Getting Back In

Today I am dipping my toe back into the water of traveling. Our traveling season picks up again in August and today I am off to Shreveport, LA for a quick work trip to meet with our Women of Faith group leaders. I am glad it is a small trip so it will get me back into the swing of things when I started traveling more soon. It was a great Summer at home preparing for the upcoming events. Sooooo...here we go!

Blog Love

Hello Tuesday! Today I just wanted to shout out some blog love to my good friends God has brought into my life from our Sunday School class. Through softball and girl's nights, I'm so glad to have gotten to know them all a little better and I look forward to hanging out with them all. Although not all the girls in the class have a blog - these are the ones that do. Click on the picture and it will take you to their blog - Enjoy reading about their lives like I do!

Shannon Gillespie - The Gillespies

I love reading all about the adventures of the Gillespies, Killoughs and all the Grable family! Love this picture above from their last vacation.

Andrea - Crosswhite Photography

Love all of Andrea's photos - she is so amazing. Be sure to check out all of her photography - one of these days I will be her assistant on a wedding shoot and see how she does it all!

Our newest blogger - Nicole Bedford -Bedford 4

Nicole - aka Sparkles - makes me laugh. She is my friend and I love hanging out with her. She has two precious kids Gregory and Addison.

Kati Ivey - Living Well 2 Day

Kati's having a baby!!! Due in December, my good friend Kati is blogging about eating well as well as the joy of pregnancy. I can't wait to meet Baby Ivey!

Joy Calhoun - Three Calhouns

Joy does bring joy to me! I love seeing her and Ella together - they both love each other so much and you can see it in their eyes. She is also a photographer and takes wonderful photos of babies and families.

Jamie Sijansky - The Sijansky Family

Jamie and Adam have a little boy named Jackson who is so cute. They are both teachers and just bought a house in Forney! I can't wait to see it next time at girl's night...hint*hint*

I truly enjoy reading EVERYONE'S blogs on my blog roll. They make me smile every day! I consider blogs an online scrapbook of your life. Thanks for sharing your life with us!

Birthday Fun

First of all - thanks to everybody for the sweet birthday wishes! I truly appreciate and Brian did surprise me that he got on the blog and blogged about my birthday! I've had a great birthday week as I call it because I feel like I've celebrated all week long!

Sunday night we celebrated my Mom's and I's birthdays because our birthdays are a week apart. All of my family came and it was so fun being with all of them. My nieces make me laugh so much and I love seeing how much they've grown and hearing all they have to say. Mom made my favorite cake for me and Melody made a nice cake for my Mom. I'm so thankful for my family and enjoyed being with them!

Mom, Kayden, Kiersi and Me in front of our cakes

All of us blowing out the candles

Wednesday, on my birthday - that morning, Brian gave me my birthday gift - a GPS. I asked for one because I have to rent a car when I travel now and I don't trust my navigations skills at all in Dallas, much less in another state. He also sent me some beautiful flowers (see below). My co-workers decorated my cube and I went with my friends/co-workers Sally and Angie to eat for lunch. Wednesday night we just went out to eat and hung out. It was wonderful!

Beautiful Roses!

Thursday night, we went to eat with my friends at Kyoto for my birthday dinner. I had a blast with all of them. I'm so glad they were able to come and enjoyed the food and friendship!

Me and My Man ready to eat!

Me and Nicole

All of our food ready to cook

Brian surprised me with Sprinkles cupcakes for dessert!

Kyoto employees singing Happy Birthday to me

Me and my birthday ice cream



All my fun, crazy friends - Love them all!

The girls

Brian and I after a great dinner

Friday night, we celebrated with Brian's family and we all went to eat at Cotton Patch Cafe so I could endulge in their Baked Potato Soup - my favorite! We came back and had dessert made my Brian's Aunt Pam and it was delicious! I enjoyed it all!

Again, thanks to everybody who celebrated with me this week. I am overwhelmed by all the love I've been shown. Here's to year 28!

All my cards and sweet gifts - I'm so grateful!

Happy Birthday Amanda!!!!!

Happy _th Birthday to my lovely wife.

I left the exact birthday blank on purpose. But I know I will always be two years older than her. I am so thankful God brought her into my life. I love you and I hope you have a WONDERFUL day.

Summer Softball Season

This summer Brian and I played softball with our Sunday School class and we had soooooo much fun! It was fun seeing everybody's competitive side and just growing closer as friends. We are both so thankful to have found a class with brothers and sisters in Christ that we can lean on and pray for each other.

We played in the Rockwall Co-Ed League and had a great season! We ended 9-1 and got 2nd place but were in 1st place for most of the season. Everybody played well and I was so happy to play on this team!

Brian was our pitcher

My swing

Everybody celebrating after winning our game last night

Here we are thanking our coach, Doug, for all he did for us this season!



Shannon, Me & Samantha

Our Team



Our Team with our trophy!

