Extrodinary Womens Retreat

This past Friday and Sat. I was given the opportunity to attent the Extrodinary Womens retreat in Roanoke Va. I went with some friends from our church and we had a great time!
Friday I didnt have my camera, honestly I wasnt sure what to expect so I didnt even think of it but I wish I had. We had several good speakers and then Natalie Grant gave us a concert. Sat. morning we decided not to get up quite so early, the doors did open at 7:00am but
we decided that we needed a starbucks and then we could be on our way. Little did we know that there would be so many women there on sat. The parking lot which is the civic center for games etc. was full and closed by 8:00am. We had to park 7 blocks away and ride a bus. It was worthe it as we sat and listened to all of the speakers, commedians & singers. I was able to meet or at least see in person most of them.


Charles Billingsly ( I may have spelled that wrong) is the music leader for the weekend. For those of you who are not familiar with him he is the music leader at Thomas Road Baptist church near near liberty. He has an amazing voice and is quite the commedian.

This is Karen Kingsbury. She was one of our speakers. She was very good and has several new books coming out one which is a tear jerker but it's a kids book - go figure!

I didnt know that she and her husband had adopted several boys, what a fun family.

Ok I thoroughly enjoyed Anita Renfroe. At first I didnt know who she was until she started a song and then it hit me that 2 years ago while I was teaching an email was out and she did the Moms overature. If you havent heard it you must - it is sooo funny! I got a CD and listen to it before I go to work in the morning that way I get siked for the day! I was standing beside her in this picture but I had a weird face so I chopped it out :)
Do you recognize her?

Amy Grant!

I havent heard Amy Grant in a really long time. She did a very good job.

How about her?

If you said DJ from Full House you are right. Candace Cameron was one of our guest speakers. I knew about that her brother was a Christian but I hadnt heard her story before. What a great story she had. I was able to get a lot out of what she said.

What a great testimony and a love for what she believes. She has an amazing personality and just down right cute! I felt like a giant standing near her, she is very tiny!

I strongly encourage that if any one has the opportunity to go to one of these retreats you should go. I have next years info. and am ready to attend. They give you a chance to meet the speakers and have them sign their books.

I was able to buy several books from one of the key speakers, Nancy Demoss. I thought she was a great speaker, easy to understand and interresting. This turned out to be such a great weekend and a time to focus and unwind.

More Fishing!

Joels parents came last weekend and we headed straight for the New River. It was a perfect day, we couldnt have asked for a better day.
We started our morning at the New River where Joel caught the first fish of the day, then Joels dad and well lets just say I caught something but it wasnt a fish. Somehow I cast my line which went over a tree limb so I went out on the rocks and the hook went into my shoe lace. Ok invision this cause I dont have a picture - I'm standing on a rock surrounded by a little water holding the rod with the line around a tree limb and the hook on my shoe lace, i'm now stuck on the rock and cant move. Joel's mom had to come to my rescue so I took off my shoe and handed her the hook and shoe lace. She finally got it off (great hooks!) so I successfully got off the rock withought falling in.

Once Joel gets started the fish just come right for him. It didnt take him long to get a fish at the new river.

Joels small mouth bass

I was pretty stoked when i caught this guy! He had a pretty color and was a pretty good size.

Eli Update

We found out yesterday that Eli is available. Joel and I are going to have a trial run with Eli for a few weeks to see how it all works out with him and our busy schedule. We will be going this Sat. to get him. The neat part is I just found out today that I have 2 weeks off starting on Monday, I'm pretty excited about that!

VOTE!

Forgot to mention His name is Eli. We did find out today (Thursday) he has a brother with another owner who has first dibs so we will hopefully find out by Sunday whether they get him or not. Thanks for your comments!!!

We need your vote!!! Comments, suggestions, thoughts - whatever you have we'd love to hear it. Joel and I have a great friend from our church who has a friend who breeds gorgeous cocker spaniels. Come to find out this gorgeous guy needs a home. He is a show dog and is trained in all areas and seems to be very well manered. We have a lot to think about but as you can imagine once you see this adorable face WHO CAN SAY NO???? So we'd appreciate your comments. You can also email me if you cant do it on the blog. :) Thanks oh I thought I'd share the picture of him as a little pup, that helps too.


I love this picture!!!

Large Mouth Bass

We arrived at the lake very eager to see what we could catch. Joel started me off with a worm and he used a fly rod. Nothing was going for the worm so I chose a popper which is my favorite. While Joel put the popper on my rod I took his fly rod and played around with the fly. I hadnt really noticed that Joel had walked around to an open spot with my popper and within a few min. he'd caught the first fish of the day which was a pretty Large Mouth Bass.

Joel had a total of 3 Large Mouth Bass & 1 Blue Gill.

The little Blue Gill was an extra

bonus, Joels 3rd catch.

My first Large Mouth Bass! I was pretty excited to get this guy. I had worked this particular spot for a while with a lot of bites but they just didnt quite swallow the hook enough for me to land them.

Fish #2 I also caught on the other side of the lake. He was barely on the hook and super easy to get in, just a little hard to take the picture while you're holding a fish.

This little guy was my final catch of the day. Joel was on the other side of the lake while I just had to catch one more in the section that I was at so I finally caught him which in turn ended up getting hung up on some limps in the water too far out for me to get him. Joel ran around the lake and we tried everything to get him closer. Finally after many attempts to get him and save our popper we got him. This made my third fish. I was pretty happy with that and as I waited for Joel to throw him back in I felt something on my arm, I looked really close and there it was - my first tick ever!!! Oh that was it for me, fishing trip over! I looked on my arms and they were everywhere. I had sprayed a ton of tick spray but evidentally they loved it! I nearly went into a panic so Joel & I decided we needed to get home. So we packed up and of course you need to finish a successful day with an ice cream cone & there is Gander mountain on the way home too! Once we got home we made a B- line for the showers and like monkeys picked the ticks off of each other. Joel had a lot on him and hopefully we got them all off. Of course today I've never itched so much :)

Busy!

Wow I feel like I haven't done any good pictures & blogging lately. As you can imagine things at the bakery have been pretty busy. We had 6 weddings this week & all the cakes are due tomorrow and Sat.I have to be in tomorrow at 6:00am to get learn some new things so that the head baker can take all of Friday off. So far all cakes are done unless I come in tomorrow morning and we have another mishap. This morning I came in thinking the majority of them were done only to find that all 6 of my 8 marble cakes were missing along with 2 yellow cakes - AHHHHH. I have learned that labeling is key here at the bakery and even if it's labeled doesnt mean it's not going to be used for something else which means for us that we have to remake the cakes which is what happened to us today. Man was it an exhausting day!!! I finally had to leave to keep from going OT but left the head baker with all of the red velvet cakes, yellow & marble cakes in the oven not to mention clean up and our favorite the MUFFINS. Neither one of us like doing the muffins because they are so time consuming, it's such a long process for 6 muffins per flavor.
We are adding new and fun recipes that I enjoy like our new Vegan pumpkin chocolate chip and now our new Vegan lime glazed cookie. I made the lemon at home tonight and they are soooo yummy. As soon as I fix the recipe around a little to keep it from being too oily I will post it.
I'm hoping to get some good pictures out soon. Joel and I could have had some great opportunities like our first snake but we were on a bike ride and I didnt bring my camera but next time I will have it!