WOW!

Time has certainly made an escape here! End of summer, 1st days of school, football season, birthdays, new jobs, new classes... there is SO much going on in this house its crazy! And I am not only talking of the good CRAZY! I am going to catch everyone up REALLY fast! so pay attention.
First Day of school for Candice and Clayton. One starting Kindergarten, the other in 3rd grade! Candice loves school, Clayton knows its a necessity. Candice's personality is RADIATING out of her! She is definitely her own person. I am so glad for that! If there is something I want my kids to be it is true to themselves, REAL! Here are a few pictures from the first day!

I entered a contest for our area Christian radio station 106.9 The Light. My favorite radio station because it has GREAT preaching all morning long by fantastic preachers, such as Greg Laurie, Chip Ingram, Chuck Swindoll, David Jeremiah, etc. and the afternoon is filled with uplifting music! Anyway, they had a FB contest for 1st day of school pictures. I entered the above picture of Clayton and Candice together and I WON!! And not only did I win, but I won some great prizes! In the mail I received a T-shirt, some pens, paper with logo, a book from Extraordinary Women AND a Francesca Battistelli CD! It was a nice surprise!

Jacob and I are taking Financial Peace University! We want to live like noone else so we can LIVE like noone else! So far we are learning so much. Dave Ramsey is 100% against all social standards when it comes to money, BUT he has been at the bottom and now at the top and is teaching how you can have HOPE with your finances and NOT owe ANYONE a dime in the process. Right now we are 3 debts away from owing anyone a dime! How sweet is that!? The debts we have left are our van, which has the potential of being paid off in the next 6 months if we can sell our car, Jacob's school loan, and our house. And in that order they will be snowballed out of our lives. After that I hope to save enough money to put an addition on our house and pay cash and not refinance our house. If you don't know about this Financial Peace program, check it out. Look for it in your area by clicking on CLASSES and go and then put it into practice. BEST decision money wise....EVER!

We took our kids on a field trip to Hiddenite Gem Mines. If you ever visit our area this is something worth doing with your family! Lots of fun, and very rewarding! We found lots of different gems, Hiddenite, Jasper, Agate, Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby. ANYTHING you find you are allowed to keep! Some of them are of a significant size, but getting them cut costs some money so we just have them here for now. We panned in the creek instead of down underground as that would not be practical with small kids. I would like to go back and try that sometime with Jacob though! Looks like fun! I only got a few pictures since (BIG SURPRISE) stupid camera battery died on me!

To Be Continued...kids are gonna wake up soon! :)