In Memory of my Grandma

Mary Lorene Ledford

November 19, 1925-March 27, 2010

We love you and will miss you Grandma

She has been called home

Grandma,

Today, March 27th, Jesus decided he needed another special angel in Heaven. Oh how hard this was for us to let you go, but we also know that you are in the best place. You can remember everything now, are not in pain and you are enjoying reuniting with all of your family. I hope your walk to the bright lights was as beautiful as they say it is.

Grandma, you are one of the most special ladies I have ever known in my life. You were a great wife, mother and grandmother to all of us.

I remember when you lived in Glenwood how we would always come to visit you in that big ole house. And then when you moved to the house in Lancaster we didn't think it was going to be the same, but you made it the same.

Some of the things I remember the most were
*all the family dinners
*CHRISTMAS! wow, all the people in that little house. I loved it! and will miss it!
*wall papering your walls... your crooked/wavy walls
*sitting on the porch swing swaying back and forth just chit chatting
*playing croquet in the yard
*easter egg hunts... where Amanda and I would hide the eggs, but would have to look in all of them before we hid them and take out the "good" candy and the best one we hid in your mailbox so noone would find it:)
*playing house in the basement
*all your box elder bugs... ewwww
*riding the lawn mower around and around and around
*going for walks
*your banana pudding!
*your delicious homemade strawberry jelly
*baked apples
*noodles
*i remember you making salmon patties, NASTY~ but i do remember it:)
*playing pitch
*watching our family grow by leaps and bounds
*your smile
*your giggle/laugh
*your friendship
*your faith
*and most of all your love for everyone!

One of the things that you gave me that I will cherish forever is the cookbook that you made me. I will still get to see your handwriting everytime I open it and I will get to cook some of your "special" items. Thank you for doing that for me.

Grandma, you were one of a kind. Always there to listen, laugh with us, cry with us and you supported us no matter what.

I hope that I can learn from you and have a great life just like you lead.

I hope that I can have the marriage that you and Grandad had.

I hope that you are happy.

I hope that you will watch over us every day and cheer us on.

Grandma, I just want you to know that I am not crying for you... I am crying for me!

I am gonna miss your smile,
I am gonna miss you my friend.

Until we meet again..... I love you~

Grandma

Dear God,

Please keep Grandma Lorene comfortable until she comes to meet you. She is a sweet lady that has a super strong faith and deserves the best.

Please help to keep us all strong as you call her home. Help us to be there for one another and to lean on you.

Lord I know Grandad is waiting very patiently at those gates to meet the love of his life again, so please Lord just take her so she can quit suffering and to be pain free and to be in Yours and Grandad's arms once again.

Amen.....

Dear Braylon,

Dear Braylon,

Four years ago today I gave birth to you. I still can't believe that you are already four. It just seems like yesterday that I was holding you in my arms and feeding you a bottle.

My, my how far you have come in the last four years.

You are a sweet, strong headed little man:)

You love to hang out with your brothers and drive them crazy every chance you get.

You are still a mama's boy. I hope this continues since how your brothers outgrew that stage a long time ago.

You enjoy going hunting with your dad, playing outside, going to Da's everyday at noon, playing with Grandma Margie and playing with anything that you can pretend has a motor.

You can sit for a long time and just push cars, trucks, diggers, etc around and play with animals and the barns.

There are days (lots of them) that your strong headedness and temper gets the best of us. You are one that will not give in easily and think that everything needs to be your way! You DO.NOT.GIVE.UP!!!! But then again our love for you just keeps growing and growing with each and every day.

I hope that you have a great year of being 4 and I can't wait to see what you have in store for us:)

Have a great 4th birthday Braylon.

Love,

Mommy

Happy 4th Birthday Braylon

I can not believe that my baby is 4!!!!

I am one of those parents that likes to celebrate their birthday on their birthday. I generally always have their parties on their birthday. This year we had to do it a little different because Braxton has a basketball game on Braylon's actual birthday.

First off we went to my Grandma Margie's on Sat so she could give him his present. She is having a hard time walking and keeping her balance so she knew she wouldn't be able to make it to his party. Here he is posing with the new pair of tennis shoes she got him. He loved them!!!

Then we had his party on Sunday. I thought about having it on Monday or Tuesday but knew some close friends of ours wouldn't be able to make is so I arranged it to where they could all be there.

