Pictures like these make me wonder where the years went....

Seventeen and a half years and I feel like it is yesterday. I know I have done things wrong and could have done so many things better. I can only hope that God will honor my prayer that Jason will know God in a real way. Moments like these make me smile. Couldn't help but share my eldest in a tux.

January Moments

Two years ago this was a shot of the kids around Christmas time. The picture below is a picture when Stephen turned 16. Notice the height change of all the kids. Jason was 6' 2" and has been for two years. Stephen has to have grown 6 -12 inches. Ha

Basketball is usually full of basketball. This year Caroline is the only one playing basketball. Above is her team before a game. She is on the front row with both her hand up!

Update

I started this blog with this group of cousins in one of my first few posts. So it seems right to have an updated group of cousins. Within 7 years my sister and I managed to give birth to eight children. So far God has blessed us and they still know how to have fun even though miles and ballgames keep them apart. Above are the oldest from each family. Caleb is now in college. Jason is a jr. in high school but only 22 months younger than Caleb.

Here are the #2's of each family. They both share a love of Maw Maw's oreo ice cream.

#3 and #4 in a picture. This shows the extremes of hair colors of the group. And the colors are natural.

Here are the clowns of the family who managed to love to shop and laugh.

When you have multiple children, you find yourself documenting first and last. When you have the first child, you are always documenting the first: The first day of school, the first game, the first dance. Then you have child two and three. Then #four is here. And you have to think about the last: The last first day of school, the last first points scored in a game. And it makes you sad sometimes and sometime it makes you smile and praise God you survive.

Well this entry is documenting the last Holly Ball for the Bass family. The last "last dance" with Dad. This is a mix for me. It makes me sad and it makes me smile. You have to give Caroline credit here. We were gone a week on vacation and then the Holly Bass was in a week. I went and borrowed all items needed. No shopping. Just trying on dresses at home. She picked one out and she looked grand! And she had a good time. We have to give David credit also. He went with a broke shoulder and they were a great pair on the dance floor.

We have been cruising........................

Life is funny sometimes and then again it is not so funny until a week later. Mom(me) had big dreams of a fun family vacation for the Bass family. Jason is a junior and we don't know what his senior year holds, so I thought it was the right time for the "big" vacation. So A 5 night cruise was planned. Being the thrifty person I am, I used David's Marriott points and booked 2 nights at a resort on the beach before we go on board the "boat". What fun, on the beach in a villa, with heated pools........This is where the fun begins................As I returned from a trip to publix to gather food supplies for the day. Stephen walks in and says "Dad hurt his arm and it is bad." Then Katie Ann walks in "Dad hurt his arm really." In walks my sweet hubby with a towel as a sling saying. "Get me something, the pain is awful". Not a good sign. He tells me a wave knocked him down and he hit shoulder first. (later he tells me an elderly couple had to help him ashore)

I sit and look at him waiting for the pain to ease. No such luck. The lady cleaning our room looks at him and says "Boy you ruined your vacation". Stephen snickers and we keep watching waiting for the pain to go away. I make a phone call and ask David if he thinks he needs to go the ER. (Hoping he says I don't think so.) He says I think I need to go. So off to the ER he and I go. The only thing I tell the kids is to not get in the ocean. We GPS the hospital and off we go. Every time someone ask David what happen and he tells them he was in the ocean, they remark "in this weather?" I can only tell you there were many thoughts in my heads but cannot tell you what they were! ha...But one thing about waiting in an ER, you may see others with worse problems than your own. You start to see your Er visit is minor and you will take it. So I begin to be thankful and then I would panic. Then I would be thankful. It was a cycle. Texting probably keep me sane. Then off to X-ray and the verdict- Shoulder is broken. Here are pain pills, go on the cruise. I felt relief and then panic. I can't take him on the cruise or can I. What does a good wife do? Well we did get on the boat. David was a great sport. We ate, saw shows, snorkeled, climbed a water fall (without David) and just had fun. Pain pills are a wonderful thing. So here are a few photos from our cruise:

A New Chapter for Jason

Jason is a junior in high school this year. He branched out this year and started a new sport: Cross County. The school team had a new coach also so Jason started fresh. He took the advice of the coach and worked hard. He started the year running 3.1 miles in 20:10. Improved all year long. He goal was to be on the varsity. Not only did he run all races on varsity, he became the #2 runner for his team and was able to go to the Tenn High school State Meet by placing 9th in his region. At state, he placed 67th out of 192 runners and finished at a time of 17:46. The thing I learned from Jason was when a door closes and you take another one with a good attitude and hard work, good things can happen. Finishing at state. He is the tall one. He passed these three guys on the stretch.

Jason is the one at the back beside the guy with the L on his jersey. This was at state.

Getting ready to run state.............

Jason and a few teammates at the Regions. His team actually won the regions this year.

Caving...............

The Youth Group went Caving one Saturday. Now all three of the older ones are in high school so I only have to keep up with one event until Caroline moves up next year.

I assume Jason is Getting ready?????

Katie Ann showing her excitement. Stephen was on this trip but we didn't find a picture of him. But he says he was there!