Lake Week!

Every year, my dad's side of the family packs up the car and heads to a lake a few hours north of our hometown. If you are one of the ones that know me personally and read this blog, to help you imagine what we get ourselves into every year:

Take me and my loud, opinionated personality and clone me 20 times...and you have my family.

I could talk and talk and talk about this week, but truthfully, you have to live it to truly experience it. Otherwise, it's not completely true. We spend the week reading, sleeping, eating so well we gain 12 pounds each, skiing, sunbathing, playing so many card games our fingers go numb, and laughing until we almost pee our pants.

But like I said, words will never do it justice, so I will turn it over to some visual images to hopefully try to show the epic week it always turns out to be.

The sad story of a boy who just wanted to tube.

Everyone in our family skiis, although maybe not as well as we thought, right Uncle Sp?

As much as we love our full house of adults and small cousins, but sometimes the big kids need to go play on our own.

My sister and I taught the family how to play the game "Fishbowl". My sweet grandfather didn't really get it, and since he's a bit older, he's as blind as a bat. I love how we have to give him a lamp so he could play. He was just enjoying some family time. Bless his heart.

My cute little sister.

There's always a cousin to play with at the lake!

Even the dog was exhausted!

It's a good thing that my cousin is going to school to be a surgeon. The joke around the family is

"If we spend more money on gas than we do at the ER or Urgent Care, then it's not a Family Vacation!"

The awesome view from our back deck.

I am #2 of the grandchildren. Here is the traditional family picture with all of us and our sweet grandparents!

While we were there, my mom turned 47. So of course, a surprise cake and ice cream party was in order!

Cousin #1 was making fun of Cousin #4 because of this pose she always strikes when it's time to take a picture. So we just opted for a photo shoot!

It's really bright outside, and Mama's gotta read...so she got creative.

Just two brothers off on a grand adventure...

My sister is one hott cookie, isn't she?

It's always fun to sink Dad's paddle boat, isn't it, #11?

#1 and #11

Clearly Fresh Bags

Ms. Meet Virginia is at it again!

Another give away is upon the blogging world through Laura's blog.

This time, she tried out and is giving away Clearly Fresh Bags. They are revolutionary Ziploc-type bags that keep your fruits and veggies fresh for longer...that way you're not throwing away money!

Hop on over to her blog to check it out for yourself!

Reader Report: Two Kisses for Maddy

I read all the time. And I am not joking when I say allllll the time.

Working at Barnes & Noble does not slow this down. If anything, it helps me out find the new must-read.

That being said, after a recommendation by a customer, I picked up a newly released book called "Two Kisses for Maddy." Written by a guy named Matt Logelin, it chronicles the birth of his daughter, Maddy, and then 27 hours later, the death of his wife, Liz. The book shares how the couple met and then how he moves on with Maddy after that tragedy struck their new little family.

(via)

I could not put it down. I say this with the most sincere authenticity: I could not put it down.

I was afraid that it was going to hurt to read this book. I was afraid that I was going to mourn and feel pain because of Matt's writing and the loss that he was writing about. I have suffered a similar unwanted loss, and I was afraid that this piece of literature was going to put me in some black hole of emotion that would take time and processing to crawl out of. It addresses two of my biggest fears: losing my soulmate, and leaving behind a child. I just didn't know if I could handle reading a book that contains two very harsh nightmares.

However, one review got me to pick it up (unfortunately I couldn't find the real one on the web, so I'm paraphrasing):

"You hurt for him, but you cheer for him from beginning to end. Such sorrow and sweetness have never met. This is what true love looks like."

So, I decided to check it out and have a go at it.

I read it in two days.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Matt's language is very...um, flowery. Very colorful. Very...well, he uses the f word a lot. So, let me warn you about that. But other than that, I have no complaints about it.

At the end of the book I kept thinking: But I need to know that Maddy is ok! I need to know that their life goes on after the pages of this book!

You love Matt, Liz, and Madeline just like you do your own family by the end of this book. Thanks to modern technology, I do get to watch Madeline grow up from afar and see that she and Matt are still thriving and happy through Matt's blog. It's now been added to my list of daily reads and I have loved scouring through it for the past few days. It's amazing to me how much Maddy looks like Liz (I can tell thanks to the pictures from the book as well on Matt's blog). Matt even comments on "how much she looks, and acts just like Liz even though Liz never got to hold her." 1

I give it five out of five stars for sincerity, honesty, genuine love, and just a good read.

