Our Little "Bulldog Award" Winner

 A few weeks ago we received a note from Lindsay's teacher that said she would be receiving an award on May 23rd at a school assembly.

 Lindsay has been the Student of the Month a few times before at her 2 other schools, it was always so sweet to see her walking up to the stage with her little cane and hold her award next to the other recipients-hers was usually upside down :)

 This time,  it was really different.  An aide started to walk her up, but she went so fast, and with such purpose, the aide just let her go up by herself.

 It was fun for her to be recognized with a few of her other classmates who had won awards for academics (she will never win awards for that, but it is SO okay with us!) Her very sweet friend, Lucio, won the award for his infectious smile and the daily JOY he spreads around school.  How about being in a wheelchair with so many limitations and winning that award?!  Puts us "normal" people to shame, huh?

 Lindsay got the overall award given for her grade, The Bulldog Award.  I am so proud to be the mommy of a little girl with so  many challenges  and "dis" abilities, but a heart full of love and compassion for others.  God gave her lots of limits in life so  the important "abilities" that really matter in life  shine through even brighter.  HIS plan is ALWAYS best!

 The Lindsay fan club!

 It was so special having Shae home in time for the awards assembly,

 and Anna was more than happy to miss the first hour of her  school to attend!

 Grandma and Papa

 Lindsay and her Big Daddyboy

 Lindsay LOVED that Anna missed school to come see her get her award...and gave her an extra hard hug!

  It was a fun morning and another reassurance of God's plan for this precious girl

I Am Leaving Town More Often

Remember this lovely furniture I bought at my neighbor's garage sale?  Be sure and take notice of the purple chair that accompanied this set!

Remember this purple catastrophe?

And remember how Scott  transformed her into this??  While I was gone to Virginia, my sweet stripper husband was busy busy busy once again!

He transformed the ugly purple chair into this adorable polka-dot darling!

She looks right at home in Anna's bedroom!

Another project Scott worked on while we were gone was his patio and fire pit.  He has worked so so hard on it and his hard work has certainly paid off.  The second we pulled up the driveway at home I saw these adorable wrought iron rocking chairs that I had wanted so desperately at Costco!

Don't they look so sweet...and almost SOUTHERN?!!

He even printed out a sweet little sign!!

WE have enjoyed the fire pit many times already.  It is gas, so you just have to turn it on and you don't even have to smell like smoke!

I had just enough time to "prepare the way for the queen" after I got back home!

We have had a lot going on with Shae's homecoming, the end of school and the beginning of camp upon us but I wouldn't have it any other way!  I am thinking about leaving town every month or so from now on...I like coming home to finished projects!

The Much Anticipated Lynchburg {May 2011} Post

This sweet girl and I had a little mother-daughter getaway this month.  We were informed (by Shae Marrin) of some "cheap" tickets to Lynchburg, Virginia.  Sure enough, they WERE cheap...the only glitch was that we had to fly out of San Fransisco.  We drove down the night before with Daddy, Lindsay and Grandma and Papa, ate a lovely dinner in Union Square and stayed the night downtown.  The next morning Anna and I braved The BART and rode from outside out hotel all the way to the airport...ALL BY OURSELVES!  Easy Peasy! What a great way to get to the airport!

We got to the airport in plenty of time to buy a yummy sandwich on de-lish SF sourdough bread to take on the plane with us.  I made friends with a {very "sweet"} gate agent at the airport and before too long he walked over to me and said...{ever so sweetly} "Giiiiirl, you owe ME big time!  I just moved a lady with a 2 year old lap child out of your middle seat!  Now you have an empty seat between you and your daughter!"  WooHoo!  I showed Anna Fay that kindness does pay off!

We had THE BEST time travelling together!  When it was time for us to eat our lunch we about died laughing at how the bag we had put our food in...and our chip bag had blown up because of the altitude!

We were pleasantly surprised at the amount of legroom aboard our USAirways flight.  It was absolutely lovely having an empty seat between us too.  We watched 4 downloaded ( to iTunes) episodes of Deadliest Catch on Shae's iPad.  It was so nice having something to pass the time on the almost 6 hour flight! Ugh!

We were SO CLOSE to our final destination once we arrived in Charlotte...but almost every flight was cancelled or at least delayed out of Charlotte because of thunderstorms.  Somehow, the skies over Virginia cleared and we were off to the Burg! 

Anna was so excited to get to see Shae!

