Recently in Family Category
Women's Retreat- OVER. It was great. A wonderful time was had by all, or at least it seemed that way. Buffy was AWESOME!
Advent Devotional Guide for Kids- In progress, we have a great group working on it, there will be room to improve, but for the first year, I think it is going to be great.
VBS- We've started talking... June 20-24
House- Still a disaster, but thanks to hardworking dads (mine, his, and him) it is coming along and we hope to be in within the month.
Thanksgiving- Ben and Jessica are coming. It makes the totally ridiculous holiday that Thanksgiving is, a little more bearable. I mean really we celebrate Pilgrims and Indians getting along... what about a few years later when the white people were doling out blankets they infested with small pox?!?!? Whatever, I'll suck it up and eat turkey and candied yams in peace.
Christmas- We are headed out west... I am beside myself in excitement. I LOVE GOING HOME! And we are having a girls excursion to the Nutcracker, so that is going to be great; Halleigh is especially excited about this.
Family- My dad was here last weekend, Ben is here this weekend, my mom will be here then the next two weekends and then that Wednesday we are leaving... So between now and Jan 5th, I'll see someone in my family every weekend. YAY!
I didn't know what I wanted to do as a memorial for Kona on the blog. As a journal of sorts of our life, I felt like something had to be said. But what do you say?
She was a one of a kind dog. There has never and will never again be a dog just like Kona. She was exactly what we needed in our life when we got her.
She was named after Kona Coffee Beans, we went on our honeymoon to Hawaii and fell in love with Kona coffee, and so it seemed fitting that our brown and black dog be named Kona Bean.
She has been a constant companion of Miles and I for pretty much our whole marriage. She has been all over the country and has experienced things that dogs rarely get to do. Snowshoeing in Montana, backpacking through Utah, swimming in Key West, visiting our nation's capitol, being the mascot for a middle school youth group, traveling across the country in the front seat of a Honda Civic, camping in Yellowstone, swimming in the boiling river, Snake, Logan, Maddison, Gallatain, Yellowstone, Bull Run, and Eno rivers (the girl liked to swim) and the list goes on and on.
I tearfully went through hundreds of pictures that we have of our beloved Kona, and here are a few that I love.
She was our fluffy muppet, our western big-eared dog and we loved her more than we can put into words. She truly was part of our family and we all feel the hole that she left. We gave her the best life that we could, and hope that she knew to her last breath that she was cherished.
What is this, 19 years?
Ya'll are OLD!
Today is my dad's birthday. My dad is great, I really like him.
I know that everyone has to say this, at least on a genetic level, but I wouldn't be the person that I am and have the life that I do without him. In more ways than he or I even know, he has been the most influential person in my life. Not growing up with him around everyday, or even every month made me cherish the time that I had with him even more.
He is honest and expects the absolute truth from everyone. He has forced me to learn how to communicate well, no matter how stubborn I am or painful the situation may be. He loves Jesus and has passed that love onto his children, even though it took some of us longer than others to replicate. ;) He LOVES his kids and his grandkids and they love, love, LOVE DaddyO. Even though he made mistakes... he has taught me through his relationship with Taryn, what a great Christ-centered marriage looks like. And he is hilarious! What more could a girl want from a dad? Maybe a giant trust fund, that would be good. Maybe you could work on that, dad.
Francesca's was closing early for special holiday hours, so tonight, Kelly and I went to a new eatery in downtown called the Beyu Caffe (pronounced Bee-You) for our weekly coffee outing.
It was GREAT! If you are looking for a totally hip new Durham-loving hang out, this is it! It isn't a study spot and I think they may frown on that; sorry Dook students. And they probably would not appreciate the local go club meeting there, either. So if either of those is your thing, please continue to patronize Francesca's. It's a great place, too!
Beyu serves dinner, but they are happy to serve just coffee drinkers, too. There are couches in a lounge area and there are more traditional cafe tables and chairs surrounding that. The coffee was good; Kelly and I both had stylish minty coffee drinks.
While we were there they turned down the lighting, which is something that I thought would make for better evening ambiance.
Besides the great coffee, my favorite thing about the place was the giant (long) panoramic picture of the downtown Durham. It is worth going in just to see that photograph, which Kelly said I probably could buy for $1000. :) maybe not.
Sorry Francesca's, you really are great, it's just I think we found our new coffee date location. Really it's me, not you... can we still be friends?
Note: The downside to Beyu being our late night coffee spot is that there is not a lot of great parking. Two girls walking around downtown late at night kind of freaks us out... we'll see. Really what we will have to do is plan on parking near each other and walking to our cars together, problem solved!
