Kenny Chesney Concet

Getting ready for the concert!

The Girls!

CHEERS!

Britt's crew getting roudy!

Hanna and Curtis

Hanna and Me

Ida and Hanna

This is how we felt by the end of the night! ;)

Last night's scare...

We need to just buy some stock in Frye and Catawba Memorial Hospital because my family has been there enough in the past month to pay for a few of the employees salaries! Yesterday evening I took Ashlyn and Brennan over to my Mammaw Sherrill's to visit her and Lewis. Unfortunately Lewis is having to go to a nursing home today. He is showing early signs of alzheimer's, and Mammaw just can't take care of him all on her own. It was such a hard decision, but it simply had to be done. I truly hate it for him! He is one of the kindest, most sincere people that I know! It breaks my heart to think of him in a nursing home! Well I ALWAYS carry my phone on me. For some reason while I was at Mammaw's I decided to leave it in the car. Once I got back in the car I had 7 missed calls in an hours time. This is the order they came in......Britt, Britt, Joyce (Britt's mom), Joyce, Joyce, Joyce, Kerry (Britt's sister). I KNEW something was wrong. I had 3 voicemail also, so I called and checked them. Joyce's message said for me to call her right away and Kerry's message said that she knew that I was up at the hospital, but for me to call her when I got her voicemail and got a chance. I wasn't at the hospital and I had NO CLUE what was going on! I called Joyce right away and she was up at the hospital with Britt. He was having chest pains and numbness in his left arm. GOLLY PETE!!!! First Ashlyn, then my dad, now Britt! I rushed up to the hospital as fast as I could. The EKG came back normal.........No heart attack! Praise GOD! They ran a few more tests and did some x-rays on his lungs. All of that came back ok as well. The ER doctor seems to think that he's pulled a muscle in his ribs. I, being Dr. Mindy, think that he's just stressed out and having symptoms of panic attacks. Of course he didn't bring any of this to the doctor's attention though! Why are men so stubborn? Anyway, he was sent home last night and seems to be doing fine. He's still having the chest pain, but so far he hasn't had anymore of the tingling in his arm. Please keep him in your prayers. This has been one HELL of a month! Let's hope that this is the last of it! My nerves are COMPLETELY SHOT!!!!

Quick Rant

I am P-I-S-S-E-D!!!! All I wanted was a freakin tan for the Kenny Chesney concert tomorrow night. Is that too much to ask? APPARENTLY!!!!! I called the tanning salon right down the street from work about getting a mystic tan. First off she tries to tell me that before I can do the mystic tan I have to by about $60 worth of products! What.............are you kidding me? This is a one time deal. I'm not going to buy $60 worth of products for one time in a spray booth! So after arguing with her about this on the phone she finally tells me that she "guesses" I can still go in the booth, but that my tan will not meet it's maximum potential. Blah blah blah. I go for my appointment and there are 3 levels. Level one is for someone pale, level 2 is the average level, and level 3 is the darkest level. She tells me that I need level one. This girl is just trying to push every one of my buttons today. I tell her that I'd really like to go with the level 2, but she continues to test my nerves and tell me that with "my skin tone" I need to go with level one! HELLO???? I may not be the darkest right now, but I'm nowhere near paper white! I should have just walked out at this point, but I decided to go ahead and get the level one and just see what it does. It's been 4 hours later now, and so far I can only tell a slight difference in my skin tone! I am FURIOUS!!!!!!!!! I could understand if I were baking under some bulbs, but I was getting spray tanned for goodness sakes! It's not like I'm going to burn from getting a level 2 or even 3 spray tan!

What makes me SMILE!!!

Brennan in his little golfer pants. Too stinkin' cute!

Both of my GORGEOUS babies!!!

What a sweet sister!

Awwwwwww!!!!!

Campmeeting

Our campground family portrait.

Nana and Brennan

Dad and Pappaw. Like fater like son!

Ashlyn and her buddy Eli from school.

Whitney loving on Brennan

Brennan @ 4 month's old

In his own personal swing at the campground.

Checking Rudy out.

Daddy and Brennan.

I'm starting to see the resemblance.

Ida and Brennan

I have more pictures to post. I uploaded some last night, but I have no clue what happened to them. I'll try to get them up tonight or tomorrow. They are PRICELESS!!!

Campmeeting Pics

The Drum Family

Ashlyn and Halle

I'll post more later on. Our computer is still down at home, so it takes me a little longer to download and post pictures. Hopefully I'll swing by Mom and Dad's and get a few more posted this evening.

Where I've been hiding......

As most of you know it's that time of year again. Good old Balls Creek Campmeeting! Probably the best 2 weeks out of the entire year, especially through the eyes of my 4 year old daughter. She can't get enough of it! I almost wish that it went on all year round because this is the best behavior that I've gotten out of her in a long time. All I have to do is threaten that if she misbehaves we won't be going out and she does a complete 180 in a snap. Love this! It's better than the whole Santa's watching thing...........Seriously!!! LOL! Ashlyn is DEFINITELY 100% a campmeeting girl! Brennan is going to be the same way. He's already loving every minute of being out there and he's only 4 months old. HA! I am so blessed to be from the area which I grew up! Nothing's better than having 2 weeks out of the year devoted to good friends and fellowship.....................Gospel singings, sermons, swinging on your front porch people watching, going to the shack for some good ol' greasy campground food, good icecream, cheap toys (which Ashlyn loves the best), saying that you're going to make "one quick round" when really every round ends up being an hour long or more! I LOVE IT!!!! So glad I'm a true campmeeting girl at heart! I'm working on Britt. This is one tough task! LOL!

