Amy J. Bennett

How do I put two weeks worth of a visits to Vegas, Disney and an island stay in one post?  Well, I don’t.  I didn’t really mean to make all two weeks of our summer vacation into a big blog break.  In fact, I thought without work and any real schedule to follow that I would have tons of time to do what I love but it turns out we were always busy doing something, even if it was doing nothing beside some sort of body of water.

So I just wanted to say hi and say that we’re back.  And I can’t help it, I’ll leave you with some favorite moments in pictures.

Finally seeing Vegas for myself (and realizing it’s not for me)

 

Revisiting our Honeymoon Island

 

 

Eating at that little shack down the pier

 

Watching the magic on Lexi’s face seeing the princesses at Disney for the first time this year.

 

Watching Scott cackle at turning at teacup into a tornado

 

Having a little buddy all week when he normally is obsessed with Scott

 

Being with my family

 

And this generally being my life for a week

A pretty busy weekend here!  We started out watching Lexi test for her purple belt.  She did great and I can’t wait to see her in that purple belt!

Friday evening the girls had a sleepover so Scott and I went for a late dinner at Beef and Bottle with a recent LivingSocial deal.  The food was awesome but to be completely frank all I could think about was all the Compassion posts I read last week and how our one meal, even with a coupon, could have sponsored a child for a month.

Right or wrong, it felt good then to wake up and volunteer with my work’s Day of Caring over at the Plant a Row garden at the Dairy Barn.  A master gardener in the area started this entire garden for charity.  We painted the shed, picked carrots, potatoes, green beans, squash and radishes as well as planted some pole beans.  The men also built new boxes.  All the food gets donated to a local church and mostly gets dispersed to senior citizens as well as a local program called Meals on Wheels.  If you are in the area I highly recommend getting a group and going over.  It was so fun for the kids.  You would have thought the kids had struck gold when they were pulling up the carrots and potatoes.  We were only there for 2 hours but were able to shave off 2 weeks of work for the owner.

 

Scott got his Highway Patrol corner in the closet completed with his framed picture.  I think it looks great.

Sunday we went church and then I was in complete packing mode.  I did laundry all day, packed and then rested at the pool in between.  Very nice relaxing day with the kids before I head out to Vegas today.  In case you missed it, Mom and Heather won two trips to Vegas with a guest.  Free airfare, lodging at the Bellagio and a ticket to Cirque de Soleil.  I certainly could not turn down the offer as I’ve never been.

I didn’t feel comfortable yet taking the kids to Vegas so Scott was awesome enough to take a few days off and play Mr. Mom.  My only comfort is that when I get back we are taking off together for a week to Florida.  What a week this will be.

Neither Heather nor I are taking laptops so I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing while I’m gone.  If not much, be sure to follow me on Twitter as I’ll be tweeting my way through the trip!

Well it’s looking like no cabinet or mirror until first of next week.  In the meantime, we have ordered and installed our custom blinds!

If you didn’t know, my mom owns a custom blinds and window treatments business, Diana’s Blinds and Designs.  We are lucky to get such wonderful Hunter Douglas blinds at great prices.  Let me show you what cool things we got for the addition. 

The bathroom and closet both face the road so we wanted those two rooms to match.  We decided on the bronze metal 2” blinds (Natural Elements line) that I LOVE.  They go perfectly with all the dark wood in the closet and really ties in the dark color into the toilet room.  I love that the bronze gives it a little bling.

 

In the bedroom, our number 1 requirement was that the blinds were black-out.  When Scott has to sleep during the day, it’s really hard when the sun comes up in our corner of the house.  The other thing we wanted was top-down bottom-up.  This is great for bedrooms where you want privacy but you also want the blinds open.  We went with a Duette Honeycomb.  Let me know show you how it works.

Here the blinds are shut.  You can see that not a peep of light is coming through the blind, just a little around the edges.  I had to turn the lights on just to get a decent picture.

You can also pull them up like traditional blinds.  You can still see how much light it’s blocking.

Or, here are the tops down.  This is my favorite and usually how I set the blinds for the day.  Plenty of light is coming in but no one sees us walking around.

