Small Group

James, Scott, Josh, Scott, Flat Greg, Michael,
me, Sheryl, Jackie, Debbie, Marianne

Every Friday night we get together for our small group. We fellowship and have bible study. This past Friday was Sheryl's last Friday. She leaves next week and Michael and the kids will follow in the next few months. You will notice that "Flat Greg" also makes an appearance in our pictures. We got Flat Greg for Debbie and the kids when he left for South Korea a month ago. You can check out their story under the Sweitzers. (he has really gotten around)
This is something new for me. There are a lot of our friends here in the military and they usually stay 2-3 years before they are re- stationed. I guess that is one good thing about blogging. If I can get them all to start their own blogs we can keep up no matter where they live.

back to school

I thought I would put a picture of me going back to work. All my friends put pictures of the kids going back to school so I thought I would do the same. Of course, I got this bright idea after I had gotten home and changed clothes but you get the idea.

Night Out

Josh and I attended a banquet for the Harry Hamptom Wildlife Memorial Fund which was sponsored by the Department of Natural Resources. We were invited by Meagan and Jeff and we had a lot of fun. There was a silent and live auction. Josh bid on some jewelery in the silent auction and we won it. It is made my Charleston Charm
The design is called the gate jewelery. Here is what the card said:
Charleston Gate Jewelery
This decorative ironwork has been used as early as 1739 at churches and homes as gates, window grilles and balconies. During the civil war some ironwork was taken from buildings and churches to make weapons. Our presentation of the Charleston Gate Jewelery is a symbol of Charleston you can keep forever.

New Job

For those of you who don't know Josh decided a few months ago to stop coaching baseball and get back into banking. He had and interview with Regions bank this week and was offered the job. It doesn't start until Sept. so he still has 2 more weeks to play golf. I think he has played more this past month than the whole 2 years we have been in charleston.

Boating

Alex, Adrian and Zach

Josh trying not to fall off. He did pretty good.

We went boating on the Cooper River yesterday with our friends Marianne and Scott. It was nice b/c this was the first day in over a week that it wasn't 115. It was still hot but when we were moving it wasn't bad at all. I have one more week before I have to go back to work. I am sort of looking forward to it. I have really enjoyed having the summer off.

Game and Jars of Clay

We went to another Riverdogs game. After the game Jars of Clay performed on the field. We had a picnic before the game. It was a long day. I started out at 8:30 for worship team practice. Then we had church. After church we came home packed up our lunches and headed out. Well about 10 minutes down the road I realized I had left the tickets at home so we headed back to the house. We finally made it downtown and had lunch at 2:30. Let's just say I think it was the hottest day of the summer. As we were watching the game I didn't know I could sweat that much. Our group seemed to be a little rowdy which attracted the attention of the MC. As I was walking to my seat our group started cheering my name...so the MC gets on the mic and says "We would like to welcome Rachel to the stadium today". All I could do was wave b/c there was an outbreak of applause. Then he approached our group to sing "take me out to the ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch. So they all got to sing and be shown on the jumbo screen. We had a good time but we didn't get home until 9:00 and I was exhausted. I think it was mainly from being out in the heat all day.
So Jars of Clay come out and if you can click on the picture I posted you will see what they were wearing. Short gym shorts and tube socks...the kids Loved it!

USMC Mud Run

Josh and a few of the guys from church have signed up for the USMC Mud run on Sept. 22. Let's just say Josh may not have realized what he signed up for. Here are a few pictures from previous years of the Mud run. I'm not sure if I will go to the event and I don't know if anyone will take pictures but I will do my best to report back after the event.

Hattiesburg 2X

Boys doing what they do best

Nicole, me, Carson and Ashley(& baby Quinn)

Carson and Brent

We went back through Hattiesburg on our way back to SC and stayed a few more days. Here are a few pics from that trip.

USM

Thad Cochran Center. It houses the new bookstore and eating area and have conference rooms and who knows what else...

Here is construction on the Reed Green Coliseum

One of the new sorority houses in the new Sorority village. Not sure which one this is. Most look like this, some were smaller. There was one house that was 2 times bigger than this one. They kind of look like churches to me.

USM baseball complex addition and below is their new scoreboard

Norman

My sister and her husband raise longhorn cattle. They got Norman when he was really little. Here is his recent photo. He still loves for you to come and pet him.

My sister also has a Minx kitten. He is really cute and loves to play.

Hattiesburg

Notice the nice backdrop Josh decided to provide for this picture.

How cute am I?

This is Hannity

I wonder how the guys occupied their time?

We spent the weekend with our friends Jennifer and Jacob. As you can see from the pictures Jennifer and I kept busy scrapbooking and looking at baby fabric for her nursery and the boys....well lets just say boys will be boys. Notice they took the pictures of us scrapbooking and you can see they got a little in to it.

3 year anniversary

We celebrated our 3 year anniversary this past week. We have been together for 7 years. We hope to eat at the Purple Parrot when we are in Hattiesburg. I will post some Hattiesburg pics later but we are having fun visiting our friends here.

Gulf Shores

view from the second pool

Air conditioned walkway

View of the ocean with a storm approaching

Our bedroom

One of the pools

Living Room

Pretty cool kitchen

We spent two days in Gulf Shores. We stayed in a cool condo with my mom and George. The weather was great. Oh and we had a treat. I turn on the news and who else is reporting but Scott Walker. We got to hear a great story about a women that carries around her trash... We really enjoyed the reporting.... Kidding aside it was pretty cool to be back in an area where we actually knew people again.

Tallahassee

We started off our trip on Sunday. We left after church b/c we only wanted to go about 6 hours before we stopped for the night. We ended up stopping in Tallahassee. We found an hotel and got settled. Then Josh informed me that Florida State was just down the road. We went riding around that campus, which was really nice. I took a few pictures of the football stadium and the Pi Phi House. We were in the car when we went by the Pi Phi House so all I could fit in the picture was the door. The house itself was really big. We ate a Masa which was a contemporary cuisine and sushi. The food was really good. It had the best potato salad we have ever had. I can't describe it but it was nothing like the potato salad we all grew up with.