Is the weekend over all ready?

So our weekend was jam packed with stuff to do. We were unpacking boxes, teaching 4th grade Sunday school, Jason worked on Saturday night, there were runs to Home Depot, grocery shopping...you name it we were trying to cram it all in. However, we did make a lot of progress on the house, which was great. I could literally feel myself being able to breathe a bit easier when I could finally see the living room floor and the furniture started to fit into place. We now have our living room all set up and its so cute!!! Just seeing how everything is coming together and how great it looks is just so exciting! We're dog tired - but loving how everything is turning out.

To keep ourselves sane in the midst of the chaos, we've been entertaining ourselves in some pretty unusual ways. You try disconnecting all communication to the world for a few days and surround yourselves with cardboard and see how crazy you act! Around 2am on Saturday night after a very draining day of unpacking and a long night of Jason working, we were getting ready to head to bed, when my night-owl of a husband got an idea in his head. Let's turn Kim into a Mrs-Potato-Head and see what happens!

Thus, the following pictures that came as a result of his inspiration:

I know they're not the most flattering pictures, but come on now, its 2 in the morning! I'm sure you all can picture Jason in fits of laughter every time he put a new pair of shoes under my chin. It really started out very innocent. He was tucking me into bed to say goodnight, when he got this silly grin on his face and reached down to grab the first pair of shoes....and there it just continued till we both almost peed our pants.

The other little game we created for self-amusement was a "Where's Waldo" but with Banks. It seemed wherever we went to unpack or move something Banks had found a way there first and was able to squeeze her way into some pretty unusual places. We did not stage any of these pics, she did it all on her own.

Dining Room on top of the bookcase.

Where's Banks is this picture?

Or maybe in the bedroom in our temporary sweater shelf.

The Pantry off the kitchen.

Under the dining room table.

On the shelf of our new coffee cart.

Or maybe they won't find me if I go inside the coffee cart.

Ha! Not so fast Banks! We see you!

A cat after my own heart :-)

Is it bedtime yet? I'm in the middle waiting for you two.

Surrender with your paws up!

Finally - sleeping peacefully under the blankets of our bed with me until Jason found her.

Moving

So Monday night was supposedly our big moving night. We had borrowed our friend Jeff Batson's trailer and Jeff Hooper was coming over to help us out. I left early from work and it was unusually warm outside, like over 70 degrees! I called Jason and told him, 'you know the weather is acting a bit strange and this would be perfect tornado weather'. We both laughed a bit and didn't think much of it. Just before I left work, I received this email from my local news station, which by the way, I didn't read till the next morning:

"The NWS in nashville has issued a tornado warning for: southern davidson county in tennessee, this includes the city of nashville, Until 530 pm cst At 452 pm cst, national weather service doppler radar indicated a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado 6 miles west of belle meade, or about 11 miles southwest of nashville, moving east at 45 mph. The tornado will be near, oak hill and 7 miles south of nashville by 505 pm cst, and will also cross other southern suburbs of nashville by 530 pm. Do not use your car to try to outrun a tornado. Cars are easily tossed around by tornado winds. If you are caught in the path of a tornado, leave the car and go to a strong building. If no safe structure is nearby, seek shelter in a ditch or low spot and cover your head. The safest place to be during a tornado is in a basement. Get under a workbench or other piece of sturdy furniture. If no basement is available, seek shelter on the lowest floor of the building in an interior hallway or room such as a closet. Use blankets or pillows to cover your body and always stay away from windows. If in mobile homes or vehicles, evacuate them and get inside a substantial shelter. If no shelter is available, lie flat in the nearest ditch or other low spot and cover your head with your hands."

So that was the first time I've ever received one of those emails! Thanks but I'll take an earthquake over a tornado ANY day! We had no idea any of this was really going on, we just thought we might get some rain. HA!! I get to the apartment and we finish boxing some things up and get the couch ready to move into the trailer. No sooner do we get it to the front door then the heavens opened up and the rains came in a torrential downpour! There was all this intense lightening and thunder - it was nuts! The thunder was so intense it shook our building a couple times! Between the sheets of rain coming and going, Jeff finally was able to help us load up the trailer so we could head over to the house to unload. I later came to find out that the Tornado sirens went off throughout downtown Nashville and in surrounding counties. Niiiiccee. We didn't even hear them! And my friend Brooke at work told me that they were evacuating stores and that people in the office went into the stairwell for protection.

