Operation wedding cake = success!!

Woohoo!! Glad that's off my chest :) And yes... that is a ninja turtle (Leonardo to be exact) and a dinosaur on top (complete with ring and veil). Matt and Beth's favorite childhood toys...
**Edit**- My brother, Matthew has informed me that it is indeed Donatello on top of the cake.  How would I know that you ask?  Because donatello "has the sweet bow staffs," ... got it :)

What a wonderful wedding my brother and his new wife Beth had Last Saturday (23rd). I took off work on Thursday to do last minute pretzels (pictured below) and preparation. My mom and I headed out on Friday to meet up with the extended family. JT came Friday night to meet us at the rehearsal dinner. It was a very close nitch of people and felt really magical. The wedding was in the backyard of the house Beth grew up in. God gave us perfect weather for an outdoor wedding and the whole thing was just spectacular. SO excited to have a new seeeester :)

My two big brothers and I... oh how I love them so much!

Chocolate lollipops, chocolate covered pretzels, and chocolate covered oreos. I think these were a bigger hit than the cake!

Look at that good lookin' couple!

My Maid of Honor Allison... and a beeeeautiful girl might I add. Love her!

The new sibblings!!

Operation Wedding Cake... trial #1 = F-L-O-P!

Whelp, looks like I might be in over my head. My brother, Matt, is getting married (to one of the most fabulous women I know) and they asked me to make their cake. Now, it's just a funfetti cake and they are having lots of other desserts too... BUT it is 3 tiers and I have to transport it from Raleigh to Charlotte. Hmmm...

Although strentuous and leading to the verge of tears, the process was quite fun! Here's the first pouring of the batter. Notice the confidence level compared to the previous photo. Little did I know I was making humble pie...





Matthew bringing lots of cheer and not so much whine :)

My Sous Chef... Mom :)




Here's the cake rising...

and rising...

Aaaaaand the final product...

Yes, that's batter in the middle and me being so sad :(

Fun was had by all.

Less than 2 weeks!!!

Talked to one of my co-workers who's had much more practice than I have. Will change some things and have trial #2 next weekend. Stay tuned...

A New Journey

Ok ok, I know it's been toooo long. But there are a few explanations! For the most part, JT and I both started our Master's Programs at Shepherd's Theological Seminary this semester. Here we are at Olive Garden the night before classes started...

We are enjoying the homework part as we are learning so much. But when we get to class, we feel like 3rd graders :) I have a good understanding now when they say, "Mrs. Rimbey, I just don't get it." And they feel embarassed even though I totally don't care and know they're learning. Welcome to the world of not know what is going on, Summer! Dr. Bookman (our professor) is unbelievable. He's one of the world's most renowned experts on the life of Christ. When he talks, if you didn't know any better you'd think he was there when it happened! The guy knows his stuff. But have you ever met someone who just can't "dumb it down," they just don't know how? That's this guy. As challenging as it is, we feel so blessed to have such a Godly seminary right down the road. Their entire goal and purpose is to stick to the truth of His Word. We are having a blast. Losing lots of sleep and are e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y exhausted, but what a neat season to be in. Don't worry fam, kids will come one day but we are enjoying just the two of us and our studies. Here is us at our new home away from home... the library.

Diving

For those of you that don't know, I teach during the year and work at North Hills Club in the summer time. I work both the summer camp and dive team there and have a blast every summer. This was my 6th year as their head dive coach and 4th year as their summer camp coordinator. My managers are absolutely awesome and the families are such a loving and caring group of people; I'm so blessed to see them every year and be a part of their summer lives :)

This is this year's team at the cook out... missing quite a few. I had 39 divers total this year!


Here is my assistant coach for this year... Parker Preston. Quite an amazing young lady if I do say so myself. This was her first job and she did absolutely fantastic :)

Forced Renovations

1 month, 4 days. Yes, that's how long we were out of our condo for our not so convenient renovations. Here's the story...

For those of you that don't know, JT works at a local golf course on some weekends because he truly enjoys the stillness and serenity of an empty golf course at 4:30 in the morning. He was at work and I woke up to get ready for church. I started a load of laundry and went to get ready. 15-20 minutes later I walk into the hallway and am greeted with soaking carpet. If you stepped on the floor, the water would cover your toes. Turns out it was the pressure switch which basically tells your washer when the water level is where it should be. Ours was broken so it just kept filling. Anyhoo, I frantically turn the washing machine off (it was still running and overflowing) and grab every towel we own. I start soaking up the carpet and move the dryer to get underneath it. Once I take my immediate actions I call JT. He's on his way home (phew!) and asks if it's bad. "I think" I said... followed with "I'm not ready for church!" JT gets home sees how bad it is and immediately asks, "did you check downstairs?" I didn't have a clue why he would ask that until it clicked. Since our washing machine is on the second floor, any severe water leakage could go through the floors. "No way," I thought. Right as I finish that thought I hear JT yell, "oh my gosh!" I run downstairs and see this...



yes, that's right; water pouring through the fan and a hole in the ceiling where JT had to drain the rest of the water. JT said it was leaking like a hose. Here's what the ceilings in the hallway looked like...







