U.S. History….The Constitution State.

As promised in my last post, I have some fun pictures to share of our evening with the Ericson family. Mr. Ericson (who I have been instructed to call Geof, but does anyone else find it really hard calling your former teachers by their first names?) taught me sophomore history which was U.S. History. For anyone that knows me, I really enjoy learning history, but I am really not that great at retaining it. Like I admitted to Mr. Ericson, really the only thing I remember is that Connecticut is the Constitution State.

I have tried to keep up with the teachers from my high school years that made a difference in my life, and Mr. Ericson and his wife are definitely some of those people. As a high schooler, and let’s face it, still to this day, I was a suck-up….or maybe rather, I just like helping people. I think it’s the latter, but those around me in highschool would definitely disagree. 🙂 Anyway, I would always alphabetize all of the test and quizzes for Mr. Ericson because I knew it would make life easier come time to enter grades (and it might be remembered when I finished the semester with an 89.4 or something like that). Or before mock trial practice would start (which was held in his classroom), I would enter grades into the computer. He jokingly referred to me as his secretary, and even the card his family gave me at our wedding indicated his sadness about losing his secretary to Jon.

As you can see from the pictures, it’s been a long time since I had Mr. Ericson as a teacher simply because there have been three additions to his family since I was in his class. We try to be creative when we get together with them, because I know taking kids to a restaurant can be difficult and stressful for the parents and boring for the kids, so we do fun things. One time we all went to Chuck E Cheeses, or another, we took dinner to their house and had some fun games of fooseball. This time we brought pizza to a park and played and then went to Brewsters for ice cream. Jon and their oldest son started throwing acorns at each other, and Ginger (the mom) quickly joined in. Their only daughter would collect “ammunition” for everyone, and she wasn’t really partial to either side when distributing that ammunition. I think the funniest part though was when Jon accidentally pelted some random girl with an acorn intended for their oldest son. OOPS. 🙂 The poor literally had no clue what hit her.

 

The youngest was content just chilling around. He had the greatest smile (well, all of them have super precious smiles). I love watching Jon interact with kids because sometimes I forget how great he is with them. Even that night, I was a bit worried Jon would feel like I was dragging him along or that I was going to have to encourage him to get involved with the kiddos, but he jumped right in and I think had a great time! He even took some time to swing with the youngest son. Although, that may have just been because he was tired, but either way, I really enjoyed getting to see the Ericsons and spend some time with them. I was extremely blessed that my dad made the decision to move to SC way back when so that I could go to Bob Jones. I know many have their opinions about the school, but there are truly people there that care about you. As with any institution, there are going to be “bad apples,” but thankfully, I didn’t run into any of them. I was left with great memories of many of my teachers, and I look forward to each interaction with them.

Well, I know many of you are looking for an update on the Europe trip. I will be working to organize the pictures and write-up some entries from my journal. I’ll share this little secret, IT WAS AMAZING!

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Travels

This summer I have had the privilege of traveling for work. I say privilege because due to the locations I have gotten to spend some time with some very special people in our lives. I got to go to New York to meet my newest niece Colette. I wanted to share some pics of her sweet family and my time up there. Also, I have gotten to see Grandma Sutter and Uncle John twice now this year. That has to be some sort of a record for us. I have even get to see Aunt Ruthie and some of her daughters each time. I realized I didn’t get a picture with MaraBeth and Rebecca last time, but I guess that means I just need to go back again, right? Grandma is always so sweet and generous when I visit. She knows that I carry my luggage on the plane, so she carefully picks out items that she knows I can take home. While there on my most recent trip, I got to try some of her famous Cucumber Salad and as is the custom, I got to see some deer right in her backyard. She said the most she has seen at one time is TWELVE!

I went to visit Sam, Ashley and Colette and excitingly, Ashley’s sister was delivering a new baby that weekend. So I got to meet the newest member on their side of the family. Baby Charlotte was so tiny and precious, and she had a proud big brother, Aunt, and Grandma all there to welcome her arrival.

