Pirate Party!

This weekend, the FAMILY got together. Now, if you don't know my FAMILY, (my mom's side) then you just don't know what you're missing out on! We are brash, loud, and fun-loving! (no, we aren't even Italian!) This weekend we all headed to Georgia to celebrate my cousin Jordan's graduation from UGA, my Uncle Jim's 60th birthday, and my Aunt Cheryl's retirement... with a PIRATE PARTY! Arrrrrrrrrrrrr! It was a lot of fun!

Here are some of the highlights....

Everyone pitches in to help get ready for the par-tay!

There is ALWAYS yummy food at our events!

Games are a must! AJ and Ben had fun playing corn hole and avoiding karaoke!

The "old" people sing karaoke! Quite entertaining!

Cha cha slide, as requested by the graduate!

Congrats, Jordan!

What's a fun family trip without the car ride with extended family?!


As is proven here, I'm blessed to be a part of an awesome family who will do anything for each other! I love them all so much!

Living in Florida

Growing up in central Florida, I knew I had it good- beach vacations every summer, and it only took an hour and a half to reach our destination! I learned at an early age how to do the "stingray shuffle", to run in a zig-zag pattern if being chased by an alligator, how to tell different kinds of snakes apart (coral snake vs king snake), and how to build the perfect hurricane preparedness kit. No snow days were built into the school calendar, but hurricane days were (and still are).

One thing I never did much of growing up was visiting the big amusement parks that draw millions of tourists to Florida. In recent years, I have had the luxury of visiting several parks with friends. Now in my young adult years, I have seen Disney's Magic Kingdom, Busch Gardens, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, Epcot Center, and Cypress Gardens (which is now closed). It's fun to see what brings people to your backyard... and even better to make memories with friends and people you love!

Me with the water skiing cast at Cypress Gardens a few years ago. (Not the most flattering picture of me!)

My friend Hillary and I with our Butterbeer in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure!

Sue and I on St. Patrick's day at Epcot!

I am blessed to live in a great state and to experience its diverse aspects with amazing people!

24 Hours in Jax

This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to go on a "30 hour mission trip" to Jacksonville. The trip is 30 hours total, but we spend 24 hours in Jacksonville. Our youth pastor, Bruce, has started leading these trips once every few months to Jacksonville to work with North Main Street Baptist Church and Words To Works Ministries.

Upon arrival on Friday, we went to His Warehouse to hang out with people from the neighborhood who come to get a meal, hang out, and play games in this safe spot. I got to color a picture with four year old Latrelle, and share the Evangecube with a little girl named Zoey. Zoey was so precious; she pointed to the picture of Jesus and gasped, holding her hands to her face and said "That's Jesus! He loves me! I love Him!"

This is Latrelle! He was so much fun to talk to!

Zoey and I. She's the best!

I went to college and lived in the dorms with Jessica Phoenix; her dad is the pastor of the church and ministry that we were working with! It was great to catch up with her!

On Saturday morning, our group of 19 split into smaller groups of 4 and 5 to prayer walk, pick up trash, and pray with anyone we may come in contact with.

Here is my group (minus me) cleaning trash on an empty lot.

This is one of the men part of our group shared with!

Saturday afternoon, we headed to Washington Heights, one of the roughest housing projects in Jacksonville. We told a Bible story, played with the kids, did crafts for Mothers Day, and just LOVED them.

Me with Angel. She just walked right up to me and put her arms up to be picked up! Such a sweetie.

Making Mothers Day cards and flowers!

My friend Chelsea with Ali, another precious little girl!

I'm so glad I had the chance to go minister, show Christ's love, and make a difference!

On another note, HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
I am so very blessed to have a godly, loving, awesome, wonderful mom! I love her so very much!

This photo was taken last year. Momma and her kids.

I love you, Mom!

Knowledge is Power

What do you know? I'm not asking that as a prerequisite to announcing something big. Seriously. What do you know? How much knowledge do you posses?

I like knowledge. I like knowing things, knowing facts. Random facts are fun to know, too. I've always been like this. I think it's somewhat based on how my parents raised me. My brother and I grew up watching the Discovery channel, History channel, The Learning Channel (before TLC was just reality TV), watching biographies and sports. Not many cartoons. In fact, I don't like cartoons- at all. In order to watch something animated, I usually have to be forced.

Why do I bring this up? I'm thoroughly convinced that more and more people have less and less knowledge. Where are the facts? Why are people so blissfully ignorant? Everyone should know the history of their country, common geography of their country and the world, and other such facts. Yet more and more people have no idea what the answers are to common questions. For example, I am utterly shocked at how many people refer to Africa as a country, not a continent! And sports. I don't even want to start on people who think they know a certain stat but get it all wrong. Or people who call themselves a fan of a specific team and can't name 3 players. Get real! How about Bible knowledge? The Bible says to hide God's Word in your heart. To know it inside and out. Christ followers should know the Bible! It's downright fun to read some of those stories in the Old Testament. And refreshing to be encouraged and challenged by the New Testament. Christians, dig in! LEARN! Gain knowledge!

Anyway, my point is this: you sound dumb if you try to state a "fact" and it's wrong. Do some reading! Do some watching! Learning is fun! And if you don't like it when people spout off random facts, maybe some more learning would do you well. (People sometimes try to make fun of me for knowing random facts and sharing them. I don't apologize for having knowledge. Get over it and go learn it for yourself. Don't try to put down someone else because they know things.) There is no such thing as useless knowledge or useless facts, either. Knowledge is not useless.

"Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it." -Samuel Johnson

This is something that can really fire me up, obviously. So don't be "THAT" person who looks and sounds dumb for not knowing common facts. Arm yourself with knowledge. Knowledge is power. Having power will get you far!

So get some knowledge! Share some knowledge! Make the world a less dumb place!

"Knowledge is power." -Sir Frances Bacon