MAZI Ball pics!!! Yay! I loved the ball!

Erica in her beautiful dress, it looked like it was made for her!!

Kayla being pretty and girly!

My dress

The 3 of us with some friends. The girl in the tiara, Becka, it was her birthday!

With some other friends

The group, minus a few

The group I sat with, we had fun!

Awww!

I snapped this really fast, so that's why Kayla is blurry

We wanted a serious one. But we had a hard time not laughing.

We took this picture before we left to get ready for the ball at Becka's house

We had lots and lots and lots of fun at the ball. The 3 of us got ready at the Mosley's house. We had our makeup done, and got dressed. Then we all met at Meagan's house for hair and pictures. Then we drove to Red Lobster for dinner. We had a great time talking, laughing and taking pictures. There is just something about dressing up and going to dinner with your girlfriends that makes everything just about perfect. About halfway through the dinner, all of the guys from our church that went to Boston with us came into our room in the restaurant all dressed up in suits and holding roses. They sang us some songs, such as Aladdin's "A Whole New World" and "L-O-V-E", or whatever that really old song is. It was really sweet. Then they gave us each a rose. So that is where our roses came from. It was so cute and thoughtful. They left and we finished dinner. Then we all went to the Martin's house for a dance party. Not boy-girl dancing. They made a playlist and we all danced together. Mostly girls with girls, or everybody by themselves. But when we walked onto the patio in the back yard of the house, all the guys were lined up in a row, waiting for us. Now we did have a song or two where girls and boys danced together, but I danced with girls then too. It was definitely one of the best nights of my life. *Sigh* :) I really enjoyed it.

Stephanie, Vicki & Mahti come to visit!

playing soccer

just hanging

On Monday, August 24th (our first day of school!) Bret's cousin, Stephanie, from Africa came to visit with her twin daughters who are Erica's age. It was the first time for our family to meet them! It was a wonderful evening of sharing & visiting & getting to know one another. They ate supper with us then spent the night before moving on to their next destination the next morning. Too short; but very sweet. We hope to see them again very soon!
Shelly

Garden Abundance

lots of good stuff

look at the size of that cucumber!

We ate lots of tomatoes

1st watermelon

1st canteloupe - it was itty bitty

but it sure was yummy!

Well, these are some pics of our garden returns, hard work but good food. We enjoyed a few vegetables we don't normally eat or grow too often. It was yummy. :) The cucumbers were doing really well for a long time - so we made plenty of pickles.....but then the hogs came one night and destroyed them all. No more cucumbers.....or pickles. :( There is always next year. We are already making some good plans and adjustments from this year. Shelly

Claire and Randall

My cousin Randall

Claire, another of my wonderful cousins

Tavi really liked her, and Claire really liked Tavi. They were so cute together. I had so much fun taking pictures of them!

Well, I am supposed to be putting pictures of the MAZI Ball up here, but I couldn't pass up these really cute pics of when Claire and Randall came over. Hope you like them!

Baby Chicks are so cute!

Cute little wet chick!

Totally adorable!

I love chicks

I could sit and hold them for forever! They are so sweet! And really messy, and loud and precious.

Student Life Camp

Family picture!

Another picture of us. All the girls had their hair done there. It was fun!

A random bear at the mall in Branson that we wanted a picture with

Eating lunch

Oh, yeah. We saw David Crowder. He was cool!

Slightly blurry, but we saw Leeland too! They were awesome.

Some pictures of camp. We went to Branson, MO with the rest of the youth. Mom and Dad went as chaperons. It was really fun! We left earlier then all the rest of the group and stayed at the Hastings' for a while. Then we joined the rest of the group at the hotel we stayed at. Kristian Stanfill led the worship, and Francis Chan taught. He was the best ever. You have to look into listening to him sometime. Or read his book: Crazy Love. It's really good. But we had fun. We also went Silver Dollar City, and one of the malls in Branson. We all learned so much. I learned about control. Give it to God. All of it. I'm so glad I went. The whole family. It was fun going as a family. Wait, I forgot to add that later I'll add pictures of the MAZI Ball on here. I'll explain all about later when I blog it. And we had 7 chicks hatch. I'll add some pictures of them later too.

Hagestings! :)

What happened to our tire on the way to the Hastings

Playing Go Fish!

Erica playing Guitar Praise. It's better then Guitar Hero. She was really good!

A little blurry, but Stephen opening up his REALLY late birthday present

Still blurry, but smiling

Andrew's

Group picture, plus Dad :)

Us being silly

Before I did Student Life, I couldn't pass up putting pictures of my best friends on here! We stopped there for 2 days before going to camp. I love going there! :)) We always have so much fun. Their church is so nice, and playing games with them all the time is a blast.