Summer Highlights

What a beautiful summer I've experienced. Staying home with Conner has been such a joy. I love that precious boy so much. Here are some highlights from the summer:

• Ending my first track season with a Conference and Sectional victory. We won the sectional by one single point over Seymour. Whoa!
• Conner's first birthday. I'll post on that subject later. Conner was such a ham that day posing for the camera. It was a day Ben and I will never forget for its happiness.
• Our first week-long vacation in over two years. We traveled to Gatlinburg, TN. Did you expect anything different from us?!? I'll post more on that later, too.
• Conner's first time swimming, swinging, and his very first Jeep ride!
• Gardening... gardening... gardening...
• My hard-core exercise program that has Ben questioning my sanity. For a solid month I biked to Brownstown and back three times a week (9 miles roundtrip), but this past month I've abandoned the biking portion of my exercise program because of time constraints. I also swim 500 meters three times a week, and then I throw in 2-3 miles of running in the mix, too! The coolest thing about swimming is that my dear friend, Mary Beth, swims with me! It's so great to see her and talk about our babies.
• Ben purchased a newer Jeep, and it's one that I can drive and enjoy since I can adjust the seat to reach the clutch. I've been arguing my case why he should just give me the green one, and then keep his older red Jeep for himself. Ben says, "No way." He is trying to sell his old Jeep now.
• Our new budget. Whew! This will be a tough challenge, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem since neither one of us shops all that often. The plan is to be completely debt free, yes, 100% debt free, in five years and still have a significant amount of money in savings to put down on land where we'll eventually build our dream home.