We are Gary & Erin

Share the Warmth Round Up

2009-08-06T18:08:00.005-04:00

Dear Friends and Family,

There’s a new program in North Carolina, South Carolina & Tennessee that I’d like to tell you about because it gives each and every one of us the opportunity to help our neighbors in need. And it’s simple.

It’s called Share the Warmth Round Up and it allows Piedmont Natural Gas customers to round up their monthly natural gas bill to the nearest dollar, with 100% of the difference going to assist neighbors in their communities who need help paying home energy bills. Here in North Carolina, your dollars will be given Crisis Assistance Ministries and the NC Department of Health and Human Services.

Share the Warmth funds help pay energy bills throughout the year regardless of the energy source used in the home – including natural gas, propane, oil, electricity, coal, kerosene and wood.

The most it could cost any of us is just $12 a year. I’m sure you’ll agree that’s small change to change lives.

Gary & I both work for Piedmont Natural Gas. I actually just celebrated my 9-year anniversary with the company! Anyway, Piedmont recently donated $100,000 to Share the Warmth Round Up and if 100,000 people sign up by Sept. 15, Piedmont will donate $50,000 more!

If you’re a Piedmont customer, it’s easy to sign up. Just have your bill with your account number and call 1-800-752-7504. You can also enroll at www.piedmontng.com. Not a Piedmont customer? Find instructions on how to contribute at www.piedmontng.com or just ask me!

Please sign up today and pass this info along to five of your friends and family so we can reach 100,000 participants by Sept. 14! Send out an email, a blog post, Facebook note or even tweet about it!

Gary and I have signed up and hope you will, too – today!

Many thanks for your support.

P.S. My favorite part is that you can track our progress on www.twitter.com/sharethewarmth and www.facebook.com/sharethewarmth. I work with a team of people & update both of those sites on behalf of Piedmont. Not a bad gig, huh?!?!

The Luke Pier Foundation Blog: Update on Luke

2009-07-11T22:41:00.000-04:00

The Luke Pier Foundation Blog: Update on Luke
Check out the link above for an update on Luke. He had his appointment at Johns Hopkins a couple of weeks ago, & the blog post talks about it.

You can also become a "Fan" of The Luke Pier Foundation on Facebook. Click here to check out the Facebook page. We are trying to reach at least 100 fans so we can claim our own Facebook URL. Help us get there! :)

We hope everyone is having a great weekend! We'll write more soon.

A Vacation & A Wedding

2009-07-05T20:52:00.003-04:00

We went to North Topsail Beach in June for a Stalnaker family vacation and to attend cousin Josh's wedding. Josh & Rachel's wedding was beautiful, & everyone had a great time celebrating with them.

The wedding was on a Monday, so we were able to spend the rest of the week vacationing. By far, our most favorite night was kayaking on the Intracoastal Waterway with Josh, Rachel & Derek.

It was the kind of vacation, though, where we needed another vacation to recover from it! Maybe next year.

Gavin Craig

2009-06-28T21:26:00.003-04:00

Welcome to the world my beautiful, loud, sweet nephew - Gavin Craig.

Let's Try This Again

2009-06-28T20:38:00.006-04:00

So, we've pretty much let the blog thing go this entire year. Sorry to those of you who really enjoy seeing our photos! What with The Luke Pier Foundation, school (Erin & Gary), renovations and life in general, we just haven't had the energy to do one. more. thing.

We've wanted to blog about a lot of things that have been going on, but it takes quite a bit of energy to think of what to write, post the pictures and hit the big orange 'publish post' button. I suppose we could do a quick run-down of our life since our April post.

Here goes...

