to only be walking, but I don't want to hurt myself or the baby. I was wondering what everyone else has done, and/or if this is too early (I guess I'm 28 weeks now) to be cutting back a little?  

Turkey Trot

This year we kept up one of our newer Thanksgiving traditions, by running the Turkey Trot here in Johnson City. This is our 2nd year doing it, and we actually really enjoy waking up early and getting in a little exercise before we stuff our faces with food. And this year there were even more people that participated, so it was fun to be involved with the whole town. And for being almost 7 months pregnant I was pretty proud of myself for doing it. We were a little slower than last year, but 26 minutes is pretty good for my big ole self :)

We had a great Thanksgiving, we decided to split up the cooking responsibilities and ate with friends again this year. Our Turkey (we cooked) turned out pretty good, or at least the parts that were cooked tasted delicious :)  Then after dinner we drove to Atlanta and stayed with some of Lances family down there. It was great to get out of town for a few days and actually go shopping at a real mall. Hope everyones thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours, we have so much to be thankful for and are grateful everyday for all the blessings in our lives!!

Winter Wonderland

We actually had a free day the other weekend and decided to go up to a waterfall and practice taking more pictures with our camera. It turned into a really fun day, there was snow everywhere and we got to hike around the waterfalls and just enjoy a little bit of winter weather. Jeff and Lynn came with us, and Ace loved running around in the snow all day. Good thing he wore his bell necklace to help him stay warm :)

Tate's A wrestler

Tate has joined the wrestling team here at his new school, he seems to love it. I don't really understand the point of it, but whatever makes him happy I guess. But this past weekend they had their first game, I mean meet :) Tate did so great, and it was pretty exciting to watch even though I had no idea what was going on. But we were proud and I'm so happy that my mom was in town to see his big debut.

Mom and Tate (yes, he has a black eye and bloody nose..but you should see the other guy  :)

Tate getting his hand raised as the winner, YEAH!!
Tate putting the hurt on some kid
Ready position...
Warming up

Softball Pictures

We had our softball pictures the other day, at our new stadium. The stadium looks great, and we're excited to actually start playing in it this season. Here are some of the pictures from the day.

Ace loves softball
A little of our team picture
Lance and I had to take a picture for the media guide or something, hopefully they don't use this one.
Answering questions about the new stadium (thats my mom in the background, she has been in town visiting)
GO BUCS!

Church Dances

For those who don't know, Lance and I are both in the youth program at our church. A few weekends ago we had a youth dance that we had to go and supervise. And since we are working with our new camera Lance went nuts and was taking pictures of everything around. So here are a few of the highlights. 

(p.s...don't mind my fatness...i'm 6 months pregnant for crying out loud!)

New Camera

We finally bought a new camera the other day. I'm pretty excited about it, but still have a lot to read to actually learn how to use it. But we've been having fun taking pictures of everything. So here is a little random sampler of what we've seen lately :)

Ace trying on his new Christmas outfit of bells and light up antlers

Our favorite neighbors Jeff and Lynn
Lance posing for the camera

Weekend Getaway

This past weekend one of Lance's good friends that he played baseball with invited us to Virginia to stay in a huge house and just hang out for the weekend. The drive was about 4 hours, and we ended up going just a little outside of Roanoke but it was well worth it. It is still so pretty here with all the leaves changing, so we actually really enjoyed the drive and just looking around at everything.

The house was huge and was right on the lake so we spent most of our time out on the water in the boats and just relaxing in the sun. I guess I never realized how nice it is to just get away even for a weekend, we came back well fed, and well rested and ready for this week. And I think that we need to take more weekend trips...sorry Lance :)

Tate trying to soak up some sun in the kayak

Us in the paddle boat

Seattle

I was finally able to meet the newest addition to our family, Kacies little baby Cade. This weekend I flew across the country, which turns out to take forever, to Seattle and spent the weekend with Kacie, Adam and Cade.  And it was actually really great because my parents were visiting too, so we got to spend some time with them also. It was really fun to have Kacie show us where they have been living for the past year, and gosh how I've missed being in a big city with a real mall to shop in. 

And Cade is just adorable. He is such a good baby, sleeps alot, but he's super cute and Kacie is already such a great mom. It makes me nervous to have a kid, but a little excited too. We tried to go baby shopping, but its really annoying when you don't know if it's a boy or girl and all the clothes are blue or pink. I guess our baby will have to just be nude for the first few days till we can actually go out and buy some clothes for it.