Focus Friends

This is going to be a funny one...a couple of weekends ago I got together with my good friends that I met at Focus on the Family Institute in fall of 2002. We all came out to Focus not knowing a soul and spent a semester learning about how to raise families, be Godly mothers and wives, and how to influence the workplace and culture around us for Jesus. It was scary going out to Colorado by myself, but looking back, its probably the best thing I did during college (other than start dating Matt).

We have made it a tradition to get together every 2 years without husbands and babies to catch up on life and give each other advice and wisdom that we have learned or heard. It amazes me how much we have to talk to every two years - you would think that we'd grow apart and not have much to talk about but not us! We don't really DO anything - we sit around and eat and talk over a long weekend - that is pretty much it!

Here's the only two good pictures from our time in Naples two years ago...

Em, Caroline, me, Ash

Caroline, Ash, Em, me

This year we convened in Nashville at mom and dad's house. They were infiltrated with chatty girls and lots of snacks we made! This is pathetic...but these are the only pictures I have! Caroline's camera has a couple of good ones of us actually looking at the camera, but I'll be shocked if I ever see those pictures! :) Love you Caroline!!!!We started out our camera conversations in the kitchen...but I needed some fresh air!

Caroline being her typical self!

Em and Ash discussing something like aperture or ISO or something...

I am so thankful for the presence of these ladies in my life! They are truly a blessing and a rare find in friendship! Until 2011...

Estes Park, Colorado Part 2

Ok - I got some sleep and can post about the rest of our trip now...we had a great time seeing the Rocky Mountain National Park - it was only 5 minutes from our house so we got to explore that park and see TONS of elk. They told us that this time of year the male elks are basically recruiting thier "harem" (elk term for band 'o ladies). You could see groups of elk with one large male and tons of females. They would buggle to call thier lady friends and me and mom joked that we would run if we were them! :) Here are some elk pics...
We had so much fun watching these huge animals - they were everywhere including our yard and the grocery store! Makes publix back home look a little lame with no elk lying in the parking lot!Em and Jonas came out and joined us on Thursday and we had a few great days with them, they are so fun! We spent Friday in Colorado Springs going up the cog railway to Pikes Peak and then hiking around Garden of the Gods. Here are a few pics from our trip up to Pikes Peak...This was a beautiful lake we saw on the way up to the peak - I never think of lakes being tucked away in the mountain peaks but we saw several. It was surrounded by evergreens - isn't God just beautiful?View from the top with my new super duper zoom lens! These mountains were miles away.

Em, me, and mom on the top - it was VERY cold - but not as windy as it could have been so we got lucky. Don't worry - we all filled up with hot chocolate and donuts for the trip back down the mountain!

Here are some pictures from Garden of the GodsMatt, me, Em and J in front of balancing rockJonas getting adventurous in a no tresspassing zone!

Em made us do this trying to get cheesy prego pics, I actually thought this was cute.

We also had a couple of hikes in the Rocky Mountain park that were much more snowy than we thought they would be. The first day we went everything was COVERED in snow and ice - we were at about 10,000 feet elevation so the snow had really come into the mountain already. Once Em and J got there a lot of it had melted but we did find one lake that was already 1/2 way frozen!

Em and Jonas pondering the half frozen lake.Winter wonderland!

Thanks mom and dad for getting an incredible house for us to vacation in this fall. It was a great trip and I'm so thankful I got to visit Colroado with Matt before little girl gets here!

Estes Park, Colorado Part 1

Oooooooooooo how I LOVE the mountains! I am so thankful for the week we had enjoying God's creation out west. It was so fun seeing a new part of Colorado and visiting old familiar places that I love. Matt and I rode out there with mom and dad who were staying a few days longer then flew back - after we FINALLY got to Colorado, we were very thankful to be flying back!

Our trip started off like any trip should...

men packing:

and the necessary pitstops before getting on I-65...

After we made sure everyone was sufficiently hydrated we started our trek across the country. The first three states went by quickly (TN, KY, IL) then they started slowing down! We stopped in St. Louis to have a longer lunch and stretch our legs. We really enjoyed our lunch at this cute little Italian Village...well...the first time around it was enjoyable...more on that in a sec.

After lunch Matt kept driving us through MO and through most of KS. We stopped for dinner in po-dunk Kansas then Matt drove another 2 hours to our final destination for the day - Hays, KS. I'll spare the details but let's just say lunch came back around to bite me and mom around 1:00 AM. After an hour in the bathroom and kicking mom outside the room to see her lunch again in the hallway I proudly exited and announced, "ok men - we are SICK". Matt and dad jumped into action.

Ok, ok so I'll spare the rest of the details, we'll just say I don't throw up unless its food poisoning so thank you Mama Campissi's in St. Louis for the adventure. I told Matt the next morning that I wanted to find a clinic in Hays to get some fluids b/c I for sure didn't want to spend a day in the ER in Denver. We found a great hospital with an excellent staff who fixed me up with anti-nausea medicine and 2 liters of fluid. I left very sleepy but feeling better. Here are a few pics from my camera in the ER...