When we finally got our stuff into the house and had picked up Banks - we decided to camp out in the guest bedroom (since our closet is STILL being worked on in our bedroom). Well apparently the storm had knocked out our HVAC unit and we ended up losing our heat!! So we've had no heat for the last two nights, freezing in our new little home and surrounded by boxes. I woke up Tuesday morning to Jason snuggled up tight next to me on my right side and Banks snuggled up to me on my left. We were a cozy little bunch with our little space heater on full blast wrapped up in all our blankets. Last night dropped down to high 20's and it was so hard to climb out of bed and face the cold air. But Jason was so sweet and tried to make getting ready as painless as possible and completely blessed me by running down to the nearby coffee shop and buying me a Cappuchino and muffin for my drive into work. The heater was fixed today thank goodness, cause we're expecting another night of below-freezing temperatures!!

I'm SOOO looking forward to this weekend when I will have more of an opportunity to get some things organized and unpacked in the house. I'm going to do whatever necessary to get these boys motivated to finish the repairs on our house, even if means bribing them with chocolate chip cookies!! I need to feel settled soon or I think I might start losing my mind.

They Call Them Man-Boobs - or Moobs

So a couple of fun things in celebration of the holiday.

First - my dad sent me this video, which I thought was absolutely hilarious! If you can appreciate cats, then I think you'll enjoy this too - it reminds me A LOT of Banks :-)

Secondly, Jason and I went to the flea market with our friends Ben & Alicia this last weekend. We had an absolute blast looking around at all the fun things. But Jason happened to come across these rubber stress balls that had nipples on them...you see where I'm going with this. So if your easily offended do not scroll down below and look at the picture of my husband once he found these, dare I say toys? I was laughing pretty darn hard. And the poor elderly woman next to him had no idea what to think. The best part was standing a little off to the side and watching as men noticed these balls sitting in the bucket and not being able to resist picking them up...we seriously all couldn't stop laughing.

If y'all send me pictures of your cute kids or grandkids (or even yourselves!) in full Halloween attire, I'll be sure to post them by the end of the week!

So You Think You Can Dance!

Wednesday night was amazing! Jason and I went to the So You Think You Can Dance Tour here in Nashville and it was INCREDIBLE! I'm a huge fan of the show and was so excited to see some of my favorite dancers out there on stage in person. Neil! Sabra! Pasha! Sara!! Whoohoo!!

My friend Brooke and I had bought tickets as a big group and there was a total of 9 us sitting together in the best seats!!! Seriously, after the moment I sat down for the show, I couldn't stop smiling the entire time. Jason might even be a bit bruised from all the elbowing I continued to do to him every time I was amazed and excited over one of the dances. I so recommend going and hope to go every year there's a tour. No flash cameras were allowed unfortunately and it was pretty dimly lit, not to mention once the dancing began, I could've cared less about anything else, so I forgot to take my camera out till the very end when they were taking their bows.

After the show, Jason and I tried to take pictures of ourselves and they turned out ok, but then when we got home, we had a little fun with the camera and posed a little for ya! Oh yea, and I cut my hair last weekend! It's the shortest I've had it for years, but I really love it and Jason says he likes it too, but I think he's just trying to adjust to it too :-)

And um, whoa! Can you all see how freakin hot my man is!! I'm just gonna say it....Damn!

Because I finally downloaded my pictures, I also found the pictures that we took when we signed the contract on our house! We met up at Battered & Fried, one of our favorite East Nashville places to eat, with our realtor and friend Heidi and her man Ben. So I thought those would be fun pictures to add as well.

