On Sunday we invited a family from our church and a family that I work with in Vinton over to our home for lunch and to the Salem Avalanche baseball game. We had a blast! There were 11 people in the house...the most we've had so far in here, but it worked well. We learned a lot about Liberia and Togo, the countries that these families are from. I think they were happy to meet each other. It was a great afternoon!

1. You get to clean the house thoroughly.
2. You get to work in the yard:

3. You get to have lunch with a great friend (Carissa and I went to Olive Garden today).

4. You get to see your youngest brother go to prom with a really sweet girl (Caitlin):

This weekend we went to NC again! It was our 4th trip in 5 weeks. We are glad to go, though. On Friday we left in the early afternoon for Fayetteville. We met Aaron's family there at PeePaw's house. Uncle Tom's family also came that night and we had a big pizza dinner. We celebrated Ben's birthday since he will be in Iraq on June 15. On Saturday we hung out together until a big lunch, for which Aunt Julie, Casey, Johnny, and Emma joined us. It was a big party! We were glad to spend some time with family.

Happy Birthday, Ben (on June 15)!

We played outside a lot yesterday.

Aunt Julie with her grandbaby Emma.

We will miss you, Ben! Come back safely!

We couldn't hold that pretty pose for very long.

On Thursday afternoon Aaron called me to let me know that we were having dinner that night with Uncle Charles and Aunt Angie and their crew. What a pleasant surprise! They were passing through Roanoke on their way to Maryland for Angie's sister's house. We met over in the Valley View Mall area to eat at Smokey Bones. They are an encouraging family.

Uncle Charles, Caitlin (12), Angie, Abby (8), and Caleb (almost 16)

They called us again this afternoon (Sunday) to have dinner with them again tonight on their way back to Greensboro. It was a treat. Uncle Charles (you may remember that he married us) had great insight for us on diversity within a church.

Last week was Spring Break for me and I didn't have to work. I ended up working, though, at the house- from morning to night every day. I wanted to redo the upstairs guest room. It was the last room in the house for us to do. It was a nightmare! Here's what happened:

Nothing against lighthouses, we just had something else less thematical in mind.
That wallpaper border had to go! I started on Sunday night, and by Tuesday morning I was in tears. There was no way I could get it off myself.So I called in some help! This woman came in at last minute's notice and used all kinds of special machines to get it off. Even she said it was really stuck on there. She was a great encouragement to me. As soon as they left on Tuesday afternoon, I got down to business. I painted all the trim, including two doors (from light brown to white). By Wednesday morning I was ready to paint.But, another problem! I hated the colors! I thought I could pick out two shades side-by-side on the swatch, but it turned out way too bright. Needless to say, I was disheartened by Wednesday night.

You can see on the bottom I put wallpaper up (Tuesday night). It's the kind you can paint (Thanks for the idea, Kristen!). I only did one wall because it was taking so long- we just call it an accent wall and move on.