Happy Monday!

This morning was extremely hard to get out of bed! This is Stephen’s last week at his current position so the motivation to get there is at an all time low. I think I literally kicked him out of the bed this morning. I was so enjoying the fact that the dog was at the vets this morning. We decided to board Liberty, our 6 month old puppy, this weekend so that I could take a weekend off. And boy was it nice. She is part lab and part monster. No, really she is going to be a great dog… she is just struggling with A.D.D. right now (Annoyingly Destructive Dog Disorder). She just loves to get into everything, and I mean everything. What I enjoyed the most this weekend was the sleep. You see, Liberty is a morning dog. Every morning without fail she whines until I let her out – so no sleeping in for me. All Stephen has to do is stick his good ear in the pillow and he goes right on sleeping. (The whole being deaf in one ear seems to be a little too convenient at times like this.) I guess this is just one way God is preparing me for children… but then instead of dropping them off at the vet we will be dropping them off at their grandparent’s house. Ha!


We had a successful birthday week for Stephen! He actually said that this was the best birthday that he has ever had. I take full credit for this, but as I think about it- I think he may just be saying that so that I won’t have another one of my emotional explosions… and probably a smart choice on his part. Thursday night (his actual birthday) we went to Ranchman’s for dinner, one of his new favorite spots. He got to enjoy some yummy mountain oysters or calf fries… if you know what these are you will never try them (I did not) but apparently Stephen loves them. (Yuck!) And we found out that some soap is made from cow fat… seriously! That puts an entire new spin on clean!













It was another fun family weekend! Friday night started it off with the celebration of Tiffany’s birthday. And she got the neatest gift, a cricut (pronounced cricket, not cry-cut) machine, which I am hoping that she will be willing to share with her loving sister-in-law. Saturday morning started off with dropping the dog off at the vet… this was the top priority of the day! Then we headed on to John Austin’s baseball game. Which they won! It was a great game and probably the closest one that they have had all season.
Saturday we enjoyed going to the Pumpkin Patch in Flower Mound! Some of those pumpkins were huge! We took a hay ride and got some kettle corn. Scratch that we got a ton of kettle corn. If you know the John Stephen Stadlers of this world, you know that they don’t do anything in moderation! And two of them together is quite the experience… but I love them both so much! That night we went to church, which was a great message that I needed. We leave every weekend thinking… I wish one weekend I wouldn’t feel like he was speaking right to me… but that has not happened yet- and for good reason.















Sunday we had some people over and grilled out. Unfortunately, I did not get one single picture. So you will have to use your imagination… Lots of family, lots of food, lots of fun… can’t you just picture it? We then ended the day by cuddling on the couch watching The Unit (this is actually one of the military shows that I enjoy).

It was a great weekend, but sadly marked the “I only have two weeks left with my husband before he leaves” weekend. I should be saying “I only have 54 weeks until my husband is back home weekend.” Positive thinking – see I told you that I was working on getting myself under control. Actually, God is working on that, but I sure do interfere with it quite often.

Praise the Lord for Birthdays (again)! Praise the Lord for family and friends! Praise the Lord for pumpkins! And Praise the Lord for the Roanoke Animal Hospital!