I was so thrilled to get some pictures of my sister Gina's new baby from my brother Ethan today!!  So...

*** Introducing ***

Slater Cole Bergey

Isn't he just adorable?? All that dark hair and those kissable cheeks??

Mom holding her 30th grandchild

Koltin and Addy holding their new little brother!!

 This is were I've been sitting on and off for the last few days....getting all my Jan-Feb. pictures in a book.

All that's left is to go through and journal on them...thats the fun part!

Just a few~ I didn't count how many pages I did, but I know it was over 20 on both sides!!

 Tomorrow morning I am going to see my New LIFE (Leaders in Fertility and Endicrinology) Doctor again....they will be doing another ultrasound of my insides....  Pray for me and that maybe we can get some more answers...

 Also, please pray for my nephew Kendon and his wife Aggey who were just married 2 weeks ago! They tried one more time to get her to be able to get across the border of Canada to come to the states, but were denied. So Kendon came back by himself.....this looks like a long frustrating journey for a newly married couple...please pray for a miracle!  Thanks!

 Yesterday Tamara's friend Anslie came over for a few hours. Her parents had a meeting to attned, but then it got canceled. We decided to still have her come though so we wouldn't have 2 disappointed girls!

 They had lots of fun playing with horses and on the trampoline......

....and then had root beer floats to end the day.
 They were toasting to friendship!!

 In the afternoon, there was a knock at the door and it was a guy letting me know that he and a friend were going to be taking the swarm of honey bees around 6. I was disappointed because that is the time we had to leave for church. Well, we always leave earlier than we would have to, so technically we could wait to leave till 6:15 and still get there in time. So we just had to wait and see what time they came. Lucky for us, they showed up at 5:55 and so we got to watch for a good 15 minutes.

They set up a hive under the tree.....
  He also warned us that they could be Africanized bees. They are a breed that is coming from South Africa and are mostly found in TX, NM, and CA. They are more aggressive! If these were Africanized bees, he said we would find out fast and would need to run for the house as fast as we can!!  We still stood close and watched....maybe we are naive? Thankfully, they weren't Africanized!!

Getting the smoker ready.

Smoking the bees....that calms them down and reduces stinging.

Before they even smoked them, some of the bees were already going down into the hive. They smell the honey and are attracted, then they send word up to the other workers, who follow them down to the hive. Once the queen goes down to the hive box, all the rest will follow, but that could take awhile, so smoking helped move the process on quicker.

That was alot of bees!! The guy who was getting them was so thrilled!!

Think maybe we should have charged for them?  I wonder what they were worth??

 Till we left for church, they already had the queen in the box. I don't know how much longer it took, but they were gone when we got home!
 It was a very interesting process to watch and I am so glad we got to be there to see it!

  Life has been very full the last week! Dan's parents and uncle came last Thursday evening and stayed till Sunday after lunch. Friday we spent the day around the house, doing wash, mowing, etc. In the evening Ron & Janet went to visit some friends and we stayed home. Played Apples to Apples Jr. and had popcorn!

 (Notice the pink on Danny's cheek? He has poison and I had put some Ivarest on it. Thankfully it is mostly dried up by now. He had it on his face, arms and chest.)

 Sparky stayed at the house with us while they were gone....he was waiting for any dropped pieces of popcorn!

 Saturday we went up to see Eric & Yolie's new house construction. It is looking good!

The kids had great fun playing on the hills of dirt!

Ian had fun slopping in the puddles!

 Billy, one of the mentally handicapped men Dan's parents keep, took us all out to Pizza Hut for lunch! He was thrilled to do that!

Later in the afternoon I caught the brothers zonked out on the sofa!  Sorry for the over-exposure! I took it without the flash so I wouldn't wake them up.

Saturday evening Dan & I took the kids to the Passion Play in Panama City. It was really good! Dan's folks stayed home to get the men to bed early since we had to be at church at 6:30 AM Sunday morning for the Sunrise service.
 We had a beautiful morning to have a Sunrise service! I took my camera but didn't get any pictures!  After breakfast and Sunday School, we came home and got to sit and relax for a little while before getting lunch ready.
 
 Tamara, Dan, Danny, Grandma Henry, Mike, Sparky and Grandpa Henry

Monday Tamara had an eye doctor appointment at 11. They were calling for storms in the afternoon, so I was hoping we could get done before the storms and rain came. Her appointment went well, but as I suspected, she is going to need glasses.  She picked out a pink pair and we will probably get them later this week.

 When we left the house in the morning, I noticed this black "thing" in our one crepe myrtle tree. I took a closer look and realized it was a swarm of honey bees. They are still there and we are hoping to find a bee keeper who might want to come get them. That would be interesting to watch. I want to do more research about the way they travel in swarms....how they choose where to stop and how long they usually stay....will they leave behind some honey? LOL!!

 We did beat the rain home but the sky was looking nasty. Soon after we were home our weather alert went off warning of a tornado headed our way!! I kept watching to see if we should run for cover. One time I stepped out onto the porch and Jonas (our neighbor) was out at the shop and saw me and told me I might want to go over to their house. (they have a basement). As I was driving over, the sky turned a nasty greenish color!! I wish I had stopped and took the time to get a picture since I had my camera along. Not too long after we got over there, it started hailing and got real windy and then poured down sheets of rain!! The electric went off soon after that.
 I don't think a tornado actually touched down real near here, but Blountstown had quite a few trees down. We were out of electric till 5:30 that evening.

 Here are two pictures I took out the kitchen window while I was watching the sky, and trying to decide if we needed to run for cover. I was trying to catch the streaks of lightning that were in that dark sky! Sorry for the glare of my kitchen lights~

That lighter area near the right of the picture was what was turning green!