The Buford's got him a new ball glove!
Braxton got him a nerf gun!
We got him a hand held game (pictured), some other kind of tool set from discovery toys, some swimming trunks and a new spring jacket.

Bronson got him some legos.
The Frederick's made him his very own stool! The other boys have their own stools, but Braylon didn't. Vance made it with handles too so it would be easier to pick up. Braylon loved it and thought it was awful heavy:)
Then..... came his big present from us, Grandma Dianna and Da and Grampsie and Grandma Teresa...... his very own battery operated four wheeler! HE LOVED IT!!
He also got a gun target deal from the Dunlops, some new clothes from Grampsie and Grandma Teresa, an ambulance and digger truck from Grandma Dianna and Da, $5 from Unc and $20 from Grandma Bette. This little guy made out just great!

Then it was time for some cake! Here are all the kids that came to his party. That is quite the crew, only two girls in that mix if you notice:)

Braylon didn't eat much cake b/c he wanted to ride his four wheeler.
Da is helping little Miss Maty eat some ice cream cake.





I just love this little girl!!!!
Love this snapshot of Michelle and Emma. Love little Miss Emma too:)
Braylon thinks Maty is the best thing since sliced bread. He loves to help out with her.
Our family picture that we take at each one of the boys birthday parties.
Time to blow out the candles....

Then today on his "actual" birthday, we made cereal cupcakes to take to the babysitters. Here he is blowing out his candles.

Here he is with all of his buddies at the babysitters. We are minus a few since it was their nap time.

Thanks to everyone that came and helped Braylon celebrate his birthday. I just love how you all treat him accept him just like he is your own. It is so nice to have such great friends and family!

Life aboard the Carnival Fascination

I know it has been several weeks since we returned from our trip to the Bahama's, but dang it... I have been busy!

I know some of you have seen most of my pictures via facebook or through me.... so this is for the ones that haven't been as lucky:)

Beware..... there are 50+ pictures here, so if you are not in the mood for pictures, then you better exit now.

The first few pictures are the professional pictures that the cruise ship took.

This was Valentine's Night

Our very first "Carnival" picture. They took our picture as we were getting on the ship.

One of the very few pictures that Jared has a smile on his face

Getting off the ship at Freeport

Getting off at Nassau

The Captain's Dinner. Loved this picture! Had to do some cropping so my ta-ta's wouldn't show.

This is what our ship looked like

Now we are into MY pictures. Mind you I took like 600ish pictures, so it was really hard for me to decide which ones to share.

Norm and Michelle picked us up at 4 a.m. to head to Kansas City for our flight. This is what the back of their vehicle looked like.
Here we are waiting for the bus to pick us up at the airport. It was freezing. We could not wait to get to Florida to the warm weather....
Jared had to wear his "lace up boots'!
Our flight landed us in Nashville and Norfolk. We never had to get off the plane, so we were very lucky to get a chance to sit in the cockpit and get our picture taken. It was really cool!

When we landed in Norfolk, we were the only ones left on the plane before they started boarding again so I got to play the stewardess:)
We stayed in Jacksonville the first night and ate at a delicious steakhouse called the Millhouse! They had some amazing oreo cookie cheesecake! We stayed in a 2 bedroom suite. The next morning we had to call for a cab to take us to the port. The weather wasn't great, but better than home! Here Jared and I are waiting for our taxi.
We got to the port about 10:30. It was a great time to get there. Not too many people had started getting there yet, so we got through security and got all checked in very quickly. We were probably one of the first 150 there. So that mean't we got on the ship earlier!

After boarding the ship, our rooms weren't ready so we just walked around and checked things out. We went and ate our first of many, many delicious meals! Then we went and looked at the pool, bars, hot tub, casino and the theatre! Here I am preforming:)
Then we asked some nice people to take our picture! The guys were really thrilled. I would have to say they were already getting tired of me taking pictures! They had to get used to it, because it was only the first night on the ship and I had lots of pictures still to take.
The first night was "casual" night in the dining room. We ate another delicious meal. Then we headed to the theatre and watched a comedian and played us some Bingo. Nope, we didn't win! Then we headed to the bars/lounges and did some dancing. It was a hoot and a lot of fun was had!

When we got back to our room, this was our first "towel" animal.

