This weekend was awesome. We had a cookout on Saturday and the weather and gathering of good friends and family was fantastic. My parents, aunt Sue & uncle Charlie, cousins (Buddy, Tiffany, Mandy, Brooke, and Hannah) and former neighbors (Miss Lynn, Becca and Liz)came over to enjoy some steaks and various side salads. I can't believe how many people we packed into my dining room at one time (10 of us around the table at any one given time) We had people eating in the kitchen and the living room too! I ate so much I felt like I could go into a FOOD coma!! The kids played outside in their new air maze and had a blast. They really enjoy going in and out of the maze and crawling around the tunnels. They really enjoyed having their Memaw and PaPaw down for a visit too. Cooper would come over and tell them "to come on" and proceed to drag them to the playhouse and to the maze to play with him. Saturday night they enjoyed playing indoors as Papaw would hide and they would go running to find them and get "scared" when he would jump out and say "RAH!" Then he, Elliott and Cooper would run all around the kitchen island chasing each other. On Sunday we all went to the park and the boys spent a lot of time just swinging. We have thought about getting them a swingset in our backyard but the park is just a short walk away that I don't think we'd go as much if we had it in our backyard! We went over to my cousins house for a visit and my parents got a tour from Hannah and Brooke. We are waiting for Hurricane Ophelia to come ashore this week. This will be our first hurricane in our new house. Thankfully it will only be category one but those tend to be so slow that they can do a lot of damage too. We've had few shower bands come through this morning but expect by this evening that the wind will be picking up. We've also heard from a few hurricane Katrina survivors that are interested in our house in Robersonville. We are hopeful that our house will go to someone who truly needs it and will love it as much as we did.

Update time......I have officially withdrawn from college. Completely my own decision, it wasn't the classes, the finances, the craziness.....it was my kids. I am not ready to leave them. I looked at them and played with them......when it dawned on me. My kids do not care what degree I hold, how much money I make.....they just want to be loved and have quality time spent with them. Sure there are a lot of women who can cook, clean, work, go to school and raise a family. I am not one of them. I am making a choice that I cannot be selfish about my wants and needs right now. Maybe it's Hurricane Katrina that has me reprioritizing things in my life. I don't know. But I am at peace with my decision. I may go back to school, but for now I am going to stay at home with my boys. I feel so extremely blessed to be able to stay at home with them. I look forward to the many new things they will be doing and learning as they enter their toddler years. This really is the best job ever!! Other news.....Invitro time is approaching. I had my lab work done on Friday and will await results. Today I start birth control pills, which is so weird to me to have to take when you are trying to conceive (but it so they can control when I ovulate) I have to have the rest of my tests done this week and then we go from there. We are still getting finances together, so any and all prayers are appreciated. Another note.....We are trying to find a charitable organization to donate our house in Robersonville to Hurricane survivors. If you know of any, please let me know. We've been in contact with several organizations and are awaiting responses from the "people in upper management". Our house has a small mortgage still on it, and we would need the organization to take care of that. I wish we could just "give it away" but it would be a blessing to us and the family that gets it. I just want to make sure we donate correctly so that the family that gets the house does not get taxed on such a gift. I do know that the charitable organization gets the tax write off if they pay our mortgage so it does make our house appealing to them, plus it isn't a large expense. I think that some families from LA or MS would love the small town atmosphere and it would be a fresh start on a new life. The house is plenty big that even two families could stay there. If I can find an organization, then I am going to ask area businesses to see what they can donate to help a family. I'll keep you posted on this as new information comes in. On a lighter note.....something funny. Cooper is now fascinated with putting things in the toilet. And I wish it was potty training kind of stuff.....but yesterday I found a candle in the toilet......which was pretty funny. They are quite mischievious and I have to keep a good eye on them these days. We're going to add water to our fish tank this week and order our fish. Something says that I will be finding things in that tank too.......LOL!! We also ordered their undersea adventure airmaze for the back yard. Come on over next weekend and romp around in it with the boys....it looks like it will be lots of fun! here is what it looks like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B0000AJN2N/ref=dp_product-image-only_0/103-0502571-4927065?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=295058&s=toys That's about all for now......Hopefully I can update more frequently in the future!