Unpacking Continues

Well we are finally here! We unpacked and moved around with the help of several family members yesterday (A BIG THANK YOU TO THEM!)
We wake up and still more boxes to unpack.
Our carpets are getting cleaned, the cable is hooked up and the security is ready to keep us safe. We grilled out on our new grill last night and will do it again tonight!
I am tired and ready for a nap.
This is the greatest house in the whole world because I get to share it with Tim.
Thank you God for being so good to us!

Our New Address is
101 Silverleaf Ct
Mount Holly NC 28120
Home Phone 704 - 812-8126

It's Ours!

How exciting to watch tons of blue ink flow onto several ....several more pieces of paper that make 101 Silverleaf Court ours!!!! SO exciting and now the fun begins of unpacking, decorating, deciding where to put who and what. I am excited to know that by next week this time we will be in there! Our kids have new beds and are all asking about what is going to be in there room. All Dakota and Will want are the XBOX and a tv and Bethany ....gets her very own room! I am so thankful that God has placed such a wonderful house in our possession to turn into a home! I can hear the patter of little feet running around and playing hide and go seek. (This is a great house for that ...these kids will be lost for hours!) I can smell the grill cooking up something good to eat.....Tim is SO excited about grilling. If you are invited over in the next six months be prepared to eat something grilled because I know my baby will be doing the cooking! Gotta go do some work.

Nothing Without You

I know I said my next post would be my thoughts on Atlantafest, and I hate to disappoint, but I have to share a song that God laid on my heart this morning...

As I was sitting at my desk today, with my Ipod on a random shuffle, (which is rare because I'm pretty much wearing out one album a day depending on my mood), I was in the mood to let God speak to me through His music..His choice.. And boy did He ever... About midway though the morning, I heard a song that really spoke to my heart, a song that I could not just listen to just once, a song that expresses the way I feel about my Savior..

I would not be where I'm at today, without His loving mercy and grace...
I would be Nothing Without You God...

Nothing Without You - Bebo Norman
Take these hands and lift them up
For I have not the strength to praise You near enough
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

Take my voice and pour it out
Let it sing the songs of mercy I have found
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

Chorus:
All my soul needs
Is all Your love to cover me
So all the world will see
That I have nothing without You

Take my body and build it up

May it be broken as an offering of love
For I have nothing, I have nothing without You

All my soul needs
Is all Your love to cover me
So all the world will see
But I love You

With all my heart
With all my soul
With all my mind
And all the strength I can find

All my soul needs
Is all Your love to cover me
So all the world will see
I have nothing

Take my time here on earth
And let it glorify all that You are worth
For I am nothing, I am nothing, I am nothing without You

12:01 am... Only 3 more days...

Until move day!!!! Thank the LORD!!! I've about had all I can take of this cramped apartment.. Now don't get me wrong, it defintely served it's purpose, and at least the kids got some swims out of the pool!

To the left here, is our new house! Isn't she beautiful! We got a great deal, and God worked it out nicely for everything to fall in the place for us. It's located in the quaint little town of Mount Holly, NC, which is just outside Charlotte. We close this Wednesday, and move on Friday! (Thanks Mom & John) for the help! At least someone in our families loves us ;-).. I promise, you will eat the best steak of your life on Friday night! "Outback" will be calling me for the receipe!

Tonight I realized just how bad I hate moving.. You think I would have remember how bad it was considering I did it seven times in two years when I was at ASU. That's "little" ASU, as in Appalachian State, for anyone who is reading this thinking I may have went to Arizona State... But anyway, back to my point, moving sucks! But packing...Oh, it's even worse. You know why, because you can't get it done from stopping and checking out all the little knick-knacks that you haven't seen in forever, reading all the cards that you got for your birthday 3 years ago that you still had stuck in a drawer, and debating on whether or not to keep the stuff you really don't need.

And the clothes... Wow, how much you accumulate over 18 months is mind-boggling. My brother is going to love me, b/c I have 2 trash bags full of clothes just for him!

Anyway, it's 12:23 AM, I'm tired, I got 2 more days of packing ahead of me, and it's bedtime..

