Bye Bye Amboy!!

Today we drove to Amboy for the last times... Andy and Andrea sold their house and are moving. Now where they are moving to is still to be determined!! :) They know it will be somewhere on the North side of Indy, but are still looking at houses. But they have to be out of their house by Friday, so we went down Sunday to help move.

We debated bringing Eli... when you bring him, someones got to watch him and therefore that person doesn't help in the moving all that much. But since they had lots of people there and almost everyone was there including Patty and Patrick we took Eli with us!!

We are so happy for Andy and Andrea and can't wait until they find a new house... Eli hopes it has a play set!! :) Love you guys!!

Family Time

Since we've been crazy busy, we thought it would be good to spend some quality family time together this long weekend. We went to one of Eli's favorite places... The Zoo!! Doesn't he look so grown up in that picture above?

Since we were with Daddy, we went on his favorite ride, the Australian Log Ride.

Here's what they were looking at...

Here's Eli and mommy on the Log Ride...

and in the play train...

Eli LOVES this Tree House. He now even knows where it is in the Rainforest Area and begs to get out of his stroller as soon as we pass the Tigers :)

Carroll vs Marion

The first home football game was Friday night vs Marion. Got to admit that I was a bit nervous... not so much for the game, but how I was going to keep a 20 month old in the bleachers for an entire game. Oh how my life had changed... there was a point in my life when I was nervous for the game!! :) :)

Thank goodness for fruit snacks, popcorn and the band. Yes, I did say the band. Our kid LOVES the band.

He was just mesmerized!!

Here's more pictures of Eli during the half time show...

He WAS NOT mesmerized by Charlie the Charger... didn't know about him!!

Luckily Keenan and Amanda were with us too. Keenan entertained Eli too!! Here they are trying to get a picture together... yeah right!! :)

Then we busted into the popcorn.

That held us for most of the rest of the game. We did have to take a little leg stretching between the 3rd and 4th quarter. But he held on for the whole game. I was so proud of him!!

Here's a GREAT picture Uncle Jason took of Eli and his daddy!!

Oh and by the way... Carroll won 21-7.

GO CHARGERS!!!

Hurricane Gustav

I'm sure you're all aware of Hurricane Gustav. They are predicting this Level 4 Hurricane is going to hit the Gulf Coast (including New Orleans and Texas) sometime early Tuesday. I'm asking that we all pray for people in those areas, especially those in New Orleans. It's only been 3 years since Katrina... I can't even imagine.

Hurricane Gustav is also "hitting" us closer to home too. My brother left on Thursday with a team of paramedics from Fort Wayne and Evansville heading to San Antonino. They were driving straight through and as of Saturday morning they were 300 miles outside of San Antonio. The plan is to have many extra health care workers in these areas (a bunch were sent to New Orleans too) so if Gustav does ends up being a major natural disaster people with the training and the know how to help are right there ready to go to help the people who need it.

So please, take a few seconds to send up a prayer for all those all around the world (including our military men and women and those in New Orleans and San Antonio) who have given up the comforts of their homes to help people they don't even know.

Kenny- we are so proud of you and are praying for your safety. Love you lots!!

And then School Started...

Actually school started the week between Sahsha's Bachelorett Party and Jason's Bachelor Party, so it was a little nutso around here. :)

But until this weekend we had no pictures from the middle of the month until now... we had no time for pictures, we were just trying to survive with school, football, volleyball, djing, finishing the basement, church, families and everything else. I think we're getting better now... we have a schedule (usually) so that helps. We make our lives as crazy as they are, so I shouldn't complain. :) We are lucky to have all the craziness we have!! We wouldn't know what to do if it was any different!! :)

Plus we have this to come home to every night... SO WORTH IT!!

Party Time for the Upcoming Bride and Groom

The Bachelorette Party was the evening after the Tigulis' Family shower, while the Bachelor Party was the next weekend. In what has become a tradition, the Bachelor Party was at our house. It followed the BSU Fantasy Football League Draft. So we had plenty of guys here for some quality fantasy football drafting, corn hole playing, beer drinking, and bachelor party celebrating.

But that's not to say the girls didn't have a good time of their own....

We had dinner at the Trolley Bar

with lots of fun martini's,

then off to Rum Runners.