Next time, you’ll get to hear all about our dinner and playtime with the Ericsons. Man, do I have a cute picture to share with you….guess, you’ll just have to come back to check it out. Hope you have an awesome week!

Catching up….

I just noticed that it’s been awhile since I posted something meaningful. Sorry about that. When tax deadlines roll around, it’s a bit hectic…add to that Jon travelling for work, and being all important now (did I mention he got a promotion at work….SO proud), it’s been a crazy time at the Sutter house. I have some catching up to do, so we’ll start with Camping. On Labor Day weekend, Jon and I did a first in our marriage. We went camping all by our lonesome. Our little family loaded up and headed out to Saddler’s Creek State Park. This was our fourth time camping there, but our first time alone. I checked the forecast at 3, and it was ALL CLEAR! No clouds, no percent chances of rain (I like to call this foreshadowing if you haven’t picked up on it). Well, as I mentioned, Jon has been working crazy hard, so we did not leave our house until 6:30, and the park is an hour away. Usually, that would stress me out, but this time it was just us, and we had no schedule, so it was perfect….and how couldn’t it be…Jon bought me my favorite sugar cookies as a snack.

We got to our site, and we were quickly losing daylight, so Jon and decided to break up the tasks. I put up the tent, while he made fire and got started on supper. He would periodically help me unload things once I got the tent up. Thankfully, we got the tent up JUST IN TIME. The wind started swirling, and the drops started falling. Jon quickly rushed the girls into the tent and found safety. The storm continued for about 45 minutes. Our tent was literally blowing over above us. A little unsettling at times, but it was a nice time together, and we just chilled out until the storm ended, and then ventured out for supper. I think Jon’s fire survived the storm (must have been a good one).

As you can see from the pictures, we spent the time RELAXING. We took the girls swimming. I FINALLY finished my book that Jon bought me for my birthday, and we of course played some games and slept. There’s no need to mention who won the games again this weekend…Who are we kidding, I won again at Phase 10 AND Yahtzee. How could I forget the people that we met…The campsite next to us was occupied by a couple from North Carolina who were there for a bass fishing tournament. It made me miss my cousin from Michigan, because he and his wife are into fishing in tournaments, and I know they would have loved meeting them (and of course hanging out with us). The man was very kind to Jon. One evening, they went fishing at 10pm or so after the man had been up since 3. He was teaching Jon how to try different baits and what the best techniques were. While down there, he shared a lot of his story with Jon. He was a cancer survivor (at 50 or so), and he told Jon that he would have never made it through without his wife. He said there were days that he couldn’t move, and he didn’t even have the strength to get to the mailbox. He said it was at those times that he wanted to give up, but his wife encouraged him so much to keep going that he was there that day speaking to Jon. They had been married 24 years I think when we met them. While I don’t know their spiritual background, it was definitely encouraging to hear the effect a wife can have on her husband. Obviously, I hope to never face the trials they did, but I do hope I can support Jon the same ways that woman supported her husband.

Well, on that note, I’ll sign off and leave you with some pictures. Until next week.

Been a little slow lately

So, you’ll see over my next few posts, I’m playing catch-up. There is so much to tell you and so little time. I wanted to share some sweet pictures today of the sweet dates I had yesterday for lunch. Oh how I love them, and the excitement and hugs when they first see me will NEVER get old. I miss them when I leave them….

Poor Mocha….

Packing will be my life for the next three weeks, but I can’t complain because all of the trips will have great highlights. I leave today for New Jersey (assuming the airports are back to normal). The job is a pretty fun one. I’m auditing the Company’s 401(k) plan, but the company makes eye liners for various cosmetic companies. Last year, I got to go on the plant tour to see how it works, and you would NEVER imagine how many pieces and machines it takes to create an eyeliner pencil. CRAZY! The other fun time is that I am going to be in Jon’s hometown of Piscataway. I will get to see his Grandma, aunts, and even our parents and sister. I am so excited to see some family. It makes the travel so much better when I can spend the evenings with family.

