The heat is making Ryan crazy

Ryan and I haven't had AC in our house since Thursday afternoon. Let me tell you. IT. IS. HOT. I'm sweating as I'm sitting here typing this. We didn't sleep much last night, and it was way too hot to sleep in this morning, so when we woke up, I somehow convinced Ryan to go garage saleing with me. (The heat must have made him a little delirious!)

I have been looking for something to fill up the empty space in the back of our living room for awhile now. I've been trying to find a sofa table type thing to go along the back wall on the cheap. Well, today, we drove through Fairfield (the neighborhood I grew up in) and noticed that there was a garage sale in the court across from my parents house! I actually knew the family that was having the garage sale. I grew up with their daughter and actually got to see her and talk with her too. Anyway, we walked in and saw the potential in this cute little beat up dresser...


The best part? It only cost $15. We were sold. So, this afternoon, Ryan and I went to Home Depot with some of our leftover wedding gift cards to buy some paint and some hardware to fix it up. We picked out the color "Red Velvet" hoping it would be similar to the color that was already on it. When we started painting it on tonight, we discovered it's more like "Pink Velvet." We're going to give it a chance to dry and look at it again before we decide if we need to head back to Home Depot for round 2...

We'll keep you updated on the finished product! We need something to do to take our mind off this heat!

Back to School

On Monday, I will be sending my boy off to school...to get his masters! Ryan has been accepted into the Master's Program at Old Dominion University and will start classes this semester. I am so proud of him! It will definitely be a big change to the life we've gotten used to. Between his classes/school work and youth group/church activities, we're going to have to be really intentional about spending time together, but I know it's going to be so worth it in the end. He'll be in the program for the next 2-2 1/2 years.

Speaking of school, Ryan and I are going on a mini vacation on Labor Day weekend to visit both Averett and VMI. I am excited to get to show him around my alma mater and the city of Danville. Those places hold some very special memories for me! I'm really excited to get to see VMI as well. We'll be going there on Saturday, so we'll get to see a parade too!

I hope to post a couple Disney pictures to the blog soon. We had a really great trip!

Happy One Year Anniversary!

Ryan,

One year ago today, we started our new life together. It was so exciting knowing that that was just the beginning of what God had in store. I have never felt more confident about anything than I did when I married you. You are God's perfect match for me and I'm so thankful that He saw it fit to bring us together.

I have loved this last year of getting to know you, spending time together, learning together and enjoying each other. We have made so many memories in our first year that I will always cherish.

- our first townhouse
- fitting all my junk personal belongings into our first townhouse
- our honeymoon in Riviera Maya, Mexico
- coming back to reality from Mexico
- opening all our incredible wedding gifts!
- learning how to become the domestic housewife that I am! :)
- Homearama and dreaming
- "Chad" for Halloween
- 2 Thanksgivings - Williamsburg & Smithfield
- sleeping tossing and turning on a crappy mattress
- our miserable for you/fun for me trip to New York City at Christmas
- Christmas with our families
- the leaks in our ceiling
- your birthday
- Valentine's Day - dinner at Shula's, Fireproof and red velvet cupcakes!
- returning our terrible mattress for a just as terrible one
- bull riding and vertigo
- dying Easter eggs
- planting a garden and trying to make flowers grow in our flower bed "pools"
- my birthday and your amazing "cake story"
- WICKED!
- camping with your family
- M-Fuge Philly
- beach days
- still not sleeping on a terrible mattress
- Dave Barnes concert
- eating out A LOT
- life with our Boo Bear
- serving with Capernaum
- ministering to our students (it seemed that was most of what we did our first year!)
- enjoying every minute of it all!

What a year it's been! God has blessed us so much in our first year of marriage. I know He has some incredible things in store for us and I look forward to traveling this road together.

Thank you for loving me, encouraging me, uplifting me, laughing with me, playing with me, eating with me, caring for me, standing by me, being lazy with me, dreaming with me, praying for me and living life with me. I thank God that I get to spend forever with you.

Love,
Beth

Guess what?!?

Ryan and I...

are going to be an aunt and uncle!!!

Amy and Dave are expecting in April 2010!

Hooray!

Gotta start building up my stash of gum!

The Happiest Place on Earth!

Wow! So, maintaining a blog is harder than I thought! Summer has been in full swing for us. Actually, more like full throttle! We kicked off our summer ministry with a School's Out Party in June and haven't stopped since. We recently took our students to M-Fuge in Philadelphia for a week. It was so great to get to go back to Philly and stay on Eastern's campus and to visit some of my old sites. I have so many incredible memories from my summer working there. We had a great week with our students and the Lord did some pretty incredible things in their lives while we were there.

We've also been taking our students to the beach every week and having Wednesday night Bible studies. We have had a full, non-stop calendar since the beginning of June!

A break is in sight though! Ryan and I are getting ready to celebrate our first wedding anniversary on August 16th! We're going to get away to the happiest place on earth...DISNEY WORLD!


We leave in 11 days and I'm so excited to spend a whole week away, just the two of us. Disney World is one of my very favorite places and I'm so glad that we get to experience it together...before kids! (Not that that's happening anytime soon, thank you!)

We're also going to get to go down to Punta Gorda and see Ryan's grandfather and spend a day or so with him. We will be driving, so there will be PLENTY of time spent together. I already told Ryan that I'm going to download every Disney song there is onto my iPod so I can sing them ALL the way to Florida.

He's going to LOVE it.