Homeowners, yup - that's us!! A couple more weeks and we should be in our new home. The foundation is in mid-repair (thanks to the tons of rain we've been getting) and we're in the midst of various other repairs inside the house too! But very exciting news...we have ourselves a new closet!! Yea!! We've finished painting the guest room and the office and have the bead-boarding to finish in the guest room and the chair rail in the office. Then we're on to paint the living room - I can't wait, its all coming together so nicely! We're exhausted, but excited too!! Our repair guys Charlies, Butch, and a couple other guys have been so incredible getting all the insulation installed in our roof, the plumbing stuff finished, putting up a new ceiling over the porch, installing a fan in the bathroom - they're the best and they're doing a great job!! I'll post some pictures of all the new developments on the house in the near future - right now we're trying to move things over little by little when we get the time together.

That's all I got for now - hope you enjoyed the pics!

All our love - The Keiths!

Lily

Tuesday was the passing of the Keiths family pet, Lily. She was so quirky and lots of fun to be around. Jerry, Sherry, Kelley, Scott and Jason, I am so sorry for your loss.

She was well loved and will be greatly missed!

Kati took this picture of Lily while she was out in California with my dad for Promise Keepers.

Welcome To Our Home!

Let me give you the tour!

This is me opening our front door into our living room! I love the hardwood floors!! Any decorations you see actually belong to the seller, its supposed to be for staging. I guess they didn't really need them, cause we made an offer on the house the first day it was on the market!
This is our living room, the front door is on the left. And the windows on the left wall face the front porch.

We finally have a fireplace! Unfortunately the old homes are not safe for actual wood fires, this fireplace was originally intended for coal. But hey we have a mantal to hang stockings on!! And just beyond the living room you can see a glimpse into the master bedroom.
This is our master bath, which is right off the master bedroom and laundry room.
For a time it will be quite cozy, but we have some great expansion ideas for the future!
Here's another shot of the living room, taken from the dining room. We LOVE the original windows you see against the far wall. They need a little cleaning up, but they are so cute! This picture was taken from the dining room.
A wide entryway seperates the dining room from the living room. Jason and I would agree that the dining room is definately our favorite room in the house.Here's Jason enjoying a corner from the dining room.
The windows to the right face out onto the front porch and you can see from the reflection on the floors, they let in a ton of natural light! Just beyond the dining room is the kitchen with brand new cabinets, stainless steel appliances, tile floors and gorgous Italian countertops and backsplash.

Through the kitchen is the hallways into the back bedrooms which will serve as Jason's Writing Room/Office and our guestroom.

It's a bit odd shaped for a hallway, but that's just part of the fun character that an old home posseses. If you look closely, you can see the back door that leads into the backyard.
Here's the view if you looked back from the hallway toward the kitchen and dining room.

It was hard to get a good overall shot of the bedrooms, but Tina did a great job at getting both windows. This is a picture of Jason's Writing Room/Office.

This is our guest bathroom that is located in the back of the house between the two back bedrooms.

Here's another shot of the guest bathroom. It also has new cabinets and all new fixtures.

This is our guest bedroom, which you can see the two windows and closest. It's bigger than it seems, but there was really no point in taking a picture of the blank walls :-)

And here we are Home Sweet Home!!

We're in the midst of finishing the loan process with the bank and title company. Once we've finished with that, we'll be able to close and start on repairing the foundation. The seller cut us a check to finish what he was unable to do before he left on his trip. So it should only take a couple weeks or so and then we'll be able to begin the moving process. Thankfully, there's no stress, because we have plenty of time to move our things from the apartment into our new home. We can't wait to see what memories God has in store for us as we open up our home to our friends, our family and all our loved ones. We even plan to extend our family with the addition of two Labrador puppies sometime after Thanksgiving!!

Too Good Not To Share

So I apologize for taking so long to get the pictures that Tina took of our new home up on the blog. We downloaded them at the apartment, but I tend to spend the majority of my time on the computer here at work. So this weekend I will definitely post them all for you to see - they turned out great, as I knew they would!

But in the meantime, I had to share with you all the funniest thing that happened early this morning. Baby, you know its too good to keep to ourselves :-)

I have a horrible tendency to set my alarm WAY before I actually need to get up. Its debatable whether psychologically I feel more rested because I dupe myself into thinking I'm sleeping in more, or whether I'm actually keeping myself up and losing more sleep. And this I might add, is an ongoing conversation between Jason and I. But no matter, I set my alarm one hour before I actually HAVE to get out of bed and spend the next hour repeatedly hitting snooze. Jason has grown accustomed to this bad habit of mine and has gotten to the place where he can completely tune out the radio and not even realize that I've hit snooze over 20 times, then eventually gotten up to shower, got dressed, fed the cat and blown dry my hair before I finally wake him to say goodbye for the day.

