HOPE is greater than cancer!

Papa (Shawn's dad) has been fighting cancer now for almost 4 years. It has been a very tough battle for him but I have NEVER seen someone fight as hard as he does even through all the pain he always loves on Penny and gives Sam high-5's. He is a FIGHTER!!! He along with Nana and Michelle(Shawn's sister) traveled to Houston in April to see doctors at MD Anderson to get more opinions and options on how to fight.. after returning he has of yesterday started his 4th chemo. treatment. We (the family) have tried to come up with ways to raise money to help send him back to MD Anderson at the end of this month (he is self-employed which means not able to work and guess what bills come anyway). Friends have also helped so much - they pulled together a huge yard sale and have been contributing to a medical fund. We still wanted to do more, we came up with a t-shirt fundraiser idea. David (brother -n-law) designed the shirts and man have we been busy!! The shirts arrived yesterday- now the sorting, rolling, and delivering has begun. If you are interested in purchasing a shirt to help support Papa's fight- please contact me at ctsmith@charter.net

Here is a picture of the front:

and back:

Happy Fourth

The 4th of July was packed with swimming, family, food,

(yummy ribs and Boston butt all thanks to Stephen) and FIREWORKS!!

Now to bring out the BIG ones!

Happy 4th of July!!

Summer Time is Here at Last!!

After we finished up vacation bible school last week we have been taking in all that summer has to offer....with lots of trips down the slides/toilet bowl at Point Mallard (and I do mean LOTS),

(I don't even know how many times she went up the hill dragging that float, that is bigger than she is- most the time she smiled and someone helped her...but boy what a BIG HILL for a little girl. Sam would help her when he was on his way to the toilet bowl)

and down she comes-always Smiling :)

Sam enjoying the slides but his favorite is the

Toilet bowl

At our pool we have plenty of Cannon Balls,

and dips in the pool on these HOT summer days...

always some kind of Pose from her (we are only using swimmes for jumping off diving board)

For me this is my typical spot - pretty nice place to BE..Enjoy SUMMER!!

Big Apple Adventure- VBS

What a wonderful week at our church.. it is none other than VBS time. This year we traveled to the NYC for our BI-BI-BI-Big Apple Adventure.Can you see how excited they are to have their picture made together.

Each day we meet in the Sanctuary for a Bible story and the VBS songs, then we broke into our groups for rec. time , craft time,music, and story time in our classroom (look how cool our room is- it is our very own Pizzeria in New York City).

We also have a service project that is presented to us at the beginning of VBS that we took up offering for- this year due to the tornadoes in April lots of churches have lost so much so Mrs. Christy found First Baptist Church in Phil Campbell that was in need of everything- crayons, paper, etc.. they lost it ALL. We took up money all week (boys vs. girls) and raised over $7,000 for this church WOW!! Our church staff had to take a PIE in the face -

During the week the children are presented the ABC's of becoming a Christian. (A-Admit, B-Believe, and C-Confess

and Sam prayed the prayer and ask Jesus into his Life!!

What a FUN week!!

Mountain Mania 15K

Shawn and the rest of the "running group" ran the Mountain Mania 15K on Burningtree Mountain...

His time was 1:25- Good Job!!

happy birthday

to the 15 year old today- JORDAN!!

(these are the cute shoes she bought at Bridgestreet with money from Nana and Papa)
She has been at our house this whole week-so we had to get a little celebrating in before she went back home. The family meet at Alfonso's for supper on Thursday nightand then on Friday we went to Bridgestreet to get her, her only birthday wish- new sparkly Toms(only to find out they don't carry that type anymore). We stopped in Orangetree for yogurt and while we were there we used Heather's IPad and ordered her the two pairs of Toms that she wanted- She also spent a little bit of her birthday money on another pair of really cute shoes . Smith and Heather went and found her a belt and red watch at this new store at Bridgestreet.

Happy Birthday - hope you enjoy your day!!