I keep putting off writing because I don't have any pictures uploaded...and how boring is a post without pictures? Summer has kept us busy so far. We've enjoyed a trip to Gatlinburg with Darin's family two weeks ago. We went to dinner and a show and then to Dollywood one day. We got lucky since the weather was really nice and not too hot! Gavin even got to ride a (small) roller coaster! I think I screamed more than he did.

Then last weekend we headed down to Atlanta to be with my family for the 4th of July. We went to a Braves game on Thursday night. We had great seats and enjoyed getting the wave started. Seriously, we got the wave started. We're nuts! Friday the boys golfed and girls shopped. Shouldn't everyday be spent like that? We got in bed early since 6 of us were running the Peachtree Road Race Saturday morning. For those of you who aren't from Georgia, this is such a fun event! I kinda laugh everytime someone says "how did you finish?" I want to just say..."I finished and got the shirt." After all, isn't that why we participate anyway? Darin reached his goal and finished in under an hour (show off!!).

Other than traveling, we've been busy doing other things. Austin made the all-star team. His first tournament is this week and he's been practicing almost every night during the week. They won their first game Monday night but lost tonight. They have to win Thursday to advance to the next tournament.

Erin got her learner's license. Does anyone remember learning how to drive? I swear everytime she see's a car coming towards her we almost end up in the ditch! Last week she was driving and a dump truck was coming towards us in the other lane and I'm pretty sure when I looked at her, she had her eyes shut!! She's learning though...and she's excited! I just hope to survive...

I guess the biggest news of the summer is that we found out that there's going to be an addition to the family. Baby Plumlee is due February 19. This is truly an answer to prayer. After going through everything earlier this year, the doctor had told us that there was a chance that I might not ever be able to have a child. Not only that, he said that if we were wanting one, that we needed to get pregnant by the end of this year. No pressure there, right?! We prayed and decided that if it was meant to be, then it would happen. It's still early, but the doctor says everything looks fine so far. We would definitly appreciate any prayers you send our way!!

The kids are excited. We told Erin first. I was a little worried about her since the EXACT day I told Darin I was pregnant, Erin informed us that she did not want any other siblings since her two brothers already got on her nerves!! She didn't know we were pregnant at that point...talk about bad timing! I think she's ok with it now, although she wants another brother so she can be the only girl! :) Austin and Gavin are excited too. In fact, when we asked Gavin what we should name the baby, he said if it was a girl, we should name it Butterfly. If it's a boy, he had several choices. His first choice was Spiderman and then Hulk. But he said if we named it Hulk then it would come out green and mean. So, he decided on Slinky Dog (from Toy Story). So cute! It's actually a joke now with our families to ask how Slinky Dog is doing...

I promise next post, I'll post some pics of our adventures. We've had a great summer so far and only have 3 more weeks left until we go back to school! Time sure is flying. Will post pictures soon!!

Where have I been this past month?

I don't know why but these past couple of years, May has been one of the bussiest months for us. The first week of May was spent getting my students ready to take their Gateway Test (otherwise known as the EOC test). All of my students but one passed so I'm pleased. After that first full week things really started getting busy. First of all....



My youngest sister, Elisabeth, graduated from West Georgia on May 9. She is an English major with a minor in Secondary Education. She is currently looking for a job in a middle school or high school. We are so proud of Aunt Elisabeth!! Here's some more pics from her graduation.

Jessica, Elisabeth and me. Meredith had to work the night shift the night before so she didn't make it to the graduation. We wanted to make the sister pic "official" though, so we made a sign for her. lol!




Elisabeth with Mom and Dad



Elisabeth and her boyfriend Kevin



Darin and me at Elisabeth's graduation party.



Here's the original "Lovelace" family. :)





Track has also kept me busy. My girls did really well this year. Here's two of them before their race a few weeks ago.

Morgan and Whitney



Whitney actually qualified for the State meet this year in the 400 meter race, and she's only a junior. She did great and finished with her best time yet! Way to go Whit!! I'm so proud of you.



Here's a few more pics from the state meet. The first is the "other" track coaches that I try to keep in line...it's a tough job!! :)



Icelyn and Whitney before running. Icelyn actually qualified for state in 4 different events!! She's already signed to play basketball at MTSU next year.