Well this morning started out on a much more humorous note. At 6:30am my alarm starts off with "Rockstar" by Nickelback. Not the most soothing song to wake up to, so I groggily lean over to hit snooze. As I do, I hear from behind me "I want to be a star!" Huh? I roll over to face Jason and say "What honey?" And I kid you not - he repeats himself, while shooting his arm straight up into the air - "I want to be a star!" Oh my word - did that just happen? I was giggling about it all morning as I got ready. Then when I finally was ready to go and went to his side to wake him with a kiss and to say goodbye, I told him "You are never going to believe what you did in your sleep this time baby". He laughed so hard when I told him, he couldn't believe it. At some point, I want to film our sleep habits one night, I think it would be absolutely hilarious.

Tina's coming!!! Tina's coming!!!

I'm so unbelievably excited that my best friend Tina is on her way out to see me!!! Ok not quite on her way, but she'll be heading out of Seattle in about four hours!! Whoohoo!! I can't even believe I'll have her all to myself for four whole days! (Thank you Jay!!!) Plus, she'll be the first one to see our new house! I'm getting a little carried away with the exclamation points. Deep breath. I'm not quite sure what we'll do, but I have a few ideas in mind. I was able to get Friday and Monday off from work, so I can really hang out with her. And if you know Tina at all, then you know I'll have some fun pictures to post after her weekend stay. Maybe we'll need to go buy Yahtzee for old times sake - back in high school we could sit for hours on end in the backyard playing this game. I recall one very bad sunburn I received after playing Yahtzee with her one lazy summer afternoon. Ahhh, those were some good times! It's hard to believe how much life we've already shared together - marriages, kids, homes, moves....its nuts! She has always been such a loyal and faithful friend, and I know that I can count on her being with me through so much more life together. Your the best Tina and I love you - now hurry up and get on that plane girl!

Doug Is Ours!!!

Whoohoo!!! Now Jason and I can really celebrate, because our adoption of Doug is complete! We had always dreamed of owning a home in East Nashville and now we do - I can't even tell you how excited we are! It took 16 days to get through all the negotiations and counteroffers once we found out through the inspection that the foundation would need to be redone. But thankfully it worked to our advantage that the seller was leaving for a 2 month backpacking trip to Asia and really didn't want to try to sell the house while he was out of the country and into the winter, so that gave us quite a bit of leverage. Plus we have a check that the seller cut us to get the foundation completely repaired, along with some other minor things that we'll finish up before we move in.

Here's a picture of Doug taken off the realtor's site, its not the best picture and we plan to repaint the trim and porch a different color, but you get the idea of our cute little 1920 country home, that we have affectionately refered to as "Doug".
The house has been completely remodeled on the inside with new tile in the kitchen and bathrooms, refinished hardwood floors in the dining room and living room, 10 ft ceilings, all new fixtures in the bathroom, all new appliances in the kitchen and all new cabinets, soapstone countertops and backsplash. There's a huge fenced in backyard with a big shady tree and a small shed, which will be perfect when we get our two labrador puppies this fall!! Doug has three bedrooms and two baths, original windows, I could go on and on...its just too darn cute! I can't wait to start moving our things in!
These other pics are also off the realtor website and they're very dark and small, but I'll be going back this weekend to get some pictures of the inside myself, so you have a better idea what it all looks like!!
I can't believe its actually happened and we're finally homeowners!! Yippee!!! Stay tuned for updates!

The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;

Enjoying one moment at a time;

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;

Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it;

Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will;

That I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with Him

Forever in the next.

Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

During this last week we discovered through our house inspection that the foundation is pretty messed up. We've been praying about it, but basically if the seller does not cover the cost of repairs to the foundation, which will be close to $9,000, then we walk away from this house. Supposedly the seller and his agent are talking about what they're going to do with this issue and hopefully we'll know something more today, but for sure by tomorrow. We just have to believe that if it doesn't work out, than its for the best and God has a better house for us in mind. We named our house Doug, to try to stay as unattached as possible. I don't think its working.

