My girlfriends and I are planning a surprise birthday party for one of our friends tomorrow night. She’s also moving to London in a few weeks with her family so this party means a lot to us. I have the joy of decorating for this special night at our friend’s house. We’re using their splendid family room to put three of 6′ tables in the middle which will comfortably accommodate 19 guests for a sit down meal.
The theme of the party is: English garden.

Julie is a beautiful woman of God. Truly inspiring…and it’s my honor to plan her party. I’m blessed to be able to say she is my sister in Christ.

This is my favorite dish to eat in the summer time.

Spicy noodles with fresh vegetables from my garden.

Herbed Quinoa with Chicken

I treated Chloe to a mani / pedi  last week when we had the girls date. The next day I over heard her talking to her cousin.

Cousin: Ooh that’s so pretty. I like your toe nails.
Chloe: Thanks! I went to a spa with mommy. It was SO relaxing.

I laughed so hard.

Pictures from the retreat

We went to Hot Air Balloon Festival in Whitehouse Station this afternoon to see hundreds of balloons go up in the sky…Well, unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate and it ended up raining right before the balloons were about to go up. 🙁

Storm is coming!

We got soaked in the rain… Oh well, we’ll try next year.

Chloe and Shane had been going to True Light Church summer camp since the beginning of July. Chloe’s been to several field trips with her class already and today, I took off work to be one of the chaperones accompanying 45 kids to the water park at Great Wolf Lodge.

Me and my bud in a school bus!

After a long bus ride + counting kids (several times) + bathroom breaks + checking in, we were finally here!

But only one hour of water play later, we had to come inside again to eat our lunch… Shane was not happy.

Then we are back!

I loved seeing interactions between the kids.

Shane had fun chasing this one girl for a while who is Chloe’s friend.

I barely got one picture taken with one of the kids. Chloe didn’t even have a second for me because she was too busy playing with her own friends.

There she goes!

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We had a wonderful time and it really was a fun place for kids. I was completely exhausted to say the least! I think being on the school bus ride without AC and on the highway for almost 2 hours totally wiped me off. When we got home, after bathing them and eating dinner, I went to bed with the kids at 8:30 pm. I. was. done.

Salmon cakes

Seafood pasta

Chloe got some hand me down furniture this weekend {thanks Sophia!} and she got so excited about her night stand. First thing she asked me was if she can read a little before going to sleep. We’ve been reading either The Jesus Story Book or ABC Bible stories with our children before bed time and some times it can a challenge to just do a chapter with them both chatting about some things and getting distracted by each other. I know Chloe wants to spend some alone time by herself and I loved the idea of her reading so we okayed it.

She read and read and read… for over an hour the first night. Then the second night. Then the third night. When she’s done, she turned off her night lamp and went quietly to sleep afterwards.
This is one of my favorite moments of her…