We visited Tara, Vermaine, Sydney & Vermaine, Jr. in Hampton, VA the weekend before the softball tournament. It was our first chance to meet the new little guy, & we just fell in love with him instantly. He's snuggly, sweet and just about the cutest baby we've ever seen. (more cutest babies ever coming up in this post. stay tuned...) Tara took us to the air show at Langley AFB, & we saw the F-22s, Thunderbirds, fireworks from the planes and...the B-52 Stealth Bomber. It was my 2nd time seeing one, but it was just as amazing as the first time!
The 3rd Annual Softball Tournament fundraiser for The Luke Pier Foundation was quite an event. We raised over $2,000 for the search for a cure of connective tissue disorders! The event itself was very hectic and we learned a lot for next year (isn't that always the case?).
After the fundraiser, I don't really even remember what happened. It's as if time stood still because we were so busy, then the tournament happened, then we just crashed. Both of my grandparents had knee surgery within days of each other, so I spent several evenings with them. Gary finished school, & I began working lots of overtime at work. Well, it's called overtime, but it doesn't pay overtime because I have a salaried position. I digress...
We began working on the house again once Gary finished with his semester. He & Luke built a brick wall for one of the crawl space doors. The door was non-existent, & we had a piece of plywood held up by a cinderblock. Not exactly attractive. So, they bricked it in a few weeks ago. Gary finished building the door and frame itself yesterday. It made a world of difference in that forgotten corner of the back yard! (I don't have an 'after' picture yet)

My Uncle Bill passed away the week of May 15th. I flew down to Florida for about a day & 1/2 to give my cousins Alycia, Kelly & Sarah & my Aunt Kathleen big hugs (thanks, Aunt Ann!).
The next day we flew to Austin, Texas to see Michael, Emily, Natalie, Josh & Ryan. We bought our tickets in January, so we were so excited to finally make the trip! It had been almost 3 years since we had seen Emily & the kids, & we couldn't get there fast enough. Trivia note: it was our first time flying together. Gary & I have both been on multiple plane trips since we got married, but we had never flown together! Michael took us all over Austin, & we didn't want to come home. Austin is such a great city!

Of course we had to pose with a longhorn. When in Rome...

Michael got us in to see the stadium while nobody was there - so cool!

After Austin, we got busy again at work. Then it was time for my semester to start. I am in the last 2 weeks of my 8-week semester. I am taking two classes and think I may have become clinically insane.
We had a lot of fun near the end of May when Dad, Uncle Todd, Taran and Luke came down from WV for a visit. They came down for Speed Street and the Busch & Coca-Cola races (I think!).

We took our guests to the Penguin - a Charlotte must!
(l-r: Taran, Gary, Luke, Uncle Todd, Dad)

I can't tell you how excited Gary was about getting his picture taken with the Hamburger Helper Hand.

Taran, Dad, Gary, Luke & Uncle Todd tailgating before the race

Unfortunately, we got some bad news while the guys were at the race. Gary's cousin, Eric, had passed away. We were devastated, not only because it was our second death in two weeks, but also because Eric was such a special person. So, we drove up to West Virginia that Monday and stayed all week. It was really a special time as a family. I truly believe Eric's death brought everyone closer. It was one of the most difficult times of my life, personally, and I'm still trying to learn what God has in store from all of this. I do know that I married into an amazing family and am so thankful for each of them.
We came home the end of May, & I was scrambling to get caught up on school. Gary decided it was time to do some renovating in the master bedroom at that same time. So, we moved all of our stuff into the other two bedrooms, put our matress on the living room floor and went our separate ways. Me - school. Gary - renovations. Gary installed shoe moulding & he & Dad installed crown moulding. Gary hasn't finished with the trim or painting the walls, but we're moved back in for now.

I have so much more to write about, but I'm sure you probably only skimmed this long post as it is, so I'll save it for another time.

We hope everyone is doing well, & I personally hope to keep this blog up a little bit better now. School is out July 12th, so I should have much more time on my hands to tell you all about the Stalnaker family escapades.

Busy Times

2009-04-16T10:11:00.003-04:00

We apologize for not posting more frequently recently. We have been so busy with Noah's visit, spring cleaning and school. Gary only has a few more weeks left in this class, though, so we really hope things slow down a bit.

We have new cell phones now & should be able to post more frequently because of the fun phone functionality! After years of buying the cheap phones, we are officially cell phone snobs.