House Hunting

Some rumors might be spreading around that we have bought a house - this is true, though we are trying to keep from freaking out and doing cartwheels until the inspection is complete on Thursday. It is an old house and anythings possible. Once everything is settled, and the inspection clears, the loan papers are signed et... we will post up pictures of our new home!!

It's been a crazy last few weeks to say the least. The market is flooded with houses out here in Nashville and its a buyers market from what we've been told. We have spent countless hours online looking at different homes, neighborhoods, driving around and checking them out, its been so exhausting! Jason has been amazing by dedicating any spare moment he has during the day driving around to see them all and checking them off our growing list of potential homes. We've seen a few together on the weekends or on my lunch breaks, but its really been Jason who's been really after it. At the very start of this whole search, we thought that this house might be the one. It was $160,000 (yes, that's not a misprint) 3 bed/2 ba home with a huge bonus room, cathedral ceilings, we thought it was perfect for us. At first there was already a contract in place with another couple, but it fell through and we were given the opportunity to buy it. We started seeking counsel from a few friends of ours that were Realtors and realized this was not a good investment because it would likely not appreciate because of the area it was in. So we passed on the house, a bit bummed but trusting that God would lead us to not only to a great house, but a good investment opportunity as well.

At this point, we started enlisting help from Heidi who works with Jason at Mortons by night and as a realtor by day. She has a gorgeous home in East Nashville, which is the most appreciating area of the city. But at the same time she's also on a block that I just couldn't see myself living on with Jason having to work nights. We went with her to see a couple houses near her home and these two thugs looked at us like - "what?" Um, nothing...just passing through, we'll be out of your hood shortly! NEXT! In 5 or 10 years her neighborhood will probably clean up a whole lot, but I didn't want to wait that long to find out. Then we drove out near Inglewood, which is also a lot of older homes and in an up and coming area. This house wasn't bad, and it had a very cute Hansel & Gretel look to it, but it had been poorly renovated and the upstairs master bedroom had no closets. Plus, it was the second house off a really busy street that looks a lot like Lake City Way. Uh, not so much. Closer, but still not quite it. But I did love the reading nook in the corner of the master bedroom upstairs, isn't it adorable? This house was $170,000. Then last Friday, we went together to see another house in Inglewood with Heidi that was really cute. The outside was simple and modest, with the white picket fence, and the inside was just gorgeous. It was so clean and everything was brand new.

I loved the kitchen, wood floors, tile and bathrooms! It was also 3 bed/2 ba, but you had to go through the office to get to the master bedroom, and that would have been kind of a pain. We loved everything about this house, but it was definitely priced a lot higher than the other houses in the area and probably would not appreciate a whole lot. As we stood in the house we looked at each other and said while shrugging our shoulders "we could live here". It was definitely the closest we had come to finding the ideal house and we thought we could sacrifice a few things to make it work, such as there was barely a dining area and we have quite a large dining room table. As we're getting ready to leave, Heidi looks at us and says, "Well there is this house that just went up on the market today on Douglas Avenue in East Nashville. It's a little higher than you were looking at, but we could stop by if you want." Without a whole lot of expectations, we were like "Sure, why not". So we get in the car and head over to Douglas Avenue, which might I add is one of Jason's favorite streets in East Nashville and we have talked about wanting to live there if we ever could afford it. The renovated houses on that street are selling between $280,000 to $400,000! (Which I know to all you Seattle folk that doesn't seem like a whole lot, but out here the market is drastically lower and $500K will buy you a mansion!). This is an area that Jason and I would often drive through and dream about. To be clear, there's scary East Nashville and gorgeous East Nashville. The whole area is divided up into subdivisions. Some subdivisions like Lockland Springs are mostly renovated and the houses are between $350K - $600K. Then there's other subdivisions that aren't quite there yet, but have the potential, like where Heidi lives. The subdivision that this house is located in, is Eastwood Neighbors. I would say this area is half renovated, with a ton of new renovations currently in process. So we arrive at this house, and it looks ok from the outside. It's not painted the best colors, so it appears drab. We go inside and our mouths fall to the floor! Absolutely adorable! Original refinished hardwood floors, plenty of windows, tons of character, fully remodeled kitchen with new cabinets, tile, counter tops and back splash. All new stainless steel appliances, all new carpet and paint. The bathrooms have all new fixtures and there was a huge fenced backyard! 3 bedrooms & 2 baths. So stinkin cute!!!