Then there's baseball season. Austin is loving baseball this season. He's playing catcher and 3rd base and is getting really good at both! Here's a pic of him catching.



We all enjoy going to the games, although it can make for a really late night! Here's some pics from a recent game. Jeremy got a hold of my camera and took some extra shots for me too!

Jessica and Jackson



Erin and Jeremy



And then there's this gal




Perhaps the biggest thing that's happened this month is....

AUSTIN TURNED 11!!! Happy Birthday Austin. We love you!





I wanted to end this blog with a "only in Tennessee would you ever see this" picture. These were taken on the way back from a track meet by Whitney and Morgan. Can you believe this car?!?!








I'm sure the girls weren't obvious AT ALL while taking those pictures...YEAH RIGHT!! :)

May has been fun but busy and our summer is shaping up to be just as busy. We've got a trip planned to Gatlinburg and Atlanta during the 7 weeks we have off. I'll try to post a little more often throughout the summer!!

On Friday I got the worst possible call you can ever receive as a teacher. I was sitting in the cafeteria during lunch and my cell phone rang. Now, usually, I never have my cell phone on, but we were about to leave for a track meet so I had all my stuff with me. I looked at the number and noticed that it was the school's main line. I thought that was strange, but then decided it could be one of those automated messages that was advertising the musical that was going on last weekend or something. I answered it and it was our secretary. She told me that she needed me to get one of my students out of lunch, get her books and walk her down to the office. They had just gotten a phone call that my student's father had passed away at work earlier that morning. Time Out. When I signed up to be a teacher, I was thinking about nice long summer breaks, football games and pep rally's. Not moments like this. I wanted to cry and I didn't even know the man. I get my student and we start to walk to the office. Oh yeah...did I mention that they didn't want me to tell the student what was going on? Hello?!? I teach high school here people. These kids can be smart when they want to be...so naturally, my student was very curious as to why I was literally walking her to the office. I told her that I could just wait with her until her mom got to the school. I didn't want to leave her by herself to wonder what in the world was going on. She told me that she wanted me to stay so we waited a few minutes. While I was up there, the secretary informs me that "oops" she got it wrong and it was actually this girl's uncle that had died. Her cousin had already been checked out earlier that morning. Now, I can definitely relate to being close to uncles...I have three that I'm extremely close to, but I'm so glad I didn't tell this poor girl that her father had passed away. Can you imagine? Anyway, her mom gets to the school and picks her up. She informs her of everything (heart attack at 45...terrible!!) and they leave.

Now it's off to the track meet. I'm sitting there watching the high jump event when one of our jumpers starts to go. This is her first time doing this event so she's a little nervous. She runs through two attempts before finally jumping. The problem is that she has made herself so nervous that she actually waits too late to jump. She clears the corner of the mat and land face down on the pavement. Luckily, this was a "rubber" track, but it still knocked her out cold! I'm thinking to myself that she will wake up in a minute but she doesn't. We have to call 911 and an ambulance shows up. Guess who the lucky person was who went with her? Yep...me. And remember...I DON'T DO HOSPITALS!!! So, we're frantically trying to get in touch with a parent and I'm trying to keep up with the ambulance in the head coaches truck. It was not fun. Luckily by the time they got her to the hospital, she was awake and talking. She couldn't remember anything at all about jumping but nothing was broken or anything. They did a CAT scan and everything came back fine. She actually was released and came back to the track meet to see the end of it.

Talk about enough excitement in one day!!!

After all that drama, I was afraid of what the weekend would bring. Luckily, we had a beautiful day on Saturday and we enjoyed a trip to the park and to the indoor swimming pool!! Here's a few pics of our day. Enjoy!

Jillian and Gavin



Jackson...having a not-so-good hair day! This is after we put sun screen on his head!



Austin was so hot that he poured water on himself to cool down!!


Jessica and Jackson swinging


Having fun at the indoor pool!!

Easter Activities

We had a great Easter weekend at our house. The weather was beautiful which was a nice change. This week it has gone back to being cold and rainy. Yuck!! Our Easter celebration started a week early. We took Jillian and Jackson (my niece and nephew) to a huge Easter Egg Hunt. This one family puts on the hunt every year and has been doing so for the past 15 years. The sad part was that Mr. Knowles actually fell and broke his hip before the hunt started. We pulled up and saw an ambulance carrying him away. They completed surgery and he is going to be fine!! Here's a few pics I got of that weekend.

