Happy Monday! I hope everyone had an incredible weekend. We sure did. The girls stayed with my parents Friday night and we had the opportunity to have an adult outing with some dear friends, which very rarely happens!
Our friends Maegan, Addison, Ashley, and Greg were all able to get babysitters for their kids as well and we spent the kid-free night having “grown up time” at Top Golf. This was my first time to go to Top Golf and we had a blast! The food is incredible, the atmosphere is fun and of course, you get to golf! If you’ve never been, it’s not your typical practice driving range. You can of course get some practice swings in, but even if you’ve never picked up a club in your life, you will still have a great time. Can’t wait to go back!
On Saturday, David, my dad, and I played in their company golf tournament. This is my second year playing and it is so much fun! It’s a little different from playing a typical round of golf because you play your team’s best ball for each shot, so it seems to go a bit quicker. There is a bit of strategy involved, which is fun as well! We ended up winning the net low score in our flight!
It’s safe to say that my “strength” when it comes to golfing is my drive. The highlight of my day was this drive…which landed pin high on a 322 yd par 4. NBD. (I only got a little bit of cart path help 😉 ) #crushinit
Our biggest change over the past few weeks is that school has started back. We got to a point last month where we were more than ready for school to start. We needed to get back into a routine. It has obviously changed our schedule, but we’re two weeks in and it’s going great!
These first day of school photos are some of my favorites. It’s so fun (and a little sad) to see how they change over the school year.
We started dance the same week we started school, which made for a busy, busy week! It’s hard to believe this is Raley’s 4th year doing dance! She was very shy when she started out at age 2 and refused to perform for like 2 years when David or I would come watch at the end of class. But something changed last year and she started really loving it and she started to gain more confidence in front of people. She’ll still break into her recital dance from last year at random times at home. I think if she were to put the work in to it, she could be a great little dancer. But who knows what she’ll be good at! It’s fun to think of the possibilities.
Raley was excited that her friend Meredith from church is in her dance class this year. Meredith was born the day after Raley so they have literally grown up together since they were infants.
This girl right here is total opposite of her sister. She has absolutely no fear or reservations about anything. She marched right in there and got right to it. She told me “I don’t want to take a picture. I just want to dance.” (#realtalk – I bribed her with ice cream to get her to look at me and smile. No shame, because look how cute the little stinker is!)
Because Audrey has no fear, I think she could be great at gymnastics because I don’t think she’d have the fear of tumbling or doing tricks on the beam or flipping over bars. I considered starting her in gymnastics this year instead of dance, but she’s been asking to dance like sister, so we decided to let her! I wish we could do both, but it’s just not in the budget at the moment. (Plus, she’s 2!) But like I said before, who knows what they’ll love and what they’ll be good at. They may surprise us! I’m excited to see their personalities grow and for them to learn on their own what they enjoy.
I mentioned in a post last week that Wednesdays are my days to spend with Audrey (because of dance) and every other Tuesday I keep Raley out of school to spend time with her. This time with each of them is so important to me. Sure, I could have picked dance classes in the evening to have more time to myself during the day to get things done, but I know that I will never regret taking this time to spend with them. There’s just a completely different dynamic when we’re together, one-on-one, and they have my undivided attention. They are calmer, sweeter, and listen so much better.
Last week was my birthday and all day it didn’t feel like a birthday. I guess that’s just what happens when you get older. It’s just another typical day. It wasn’t because my family didn’t try to make it special, because they did! They gave me the sweetest cards first thing in the morning and sang me happy birthday. People were sending birthday wishes all throughout the day. It just felt like another normal day. It was kind of weird, but normal at the same time.
Around 5:00 or so, we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. I was just flat out tired and did not feel like cooking. So David said “where do you want to go eat?” I wasn’t sure I even felt like getting ready to go out anywhere, but a part of me wanted some Mexican food. While I was sitting there on the phone, trying to decide what to do he said “you want Rosie’s don’t you?” He knows me too well. So we got ready, met him at Rosie’s (my favorite local tex-mex restaurant) and had a delicious birthday meal!