 Today Anslie Y. is here to play with Tamara. Her parents had a meeting to go to, but then it got canceled, but we had her come anyway since there would have been 2 very disappointed little girls!

 Looking forward to heading to PA next week! I am trying to get a bunch of scrapbooking done, so I can take some pics along. Also can hardly wait to meet my newest nephew! I haven't even got to see a pic of him yet!!

Congratulations

 to my sister Gina and her husband Phil on the birth of their third child this morning!!

Welcome to our family Slater Cole Bergey

Born this morning at 3:45 AM and weighing in at 9 lb. 7 oz. and 21 3/4 inches long!! Counting down the days till I get to see him!

 Despite waking up to 35 degrees yesterday morning, springtime is definitely here!!  Yesterday after lunch the kids and I went out to town and took a walk on the "Greenway"-a paved trail through town.

 Here are a few of the pretty flowers we saw along the way....

The sweet kids~

Danny                                           Tamara

Back to the train again...they just recently painted the letters and numbers on the sides (although you can't see them on this pic!)

Our neighbor's cows....

 This morning I am going to be working at cleaning. Dan's parents and uncle are coming tonight for the weekend. They will be staying at our neighbors, so I don't NEED to wash the bedding, but it looks like after today there is a chance of rain almost every day till next Wed., so I think I'll take advantage of that!

 Would you please pray for my sister Gina today? She went in to their local hospital to be induced to deliver their little baby!!    Pray that he is born healthy and that she has an easy labor! Thanks!!

 For Christmas we gave our children some "credit cards" for different things and the one was for a Me & You day. Tamara chose Friday to redeem hers since Dan had off work and would be able to spend it with Daniel.

 We started off by eating lunch at the Wisteria Cafe' in town. The food was good and we were the only ones there for a little while...then it filled up fast. We got there before 11 a.m., so I guess that's why we beat the rush!

Front of the menu...

Our waitress took a picture for us after she served us our meal.

From there we went to the VF Outlet in Graceville. That was kind of a wasted trip!  They changed things around and their girls section was MUCH smaller and they just didn't have what we were looking for. I found a cute pair of shorts for Tamara for wearing to the beach and they were $16!!  Found one for me, too and they were $23. That is not a savings in my opinion!! (They advertise up to 70% off normal retail....ha!! UP TO must be the key here!)

 After that we went to the Walmart in Chipley. Dan had told me back last fall that whenever I lost 25 pounds he wanted to treat Tamara and I to a pedicure. Those 25 were off already last Sept, and we just never took the time to do it! In the meantime, our local Walmart closed down their nail shop, so we thought we'd check here since we were in the area. We were in luck!! 
 The ladies were Chinese and were kind of hard to understand, but our visit was wonderful!! Relaxing in those massage chairs while getting your feet pampered! Aaahhh!!!

My tootsies!  

 The most special part of the day was on our drive from B-town to Graceville, Tamara asked me if we could sing together and she picked Amazing Grace. I knew that is one of her favorite songs and am a little embarrased to say that she knows it better than I do! I think I messed up on the words twice!  Anyway, after we got done singing, she said "Mom, I want to ask Jesus into my heart!" Wow!   So I prayed with her and then she told me that she was nervous and had wanted to tell me before, but couldn't get up the nerve!  
 When I was combing her hair the next day she told me that she is going to try harder to obey...."like about the cheese". I didn't know what she was talking about, but then she reminded me about last Sunday at lunch she kept picking at the shredded cheese after we were done eating and I told her to stop and then caught her again and sent her to her room for awhile for disobeying. She said "I don't want to let Satan tell me what to do anymore". Bless her! Pray for us as we teach our children and make our lives an example to them!

When we got home, we packed up and headed to the beach with the youth....we got there before they did, so Dan and Tamara took a walk....

The water was soo cold!! Brr! Danny still got wet up to his waist. It was also a very windy night and the air was chilly!

Setting up the food....Caroline made some yummy BLT sandwiches and Ally brought some killer chicken salad!  Susan made some wonderful brownies and Ruth Ann provided the Smores stuff...I think Sammy brought chips... and Jeremy?? not sure??

Sammy, Jeremy, Dan & Ally

See what I mean about it being chilly....jackets and blankets at a FL beach in April??  

Ruth Ann, Yolie holding Ian, Susan holding Collin

Eric got a fire started in all that wind by digging a hole and then setting up a wind block.

The sun going down...

And another....

Trying to stay warm by the fire!

clockwise from top...Eric, Ian, Carmen, Sean, Jeremy, Dan and Sammy

Dan  I... I had a bite of BLT in my mouth and was trying to be careful not to show it in my smile, and instead I made it look like I had a mile long chin! LOL!!

Roasting marshmallows for Smores!!!

Almost dark...

We had a fun evening despite the cold... thanks to the greatest youth group for a good time!!

 Saturday I took some yard sale stuff to Emily's house for her bi-annual yard sale. We did pretty good...I got rid of more than half of my loot!
 Earlier in the week I had found a sofa with 2 reclining ends on Craigslist in Tallahassee. It looked nice and after talking with the lady, we made arrangements to look at it Sat. late afternoon. We were impressed with what we saw and for $75 felt like we were getting a real good deal!
 While we were in Tallahassee, we ate supper at Olive Garden, a treat from one of my photo "clients".  Thanks, N.R.!!

Our new (for us) sofa...the kids were watching a movie.

Well, I need to close and go bring in my wash...today was a beautiful day for hanging out wash!! It was supposed to rain, but they were a little off...it is so sunny, blue skies and quite breezy.
 We have to get groceries later today. Dan works late again tonight....

 Have a blessed week!!