Jillian ready to go to the Easter egg hunt!!



Jackson acting goofy!!







Jillian and Me



Elizabeth, me, Jessica and Jillian



Jessica and Jackson


On Easter Sunday, we got up early to see what the Easter Bunny brought and then headed to church. We had lunch with the whole Plumlee family. Here are some pics from lunch.

Austin looking handsome!!



Gavin being silly.



The whole family (with Darin's two sisters and their families)



Us with Darin's parents. His dad had surgery last week to remove some skin cancer from his cheek.



Just the 5 of us.



We had a great Easter but I really missed being with my family. I'm including some pics I got from my sister from their time in Atlanta.

Kevin and Elisabeth



The Lakeman Family



Meredith and Lee



The whole family (Kevin, Elisabeth, Lee, Meredith, Dad, Mom, Jillian, Jeremy, Jessica and Jackson)



Jillian and Jackson in their Easter outfits. So cute!!


Although I missed being with my family, we really had a very relaxing weekend. We're planning on going down in May to celebrate Elisabeth's graduation, and we're definitely planning on being there for the 4th of July. Can't miss the Peachtree Road Race!!!!

Spring Break-Week Two

As I've mentioned before, we are very fortunate to teach in the county we do for one good reason...a two week spring break!! The first week was spent on that great cruise I mentioned before and the second was just as busy. The weekend we got back from the cruise Darin and I had to ourselves. I thought we would just lay around and relax (and get caught up on laundry) but we decided to head over to Bristol and try to get some tickets for the race. My friend Erin and her husband Casey were camping out so they let us crash at their place. We drove up there Saturday evening and camped out. It was so cold!! I thought the 4 of us were going to end up in the car. However, we toughed it out and had a great time. I don't know that much about racing, but Darin's a big fan of Tony Stewart. I'm learning to like it more and more. Here's some pics from the race.







On Tuesday, all of us went to the Nashville Preditors (Hockey) game. We had a great time. Austin won two tickets for meeting his reading goal at school and we bought 3 more tickets so that all of us could go. Of course, we had to make it a true outing and go out to eat downtown and everything. So, we get downtown and ask the kids where they would like to eat. Austin and Gavin start chanting "Hooters, Hooters..." I'm not even kidding. I'm thinking to myself...can kids even go in this place? Oh yeah...they love kids. So, the 5 of us go trotting inside. After informing the kids that this was where Darin and I went on our first date (long story) they decided that Hooters was not so cool anymore. We went to the Preds game and although I don't know that much about Hockey, it was an awesome game. It even went into overtime and we got to see a shoot out. I think that's what it's called. The kids had a great time and we enjoyed having some quality family time before the end of the break. Here's some pics from dinner and the game.














On that Thursday, I had another surgery to get rid of the cyst that had formed. Once they got in their, they realized that my other ovary was covered in endometriosis. So, unfortunately, they had to completely remove that ovary. However, I still have one good functioning side so we're still good!

You might not think that I would have a pic of my stay in the hospital. After all, it was outpatient and how much fun can one have? Well, I might not have been having any fun, but my husband, sister and brother-in-law sure were!! Let me explain that right across the street from the hospital is a Krispy Kreme Doughnut place. We use this as an excuse everytime we go downtown. So, while I'm asleep and having my insides torn out of me (not really...but it makes it more dramatic this way...) my loving family decides to LEAVE ME ALL ALONE AT THE HOSPITAL and take a hike over to Krispy Kreme's. (Again...being dramatic). Let me issue a disclaimer that I'm sure my own mother tried her best to not leave me alone at the hospital. I'm sure they bound and gagged her and forced her out against her will. Yeah, right. When I wake up (half drugged still...), Darin and Jeremy come over and put a hat on me and shoot this picture.




Oh well...at least they brought me back two!! :)

Seriously, I'm doing great and go back to the doctor on Friday just to be sure. We're back at school and although we're hoping for a snow day tomorrow (this April weather is NUTS!!)we're on the downhill slide for this year. Woo hoo!!!