I should get a milkshake for this...right mom?

This is what I look like nauseous - I hope no one ever sees this again!So, moving on - we FINALLY reach Estes Park late that night and explore our amazing house that mom and dad rented. It had a huge hot tub on the deck, sound system throughout the whole house playing the ipod, a pool table, a wii, and a GYM equiped with basketball, dodgeball, and hockey!

Ok that's it for now - I've got to go to bed...more mountain pics coming soon!

Hello from Colorado!

Well, I have to say, I'm thouroughly enjoying this vacation. I absolutely love the mountains, always have. I grew up visiting Colorado several times on family vacations, youth group wilderness adventures, and then in college at some camps and the semester at Focus.

This is Matt's first experience in Colorado and I think he's enjoying it and taking it all in. I'll have more to blog about when we get back but here are a few pictures!
These guys are everywhere!It's colder in the Nat'l park than we thought it would be!

We have Paint!

Well - the past month has been full of disheaval in our house. Matt was DETERMINED to finish the paint in the soon to be nursery this month because he had a couple of weekends off. We decided a while ago that we thought it would be fun to do stripes. We didn't necessarily agree on what they would look like - but we finally got to a compromise. We started by painting the entire nursery cream color (candle wax by Behr to be exact). Here are a few shots of that process...

This is a before shot showing our original paint color and the white ceilings which I'm thrilled are now cream!

Per Matt - every painter needs beer!

I'm documenting my help here which was only the tape! Matt didn't let me in on the cream color painting, by the time we got to the stripes I was a participant!

Elle is not sure about this...she thought the tan paint was fine! She is not a fan of change...uh oh...

I love this color!

By the end of the night - the painter had enough to drink!!!!

Here's a shots of my new cream room! Oh - and we got a fan. I was not "for" this but Matt talked me into it b/c this room gets so warm in the summer time. I'm a fan of the fan now!

Ok, now for the fun part...I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves...this wasn't a fun process at first - but after we figured out the best way to tape off our sections it moved pretty quickly.

Elle is still not sure this is a good idea!

I told Matt that if every painter needs a beer...and he's recruiting me...then he had to get me some non-alcoholic! :) It wasn't a good as the real thing but its worth it for baby girl!

So we were both VERY nervous to take the first piece of tape off...

But overall pretty happy w/ the outcome! Let me know what you think!

Was it a Full Moon?

WOW! What an awesome weekend! We welcomed two new friends to this world!

Baby # 1 -

Ethan Walker Smith was born Sunday morning at 8:30 ish to Kate and Donnie Smith. I don't have any pictures of Ethan yet b/c he's in training camp right now in the NICU. He's just got to get his breathing a little more regulated then he'll be coming home to Kate and Donnie. He was a little early (abt 3 weeks) so this was a nice surprise this weekend!

We got to spend some time w/ the Smith's last night - it was a lot of fun to hear the story about them watching football then all of a sudden..."um, Donnie...we need to go to the hospital!" So funny...anyway, we'll post some pics of Ethan as soon as we get to!

Baby #2 -



Allan Jefferson McDonald, the um...maybe 4th?? Not sure...

was born at 4:04 AM on Sunday as well! Here are some pics of baby, friends, and mom - Kerry. Congrats to Kerry and Jeff - they had a long night of labor but got through it beautifully and Allan is doing very well. He was also a few weeks early so this was another very fun surprise this weekend! I can't wait to watch these young men grow up in the Lord - congrats to everyone!!!!

beautiful mom and baby!

Jenny and Allan

Oh, and baby Spann is offically a GIRL now - no guessing anymore! Thank goodness she cooperated this morning!

Utter Confusion...

So...isn't it typical that I would put a count down on my blog and tell everyone that Sept 16th we'd know what baby Spann is...then on THE day the baby does not cooperate!!!!

I was NOT expecting this! Fortunately, we can say with "somewhat certainty" that it is a

GIRL!

We reserve the right to change the sex of our child when I go back to on Monday for ultrasound #3. That's right...#3...so, yesterday was fun, but somewhat frustrating because baby girl Spann was sound asleep! She was totally folded in a pretzel and snoozing like her daddy. I walked around, went to the bathroom, rolled over on my side...even took a break after 45 minutes to go to my DR apt and came back...nothing. And yes, this was after downing a Mr. Pibb before going in.

We did get a pretty good shot between the legs, but it wasn't the perfect shot...so we are saying, "maybe a girl" until Monday. I am hopeful that she will cooperate then!

Good news is that the heartbeat sounded great, what measurements she got looked perfect, and we had about 45 minutes of watching our child sleep! Oh, and I get to go back Monday - that is good too.

Here's a picture from our visit...Matt is going to kill me b/c he doesn't even know that I took this picture...guess he'll find out if he looks at the blog!!!! He was catching a snooze himself before we were called back...

Maybe I should have known what was lying ahead for me...this was foreshadowing!