And if you’re feeling funky, you can do both:

I didn’t picture it but of course, you can pull the blind all the way to the top, exposing the entire window.  The other thing I love is that these have NO CORDS.  Just a tab on the headers and up and down it goes!

Aren’t they great? 

We have matching ones on the French doors although they are not top-down bottom-up.  My blind lady assured me we did not want them that way.  So these get yanked up all the way to the top every day and I really do love all the light streaming in. In fact, it’s why I insisted on French doors anyway.  But the black-out really helps Scott when he needs to sleep.

We love all of them.  I think they were the perfect fit for us.  The cool thing is there are HUNDREDS of options and combinations.  You probably don’t realize how many things you have to pick from.  The great thing about Hunter Douglas is their personalized service (free consultation!), installation and a guarantee that doesn’t compare to any store-bought blind.  Seriously, by the time you replace that metal mini-blind from Home Depot a few times, you could have had an awesome Hunter Douglas one the whole time!

Ok, Mom, how’d I do?  LOL  If you’re in the area, definitely give them a call or hit them up on Facebook.  Mom seriously loves to help people find the perfect window covering to finish a room.  Speaking of, Mom, we need to talk panels!

Hm, let’s see. This weekend was 3+ days and I barely remember what I did 5 minutes ago. let’s see what I can do.

Friday:

Friday evening we ate spaghetti at my mom’s and then we came home and I fell asleep with the girls in their room so that was pretty much it for Friday evening.

Saturday:

Saturday morning the girls asked to go to Chick-fil-a for breakfast and who am I to deny a child? We scarved down some chicken mini’s and a sausage biscuit with some tator tots. Yum-mo.

We hopped over to Lowe’s trying to pick out a green color for their new room to match their new bed set. It ended up being a total flop. It irks me when the colors are so bad in the store that none of the 10 colors I picked looked anything near what we needed.

We then ran over to the pool store, which I expect to do eighty-eleven more times this summer only to find out we had to flock the pool. Which basically means you throw this chemical in, turn off the pump and then wait 1-2 days for everything to sink to the bottom which you then have to painstakingly vacuum. In other words, no pool time until Monday at the earliest. In good news, a radio station was doing a promotion at the store and I managed to spin and win $5 cash, not to mention free cookies for the kids and a Sprite to top it off. Score two for all the unhealthy food on Saturday. Yeesh.

So we spent mid-day at home on Saturday, cleaning up and such. That afternoon the girls were invited to their friend’s semi-birthday party at the pottery place. The little girl had a party with her classmates the week before but still wanted to party with my girls so they had a private little party with them. The girls of course were over the moon, particularly when cake and ice cream time was held at nearby Maggie Moo’s. I wasn’t complaining either. Score three for unhealthy food on Saturday!

Saturday evening when Scott got off we went to Sweet Peppers and enjoyed the outside patio. Are you seeing the trend that I did not feel like doing any cooking this weekend? Dear budget, sorry for ruining you this weekend. We did manage to eat salad and soup to even out all the unhealthy food. We then went BACK to Lowe’s to pick out paint. I still could not find a green I was really happy with so Scott made the decision and went with a color that happened to be called “Lime Green”. Which is EXACTLY what Emma asked for when this all started.

Sunday:

Sunday came and I had nursery at church and then I scooted over to my mom’s church where I had the opportunity to speak to her Sunday School class about the Blood Water Belt. I was nervous, especially since I didn’t prepare much because I thought I was speaking that night instead of morning. Thank goodness my mom had called me Saturday night! Actually though, it went well and really, I think I might have enjoyed it. It really is amazing looking back at what God has done with such a small amount. We now have 91 participants with over $2500 raised and more importantly 2500 people who now have water for a year. Most importantly I think we can all learn that if we would just DO the things God asks us to instead of just agreeing that they are good ideas (or crazy ones), we really could see the miracles.

Sunday afternoon we spent at Carowinds. The water park opened this weekend and the girls were more than ready to get in some water after a few weeks of staring at murky water in our pool. We also got in a few rides. Lexi rode her first big roller coaster and she loved it! I love that my girls are enjoying roller coasters like me and Scott! Scott’s sister came with my niece and Emma ended up staying with them until 9 after Lexi, Heather and I buckled and headed home about 6.