One of our very first stops in our whirlwind weekend was Cracker Barrel.  I love love love Cracker Barrel...and NOT for the food.  The shop gets me every time!

We picked up a couple of Redding boys that needed some off campus time too! Tyler and Steven will both be working at camp this summer!

We had lunch at a yummy organic place called Magnolia's with Shae's friend Kayla (who is coming to visit in a few weeks!) and Shae's roommate Kara. Kara's parents gave us the most fun Jeep to drive while we were in town..I am certain that all the kids on campus thought I was a student because I am so young looking anyway...  ;)

Sweet  F.R.O.G. (Fully Rely on God) yogurt was a stop we made on several occasions!

We went up Liberty Mountain to catch a view of the city from the LU monogram on the hill. 

I love Lynchburg, Virginia!

The Snowflex Center had just opened up the new tubing area so we checked it out...

I saw a lady bite the dust pretty bad just after we got there , so I opted out! She had ample "Junk" in her trunk too...so I KNEW mine wouldn't help me stay in the tube!

The girls said it was awesome!

What a fun place!

We went to LOTS of baseball games...(and that other cute girl is Hope, Scott and I went to LU with her parents, She is coming to work at camp this summer!!)

We went to dinner with cute baseball boys...This one is also a VERY talented guitar player and he is from Atlanta and attends Andy Stanley's church, so he is a keeper!

We ate MORE frozen yogurt...

Kendra Penn is a lifelong friend of the Luff family. She travelled with Gordon on singing teas back in the early days of LU. She also  sang in my wedding (the Lords prayer acapella). It was fun to go to the Sweet Frog in Forest where she is the manager so we could see her!

My sister-in-law Beckie's little sister, Katie was in town so we had a chance to visit with her before she headed back to her internship in Washington D.C.

We watched more baseball...this time it was COLD!

The very next day while we watched yet more baseball, it was typical Lynchburg and had turned so hot and VERY humid!  So we were glad that Shae has those LU Baseball connections because we sat up in the air conditioned coaches suite!

I was so sad that #9 had hurt his knee just before we arrived and didn't play in a single game while we were there! I have, however, watched him play MANY times (when the game is online) to report any good plays to Shae while she was unable to watch the games. (the things we mothers do...)

But, Jeff is such a sweet southern boy and we had a ball having dinner with him and his hilarious-we would be such good friends if we lived near each other- Mom after a game one night.  He made the VERY top of Anna's "favorite Lynchurg Boys list".  I am thankful for his friendship to Shae.  It's nice to know someone back there is looking out for her too!

I.adore.this.picture.  How neat is that?  The LU team prays for the other team's safety on the field and on the road!

We finally got down to business and did some of what we were supposed to be doing while we were in town...packing up that dorm room.  Shae was getting more and more discouraged when she would look different places and find MORE STUFF! I am so glad she didn't fall when she was reaching above her closet! 

Kara just laughed at us as we tried to navigate through all Shae's "stuff"!

Anna was sick of my picture taking at this point, but I had to show a picture of the famous "Princess Stairs".  I remember girls falling down them when I was a student there because we had to wear skirts (with panyhose) and "pumps".  UGH! I think it is hysterical that my own daughter fell UP these exact stairs with jeans and flip flops on!  Klutz.

On our way out of town we were saying our goodbyes to everyone and Anna was in hot pursuit of Bball players to sign her baseball when we ran into Keegan who had pitched the night before.  He is going on to Law School!

Shae has somehow bypassed all the inconvenient things that I had to deal with...like carrying my own CRAP to some one's car to take and unload by ourselves to a storage place in town.   Not Shae....The first 2 loads were picked up by our dear friend, Scott Lawrenson (who was Scott's roommate at LU and his wife was mine!) He works for LU Baseball so he came and got her stuff on the golf cart.  But poor Coach Ward...he got volunteered by Scott to go get the rest of her growing belongings! Hahaha

Seriously.  Scott Lawrenson...You are right!  I might need to re-name my blog "Never Enough Stuff" like you suggested!  And, by the way, thanks for storing all the girl's stuff in your basement!  I will make it up to you somehow, really I will!

I will never forget the fun weekend Anna and I had together in Lynchburg.  It was fun to see her bonding with Shae and LOVING college life.  She is "pretty sure" Liberty is FOR HER too! Yippeeee!
I didn't have a chance to hang out with any of "my" peeps while we were there, but I did get to see many of them in passing.  I am very glad I focused on Shae and got to really know her friends! It's nice to know she has chosen well.