we saw a frog, and other adventures

Our little family had such an amazing Memorial Day weekend. On Friday, we met Papaw Don and Nana Grace with little Grayson McD for some good times at Frankie's Fun Park. Brent and Grayson rode the go-karts twice and played put-put golf. Then we went over the Chick-fil-a for a little dinner. After, Brent, Anne-Kelly, and I went to the movies to try to see the new Shrek film. It was SO cute. How did Anne-Kelly do, you ask? Surprisingly, she slept the first half hour, and after waking, she sat in her daddy's lap, watched the movie, and ate goldfish crackers. I couldn't believe my big girl!

On Saturday morning, we got up and went separate directions, for the morning anyway. Brent went mountainboarding up near Caesar's Head with some friends from church. Mountainboarding, if you're wondering, is similar to snowboarding, but without the snow. It's like a giant, off-road skateboard that you ride down hiking trails. Sound dangerous? It is. I've long ago gotten over worrying about Brent when he's on one of his adventures though. It's just in his nature, and he says that it's not any fun if you're worried about getting hurt....so I just let him go and make sure he has a big disability policy! Ha.

Anyway, while he was doing that, Anne-Kelly and I went to the Greenridge Shopping Center here in Greenville for some quality mother-baby retail therapy. Anne Taylor LOFT, my favorite store, was running a "40 percent off your entire purchase" promotion, so I couldn't miss it. I have been in desperate need of some new, better-fitting clothes for a while. I ended up with a nice pair of dark brown shorts, a cute black tulip skirt, a new blue tank, an adorable summer cardigan, and a pair of sunglasses for four bucks! I then went on to Barnes and Noble and picked up a few books that Brent and I had been wanting to read. One of them is the Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. He wrote the Percy Jackson series, which we were big fans of. Haven't gotten to start the RP yet, but looking forward to it.

After our morning forays, the entire family met up at Greenridge, left Brent's car there, and headed downtown. We had dinner at a fantastic hibachi/sushi place, The Orient, where we were early enough to catch a special. Loving that! Afterward, we walked around in Mast General Store and then down to Falls Park to check out Shakespeare in the park. They were performing Romeo and Juliet, so we sat down for a while and watched. Not before we stopped at Spill the Beans for some awesome ice cream and coffee, though!

On Sunday, we attended church as usual, but afterward we went out to eat at Tequilas Mexican Restaurant with good friends. Then we made our way over to the mall for Brent to pick out some new jeans. He definitely deserved them! His old ones were worn out from crawling around in boilers or something. After the mall, we came home where I cooked beans, cornbread, turnip greens, fried squash, and sliced strawberries. Yum.

Monday morning dawned rainy and icky. That put a damper on our plans to go up to Caesar's Head for a hike. We packed up and went anyway, hoping the rain would slack by the time we got there. No such luck. When we pulled into the parking lot, we asked a couple carrying their son in a Kelty backpack where they'd gotten their awesome child-carrier and they told us that they got it just up the road at the Frugal Backpacker in Arden, NC. So, being that it was all rainy still, we headed up there to check out the Memorial Day sales on the Keltys. We were lucky enough to find a Kelty TC 3.0 for over 50 percent off!! So after we bought it, we ate the lunch we'd packed, and then went over toward Asheville and the NC Arboretum. The sun shone for a few hours, and we went for a small hike around the property and toured lots of the gardens. If you've never been there, it's definitely worth a trip. We also got to see an amazing photo book display by Tim Barnwell. It made me cry it was so beautiful. I can't wait to get the book. Anne-Kelly loved being in the great outdoors and seeing all the lovely flowers and fountains. She even saw a bullfrog hop into the big fountain and swim around! We also really enjoyed their bonsai garden. However, the sun didn't hold out, and when it began raining, we knew we were ready to go.

After that, we drove home and had leftover beans and cornbread. Doesn't sound too glamorous, but it was yummy after such a long day.

So, as you can see, we had a full weekend, but an amazing weekend. We are so blessed.

A Few Belated Photographs

Finally uploaded some photos off the camera from this month. One of my resolutions for this year is to take more pictures with my camera and NOT my iPhone. I'm going to try and periodically post them here. Here are a few from the last few weeks, including Anne-Kelly's seven-month birthday and our trip up to Lexington to see Michael and Tyler. Enjoy!

