Yesterday (Sept. 29) was Aaron's birthday. We are thankful for his life! It was his first birthday as a married man, so I did my best to take care of him. He had a cookie cake at work his his co-workers, went to our 9 year old neighbor's first football game, ate hoagies at the Moody's house, and then celebrated with cake and balloons at the Fernandez house. He got money for new running shoes, a weighted leather jump rope, a gift card to Home Depot, a wet-dry vac, a membership to the YMCA, and lots of cards. He said it was the most birthday cards he'd ever gotten! Thank you to everyone who called and sent a card. We are grateful to have such thoughtful family and friends. We are still celebrating this weekend...tomorrow we are going to have a movie marathon in the living room and go to the Outback for a romantic dinner.

It's great that both husband and wife agree on the best kind of cake...
Marcela was so sweet to provide the birthday dinner!
Some of our other neighbors came to eat cake (and wish him a happy birthday).


















I made this giant card and got all my kids to sign it for Mr. Fernandez.

































Eating cake at our house. We lit the candles and everyone sang...it was a beautiful harmony :)
We are enjoying Dominick's new camera smile.
















He couldn't wait to get it open and put it together! In fact, this morning when I woke up it was in the living room with the box and all the parts spread out on the floor.

One of my most enthusiastic students had his last day in my class after only 3 weeks of school. His name is Yash (pronounced Yush) and he is from India. He moved to another town in south Georgia. I was sad to see him go. When we were getting to know each other at the beginning of the year, he would always say that his favorite thing to do was to take tests. He kept the class upbeat!

The weekend of September 3-4 we traveled to Atlanta (3 hours for us) to meet the Fernandez family for an Atlanta Braves baseball game. Neither of us had ever been to a major league game, so it was an exciting experience. Friday night we ate in downtown Atlanta (after making several circles to find a parking place). It was a nice place but the lighting was so low that the waiter had to get a flashlight out for us when we ordered. Saturday after breakfast we went our separate ways- some to the pool to relax and burn our noses, some to the mall to buy new pants for work, and some to Turner Field to check out the driving directions. We enjoyed the Olive Garden on Saturday evening, as we celebrated Mike's and Angie's birthdays. The Braves played a great game and won, which gave us even more to yell about. Here are some pictures of that weekend. Thanks for meeting with us, Fernandez family!

This is our group! Can you believe how tall Abigail has gotten? And then I remember, "oh yeah, it's been 5 months since we have seen them!"
It was a good game. The stadium was especially impressive.
We've got a fan in the family! Sorry that it's sideways. I haven't figured out how to rotate yet.
Peepaw is concentrating. Thank you for coming, Peepaw!
These girls...always buddies!


Happy Birthday Mike! And this couple also had an anniversary on the 16th of this month. Congratulations :)
Happy Birthday Aunt Angie! It was great to see your family again.
Happy to be eating at an Olive Garden- we do not take it for granted.
Shopping on Saturday- we got Mike an MP3 player.
Dinner Friday night...Aaron is taking the picture.
We had to have two tables- we couldn't stand to see Caleb like this anymore so we squeezed him in at the grown-ups table.

We're back! We owe you an apology for skipping out on so many weeks after we started this blog. It was just bad timing- I started my new job and was very busy very fast. I haven't had a lot of time to take a breath and catch up on this website! We didn't have school yesterday or today, and so I'm enjoying the time to do things that I've been wanting to do. Sleep, write notes, email, have lunch with friends from church, cook for my husband, and add to our website! I've also been planning for Aaron's birthday (which is this Thursday...two more days!).
Please forgive us for our neglect. We'll try harder to be consistent now that things are settling down at school.
This is my sorry face...