Scarlett's First Swim, Michael's First Pier

This weekend, we went to our friend John's lakehouse on Lay Lake. They are expanding the pier on his parent's property, so John asked us to come to the lake this weekend and have Michael help finish the project. We've only been in Birmingham 6 weeks, and Michael has already helped tear down and build a fence and now he has helped put some fininshing touches on what will be an awesome pier and boat house. I'm pretty proud of him, he's not what you would call a Mr. Fix It, but he is a hard worker and has learned a lot! When we made plans to go to the lake, the thing we were most excited about was taking Scarlett to the lake for the first time. Michael took her to get her very own lifejacket and a floating shark for her to play with in the water. It never occurred to him that she wouldn't like swimming, much less leaping off a boat to fetch a shark. Needless to say, she enjoyed cooling off in the water, but swimming was another story. I don't know what it is, but she sort of panics when she can't find a way to make it to shore. She swims in circles and grunts and she has the most terrified look on her face! She's definitely not your typical spaniel. But she was so cute in her yellow lifejacket. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Michael finishing up the pier before we get ready to play!

The fruits of labor! Scarlett checking out her surroundings.

She was excited...but then she got in!

Not so excited anymore! She calmed down once she got in the raft! Tubing Time!

Doubles!

John's getting ready to do something crazy....

There he goes!

I love this picture!

Family Photo of course!

The baby was exhausted from the sun and swimming!

It's Never Too Late...

To Visit a Church

This past Sunday, Michael and I visited a church most of our friends attend in Birmingham. It's a mega church, to say the least, called Church of the Highlands. I knew the church was a very contemporary non-denominational church with serveral campuses, yes I said campuses, in Birmingham, so I was a little scared how Michael would react. He is a simple man when it comes to churches. He is afraid of big rock bands and most of all powerpoints and big screens!

And that's exactly what Church of the Highlands has! So we walk into the main campus after filing in with the thousands also attending. The first thing I spot are the several coffee stations everywhere in the huge lobby with lines as long as a mile. Our friends Jamie and Eric take us on a tour before the service begins, and there is a cafe and bookstore, and a huge childrens' auditorium that requires your children to be scanned in before they enter and scanned out before they leave. Yes, children are recognized by barcodes here! Across from the auditorium is an indoor play area for children that puts any play area at McDonald's to shame! After our tour, we head into the main auditorium for the church service to begin.

And oh did it begin....with a resounding rock band of course. And with large screens behind the rock band. After the band sang its last praise and worship song, I quietly leaned over to Michael and said, "Aren't you waiting for Pastor Phil from Four Christmases to ascend onto the stage!" Instead Pastor Chris Hodges, the senior pastor, preached a great sermon about God's plan and accepting change in our lives. He was a wonderful preacher who was much more relatable than I expected. He also shared that his sermons in August will begin to focus on baggage! Boy I can't wait for that! I have lots of baggage!

I felt really good after we left church; in fact, I felt much better than I have in a long time.

I guess it's true...It's Never Too Late to Visit a Church!

Happy Independence Day on the 11th of July!

More than a week late, I'm just now getting around to telling everyone who reads our decreasingly interesting blog, I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! I promise I'm going to wrap my head around proper time management and actually update this baby a little more....okay a lot more! I honestly don't know where the time has gone. On Friday, I opened my personal email account, and I had over 200 messages to read; my Google reader had over a 1,000 articles waiting on me. I was shocked! Where had the week gone? I went more than 7 days without even thinking about checking my email? I mean...I know I actually do a thing called "work" now, but geez, I need to get with the program. So what have we been doing? Last weekend my mom came to Birmingham to visit for the 4th of July. We visited Pepper Place Farmer's Market, took a tour of the city and visited my new office, shopped a little, went to an antique market, joined our friends for a 4th of July cookout, and simply hung out together. It's always nice having her around, and though she says the drive to Birmingham is a lot worse than it is to Knoxville, I am glad we are a couple of hours closer. We visited the famous Vulcan Park on top of Red Mountain. Vulcan, the Roman god of the forge, is a symbol of the steel industry that made Birmingham what it is today. Overlooking the city, he is the largest cast iron statue in the world. There's not many touristy things to do here, but I guess he would be the most popular thing to see.

Here is the view of downtown from Vulcan's feet:

His bare butt shows from the other side, I should have gotten a picture!

On Tuesday, Michael started his job with Samford. I got to visit the campus when my mom was here, and I thought it was one of the most beautiful schools I've ever seen. His official title is Ticketing and Customer Service Assistant, but he has already been asked to take over women's basketball marketing. I think he is going to really like working there....trust me...he like myself, is slowly finding out what "work" is, and he will be very busy come fall, but he will love it because, afterall, it involves athletics! We are both very happy to be where we are. Scarlett, not so much! She got used to her daddy being home every day in June, and she isn't quite used to the new schedule.

So to get caught up, we had a great 4th of July, and we are both really busy with work, but we are happy and that's what matters most. I hope all of you are as blessed as we are and had a fantastic holiday weekend and are still continuing to have a fun summer!