Happy seven month birthday Anne-Kelly! 1.17.10




Mommy's girl. On the ride home from Lexington. She adores putting her hand in my mouth while she eats.

Anne-Kelly's newfound passion. Daddy let her "drive," and she's been wanting to get up in the front seat with him now every time we stop. She giggles, squeals, and occasionally honks the horn. :)


Anne-Kelly even wore Dudley and Toby out!

Brent's new obsession: Wii. Too bad our TV is 27 inches and we have zero funds!

A snapshot Brent took on the way to or front Lexington. My precious girl.

Anne-Kelly and her Aunt Ty. Aunt Ty will probably kill me for posting this one as she had just gotten out of the shower, but I think she's gorgeous sans makeup.

Hanging with Uncle Michael, our favorite medical student.

mmmm....honesty

I won't say, "It's been a while" like I normally do when I begin my blogs. Even though, yes, since Anne-Kelly has been here it always does seem to be a long while between my blogs. Anyway, it's a busy life, and I do the best I can. That's all we're doing, right?

It is with that question in mind that I write tonight. I just received an email from my mother-in-law, Sandy, expressing her feelings about going through the loss of her beloved husband, Gary. It's been a hard few months since his death, and it's gotten even harder. For those of you all who don't know, we lost Gary's only brother, Dale, to a similar brain tumor on October 8, exactly six months to the day since my father-in-law's death. As if the brain tumor diagnoses weren't strange enough, huh?

Anyway, as you can probably guess, this has put no small strain on the McDaris family and those who love them (there are a lot of you out there: thank you!) Getting through the death of one loved one is hard enough, but dealing with two is nearly impossible, it seems. And after I say the word impossible, that verse about nothing being impossible with God pops into my head. But let's be honest. I know that some might consider what I'm about to say blasphemy, but it's the truth, at least for me. Bible verses like that do provide comfort, don't get me wrong. But in the here and now, things do seem pretty impossible sometimes, at least for people like my mother-in-law and our aunt Whitney (Dale's wife) and the parents of both Gary and Dale. And if I were them (which I'm not and can't officially speak for them), I would feel pretty defeated.

So I guess I say all that to say: I'm proud of my mother-in-law and the fact that she is so honest about her struggles. I think it takes a lot of courage to admit that you're not a superhero in your grieving process. No one is, but just like anything else in life, people like to pretend when they're going through something that they're coping really well. However, it's only through admitting our struggles that we are able to really comfort one another. The brutality of being completely honest is so empowering. For example, Sandy helps Whitney because she is so open. She doesn't just quote a bible verse at her and tell her that that should get her through. She tells her that she gets upset and cries in department stores and over ticket stubs. This is all incredibly normal stuff, but a lot of people that are going through it don't realize that it's normal because everyone is afraid to admit it. This also applies to me as a new mom. If other moms who have been new moms didn't admit to me that they too didn't have perfectly clean houses with laundry always done, I would never know that I wasn't a total mess. Sometimes I feel like a total mess, but I know that I'm really not, thanks to friends like Sheena Abrams and Mary Kury and Angie Gibson. And I hope that I can be that sort of comfort to my friends who are about to become parents. People need people. Honestly. God didn't put us all here to not be there for each other. My friends Kristy and Chelsea and Anna are really good at that. So is Alyson Nelson. And more than anybody, my friend Ameroy seems to have this weird sixth sense sort of knack to know when to send me a card. Usually they come on days when I'm feeling completely defeated and I just cry when I open them at the mailbox. Sometimes I feel terrible because I don't send that many cards, but it's just not my thing like it is Ameroy's. And she gets that, and this is why she and I work so well as friends.

So I guess I end this rambling blog by saying that I really appreciate all my good girlfriends that make me feel a little less insane every day. I could not make it without you girls. And I know that you ladies will be the ones who will hold me up should I ever go through something as excruciating as losing a spouse. And please know that I'm here to hold you up as well. So don't be afraid to ask.

And now I leave you with an adorable photo of my darling daughter dressed as a horse on Halloween, sitting next to her cute buddy Cameron....