How is everyone doing? What have you been up to this spring? Busy on May 2nd? If not, come check out the 3rd annual softball tournament to benefit The Luke Pier Foundation! http://www.thelukepierfoundation.org/

Evening Musings

2009-04-01T20:11:00.001-04:00

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Our neighborhood had an Art Krawl this weekend, & we decided to risk getting soaked by the 3 inches of rain that were expected. We ended up timing it perfectly & didn’t get rained on at all. Noah & his friend, Will, joined us, & we enjoyed a cup of Nova’s coffee while we walked around & shopped at Pura Vida, Common Market, Boris & Natosha’s & Lunchbox Records. Our neighborhood is just perfect for us!

We spent Sunday afternoon at Katti & Dean’s in Clover, SC for Shawn’s birthday. It’s hard to believe she’s 17 already. We missed having Tara, Vermaine & Sydney there, but we’ll get to see them the weekend of April 24th! Tara will have her c-section on April 15th – Tax Day! We can’t wait to meet Baby Vermaine, & we’ll definitely post pictures on the blog when he arrives.

We’ve both been working a lot of hours, which is cutting into our play time, but hopefully work will slow down soon. Someone remind me (Erin) why I went into Communications? It never slows down! In this economy, though, it’s not only nice to have a job but also to have jobs we enjoy!

The rest of our time recently has been spent on getting ready for the 3rd Annual Softball Tournament hosted by The Luke Pier Foundation. It’s hard to believe my baby brother, Luke, was diagnosed with the aneurysm two years ago in February. We’ve learned a lot as a family and as a fledgling foundation. We have a lot more to learn in order to make this a successful charity and raise money for the research to make Luke well. Luke is now almost 15 (10 more days!), is over 6 feet tall & has a shoe size any basketball player would dream of having! He is such a great brother, & every minute we spend on the foundation is worth it because of him! Visit www.thelukepierfoundation.org for more info on the tournament!

Oh! One more thing! We also joined a small group at our church, Mosaic (www.mosaicchurch.tv). It’s a group of 3 other couples our age who are really cool like we are. :) We’ve made some good friends already and are so excited to finally have a church where we can be involved & grow.

That’s it for now. If you want to read a first-hand account of the floods up in Minnesota & North Dakota, check out our friend, Sharon’s, blog. It’s pretty amazing pictures & the story of how they’re fighting the floods is great. Please keep them in your prayers!

Hunt Fish Falls

2009-03-24T19:26:00.006-04:00

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Gary here! Noah, Matt (Noah’s friend) & I took a backpacking trip to Hunt Fish Falls at Lost Cove Creek in the Pisgah National Forest this weekend. Weather was great, but the fish weren’t biting. We did see a fish feeding frenzy – jumping out of the water, getting flies – just not our flies! Noah showed us the “Whacky Iraqi Back Cast”, or maybe he was just trying to be Brad Pitt. We’re not sure.

Noah & Matt started the fire with one match, showing off their boy scout/grunt skills, while I took pictures. We hiked up to Big Lost Creek Cliffs on our way out of the forest on Sunday. The views were nice, & the weather was perfect.

Enjoy the three videos of Tarzan chopping down the tree – or at least attempting to! (video embedded) (And click at the top of this post to see the full photo album!)

Welcome Home, Marine!

2009-03-17T19:40:00.004-04:00

We had a great weekend welcoming Noah home from Iraq. It was so exciting seeing him come down the stairs at the airport. A group of us (family & friends) went to baggage claim to surprise him. The video shows our first glimpse of him since his deployment. It's funny because you can see Ethan running up & down the stairs with the sign he made. He was so excited & didn't know whether or not to meet him at the top of the stairs with Mom & Dad or at the bottom of the stairs with the rest of us.

Some of us waiting with our American flags & "Welcome Home" signs

Soffi & Uncle Jacob with their flags - excited for Noah to get there

There was another family waiting on their Marine to come home from Iraq as well. It was great to share the moment with them, too

Grandmommy & Grandaddy waited at the house to see Noah. This is such a great picture of them!

Noah is only in Charlotte for about 3 weeks. Then it's back to Hawaii for training. He heads to Afghanistan around November of this year. We should get to see him again before his next deployment, but we're enjoying the time with him while we can - just in case!