The next morning I got up bright and early and went and looked around the ship by myself. I got myself a cup of hot chocolate and headed up to the top deck to sit, relax and enjoy the ocean. It was rather windy and a little bit chilly, but anything was better than snow and negative temps! I headed back to the room and got ready and Jared and I headed up to eat some breakfast. We then had to go watch the hairy chest contest, which was hilarious!

Then it was time to go up and watch as we headed into Port at Freeport. When people tell you the color of the water is gorgeous and you see pictures and think "is that water really that color"? It really is that color and it is gorgeous!

Here is a picture of Jared and I as we are waiting to dock at Freeport.


When Jared and I got off the ship we went right to the straw market and checked all of their things out. It was a little bit crowded and each place had pretty much the same thing. Then we jumped in a "van taxi" with several other people and headed for downtown Freeport. It is really weird how they drive on the wrong side of the road. It makes you think that you are going to get in a wreck! After getting to Downtown, we headed for the beach. Mind you it is still really windy and chilly! At the beach, I emptied my bottle of water and put some sand and ocean water in it to take home to the boys. I wrote something in the sand for Jared and then made him stand by it so I could take yet another picture!
I stopped some really nice people so they could capture this beautiful picture of us!
We looked around Freeport and stopped for some appetizers. We had some honey-bbq chicken wings and conch fritters. They were great. We did some browsing in some shops and bought a couple of things. We weren't quite done, but when we saw a limo taxi, we thought that would be fun to ride back to the ship in, so we skipped out and loaded in the limo. Jared and I got the privilege to ride in the front seat with the limo driver. This limo was the BOMB! The speedometer didn't work. it had hundreds of thousands of miles on it and the window didn't go up and down without the help of a hand! It was a blast though. Here we are pictured with the limo driver! I am sure he thought we were crazy!
When we got back on the ship, we rested and then it was time to get ready for the Captain's Dinner, also known as "the formal night". I was excited to wear a dress! Don't we clean up pretty good???

Then we headed back to the room to put on some more comfortable clothes. This is what we found when we got back to the room. Our next "towel" animal.
After changing clothes we went to the casino and went and watched some karaoke. Then we headed back to the room to get some beauty rest.

The next day we were going to be docking at Nassau. I had made reservations for Jared and I to do a mini-sub adventure. It didn't start until 1 so we thought we would get up and head out so we could be off the ship first thing so we could do some shopping and sight seeing before we had to do our excursion. Here I am waiting to dock....
The beautiful sunrise!
This is what it looked like as we were coming into Nassau! Nassau is way better than Freeport. If I ever go back, I will skip Freeport and would definately do Nassau again!

As we were waiting to get off of the ship, they announced that all water excursions at Nassau had been canceled due to high winds (36 mph). It would just have been to dangerous. I was bummed, Jared was not:) So actually this helped us! We no longer were going to have to rush around and see everything we wanted to see so we could get back in time for our excursion. It ended up being a day of fly by the seat of our pants day instead of a schedule kind of day.

This is what our ship looked like while docked at Nassau.
As you get off of the ship and head to the Port you have all kinds of people trying to get you to do this and that, go on this excursion, or whatever. We had all originally said that we were not going to do an organized tour. That just wasn't for us and we didn't want to have to do it when they wanted us to. So as each one stopped us, I kept walking. I stopped and turned around and what did I see??? Norm, Michelle and Jared all stopped listening to some sales pitch! So I wandered back..... the sales pitch was obviously great b/c he sold us on it! It was actually a lot cheaper than what we had looked at and it was to a couple of places that we wanted to see. The only problem was.... he had to find 4 other people to do it with us! That was funny! We finally got 4 other people talked into it. One couple was very quite and the other was a hoot, just like us! We all piled into a little green van! Our tour guide "Lionel Ritchy" was the man! He was sooooo funny and made the tour a blast.

