Losing a friend

Yesterday we got bad news. Shanes friend Dan had fell off of his boat while working in Texas and had not resurfaced. It happened around 8pm Sunday night and rescuers had searched until Midnight for him with no luck. Monday around 9:45am they found him.




There are no words to describe how sad this is. Dans mother passed away last year from cancer and it was a very hard struggle for their family to get through the pain of losing her.
Dan was a great guy. I had only been around him a handful of times but everyone always had a story to tell about him. He was a great father, brother, son, husband and friend. He will be greatly missed.





Last year I had the great opportunity to take family pictures of the Parkers. Being around them all was so inspiring. This was a family going through something I hope I never have to experience. Ann had cancer and they werent expected her to live very much longer. I had only met Ann a few times and I felt like I had known her my whole life. She was an amazing woman. The thing that sticks in my head the most is that even though Ann knew she didnt have long to live, she never gave up hope. She had a shirt on that said "Never give up hope."
The Parkers have been through so much and have grown with each other along the way. They are very strong people to have endured the pain of loosing two very special links in their family chain within the past year and a half. It wont be an easy time to get through but as Ann would say - "Never give up hope."







There was a very powerful quote on Amy Parkers blog: "You cant put a question mark where God put a period". This is so true.

I hope that Dans girls grow up knowing how special Dan was. He loved them more than anything and you could tell just by how he was with them.



"How lucky we are to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard"

And for every yellow belly drank - it will be drank for you my friend...

Our Wedding Party

My mom, grandma and aunt threw a wedding party for Shane and I yesterday. Besides it being HOT, it turned out nice. Brody helped us cut the cake and he fed it to us. He was nice to me but got it all over his dad. I got him back though. We had a good time.

Thanks to everyone who came.

Angelle

We were able to watch my cousin last night for a few hours while her parents went to the movies! I just love watching her. She is such a girl and little girls are SOOO super cute! Especially Angelle. She loves to dance, giggle, chase the dog, tease Brody and give loves. We had so much fun and I think she did to. Her and Brody played cars,ball and chased Bailey.

Brodys Fort

We recently moved. We are renting a house from a friend at work. Its a cute house, were just trying to find room for all our stuff. You dont realize how much you have till you move, thats for sure!!
Anyways, when we moved in, they left a playset for us in the backyard. We set it up and cleaned it off and Brody LOVES it. Its his fort. When him and Bailey are playing in the backyard he runs and jumps on his fort so that she cant get him. He climbs on it like a monkey.











When we were little Kayla had a playset exactly like this. She loved playing on hers as much as Brody loves his. Plus it has a green side - his favorite color!!

Slip n Slide

Brody has water day at school every friday and he wanted to have water day at home. So, I told him if he was good at school I would have a surprise for him when we got home today. So, we got a slip n slide. It was so much fun but the water was super cold!! We only played for about half an hour. Bailey even wanted in on the action.

We had lots of fun!!







Brody liked to lick the water off the boogie board



Bailey watching the water







Miss Bailey


She likes to keep her eye on Brody... hes always up to something

4th of July and Brodys first fish!

We had a lot of fun on the 4th of July weekend. We went and and stayed with Cody and Vanessa. Cody took all of us fishing and we had a blast! Brody caught his first fish. He thought it was so cool and he was super excited! So was I.




We also went to Grandma and Grandpa Hickmans house down at the ranch. Grandpa had a box full of saw dust and he hid $30.00 in change and a bunch of candy in it for the kids to dig through. Brody thought this was so cool. Brody and Emma were excited to find all the candy.



It was as so cute seeing the two of them eat watermelon with each other. Aunt Mary was trying to teach Emma to spit the seads out and she tried but spit everything out of her mouth when she did it. Brody was trying to show her the right way to do it and it was funny.



We all had a lot of fun!

Lazy Saturday

We were so glad that today was Saturday. No waking up early, no working... just relaxing. And that we did. Brody didnt even get out of his PJ's all day. We played, took a nap and cleaned up a little. Finally at about 5 I went to Verizon and got new phones for Shane and I. We needed them. Our old ones were about to take a dive. So, the phone I got allows me to publish posts to my blog!! Im so excited about that... I just have to figure out how to get that to work.

Anyways, Brody and Bailey are doing so good together. She is a great puppy. She has had a few accident but on the tile so thats nice AND she loves her kennel. At night if she has to go, she pees on her training pads that I put in there and in the morning I just throw those away and all is good. So, Im pretty excited. Were trying to teach her to get her to fetch and "give" and it seems like shell catch on pretty well with more training.

Tomorrow we have a lot of work to do. Shanes going to mow the yard and I have more unboxing to do. I told Brody if it wasnt raining (like today) that I would blow his pool up and we could go swimming. So, hopefully well be able to do that.

Well, Brodys sleeping, shanes watching tv and Im ready for bed so Ill talk to you later.
Amie