We ended the night downtown at Flashbacks, sweating our booties off dancing the night away!!

At both parties a good time was had by all!!

Tigulis Shower

The next weekend, we threw Sahsha the Tigulis Family (AKA Macedonian shower) She was a little nervous, but she did a GREAT JOB!! She met lots of new people and again, got lots of GREAT gifts.

Here she is with her mother-in-law and her mom...

Here the Tigulis wives...

And because I'm just so proud of the center pieces Andrea and I created (with the wonderful help of Laurie) I'm going to be vain and post a picture of them. Forgive me, but I think they turned out so well, I'm just going to "toot our own horns" here!! :)

Tigulis Boys

Just too good of pictures of the Tigulis Boys not to post...

Boy these guys LOVE Eli!!

CHS Volleyball Party

August 2nd was VERY busy for us... just check out the last 2 posts :) We started off the morning with the Huntertown Heritage Days Parade, then I had Sahsha's shower, then we had a Carroll Volleyball coaches dinner. While I'm no longer coaching at the High School, they never hold that against us and ALWAYS invite us to be a part... which makes me so happy!! I am so blessed that God put these people in our lives. What started out as a random job interview at Don Pablo's (I still remember that guys:) has turned into a WONDERFUL friendship!!

Now lots of us have kids... Pandy has Andrew and Bailey. Here's Andrew sharing a ball with Eli. Andrew is an awesome kid! At these get togethers, he's always the oldest, but does such a GREAT job of playing with the little ones!!

Doug and Nicole have Gabrielle... who I can't believe will be one in a few months. How cute is she!!!

And we have Eli... who LOVED Doug and Nicole's swing set

Here's Nicole trying to play bubbles with Eli... but he kept sucking in rather than blowing out. We got quite a few laughs out of that!! :)

The High School Volleyball season has already started and Carroll just had a HUGE win over Snider (that's always a big win!! :) :) Not only are these good people, they are outstanding coaches!! Keep up the good work!! Good luck this season!!

Spangler Shower

August was CRAZY busy with pre-wedding fun!! We had the Spangler Bridal Shower, the Tigulis Bridal Shower, Sahsha's Bachelorette Party and Jason's Bachelor party... WOW!!

We started off with Sahsha's side, the Spanglers, throwing the shower. It was good food and good fun... and Sahsha got LOTS of good stuff!!

Andrea and I went together and got her stuff for her guest bathroom... we really liked it and wanted to keep it!! :)

See the woman in the red on the right side of the picture? That's Sahsha's good friend Brooke who's in the wedding. What's the big deal you might ask... She lives in FLORIDA!!! She COMPLETELY surprised Sahsha by showing up for the shower!! It was AWESOME!!! We were all crying when we found out who it was... WAY TO PULL IT OFF BROOKE!!

This is an afghan that Sahsha's late grandma made. Jacque saved it for this shower... again, not a dry eye in the house!!

Here are the sisters with the sister-in-laws!! :)

Huntertown Heritage Day Parade

You all know my mom LOVES parades big or small, so of course we were at the Huntertown Heritage Day Parade. This parade qualifies as the small parade, that's for sure, but the kids still loved it.

The Grand Marshall of the Parade was Phil Ginder. He is the "main man" of the Huntertown Ball Diamonds. He is over there EVERY NIGHT from beginning to end working TIRELESSLY at helping kids have GREAT experiences playing ball. He SO DESERVED it!! And in a typical Phil Ginder move, he asked any kid who played at the ball diamonds this summer to walk with him in the parade.... that's just the type of guy he is!! :)

So here's Cora (on the far right) walking with Phil!! :)

The Etter family came too, so Eli got LOTS of loving from Keenan, Nick and Ella... He loved it!!

Dinner with the Ankenbrucks

With busy schedules, getting together with friends sometimes is difficult and it took a little shuffling of plans, but we were able to go to the Ankenbrucks for some dinner and play time... for both the little boys (they have TONS of fun toys) and the big boys (mock draft)

Johnnie and Eli right away hit it off. They played and played and played... you get the point. We played outside, in the living room, in the basement, in his room. Eli LOVED this horse and how great is it that they have a cowboy hat to go with it!!

As we got ready to leave it was night night time for both boys so with pj's on they decided to read some books together... one of my favorites!!!