Something else that we’ve had to deal with over the past few weeks is random stuff breaking. We had to have a completely new A/C unit installed in our house last Monday then on Tuesday the brakes on my car decided to act up (note that we changed all four brake pads and rotors about a month ago, so when the brake light came on this time, I’m thinking what in the world is going on?!)
Express Oil Change does a free brake inspection, so I thought I may as well take it in and see what’s going on. I dropped it off and Raley and I walked to McDonald’s while they checked it out. They called back about 30 minutes later and said that I needed a new master cylinder and brake booster and that it needed to be done immediately because if I drove it, it could go out completely (which, ironically, is a reoccuring dream that I have where I’m driving really fast and my brakes go out and I can’t stop so I’m trying to weave through traffic and not crash. I guess it’s a subconscious fear of mine. Weird.)
Anyway, I’m always skeptical when people tell me things like that (like are they telling me the truth or are they trying to pull one over on me because I’m a woman?)… so I called David and talked it over with him. Both he, my dad, and his dad have a good bit of experience with fixing various things on cars so I wasn’t sure if this was something they could do themselves. We ultimately decided to just go ahead and let the professionals do it because the parts that we needed were pricey, and we wouldn’t be able to get around to doing it until the weekend (this all happened on Tuesday). So they kept the car overnight on Tuesday and we got it back Wednesday. We were out over $1000, but we thought it was all done and good.
Welllll….there’s more to the story. I got called out of work on Thursday so we went about our day like normal and I took the girls to school and dropped them off in car line. The brake started to feel really weird while I was sitting there, like it was very hard to push down. After dropping them off, I drove to Kroger to get gas and I thought it was feeling weird. Whenever I would let off the gas, it would decel way down, basically to a stop. It was as if I braked, but hadn’t actually touched the brake pedal. THEN after getting gas, it wouldn’t really accelerate at all. I made it to a parking spot at the back of the Kroger parking lot and called David. All I’m thinking at this time is please don’t let it be something else!
Long story short, David called Express, they said it sounded like one of the parts they put in was bad and was locking up. So they actually called a tow truck to come get my car and bring it to them (which we were super grateful for). They got all new parts and reinstalled them, but they ended up having to keep it two more nights.
We have the car back now, and as frustrating as it may be, we can see God through the entire situation.
We’re grateful that we decided to take it in and get the diagnosis before it led to some sort of accident.
We’re grateful that it wasn’t another issue causing it to lock up and that it was something that they were able to fix at no additional cost.
We’re grateful for the kind people at Express Oil Change for not trying to screw us over and taking care of us as well as they did.
We’re grateful that I was called out of work on Thursday so that this happened while in the Kroger parking lot, rather than while driving down I-565.
We still had to shell out money from our savings account, which always tends to put a pit in my stomach, but we are super grateful that it was not worse than it was and that no one got hurt because of failed brakes. We’re saying prayers of thanksgiving AND that there are no more big unexpected expenses for a while!
I’m not so sure I made that long story short, but if you stuck with me until this point, I really appreciate it. Thanks for sticking with me on this journey of mine! I’ll end this post with some adorable pictures from last night at Bridge Street. We went to Red Robin with my parents for my birthday dinner, then grabbed some ice cream after. They both hopped up on this fountain and said “take a picture!” Who am I to pass up a photo op?
I hope you have a great rest of the week! I’ve got a fun local business feature set to launch on Thursday, that I hope you’ll come back for, especially if you’re in the North Alabama area. I think yall local folk will enjoy it!
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I completely understand about needing to go back to school for routine. It never fails that at some point in August we are all ready to get back to school and routine. WOW…about your brakes. That is scary. I am glad you noticed they felt weird and had them checked.
Thank you, Jenna! I am very glad we got them checked out as well. And that no one was hurt! We are definitely glad to be back into a routine now that school has started back. My oldest gets tired of going to school, but we all need it! I think Kindergarten may be a shock to her next year with such long days.