Work has been crazy busy with taxes recently. We have a corporate filing deadline in less than three weeks, so the stress level has definitely risen. Somehow, I got put on a lot of very difficult returns this year, but once they get turned in, it’s SO refreshing. Here’s to hoping the next three weeks fly by for more reasons than this one. Jon and I have had an unusual amount of free time, and I am SO thankful for it. We had been so busy that we actually scheduled a weekend where we weren’t allowed to schedule anything. So this weekend, Jon and I spent extra time together. On Friday, we were able to see the new Captain America movie. My credit card has a Buy One Get One each month if you buy your ticket on Friday, so we snagged up that deal. After we got home, Jon was cleaning out his closet of some clothes that he is going to get rid of…as you can see, we had a little too much fun. I don’t think Mocha agreed…I mean look at the picture where she gave us the stink eye.

On Saturday, Jon had to work since he’s in his second busy season. It gave me time to get the house cleaned again which we know from last week is much easier now. Thankfully, we were able to meet up for my nephew’s first competitive soccer game. It’s the first time he played in a game where they kept score and had to follow the rules of soccer. He did great, and I was so proud of him. I don’t know how he made it since it was so hot!. That evening, we used one of our Living Social deals to eat a local establishment called the Peddler. Our favorite features about the Peddler are the salad bar and the atmosphere. It’s set in this old stone building which feels like a dungeon when you walk in. If you want prime rib, they will bring it out to your table to cut it right in front of you. We were told the wait was 45 minutes, which we were fine with since I have been practicing patience. Well, the wait turned into an hour and fifteen minutes, but all was well, because we found a checkers board. Too bad for Jon, his losing streak continued, and he forfeited just in time for them to call our name. *As I write this, Jon is telling me that I must put that he would have beaten me if we had continued playing…however, I had more kings than Jon, so this statement is VERY questionable.

After supper, we took a late night stroll downtown. It reminded me of when we were dating. We would walk on the bridge and hang out in the park. I was experimenting with my camera while down there. I am not very good yet, but I do enjoy taking pictures where the shutter stays open longer grasping as much natural light as possible. They are a bit blurry, because it is a suspension bridge so even though I was still and the camera itself was still, the bridge was moving. I’ve been trying to learn the terminology and features of my camera a bit more before our big trip. Here are some pictures of what I was able to capture. I’m super excited too because I bought some photography books and a new lens this week with some money I have been saving, so I am hoping to learn a lot. Maybe I’ll share with you my practice pictures along the journey of learning…or maybe I won’t. Oh, and the house you see, Jon and I like to drive around looking at houses sometimes, and this one caught our eye…..we think it’s far out of even our dream’s price range, but we found it beautiful and unique. Hopefully, you enjoy.

Enjoying the “slow” times….

Our week started slow and surprisingly relaxing…then, it just sped up. It was so slow that I had time to keep the house clean during the week. As I was cleaning on Saturday (i.e. vacuuming, washing the sheets, dusting, etc.), and a crazy revolution… that it’s crazy how easy those tasks are when you are able to keep the house picked up during the week. Don’t get me wrong though, this week was filled with its stresses. As most of our readers know, Jon and I travel a lot, and we use our cars for most of that travel. Well, this week turned out to be car repair week, and I mean car REPAIR week…like they had to replace a tow bar on my car whatever that is, Jon got new brakes, my rotors got rotated, and other small repairs. It’s so sad to throw money into huge pieces of metal, but to counteract it, I decided to price out our insurance and it saved us about 60% of our car costs. It might sound weird to you, but I was SO thankful to recover some of the costs.  We still have to buy Jon some new tires…I was so excited to save money that I tried to win them during a raffle at a United Way even that we went to this weekend. Sadly, we lost.