Winter

2009-03-02T19:20:00.011-05:00

We have had a really busy winter so far. So much for 2009 being less active & more relaxing! The following pictures cover January until now. Enjoy!

We spent some time working on the kitchen again. We painted the pantry & laundry closet doors, painted the trim & installed the hardware.

Every single one of these slats had to be painted. Next time we'll buy a door that is pre-painted!

The Sheltons came to Charlotte to celebrate Sydney's fourth birthday.

Sydney loves her Uncle Ethan! And you can really see how big she's getting now!

We also took advantage of the Sheltons' visit & threw a baby shower for them as well. Katti made the cake, & it matched the invitations we made!

Katti's beautiful cake!

We just love this picture of Soffi. It captures her personality perfectly. Happy & fast!

We also spent a weekend in Northern Virginia for a Kiernan family reunion. While we were up there we visited the Pier family. We took the time to get a really great family photo. This is what we ended up with...after about 15 tries.

Luke & Nathan were able to go with us, & it was their first time seeing downtown D.C. It was so much fun being able to show them around! Thanks to Aunt Ann for driving us around!

We were really excited to be here at the Marine Corp Memorial, & we had the privilege of meeting a Pearl Harbor/Iwo Jima veteran. Mr. Thomas Miller, USMC. We can't wait to show Noah & Michael this picture!

The spot where the United States President takes the oath of office.

Kiernan family telling fun family stories. Such a great time!

We had a great visit this weekend with the Stalnakers. Dad brought Grandma & Aunt Beth down to visit during Josh's last weekend here in Charlotte. It rained the entire weekend, but we squeezed in some shopping & two great dinners. Unfortunately, we did not take a single picture. What were we thinking?!?!

And, to end our winter, we had a small winter storm. It's hard to believe that it took until March! This picture was taken last night around 10p.m.

A tree on our street. So pretty!

This was taken this morning. The house really looks nice in the snow.

Plaza Road...on the way to work, & the roads were nearly empty. Charlotte pretty much shuts down whenever there is any winter weather.

We just love the way the trees look!

We hope you have all had a great winter as well. School is keeping Gary busy, & The Luke Pier Foundation is keeping me busy, but things are going well for us. Stay tuned for an update on the Foundation & for news about our next fundraiser. We can't wait!

Kings Pinnacle

2009-02-15T20:23:00.002-05:00

We usually work 9hr days on Monday thru Thursday & then 4 hours on Fridays. We took advantage of the extra time off on Friday to go for a hike in Crowders Mountain State Park in Gaston County. It was a 3.4 mile hike there & back, & the weather was perfect - in the 60's! Enjoy the slideshow!

Looking Glass Creek

2009-02-01T18:55:00.004-05:00

It's been two years since we have done any fishing, so it was really exciting when it was time to head back up to the mountains. Enjoy the pictures!

Josh & Gary's Fishing Trip to Looking Glass Creek Falls

This hole had a few fish in it, but none were caught.

Gary @ Looking Glass Creek Falls

Josh's Big Catch. Click on the picture to get a real glimpse of it. Erin thought it was bait at first.

Nice shot of the creek

Third Time's the Charm

2009-01-28T19:28:00.006-05:00

Well, a 3rd brother will be deploying to fight the war on terror (Michael: OEF & OIF / Noah: OIF). Here is the email Tara sent out this week:

Vermaine received a phone call last night and was told that he will be deploying around the first of August to Kuwait.

I will let you know more details when we get them...

Love you ALL!!!!
(He will miss his sister's wedding in October) :0(

Love you Tara :)

We thought all of you readers may want to know. Tara will have Sydney & a 5-month old at the time Vermaine is deployed, so they will need lots of prayers. It will be hard for Vermaine to leave his family & hard for Tara to have both kids by herself. We hope that means lots of visits from Virginia, though! (Tara - dibs on babysitting the kids!) And we are so proud of Vermaine's service to our country.