And the upstairs as we finally get it sopped up, pull the carpet up, and get fans going...






To make a long story short, JT and I are out of our condo for over a month and we decided while we were already put out we might as well put new laminate flooring in downstairs and all new carpet upstairs! Not covered by the insurance, but justified by the situation :)

Now, here's where we live!!

Summer's mom gave us a nice oriental rug for the hallway that matched my colors :)

Oooooh I just really like our new floors. For those of you that didn't see the "before" floors, just picture 20 year old carpet that is dirty, stained, faded, and hard. My wonderful mother took us in for the duration of all the mayhem. She was as sweet as can be and even bought my favorite candy to be stocked while we stayed there. She bought her favorite son-in-law his favorite meals and was a real blessing through all the craziness. We had a blast just hanging out with her. Thanks mom! We love you!

Just as an end note to this post, 2 days ago we noticed cracks at the top of the wall and ceiling in the kitchen. Through a series of events we've found out it's related to the shower and the pipes (probably!). So, we haven't been able to take showers here and will probably be out again if demolition needs to happen to save the ceiling. Seriously, we can't believe it. But we're just thankful we don't have kids right now and are pretty flexible. It's kinda fun having adventures like these :) So, whatever comes our way we will do our best to enjoy it to its fullest!

Kiawah Island

Woo hoo! Can I just tell you how much fun we had on our trip to Kiawah Island!! The best part about it was that it was a S-U-R-P-R-I-S-E!! (for those of you that know the 5 love languages, mine is the 6th one.. surprises). Hubby planned the entire thing without me finding out until we were about 20 minutes away (saw the signs on the road... a smarty I am). We arrived around 2:00 on Saturday and went grocery shopping on the mainland. When we got to our condo JT had arranged for bikes to be waiting for us. I was so thrilled!


We hopped on right away and were gone on a 3 hour bike ride! I know what you're thinking... that's a long time. We weren't prepared at all. No water, no sunscreen (used my charm to use some from strangers on the beach) and no map. Regardless it was great! JT showed me around the famous Ocean Course and we saw about 15 alligators (give or take) to boot! It was so great because the sand is harder so you could ride up to 10 miles right on the shoreline. JT was quite the stuntman ;)

We got all showered up and went for dinner at the King Street Grill where we had sandwiches on soft pretzel rolls. It's like a bun but made out of a soft pretzel... yum! Thinking about bringing those puppies to the Rimbey Kitchen. I couldn't find our camera charger before we left and was determined to get pictures, so I politely asked JT for the nearest Target or Circuit City. After he politely told me it was about an hour away my heart sunk. God knew I was sad, so he introduced us to a family that actually let us come over to their house (mansion rather) and borrow their charger for the night!! So, the lovely pictures to follow are all because of Leann, , and David's kind (and trusting) hearts.

After leaving their house with charger in hand JT slams on the breaks and says "WHOA!"... he backs up, I look out the window and see this...

... and we look like this...

He was humungous! I actually started to get a little scared when he started walking towards the car. Turns out he was headed for a bush the size of a bowling ball (not too smart) to hide his eyes behind. Apparently if he couldn't see us we couldn't see him. It was quite an adventure.

We finished the night with a nice walk and off to bed. The next day we went to the beach for a little sun and then proceeded to a Kayak "tour." Not sure what river or sound we Kayaked on, but it was right on the Island.
Not the best $$ we've spent (kinda boring), but it gave us a good workout. They told us we'd see dolphins. We did, but about 100 yards away and only once. Oh well, guess you can't control the animals unless you're from National Gepgraphic. We did see hermit crabs, crab pots, stingrays, and lots of jumping fish though...


Later Sunday night we had Dinner at the clubhouse right on the porch overlooking the 18th green. God gave us a nice sunset for a great picture, the weather was absolutely perfect and so was the company :)



Monday we took another quick bike ride, packed up, and headed home. What a great hubby I have for planning such a wonderful trip :)

Welcome to the world Reese Gabrielle Norton!!

A big congratulations is due to our good friends Jason and Mary!! Mary delivered this precious girl this morning at 8:44am. If you bought bracelets from us, here's a face to go with the name. Jason and Mary have been amazing friends to us over the past 3 years and we have been truly blessed getting to know them. You won't meet 2 other people more passionate and purposeful about living their lives for Christ. We can't wait to see how God uses them further and watch little Reese Cup grow into a beautiful little girl :) Congrats you two!!

Ooooh how I just looove babies!

Looks good on him :)

Proud Daddy :)