Thursday was the first night of our new study. I was very humbled by what God did that night. We had 15 ladies crammed into my living room, yes, FIFTEEN. I had been joking with the ladies before this study that I had no problem buying some pews and bringing them in, so they all found it a bit humorous that I had a “back row” set up behind my couch. The first tour of the Truth Project helped us determine what is Truth and encouraged us to ask ourselves the question, “Do I really believe that what I believe is really true?” After the video we had great discussion that ultimately led into us throwing out some practical ways of learning truth. One woman mentioned that in the secret service, the men study the real money so that when they see the fake stuff, it’s obvious. The same should be the case in life. We need to study the Word so much that when a lie of the world is presented we will instantly be able to spot the Truth.

Unfortunately, Jon had to work most of the weekend, but thankfully we spent Saturday afternoon together. A few months back, we purchased a Living Social deal to rent two bikes for half a day. We finally had a moderate weather day, so we rode all the way to Travelers Rest which is 11 miles away from downtown. Man, my legs hurt! Round trip was 22 miles, but it was a great time together. Jon and I had a great time together and added some great memories to our marriage. Here are some pictures until next week….

Date night, birthdays and work…

What a week. Do they ever slow down? On Friday, Jon and I had plans to attend another United Way event, but somehow Jon and I both misread the invitation so we unexpectedly had an evening free. We had both recently heard about something called Foodie Fest. Some really fancy restaurants in Greenville are were offering an appetizer, entrée, and dessert for $30. We decided to take advantage of a restaurant that Jon has wanted to go to for three years! American Grocery…our meal included Rabbit Sausage, Tomato Salad, Duck, Steak, and fresh fruit cobbler. The neat thing about the restaurant is that absolutely everything is locally grown. It was all really good. Due to the high volume of patrons, our reservation was not until 8:30 (which is basically past any accountant’s bedtime). We did not end up getting seated until 9:15, so you can imagine that I was basically a zombie.  Before our reservation though, Jon and I played some card games downtown. Jon put up a valiant fight, but in the end, I was the master of Phase 10.

This was a Bible Study week, and we had a great group of ladies sharing about what they learned at Ladies Retreat. We are so excited to be starting our next study this week. It’s Focus on the Family’s Truth Project. I have been so blessed by our group.

Saturday brought a bunch of yard work. My mom was so gracious to come help me weed and plant some bushes. I have been trying hard to re-use items to save on our yard, so I spent the early morning digging up some monkey grass and that afternoon, my mom helped replant it around my larger flower garden. It’s really hard to see in the picture, but she re-planted them as a border to my big flower garden (doesn’t have too many flowers) since the Hostas that I planted 4 years ago never grew…well, one lonesome one did, but I did learn my lesson about buying from bulbs…sometimes instant gratification is a good thing. We also got some grass patch stuff that we are experimenting with to get our grass up to snuff. Jon has been faithfully watering and tending to it, and if it works, he’s going to fill the rest of the patches in the front yard and then move to the back which is still basically a construction zone due to last year’s patio project. Mom and I also installed some borders to the flower beds in the front yard. It’s amazing what work can get done when you aren’t at the office. 🙂

 

Well, Sunday just brought more of the same. We were able to celebrate my sister-in-law’s birthday. Dan and Isabelle came over for lunch, and we had a great time catching up with them. Somehow they live in the same city, but it’s sometimes so crazy that we don’t get to see each other for months at a time. Anyway, Isabelle has been running faithfully, and she and her sister are going to be running a half marathon this fall, so Jon and I thought we would help her stay hydrated with a new water belt. Beyond that I went to help a lady in our Bible Study unpack since she recently moved and has three little ones occupying her time. I love organizing things so it was right up my alley. My girlfriend and I were able to get the kitchen unpacked while the mom ran some errands, so I consider it a success. I came home and just did more laundry…what’s to be expected, right? Speaking of that laundry…I must get back to it. Until next week!

Falling behind….

I’m falling behind! I figure getting the memories down right now is more important than the pictures, but I PROMISE I will get back to the pictures. I do have a lot of great ones.

This week was a bit busy since I was in Atlanta for a few days, but the weekend was packed with many activities. Friday night we had all of the families over from the Bible Study that I host at our house. We had an ice cream social on the patio, and the kids got to play in the sprinkler. They were soaked, but had a great time, and I do believe that everyone enjoyed ice cream. Jon and I supplied the ice cream and everyone else brought the toppings. My chocolate ice cream with oreos, hot fudge, and gummy bears was delicious in case you were wondering. 🙂 The dogs even had a great time. The kids kept them on their toes, and they got a lot of exercise in.