To end this post on a bright note, Noah gets to come home to Charlotte mid-March! We are so excited & are busy trying to find a cheap (ha!) flight to bring him home. He has been told that he'll be headed to Afghanistan next, so we'll be cherishing the short time we have with him. And THANK YOU to everyone who sent Noah & some of the Marines in his platoon packages & letters from home. Noah has told us what a huge difference it made for the Marines who were not receiving any mail from home. Just know that your kindness went a really long way to help them stay positive & focused! THANK YOU!

Couldn't Resist...

2009-01-23T07:22:00.007-05:00

These are logos that are being sent around in emails now, & they were just too good not to share! The email was titled "New Corporate Logos After the Financial Crisis". Enjoy!

Exciting Times

2009-01-20T19:59:00.002-05:00

January has been good to us, & we hope you are all having a good month as well. Here's a quick run-down of what we've been busy working on so far:

The guest room is finished, which was a long time in the making!
We have also painted the baseboards & other trim in the kitchen. It still needs a 2nd coat, but that will happen in the next few days. The pantry & laundry closet doors are also painted now, so we will soon be able to install the door knobs for those doors!
School is in session. Gary is taking a Java course for work & spends Wednesday nights learning complicated stuff.
The Gutter Brothers came to see us! We had gutters installed this month as well, and the best part of having gutters is that our rain barrels could be set up! Now we can collect water for our future garden & landscaping!
January has also brought us a great housemate - Cousin Josh! And who knew how handy he'd be to have around!
That brings us to the last thing that we've done so far this month - Josh helped us hang our house numbers this month!

February will see us busy getting ready for the Sheltons to visit again. Mom, Katti, Shawn & Erin are throwing them a baby shower! We will also be driving up to Virginia to have a mini-reunion with the Kiernan family, which we are really excited about. It will be our first time seeing Cousin Kelly in about 5 years (maybe 6!) There will be a fishing trip thrown in at some point as well - we just need the perfect 50 degree day!

A Room Fit For a King

2009-01-06T11:25:00.003-05:00

We have spent the last two weekends working on our guest room, in preparation for Cousin Josh to come stay with us for a few weeks while he does an internship in Charlotte. We are so excited that he's coming & equally excited that we actually have one room that is almost completely finished (& clean!) Enjoy the pictures of the transformation!

This room was the old laundry room. We installed shoe moulding, scraped the paint off of the other moulding, sanded, & painted them again. We painted the ceiling as well. We had primed the walls when we moved in, but there was a patch from the pipes that led to the washing machine so those patches needed extra paint.

We removed the old light fixture (it was original to the house, so it was approximately 60 years old & really ugly!)

Once the trim was painted, we started on the walls.

The color is off on this one, but you get the idea...

Then the rolling began! This part was so exciting for us! We were that much closer to having a nice bedroom!

Such a pretty paint color!

We removed the ceiling fan in the living room & put it in the bedroom. The living room fixture wasn't connected to a light switch, the fan was too small for the living room, & it was the perfect color for the guest room!

A work in progress! We still need to paint the window, and we have installed blinds on the window since this picture was taken. The lamp in this photo is broken, so we still need to replace it, but in all it's coming along great! The plan is to eventually paint a "headboard" on the wall & hang something in the middle of it. We'll probably do that one of these days....ha!

...As Erin's sister, Tara, said, "Who knew you could have such a nice room in that house!"

We Wished for a Merry Christmas!

2009-01-02T12:07:00.005-05:00

"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10, 11

We had planned on a great Christmas in West Virginia this year. We expected to be able to eat a lot, Gary was going to do some rabbit hunting with his dad, we wanted to visit some friends and spend lots of time with family - a typical, great Christmas.

Well, the Christmas we actually had was a bit different! We ended up being sick. I had bronchitis & Gary ended up with a bad cold. So, Christmas week consisted of a lot of sleeping, cough syrup, Vitamin C & a whole lot of tissues!

It wasn't all bad, though. We were still able to eat some really great food that Mom cooked for us, see Gina's new house, Dad & Becky cooked Gary a big breakfast, & we enjoyed Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma Stalnaker's house, too!

Here are a few pictures from our trip. The rest can be seen here, on Facebook.

