God loves his pumpkins...

I received this email and I thought it was cute....

"A woman was asked by a co-worker, 'What is it like to be a Christian?' The co-worker replied, 'It is like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you. Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, greed. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see."

May your light shine to everyone around you! Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Part of the group....

I am officially now part of the TUBE SOCK TUESDAY group at the YMCA! 

Update...

I am very pleased to report that Maverick is doing fabulous! I am in awe as to how he is doing but not surprised since I truly believe that God is bigger than any tumor that he was diagnosed with! The road ahead is still unknown, but for now Maverick is not only acting more like himself, he is now playing ball and wrestling around with his cousins (which he didn't always do BEFORE he became symptomatic)! As hard as it was to hear that he has a massive tumor, I have come to see the blessings in it all. My schedule is very crazy and all over the place and it has always been hard for me to take time out of my day to spend with my 'boys'.  After I was told that something was wrong with Maverick it made me prioritize myself a little bit better and I vowed to enjoy the time I have left with him, whether it be 6 weeks or another 6 years. All of a sudden I found 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there and am now on a committed schedule of walking the boys 3x a day. I am ashamed to say that I have never walked my boys this often! I was always too busy or didn't feel up to it and now our 3 walks are the best few minutes in my day. Maverick is super excited to get out on our walks and Grahamy is too cute as his little feet try to keep up with us. 

It is often said that sometimes we don't know what we have until we lose it. Let me encourage all of you to throw that life lesson out the window. Enjoy the things you have been given and the people you have in your life because unfortunately, life is way too short to take anything or anyone for granted. And, heck, take a walk! Because even as crazy as life gets, you can always find 10 minutes out of your day if you really wanted to. 

TOOO FUNNY!!!

I believe I have mentioned it somewhere in an earlier blog, but our neighbor Brandon LOVES Marble Slab ice cream. However, out of the 7 of us (the Whitsbury Court crew) that normally hang out together on a regular basis, he is the ONLY one who prefers Marble Slab (we all like Coldstone or Bruster's, a local favorite). 

On Friday night the most exciting thing happened....Chipotle FINALLY opened up here in Jacksonville! So, the crew got together and made a trip out to the blessed hot spot. After eating food from heaven's buffet, we decided that we would then make an ice cream trip. Since Brandon was alone for the weekend (Stephanie is out of town at a wedding) we decided we would humor him and go to Marble Slab (mind you, we make fun of him, Marble Slab and the so-called ice cream of this place on a very regular basis). 

We headed over and as we rounded the corner we noticed that the lights were out! It was only 9 p.m.! Yep, turns out Marble Slab had been officially shut down and there was a STORE FOR LEASE sign attached to the window. We felt so bad for Brandon, yet it did not stop us from roaring in laughter and taking pictures! We could not have planned it better! We love you Brandon...just not Marble Slab ice cream!!!

Another State Plate

Well, I finally had to do it. I could not put it off any longer. I was very sad to take off my Arizona plate but went ahead and replaced it recently with a Florida plate on my jeep! The picture proves it is official! And, just today I took the words off the back of my jeep that advertised my Cards that BRIGHTEN your day! business! It was time to take that off as well due to the Frannie's name change!

HELLO!!!

Wow...I didn't realize how long it had been since I had blogged! A lot has been going on and it has been a crazy busy week. The YFL has me in the gym working out more (the challenges are kicking my butt!), wedding plans are still underway (6 more weeks!!), and I am busy with work and card order (praise God!). AND, the biggest news is that Maverick had his follow-up appointment this week and the vet was sooo pleased at how he is doing! He has been responding incredibly well to the medications and has been so much more alert and himself the past couple of weeks. We have been walking 3x a day and just this afternoon he was playing with the other boys! It had been so heartbreaking to watch him lay around in pain and now it has been so wonderful to see him 'come alive' again. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Mave! We still have quite a road ahead of us. We are still not sure what the prognosis is but we are taking it one day at a time and are thanking God that he has been showing improvement!

It's GAME TIME!!!

As most of you know, I work and teach classes at the local YMCA. I love it, not just teaching and being there, but I love the people. It is such a fun place to be! We have a blast being at the gym and we consider our facility to be the "Cheers" of all gyms...where you want to be because 'everyone knows your name'. 

Just this past week YFL started. YFL stands for the YMCA football league and for those participants, they form teams of four and compete against other teams. The gain 'yardage' for all of the workouts they do and weekly challenges they endure, both mentally and physically. I gotta tell you....I have never met soooo many competitive adults!!! It is crazy! But it is very fun to watch and awesome to have the gym packed with people getting into get their yardage every day for their team. 

Not only do we host fun events to get people excited about working out, the members make everything more fun as well! One guy brought in tube socks for a lot of the people that work out on Tuesday morning and it is now coined TUBE SOCK TUESDAY! I am not in the picture above because I did not get my tube socks until today! So, starting next Tuesday, I am in the tube sock group and am very excited and will be proud to wear my white and pink tube socks to the YMCA.