Saturday morning, Jon had signed us up to serve for United Way. Originally, it was supposed to be a mile from the house and we were supposed to be gardening. If I were to be honest, I would have to tell you that I wasn’t really that interested in serving on a Saturday morning by weeding someone else’s garden when my own beds need to be weeded, but I begrudgingly went. Turns out the event was 25 miles from our house, and we would be gleaning. Yes, gleaning…like Ruth did. It was actually pretty awesome. We gleaned zucchini and squash that would be donated to local charities. In a little over an hour, we collected 1,000 pounds of vegetables that were donated to places like the Greer Soup Kitchen, Greenville Rescue Mission, Miracle Hill Children’s Home, and Shepherd’s Gate women’s shelter.

We attended a wedding of a girl that I used to play soccer with which was pretty fun. I always love weddings, because assuming it’s a Christian wedding, I take the charge to the bride and groom as a reminder for Jon and me. Satruday evening brought some much needed rest and relaxation with my awesome husband. He surprised me by making crab dip from scratch with no recipe. It was SO good.

Sunday was relatively normal with church, small group and of course, our spaghetti lunch. I left to go to Switcharoos which is a big children’s consignment sale. As usual, I had so much fun and got lots of great deals! I can’t wait to send the stuff off to the respective parents. I think buying the stuff is probably more fun than them getting it. Not sure if that’s fair to them or not, but it makes me happy. 🙂

I promise to get some pictures up this week from the last two. I know you must be faithful readers to read with no pictures. It will get better!

Camping…

Due to my long delay of not getting the pictures up with this post, I decided to post without pictures. I know blogging cardinal sin numero uno. I will catch them up next week, but I still wanted to share what we did this weekend even if I can’t show you in pictures yet. This was written in time for last Monday’s post, so don’t be confused that it talks of the week being over. J

 Another week of travel is behind me! Wouldn’t you know…I leave again Tuesday. Will it ever end?

Jon and I got home yesterday from another great camping trip. This one was very special because we took my nephew Ethan with us. It was his first time camping or fishing, and he says he had a great time! Ethan was REALLY good at casting his fishing rod which really surprised me since it was an adult rod, and he had never fished before. I was also surprised at how much he enjoyed fishing even though no one caught any fish. I would like to say the fish just weren’t biting, but in fact, they were…they were just biting people. Jon got nice little fish bite on his back.

We spent most of yesterday in the water, and Ethan’s little red cheeks would prove it. I wouldn’t trade anything for this past weekend. Jon got to go exploring and fishing, and of course we had our fair share of smores.

We came home exhausted and hot and found our upstairs air conditioning out of commission. The thermometer read 93 degrees. It looks like we may be sleeping on our air mattress a little longer. Hopefully, the home warranty company can get here early this week. Is it bad that I’m praying the unit is broken? The whole reason we have had the warranty was banking on the old units going bad, so yes, I’m crossing my fingers and toes.

 *Update: Air conditioning has a mind of its own…it keeps working, then not. We can’t have the warranty come if it happens to start working because then we have to pay, so we’re waiting it out until it dies. Last night was our first night not on the air mattress.

**Update 2: Here are some pictures on facebook. You do NOT have to have facebook to view them.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150739321395206.711564.603205205&l=da4495a3c7&type=1

HOLD FAST

This week was a blessing and a curse. A blessing…God allowed my work schedule to get adjusted, so I would not be in Atlanta. On Tuesday, I helped my sister prepare for Switcharoos, AND I got to see my nephew and niece which made the work well worth it. Switcharoos is a huge consignment sale in Greenville that I go to each year in search of clothes for friends and family. It’s so much fun, because you get a lot of stuff for a really good price.