Taran opening up his presents Kelly opening up her gift from us.
Uncle Bob was proud of his dancing & singing hat & was equally proud of his new Superman undies.
Walker & Roxie got new bones from Aunt Ann & Cousin Zack. They stayed preoccupied & happy! Thanks, A&Z!!!

We hope all of you in internet land had a great Christmas as well. We will be posting pictures of our latest house updates as well as our New Years Eve night at the Pier house soon!

A Time to Remember

2008-12-15T16:04:00.005-05:00

This is Erin here. The past couple of weeks have been a little odd for us. My stepmother, Pat, passed away unexpectedly. It was a shock to all of us. Michael was able to drive up from Austin, TX to our house. After an 18-hour drive, Michael & I jumped in the car & drove to Falls Church, VA to be with Dad.

It was an extra-difficult weekend because Gary had to stay behind. He was getting ready for a business trip to British Columbia, Canada. He's a regular globe trotter now!

Back to the Virginia trip, though...

Dad wanted to take the time to see some of the sites. When I lived up there I never really took the time to enjoy it as a tourist, so, with camera in hand, I took way too many pictures, as usual!

Here we are at the Marine Corps Memorial - Iwo Jima. I had never seen it in person, & it was truly amazing! It was an honor to be there with my older brother, who has been a Marine for almost 20 years now! It was also a great reminder of Noah, fighting a war in Iraq. It's easy to forget when we get busy with our lives - especially during the holidays. It's so important that we do NOT forget, though! Our country is at war, & our men & women are sacrificing for our freedom every day!
We also visited Arlington National Cemetery.
I had been there once with Michael, to visit his best friend's grave & to visit my friend, Ben's, grave. This time we looked up some family members & other friends as well. Here is our great-grandfather's marker. It was our first time seeing it, & was really exciting for me. I love family history, & what an honor to have my great-grandfather buried at such a revered cemetery. We also visited our Uncle Tim's grave while we were there.
The middle-left headstone is Ben Sebban, a friend from college. This section of the cemetery is reserved for the casualties of the Afghanistan & Iraq wars. The most recent plots are in the front of the picture. It is always such a humbling experience to be there!
After Pat's memorial service we took Dad out to dinner. Here he is with his sisters, Ann & Marguerite. It was great seeing them together!
Michael & our cousin, Zack - they were working on their movie star poses!
Me & the Pearson cousins (except Colin). L-R: Rachel, Stefanie & Hannah.
It was a weekend filled with reflection, heavy hearts & love. I'm really blessed to have such a great family! Thankfully, though, things are back to normal now. I am battling some bronchitis, but Gary is home, & we are back to the housework. He painted the ceiling in the back bedroom yesterday, & we'll paint the walls this week. It's so exciting knowing that one of our bedrooms will be completed soon!

Back to Life, Back to Reality

2008-11-30T17:48:00.011-05:00

Wow, it's been a crazy few months! We have been so busy with life & everything that comes with it that we haven't had time to do laundry, let alone blog! We're back now, though, & ready to conquer the world!

We had a really great time at the Holiday From the Heart fundraiser with The Luke Pier Foundation! Check out TLPF blog to see how much money we were able to raise for this great organization!

We also celebrated Mom's birthday this month. Happy Birthday, Mom! You'll notice the phone in this picture - it's because Tara was on the phone while Mom was opening her gifts!

We picked Sydney up in Raleigh the Friday before Thanksgiving & spent the weekend with her. She helped us hang up our new The Luke Pier Foundation ornament on our tree!
Thanksgiving came & went, but we had a great time with family & ate way too much. We stayed in Charlotte this year & were able to visit with the Sheltons, the Biecks, the Herrings & the rest of the Pier family. We switch off years between the families. We'll be in WV for a great Christmas with the Halls & Stalnakers!
We also met Aunt Cheryl's newest edition, Khloe, at Thanksgiving dinner at the Herrings.
And now we're back to the renovations. Here we are putting up the rest of the tile on the extended countertop that we put in. This is just temporary until we are able to buy new cabinets & counters, but it makes such a big difference in the kitchen right now!