Here is a sign that he pointed out to us that was on the side of a building. I am thinking this needs to be reprinted and hung in my boys' rooms!
We went to a Fort and toured it. This water tower was right next to it. When you were standing on the ground and looked up at it, it looked like it was falling. It was beautiful!
Then we went to the Queens Staircase. I wasn't really too excited about this place when Norm and Michelle had originally talked about wanting to go see it, but boy am I glad we were able to go see it. It was gorgeous! The stairs down to this waterfall were long! I actually ran up them!! Lionel kept telling me that it was gonna hurt, my knees were gonna be sore.... did I listen?? do I ever? I ran up them! Did my legs about give out on me when I got to the top?? yep! Were my knees sore the next day?? Yep! Lionel was right!
Then we headed through the "hood" and saw some shacks, a hoochie mama, million dollar homes, Oprah's house, Michael Jordan's house, and some other neat things. Then we went to the Atlantis. It was WOW! This is as close to underwater fish as I got. I was really hoping to get some cool pictures while on our excursion, but this is all I could get since we didn't get to go on our excursion! This was inside the Atlantis.
I was so glad that we did the 2-3 hour tour. We learned so much about the island and their ways of living. After our tour, we were all getting hungry, so we went to Senora Frogs! This place was happening! They had a guy on stage doing lots of entertainment where he included the people eating there. They had a clown that made some really cool balloon hats for us.

After eating really good appetizers, we headed to the straw market! I hated it! It was soooo crowded and people were making us mad. So we left there and went shopping. While we shopped the guys people watched! I then wanted to go to the beach. The guys were mouthing the whole walk there. They couldn't understand why we needed to walk another mile after walking a hundred already! But they were good sports and followed me:) It was still windy and chilly. I got another water bottle full of sand and ocean water from Nassau. After posing for yet another picture we walked back to the ship......
The third night's dinner was really good too. The guys went to the casino after dinner and Michelle and I went and played some more bingo and watched a magic show.
Then we headed back to the room to "freshen" up and grab our coats so we could go up to the deck party. This was our next "towel" animal.
At the deck party I decided to join in on all the dancing and help earn our RED team some points. I danced and danced! I don't even like to dance, but it was still fun. The red team did end up winning the most points:)
The next day was our day at sea and it was Valentines Day. The boys had made Jared some Valentines before we left and I brought them with me. I gave them to Jared that morning. I think he was really happy and surprised. I had also bought Jared some Valentines Day boxers and brought with me to give to him that morning. We just relaxed and did whatever we wanted, when we wanted. Jared ended up doing his Valentine's Day shopping on the ship. He surprised me with a beautiful cross necklace. Thanks babe!
After enjoying a great day at sea, we got cleaned up for the last nights dinner. While waiting to go to dinner, Michelle and I watched the sunset. It was breathtaking!

We had quite the little surprise when we went to eat.... someone else was sitting at OUR table! We didn't care and our wonderful wait staff put us somewhere else.
Here we are with our wait staff. These guys are great! They learn what you like and don't like and cater to your every need! You get to know them on a personal level and get to have a lot of fun with them.

This was the amazing cake they made especially for Valentine's Day.
Windata, our waiter, gave Michelle and I each a red carnation! So nice, even though every woman got one, it was still sweet:)
Our last "towel" animal! I am here to tell you that these guys/gals that take care of your room are wonderful. They clean up after you and go the extra mile to make sure that you are completely satisfied!
After changing out of our dressier clothes we headed back out. Jared and I were going to go to the casino for a little bit and then to the "adult only" comedian act while Norm and Michelle went to the show in the theatre. We were going to save us and them some seats at the comedy show, but we never made it to the comedian. Jared sat down with his black jack chips (he started out with $20 that morning) and then I joined him and we sat there from like 8 that night until 1 in the morning. We both ended up playing and came out of there with $160!! Not too bad. We had a blast!

The next morning we got up early and ate some breakfast and then waited for our turn to be called off the ship. We elected to do self assist on our luggage. That was fun! Picture all of us going down like four flights of stairs with 4 suitcases and our carry ons! It really wasn't that bad:)
Then to the airport we went! We were all pooped!!! We had to wait for a long time for our flight. Michelle and I didn't really know when to book our flight home b/c we didn't know how long it took to get off the ship. Needless to say... we could have gotten an 11:00 flight out instead of a 2:00 one. Oh well! Jared and Norm napped....
Then we got on the plane and headed to Tampa for a lay over. I just love this picture that I took out of the planes window.
Then we were back to COLD Missouri and to the airport parking lot. Our final picture!!!

We had an absolute blast and are already planning another cruise, but with kids this time!

Hope you enjoyed my pictures and stories as much as I did!