Until next time...


My Next Post: Reflections of AtlantaFest 2007

My way home

What a day! There is nothing better than to know I get to come home to a sweet man! My drive is over an hour one way and I am looking forward to the day when we move in and I can work from home some during the week! Tomorrow is Beep Ball day at work and we will be playing the blind team from the Industries for the Blind. We are blind folded and hit a beeping softball! Let's hope I hit the ball and the ball doesn't hit my face! OK...I am starving and ready to eat. I can' t wait until we cook in our new house! Home cooking....YUM! Please don't think I will be the cook b/c we all know Tim will be the head chef!

What a Surprise...and I am not even talking about this new blog!

Well, where do I begin but to say WOW! Finally a blog of our very own to share our life together! This is a wonderful surprise that my sweetie put together (b/c he is so dang smart!) How blessed I am to have such a wonderful, God-loving man in my life. We just got from home from Mosaic an awesome praise and worship service in the Artisy district of Charlotte. Tim and I LOVE to eat great food so he took me to Cabo Fish Taco for dinner before the service. KABOOM....we had Mahi tacos and baby those are good. Now for most of you fish tacos does not sound like a meal you want to take a bite of ...just like me when I heard we were going to eat them. I learned early on in our relationship....probably day one or two that Tim and I eat and enjoy most of the same things so I trust him and they were fabulous.

OK let me go ahead and explain the way I write...well it is generally the way I talk which usually jumps subjects and skips around....grammer ok as long as I use the spellcheck.

I am so excited about this! There are so many things I want to say and talk about and eventually I will get to all of them. I can start by saying the title of this blog..."What a Surprise...and I am not even talking about this new blog" is all about the day I met Tim online. Most of you probably know we met online using one of those matching systems which I will not us the name of and give credit to b/c they are continually emailing us and asking if we want to sign back up and find the "love of our life". Hello!!!!! We already opted out and told you we did that! Anyway enough of that. (On a side note anytime I hear their commercial music I do my little happy dance!!!! Well I guess I probably just let you in on who the company is!)

It all started with just a hello and I liked his answers to my questions . Well after I found out how much he loved God, loved Duke and the movie, "The Notebook" it was all over and I was hooked! By the way did I mention what a hunk he is and still is and is still constantly working out daily in the gym for me, his woman, and well only he will know what this is about but I can not wait until football season starts and it's PANTHER Sunday at our house!

Did I mention we have a new house!!! Only 5 more days and we can start unpacking boxes in our new house. I guess that means we should start packing some of the boxes here first!

Have I mentioned how alike we are? Let's see.....our first date was oh about 11 or 12 hours. We started off with lunch just to see how that would go. Secretly I was so excited to met him I changed clothes 10 times and just prayed all the way there that God would have His hand in our time together. After lunch we decided to ride to a park and talk. Well we rode around for I couldn't tell you how long and finally decided to buy a map. After putting gas in the truck (oh yeah he bought a new truck and had it for about 5 days and after meeting me and deciding that traveling to Welcome in a gas guzzzling truck would be costly he traded for the Honda...see he was already a brilliant man!) About 4 hours later on a park bench we got hungry again (told you we like to eat) and went to Carraba's. After that our first movie "Reign on Me". We walked out of that theater hand in hand and I didn't want to go home. So not even 4 months later we are buying a house, starting a life and have never looked back.

Tim and I share so much in common from loving God, great food, movies, Christian music, cinnamon crunch bagels with honey walnut cream cheese, sports, being active, loving our kids and well I could go on and on. But the most awesome thing for me everyday is watching him be the man of God that loves me, our kids and loves life. There is nothing hotter in a man than watching him give praise to God. We just got back from AtlantaFest (see Tim's blog for website...if you love God and Christian music you have to go with us next year!) and had the most awesome time together. God blesses our time so presciously. I am in awe of how Tim prays....even over food it is something that just reaches my heart. Powerful stuff.