Summer Reading

My summer reading includes a couple of books (FYI...I'm not a fast book reader so I usually don't read a book in a couple of days - it's usually weeks) so I wanted to share what I have read and will read.

I just finished Jodi Picoult's "House Rules". One of my co-workers, Susan, let me borrow it. It was a long but really interesting book. I love Jodi Picoult because she is so detail oriented. This book is about a boy with Asperger's and how he and his family dealt with it and how they deal with it when an unfortunate incident happens. There is usually always a twist in her books too and love when I get to that part! It's a good book to read.

And I just got this book today:

My boss Breanna lent me "Eat, Love, Pray" and I'm excited to read it before the movie comes out in August. I've heard really good things about it too so hopefully it will keep my attention as I start to read it. As soon as I finish a book, I'm really anxious to start another one so here we go!

Happy Summer Reading!

My Newest Addiction

Yes, ever since I got my Iphone, all my co-workers, especially Molly, encouraged me to download this app:

It's basically Scrabble and you can play games with with other people who have the app. The first time I played it, I got blown out of the water but I've slowly but surely gotten better. Everytime it's my turn to play, a notification pops up on my phone to let me know to play and I've noticed I'm constantly checking my phone to see if it is my turn to play...I know, sad.

Brian and I have started playing each other and thankfully our marriage is still in tact - even when I scored 102 on a word during one of our games :) I was so excited about it, I had to take a picture of it. See below:

Right now I have 11 games going on with my friends. I guess the good thing is it makes me think and I'm learning words I never knew before. That's what I'm telling myself so I won't feel so bad about my addiction.

So these two pics is usually what my phone looks like most of the time so I know when it is my move and when it is the other person's move.

Yes, that's a lot of information on one app but I do enjoy it and if you have an Iphone and want to play...my username is "amandaestes" ... original I know. Help me feed my addiction for now...it will hold me over until I find a new one :)

PlayDoh Time

Thursday night, Brian and I went over to my parent's house because they were keeping my nieces. I got to have PlayDoh Time with these sweet things and we made mess but had a blast!

We sat and played for a while. Nana and Papa had bought them playdoh and they made food for me to eat. We came up with all kinds of different things such as jewelry, glasses, etc..

Kayden's smile is precious!

Kiersi's laugh says it all - we had so much fun!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Happy 11th Birthday to our Nephew Caleb!!!

We love you so much and are so proud of all you do!

You are so athletic and look forward to see what God has in store for you in the future!

Love,

B & Amanda

4th of July Weekend

This past weekend was great! There was so much packed into this weekend and we loved every minute of it. I started it by taking off Friday and going to Canton with my mom. I hadn't been in a very long time and it was fun to go with my Mom and look around. I got some new Yellow Box flip-flops and a pretty bling-ring. Thanks Mom!

Saturday, we went to Roanoke to help my brother and sister-in-law, Ryan and Kate move. Well, we watched the movers move and we helped unpack and hang items on the wall. We had a good time and were glad we were able to go and see their new place!

Sunday, we went to see Grown Ups. Brian and I had been wanting to see it so we decided to go 4th of July weekend.

We were the only ones in the theater for a while so we took photos :)

We really liked the movie. Typical Adam Sandler humor but there were some really funny parts. After the movie, we headed over to my parent's house to celebrate the 4th with my family. I was so looking forward to having homeade ice cream that my aunt made! It was heavenly! And...in our family, it's not a get together without games so that's what we did!

My cousins and my Aunt Janice playing Sequence

Mom eating homeade ice cream

Kate and I with our desserts

More game play

Sunday night, Brian, Ryan, Kate and I went to watch the fireworks at Harry Meyers Park. We parked out by the baseball fields and sat in the back of Brian's truck and enjoyed the show. I'm so glad we went. We had a great time!

Ready for the fireworks!

Video of the fireworks at the end of the show - so fun!

After the fireworks show, we headed over to our Sunday School teacher's house - Phil and Sarah Rawley's. We enjoy going to their place and hanging with our friends. First, we stopped by the Fireworks Outlet so Brian could pick up some black cats and so I could get some sparklers :)

Brian holding his black cats - there were 1,000 there and popped them all at once

Everybody watching the fireworks show

I was sooo excited to play with the sparklers

Lizzie and her sparkler

Doug with this sparkler

Katie having fun with hers

Brian holding Addison Bedford - she's a cutie!

Since we were up late Sunday night, I slept in on Monday. We had planned to go see Toy Story 3 so we were off to the Harbor again for movie #2. I had heard so many good things about the movie so I think I was as excited as most of the kids there. It was really good and it made laugh to think I wa 13 when the first one came out. My brother and I used to (and still do sometimes) quote the first move b/c we loved it that much.

It was a great weekend and even though it packed with lots of fun things, we did not forget what we were celebrating - our freedom! We are so thankful for all of the military men and women serving now and who have served so we can enjoy this freedom!

I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July also! God Bless America!