Memorial Day:

Monday morning brought lots of work! We had two cookouts planned for the day and we had some major work to do after gallavanting all weekend. But it all was worth it. We had a nice time and actually got to swim in the pool. Well, this girl didn’t actually swim, more like wade on the steps. Way too cold for me. The girls though spent the entire day in it. We had to beg them to get out about 7:30 last night to get a shower and into bed. I completely failed at the sunscreen and both of them are burned. It’s their first big burn ever. Poor things! One application of SPF 30 was definitely not enough! We’re breaking out the 70 for the rest of the summer! But you know it’s a good day when it all ends with a thick application of aloe. How many great beach days ended with your pajamas sticking to your freshly aloed-skin? Ah, memories.

So last night we finished up painting the green. And boy howdy is it GREEN. It did dry darker than the neon green it was when wet but it is still GREEN. I say it looks fresh. Scott likened it to a green apple. In any case, we were both blinded by the green haze filtering out from the room this morning. In other words, the kids LOVE it.

Coming Up:

So this week is a big week. The girls finish up school on Thursday. Lexi is graduating Kindergarten! Friday night they have a sleepover with their GA group at our previous church where they still go on Wednesday nights. And Saturday, we are helping out at a Volunteer Day for my work.

As for the addition, we are STILL waiting on cabinets and mirror. Holy cow.

Also coming up quickly, next week this time I will be in Vegas with my mom, dad and sister. If you don’t know, my mom owns a business where my sister also works and they earned two free trips to Vegas and I was invited as Heather’s guest. I’m already missing the girls like crazy being gone for 3 days but Scott took off work and they will get in some major Daddy-daughter time. Plus, the Friday we get back we are taking off together with our friends Jake and Jill and their son for Florida for a week! Can. not. wait.

To my dear Lexi, we are not laughing at you but with you. xoxo Mommy

I ran across a blog post yesterday that I just can’t quit thinking about. I submitted my entire small group to a read-through of the entire thing last night because I think it was so powerful.

Here’s the thing. I believe in God and his angels and the light and heaven and all that jazz but when you believe in good vs. evil forces, you can’t deny the evil part. I mean, the core of Christian belief that Christ is saving you. In order to be saved you have to be saved FROM something. There IS evil out there. Some dismiss witchcraft, sorcery and fortune telling as fake and things of which movies are made. But I don’t. I think it’s all as real as everything on the good side. Oh, of course there’s always a fortune teller lying through their teeth to make a few bucks but I really think there is merit to some of this stuff. Now vampires and werewolves…that’s all fiction so don’t expect me to give up on the Twilight series anytime soon.

If you need Biblical proof, just take a look at the story of Moses in Egypt and all the miracles the sorcerers were able to duplicate. Or the story of Jesus taking the demons out of a man and putting them into a herd of pigs. You can’t deny the spiritual realm beyond just the Trinity and Satan.

And that brings me back to this blog post. Since I’m coming from this background of belief, this article about a voodoo priest coming to Christ stopped me in my tracks but particularly two parts. Pretty please read the whole post but these two stuck out to me:

Andre Chansma was the vodou priest who said, “We, as vodou priests, cannot do anything to true Christians; they are protected. Satan only has power over pretend Christians.”

Andre tells these people who still put their faith in Satan’s power that the devil and his evil spirits have only limited power. If they want to experience true power, they need to accept Christ as their Savior.

Does that give you chills like it does me?? A few things to point out:

1 – They can not do anything to Christians! I love this! We are sealed by the Holy Spirit and these voodoo priests and their spells have no hold over us!

2 – Is it not amazing that a voodoo priests KNOWS there is a difference between a real Christian and a pretend Christian? Really makes you double-check your heart!

3 – Satan has power but God WINS. And not just wins, in the future tense, but as Charlie Sheen would say, he is WINNING. Yes, these people who get their source of power from Satan CAN do these things but they are LIMITED. Only in Christ do we have access to unlimited, true power.

Does that make you want to shout like me?? I’ve just been praising God for his power and the confidence and peace we can have in him even in this world that can bombard us with so much evil.

And somehow I just mentioned Twilight, Charlie Sheen and Jesus all in one post. Nice.