The next project that we have scheduled is getting the guest room set up. We have to put up shoe molding, paint, repair the floor where the old washer & dryer were, etc...to get ready for Cousin Josh to come stay with us for 8 weeks. We are so excited! Don't worry, Josh. We won't make you work on the house too much! *wink*

Visit to Langley AFB

2008-11-11T19:31:00.004-05:00

We got sidetracked by Noah's promotion & didn't complete the posts for our visit to Hampton, Virginia.

Here is a great slideshow of our visit. If the email subscription doesn't allow you to view it, then please click here to go to the original post page online.

The picture titles aren't coming through in the slideshow, so here is a brief description of what the pictures are about.

We visited:

St. John's Church - the oldest protestant church in the U.S.
The carousel in historical Hampton, VA
Surf Riders Seafood - the BEST seafood we have ever had!
The war museum & playground at the James River Bridge

Movin' on Up!

2008-11-10T07:16:00.005-05:00

Guess who got a promotion?!?!

Noah emailed Mom this morning & was so excited to tell us that he got a promotion! He now has a slightly different address, so please comment here or send us an email if you want his new address.

He also mentioned that he thinks he may be able to come home about a month after he gets back to the states. So, we may lay eyes on him in April!

-Keep sending him those cards & letters & care packages. They really are helping him keep his spirits up & helping the other guys in his platoon as well.

As always, thanks so much for your support!

Langley Pirates

2008-11-09T18:53:00.003-05:00

We were able to visit the Sheltons in at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, VA just in time for the big Halloween celebration in their neighborhood. We went to the church up the street from their house & had hotdogs, really salty popcorn & played on the big slide & jumping house before we took Sydney trick-or-treating. Vermaine had to work, but we walked to where he was working so Sydney could show him her pirate costume. We had such a great time passing out candy to all the neighborhood kids, too, & seeing all the costumes. Sydney was, by far, the cutest pirate out there, though!
Enjoy the slideshow!
PS - Did you know that Tara is pregnant with Shelton #2? :)

Holiday From the Heart

2008-11-06T09:24:00.001-05:00

Holiday From the Heart
Originally uploaded by EDKPS

We are still looking for silent auction items for this event. If you have something you would like to donate to the event, please send us an email. If you would like to donate money so we can purchase items for the event, please contact us ASAP about that as well! The event will not be a success for TLPF without a really great silent auction.
Thank you for your support!

So Excited About a Little Email

2008-10-30T12:54:00.003-04:00

It's been several months since Noah was deployed, & the longer he is gone the more excited we get when we hear from him.

He emailed Mom & Tara yesterday & gave us another list of things he would love to receive in a care package. He also gave us two names of Marines in his unit who are not receiving mail & asked us to send them some things so they can experience the joy of clean white socks or candy from "home"!

Please click here to comment on this post if you would like us to send you Noah's wish list or the names of the Marines who could use a little lift from the home front. Time may be passing quickly for you with your daily routines, but we can't forget about our boys overseas who are fighting for our freedom!

Congratulations, Sarah & Aaron!

2008-10-30T12:08:00.006-04:00

As we mentioned in another post, we drove up to Columbus, OH for a wedding last weekend. Sarah Galletta was marrying Aaron Todman at a beautiful place called Franklin Park Conservatory.

We were so excited to see the cheap gas on the way to Ohio. It's a pretty sad state of affairs when $2.39/gallon gets a person excited about heading to the gas pump.

We arrived a little early so we took some time to enjoy the conservatory & took pictures of the beautiful plants they had there!

Here is a great picture of Gary all dressed up with somewhere to go!
This was the neatest chandelier they had made out of plants. There were entire displays of "living room" settings & all of the furniture was covered in the plants that were growing in each of the theme rooms.
Sarah's first peek at Aaron before she walked down the aisle. So cute!
They had the best cupcakes! There was something like six different kinds to choose from. Gary said his tasted like one of those peanut butter candy Easter eggs! Yum!

Another great picture of the plants & displays at the conservatory.

Sarah & Aaron - congratulations, & thank you for including us in your big day!