To all of my single friends......It's worth the wait to find the man that God has in store for you!
To all of Tim' single friends.....jump on the wagon and follow him to PEAK and try and catch up to the guns my baby is packing!
I have found my joy. God has placed joy in my heart and everyday I wake up with it!
Tim makes me a better mom and Christian. He is my soul mate and I never want to spend another day without his smile, his eyes, his music and his ability to make taquitos and mac and cheese at 11:00 at night. I have never had a single doubt about Tim, our relationship or how lightening fast we have moved. I know that the online service sent us each others profile but God was the beginning and has been with us every day.

This is an awesome journey that we get to share with each other and the people brave enough to read our blogs because get ready we tell it like it is! We love to laugh, sing and have fun so maybe soon we can blog a movie ..(I don't know if we can do that but I will ask my technologically gifted hunk of a man and see if we can!)

To Tim,

Baby everyday with you is a gift from God and I promise to love you and always keep Dominos on speed dial when the grill breaks or my cooking goes haywire! I am so excited about moving into our new house and raising our family together! You are my everything and I choose you to spend my life with. I am sitting on the couch and watching you work. So focused and good-looking! I promise to always love you and to never touch your tv / stereo without supervision!

Thank you for being such a faithful man of God! Thank you for taking us to church and praying with us and putting us first. Thank you for being silly with me, taking care of me when I don't feel good and being you.
I love you

My First Post - Dedicated to the woman I love..

First off, I want to say HEY!! Hey to whoever might stumble across this blog or whoever might be pointed to this blog by me or Ashley. We thought this would be a cool little venture for us to do together to open up to others about the wonderful time we share with each other, and have someway to document our experience together as well as hopefully share with others the wonderful blessings our Heavenly Father has bestowed upon our relationship now and in our future marriage together as Husband and Wife.

She has no idea I'm writing this write now, nor does she know I've created this blog. This has been something we have been talking about for the last month of so, but honestly, I've just been too lazy to do it. Well, maybe lazy is a bad word... let's use.. busy.. :-).. Yea, that sounds much better. This first post is more or less pointed and dedicated to "my girl", the woman that blesses me by just her mere presence.. I did not realized that being "loved" the right way felt sooo good! If there happens to be any ladies out there, that need to know the right way to love and care for their man, then you need to shoot Ashley an email! She will surly lead you in the right direction. I want the world to know that she has turned my world upside down... and I mean that in a good way... Ok, maybe I should say that she has turned my life "right-side" up.

Before I met Ashley, I was so up and down, back and forth, left and right... I was probably the most indecisive and flakiest person you could have ever met. I never made a decision and stuck to it. This included my work, my relationships, and most importantly, my faith and salvation. I even lost my best friend in the entire world b/c I couldn't commit to anything! I was just so full of broken promises and compulsive lies that he thought it was better to disassociate himself with me before I pulled him down as well. (I will defintely expand on this later..) However, through the wonderful grace and mercy, of Jesus Christ, and the prayer of others, He placed someone into my life that would change it profoundly. I will let her get into the details of how we met, all I will say is thank God for online dating :-)!! I knew from that first date, which was 12 hours of course, a personal record for me...I knew it was something that only God could set up. God had to be involved for a woman that beautiful to want to hang out with me for 12 hours on a first date! I'm sure we will both expand more on our first date in later posts, but I just want her to know that not only am I a better man today because of her... but I'm..a stronger man...a better father...a more dedicated Christian...I could go on and on about how she has strengthed me in so many ways, but I want to take the time and go over each one with specific examples on this blog.

I'm so glad we have decided to do this, b/c not only will it provide us with a "virtual" scrapbook of the wonderful relationship we have with each other, but more importantly we hope others will read this and realize that when you truly meet the person that was in God's Will for you to meet, you will be happier, you lives will be fuller, and you smiles will be brighter..

So to my dearest Ashley, this post if for you baby! Let's rock this thing like Family Force 5 just did at Atlantfest 2007! I know most of you have no idea what that reference means, so just follow the links and put the pieces together! You will notice in the coming blog posts, they we are both Christian Music freaks, and we will reference alot of music and artists you probably never heard of. We will do our best to use links so you can enjoy the sounds of our favorite bands!