Fellow readers: Keep the tissues near and the pages turning. Just when you think your heart is going to break for Matt, the story does go on.

Just like life.

It's funny how things work out.

1. It's almost midnight, and I am cooking.

2. I love bow tie pasta. I think it's sassy. Just when I thought it couldn't get any sassier, I found colored veggie pasta. Hello sass-to-the-max.

3. This is my puppy. I love her.

4. I watched this movie last night. I don't think I stopped laughing during the whole entire thing. I would recommend it, on one condition: you don't have a problem with cursing. They're a Southern family who praise Jesus in one syllable and in the next they're using a four letter word.

5. I found an old cross-stitching pattern in my closet and I'm working on it currently. I hope to hang it in my apartment next year.

6. I decorated my graduation cap. Those are my initials in the middle and around it I have the following written: Sullivan Girls Bible Study, Clearwater Beach Summer Project 2008, Lebanon Dream Team 2010, and then three of my favorite Bible verses.

7. This is my niece. She's not allowed to date until she's married. And I will be setting her up with an arranged marriage.

8. These are my parents when they were my age. They were high school sweethearts. It's gross and incredibly cute at the same time.

9. These are the most uncomfortable shoes in the world. I'm currently wearing them almost every day as I head out to job interviews and meeting principals for a hopeful job next year.

10. I don't like uneven lists but I couldn't find another picture to share a sentence about. So I'm just writing jibber-jabber.

Happy Tuesday...well, now it's Wednesday.

Gorman Wedding Weekend!

This past Friday, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning to shower, finish packing, and hit the road to Lexington, Kentucky to see my sweet CBSP sister, Julia, marry the love of her life, David.

I've gotten a few inquiries as to what "CBSP" means. It stands for Clearwater Beach Summer Project, which was a wonderful mission trip that I was blessed to partake in during the summer of 2008. In the circles of people that know what this means, it is often shortened to "Project" and that is where I get my "Project families" or in this case, "Project sister."

When I first arrived to Kentucky, I stopped at in Richmond, where I would be staying with my CBSP family for the weekend after Julia got hitched. We lounged around in the afternoon and then headed up to Lexington to see Miss becomes Mrs!

I may have had balcony seats...but my new camera has a lovely zoom...see?

After the "I Dos" were said and and we sent the bride and groom off in a shower of bubbles, the party moved to The Carrick House for the reception. We danced the night away and had a good, good night!

The newest member of the CBSP family!

CBSP represent!

Mrs. Gorman! Finally!

We all crashed after the reception. However, it seemed as though the sun was sitting just outside of the house and after an ungodly 7:30am wake-up call, we made pancakes and then headed to the pool to beat the heat.

After some of us got absolutely fried, we headed out for some Mexican food (note: the first restaurant that a group of CBSPers went to in Clearwater was a Mexican restaurant) and then went to a local bowling alley.

My sweet roomie from Clearwater, Kim. You can see the post that her sweet Facebook post inspired me to write.

CBSP believes in giving nicknames to one another. We each have at least three. I'm Reba, Bekah, Bekah Boo, Bex, and Mom. I understand it, it's just one of thsoe things that we do.



Again, we crashed with no excuses afterwards and had another ungodly wake-up time again. Stupid sun. However, the sun was in contrast with our mood as we all bid farewell to one another once again. In the perfect world, my CBSP family would live together and all my children would be able to call them "Aunt" and "Uncle" and all would be right in the world. However, this is reality and we live eight hours away and I miss them every day of my life.

But, my suitcases were packed and my gas tank was wishing to be filled. I had one more stop to make in Lexington before I headed back to Wendell.

My Uncle Walt, Aunt Ann, and their generations of offspring live in the surrounding areas of Lexington and I decided to give them a call and see if we could meet up for a mini-family reunion. We ended up having lunch and it was a hoot-and-a-half! They were telling stories on my dad and his siblings and even my grandpa and his brothers (Uncle Walt is my father's father's brother). 

My third cousin, Reagan, was also there and there is only one word that can sum up Reagan: firecracker. Wow! She's only seven and she walked right up to me and said "Hi! I'm Reagan and you're Rebekah. We've never met but I'm your cousin and I'm going to hug you now."

And hug me she did. She then told me about her soccer games and her favorite color is pink and anything that sparkles and how she likes math and science but not English and how she wants to go to UK when she grows up, but she doesn't look good in blue so maybe that isn't the best decision.

Yeah. Firecracker.

It was the perfect ending to a fabulous weekend.