God Know What He's Doing

I susbscribe to a daily devotional from 106.9 The Lite. This was the devotional that was in my inbox on Monday morning. God is always speaking, you just have to learn how to listen! Maybe I'll post more later about how everything has played out recently, but all I can say is..........GOD IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

All ThingsIt is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.

(Psalm 119:71)
Did you know that everything you have experienced up to this point in life can be used for good? That is not to say you haven’t experienced hardship. That is not to say bad things haven’t happened to you. But it is to say that God can work them out for good.That includes the experiences of your childhood, whether good or bad. That includes your parents, whoever they may be. That includes your education, your present employment, or your lack of it. He will work all things together for good.I went through hardship as a kid. I came from a home that was broken many, many times over, a home of alcoholism. I wouldn’t wish my childhood on anyone. But God used it to make me the person that I am.In the same way, God has used what you have gone through to make you the person that you are. So let it be worked together for good and accept God’s promise to you: “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). The phrase, “work together” also could be translated, “working together.” In other words, it isn’t over yet. Maybe you are going through a process right now in which God is working things together for good. You don’t see it yet. But you are a work in progress. Be patient. You have God’s word on it: He will work all things together for good to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose. God is ultimately working all things for good—not just the good things, but all things.

Two Teethies

DO NOT ADJUST YOUR SCREEN!

Those are actually TEETH.....................On my 3 1/2 month old!!!!!

One popped through last week and the other cam through yesterday.

AMAZING!

Thank You!!

Thank you for all of your prayers and concerns with Ashlyn and my dad. Ashlyn is 100% back to her normal happy, wild, sometimes ill/whiney self! I'd much rather see her ill and whiney than in the shape she was in Thursday night! My dad was able to come home from the hospital yesterday. He's doing amazingly well! The EKG that was done on Monday showed that there was no permanent damage done to his heart. PRAISE GOD! Please continue to lift him up during his recovery. I am SOOOO very thankful that Dad is still here!!!! God's not finished with him yet.

When it Rains it Pours

Ashlyn woke up Wednesday night/Thursday morning at 2am screaming and crying with her belly hurting. She also had a fever of 102. I was up for a good 2 hours with her trying to calm her down. I gave her some Motrin hoping that it would help. By 5am when Britt came in from work she was crying out in pain again. I took her to the doctor first thing Thursday morning. Appendicitis was the first thing that popped into my head. The doctor was shocked at how much pain she was in. He ordered blood work and a urine sample. Everything came back with the results that he wanted. He said that more than likely it was just viral. There was only a 5% chance that it could be appendicitis. He told me that if she was still showing the same symptoms on Friday to bring her back in and he would order a catscan on her appendix. He called in some hydrocodone for the pain and sent us home. By 5:00 that afternoon she was worse than she was before. All she did was lay in her bed an moan. I called back up to the doctor's office and spoke to the doctor on call. He told me to take her to the ER and that he would call the hospital and order the CT scan. It killed me to see my child suffering the way that she was! I've never seen anyone in as much pain as she was laying on that hospital bed. It was the worst feeling as a mother knowing that my child is laying there helpless and I can't do anything to take this terrible pain away! They drew blood, started an iv, gave her morphine for the pain................. MORPHINE for my 4 year old!!!, did a catheter, gave her an enema of dye so that they could do the catscan, ran the catscan. She was PITIFUL!!! The surgeon was 99% sure that it was appendicitis. He had the OR room ready, and he was fully prepared to do surgery on my baby. To all of our surprise the CT scan came back normal. Her appendix looked fine. They admitted her for the night because of her pain level. Also they weren't sure what was going on, so they wanted to keep a close eye on her over night. Not the greatest thing in the world, but I was happy that they kept her so that they could monitor her pain level. By Friday morning her fever had broken, and her pain was slowly going away. She definitely had the doctor's scratching their heads. All they could say was that apparently she had some kind of nasty virus. The doctor finally released her at 8pm Friday night. As Ashlyn was being released my mom called and said that she was bringing my dad to the ER because he was having pain in his arm and tightness in his chest. Mom came into to Ashlyn's room bawling. My dad was having a heart attack! They transferred him from Catawba to Frye. I couldn't leave with my mom because I was stuck at Catawba until all of Ashlyn's release forms were drawn up. I have never in my life been under as much stress as I was at that very moment! I felt like my world was crashing down on me. Britt met me up at the hospital to take Ashlyn home and I rushed up to Frye to find out news on my dad. He had a complete blockage in his main artery. There is a 90 minute window whenever there is a complete blockage. He made it to Frye, and the heart team had the stint in place right in that 90 minute time period. If he would have waited a few minutes longer before going to the hospital, or if anything wouldn't have played out the way that it did my dad may not be here with us today. I PRAISE GOD that my daddy is still here!!!! He's been in the critical care unit, but they finally moved him to a regular room last night. They will assess the damage today to see if he has any long term damage to his heart. Please pray for my dad, that he makes a full recovery. Please keep our family in your prayers. It has been one heck of a week! On top of all of this our house was struck by lightning on Thursday night while we were at the hospital with Ashlyn. It knocked out our satellite dish and receiver, our computer modem and speakers, and our brand new remote control gate that we just installed a few months ago. For the love!!!!!!!!