 This past weekend, I took eight women from my Bible Study to Charlotte, North Carolina to see the amazing Beth Moore. After you see the pictures, you will think they were all crazy.  We recently finished her Living Beyond Yourself study, so seeing her was a great finale to an amazing study. Leading up to the trip, I was getting more and more discouraged in the details of the trip. It felt as though everyone had an opinion how things should be done, when we should leave, what we should do, etc. Most were supposed to be helpful comments, but my sleep deprivation, attitude, and the devil were winning at stealing my joy.

 We left Greenville at 3:30. The event did not start until 7, and we hoped to arrive by 6 since it was general admission seating. As you can imagine, the trip was going great…well, until the 7 mile backup on 85 due to the tractor trailer accident. So, since we are brilliant women, we started navigating an alternate route. Well, as you are probably guessing right now, we were stuck in another traffic jam due to construction and the other drivers who had the same idea. We arrived at the Time Warner Center at 7:15, and we sat in the worst possible seats. Imagine the nosebleed section way up high, and then imagine like three stories above that, but we could still hear! God had a great message for us for the weekend. But another awesome thing was I didn’t want to have to pay for three cars in Charlotte for the conference since our original plan was to drop one car at the apartment that we were using, but alas we didn’t have time. Would you believe, some lady was standing at the parking garage and gave one of our cars a free parking pass. It was a small gesture that meant a lot! I had never worshipped with so many women before. They said we were about 9400 strong, but it was AMAZING! We actually all kept joking about our first ever Bible Study, because we felt like it was the same kind of force against us that was there that night…but we are still going strong a year later.

I wish I could say that I quickly grew up and got over my irritations, but sadly, that wasn’t the end of the devil working on me. My girlfriend and I were together on the trip, and it has just seemed the last few weeks that we were drifting apart for some reason. I couldn’t necessarily pinpoint the reason, but it kept escalating and finally boiled over. I struggled the entire conference to listen to the messages. I was emotional as all get out with no real reason why. Somehow I got all of the notes down and still learned a lot looking back over them, but it was weird how that happened. I had to apologize to our group for being so stressed and allowing my attitude to get the best of me. They were gracious and the apology led into a great time of testimony about what this conference did for each of us. What a reward to hear that each woman needed to be at that retreat including myself. My girlfriend and I got to talk and make EVERYTHING wonderful. Restoration and growth were achieved this weekend which to me means the retreat was a success in spite of all of the trials. I also was able to deepen some relationships and build new ones with some amazing women. It still amazing how God has brought people back into my life from high school that I never hung out with previously.

However, in spite of all of my attitude problems, traffic jams, and melted cupcakes (Sorry again Carissa), we got to have a great time together. Did you know grown women like to stay up until 2am to talk? Yes, we had our own version of a slumber party. I would also be awful if I didn’t thank Courtney’s sister-in-law for coordinating free lodging for us. Who says you can’t cram 9 women into a one bedroom apartment….what you can’t do though is use only one bathroom…now, that was a challenge. I also need to thank Courtney’s brother and sister-in-law for hosting us for breakfast on Sunday. Take a look at the pictures…Keith made an amazing spread for us, and we were incredibly grateful.

Some of you may be wondering what Jon does all the time while I’m away. He suffers let me tell you. If you noticed yesterday’s post, that was him wake boarding. He went out on the lake for five hours on Friday with his co-worker, and he went jet skiing on Tuesday while I helped Becki with the Switcharoos stuff. On Sunday after church, he even went golfing in 104 degree weather with some of his friends. His life hasn’t been too bad, but according to him, he missed me, so I’m fine if he fills his time with fun things until I return.

This is getting longer than I intended, but I wanted to share with you what Beth shared with us. She based most of her message around Deuteronomy, but she created an acrostic for us to remember why we should HOLD FAST to God.
His affection is set upon me.
Only He is my praise.
Loving Him awakens my true heart.
Doing His will does me good.
Fleeing to Him means fleeing with Him.
Any tighter embrace will also replace.
Satan wants what we have.
The Lord is my life.

H.O.L.D.F.A.S.T. God has sent His love upon me.