Whew!

It seems as though more and more people are blogging to keep people updated on the day to day happenings of their lives so I figured, "Why not join them?!" With so many people bogged down with their own responsibilities, commitments or whatever else there is that takes up our time, I figured this would be a neat way to keep people updated on our family. So thanks to Erin for sharing your blog with me and for creating an easy avenue for me to do the same thing.

As stated in the name of my blog, we are always busy, busy, busy. It's not intentional but just how life is for us. I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my inability to remain still for long so I take some responsibility there.

Tony is working very hard at Garber Chevrolet, where he's been since he was in High School. He's moved through ranks and departments and for now has cemented himself in the Paint Shop as the Head Painter there. Through a lot of research and talking with the right people, he helped the Paint Shop "Go Green" recently with paint. Granted, I don't really know what I'm talking about but they've gone from solvent based color to water base now. I know it's better on the environment, better for Tony's health since he's dealing with chemicals all day long and produces a much better finish on the vehicles. Besides work, Tony has been working on restoring a 1938 Chevrolet. He doesn't get nearly as much time as he'd like to work on the car thanks to our busy schedules and two little girls at home, but he is inching closer and closer to completion. Hopefully by this time next year, we'll be driving the car to shows and around town instead of just talking about it.

Emily just recently celebrated her 6th birthday and the thought of that is still a shock to me. Where has the time gone?! She had in her mind that she wanted to have her party at our house and have it be a pool party. So that's what we did. We invited the family over and a few friends on a great Saturday afternoon and had a great time visiting, eating cake & playing. Emily also recently lost her 2nd tooth already! She also started a "Jump into Kindergarten" program today. This is an educational study done by a local agency that studies and prepares children who are registered for kindergarten in the fall. What's nice is that Eastlawn is the host school for this and Eastlawn is the elementary school that Emily will be attending in the fall. She had a terrific time today and has already begun to make friends. I can't wait to see what the new school year will be like. What's funny is that her teacher and the paraprofessionals who will help in her class are all wonderful women that I had when I went to Eastlawn back in the day. Hopefully her teachers will see her as a blessing and not a curse having already had her mommy in their class!

Maddie is just Maddie, our little Tigger. She is a bundle of non stop energy that just goes and goes and goes. She celebrated her 4th birthday back in May and has been a lot of fun to watch grow. She wants so badly to be just like Emily and do things just like her. She went to preschool last year in a 3 yr. old program and absolutely cannot wait for the 4 yr. old program to begin in September. She will be with the same teacher she had last year and will also get to be in the same class as my nephew, Nicholas as well as two boys from our surrogate family (the Bergs), Colin and Daniel. If I'm not mistaken, there might also be a York cousin in that class too! Watch out!

I'm staying busy with working for Rich Purvis at RE/MAX of Midland and enjoying that very much. I've said it from the very beginning that God has blessed me with this job and I don't deny that EVER. Rich is a wonderful person to work for because he understands how important my family is to me and he also supports my adventure going back to school at Delta to pursue a degree in Nursing. I've been blessed there as well to have the support of everyone in this adventure. I completed all of my basics when I went to school right after graduating High School, so now I'm taking the last of my required classes before heading into clinicals. It's quite a challenge balancing everything but thankfully I've got just about the best support system there is to make this is success. I'm looking forward to one day finishing this and being able to be proud of myself for the accomplishment as well as doing what I feel I'm called to do by helping others.

I think that's pretty much caught you up to date on our lives if you haven't been caught up already. This has been a packed summer for us with little weekend getaways to Silver Lake Sand Dunes and camping trips. We're gearing up for our last camping trip of the summer for this weekend. We're heading to Clear Lake State Park in Atlanta, MI which is in the northern portion of the Lower Peninsula. We'll be going with my mom and her husband, Rich as well as my sister, her husband and two boys. It should be a fun time!

If, for some reason, the day to day happenings of our lives interests you, stop back and stay caught up! And by all means, fill us in on your lives too! I always love to know how people are doing and staying in touch.