We went home that night and I didn't sleep hardly at all. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Jason got home and we prayed again asking God to direct our steps. On Saturday we went back to the house with Heidi and the Seller was there putting on a brand new door and watering the lawn. We went inside and walked around again making notes - right then we decided we were going to do this and make an offer on the house! For a change, I was all of a sudden the one that was calm and Jason was nervous! Are we really going to do this??!! This was the first time either of us will have owned a house. So we sat at the little table and filled out the contract and then proceeded to drive all around East Nashville in search of a copy machine, so we could give the Seller our offer. It was quite humorous actually and we eventually got our copy made and Heidi gave it to Nick, the Seller. She told us that he had two days to consider our offer before he had to give us an answer. Jason and I then got in our car, took a deep breath and left for the grocery store near our apartment. So while I wait in the car on the phone with Tina, Jason runs into the grocery store. As he's in there Heidi calls Jason on his cell to tell him that the seller has counter-offered, but not above what our limit was!!! So he gets back in the car with me and we start driving off like we're heading home. Then all of a sudden he turns back toward the freeway and I say to him, "What are you doing?" He looks at me and says, "What do you say we go buy us a house?!" I'm totally confused - what? He explains the seller has counter-offered but its not beyond the limit we had set, and we're to head back downtown to meet Heidi to sign the papers!!! YIPPEEE!!

It all happened very fast and I still can't quite believe that it's soon to be ours!! God is so good and if all goes well, we'll be moved in to our new home before the holiday season. After everything has been cleared, and we head back to the house to look around again, I'll be sure to take pictures for you all to see!!

Updates

So here is a bit of an update on where things are currently at:

My Teeth - I have a root canal this afternoon, yuk. But I keep telling myself I will feel so much better once this is over. 7 weeks of pain and 7 dentist/doctor appointments and we're finally getting somewhere. I'm nervous, but my dentist is a really nice guy which makes it a bit easier.

Jason's Music - Billy Currington came into Mortons last week for dinner with a few guys in the industry. Jason was able to wait on them. As soon as he walked up to the table, Billy asked Jason if he had "Right Where We Belong" cut yet. Jason said no, not yet. Billy said he thought it was such a great song and he hoped Jason didn't mind, but he had been talking with Craig Morgan about it the other day since Craig is cutting his new album in December. Wow. Craig has that single out right now called "Tough". Jason was pretty flattered. He thanked Billy for going to bat for him like that and Billy said that he was getting Craig a copy of Jason's song and that he really believed in his music and that when he believes in something he doesn't let it go. He really said that. Talk about a huge compliment. We knew Billy had an interest in that song for a while, but he didn't end up cutting the song himself, because in the end he decided to go with all songs he had written himself. His new album will be released on October 30th. Billy also asked Jason how the rest of his music was going and Jason filled him in on the hold with Rodney Atkins. He responded by saying telling Jason to hang in there cause it wouldn't be long. Lord, we're hoping so. That's going to be some exciting day when it finally does come along!

On a sidenote, there was a recent interview with Billy Currington by People magazine about some rumors that he was in rehab for drug abuse. It wasn't true, but in fact he actually underwent a trauma recovery program for abuse he had suffered as a child. I found the interview quite interesting as he mentions his relationship with God:

"Billy Currington discusses the child abuse he suffered from his stepfather in an issue of People magazine that arrives on newsstands on Friday (Aug. 10). He has completed a 30-day trauma recovery program and will meet with therapists who specialize in childhood trauma later this month, after he completes the recording sessions for his third album. Earlier this summer, Currington canceled all his tour dates for the remainder of the year and went on voice rest due to acute laryngitis. He told the magazine he had heard rumors that he entered rehab for drug and alcohol addiction, so he decided to go public with his abusive childhood to confront the rumors and help others heal from a similar situation. "People who care about me want to know the truth, so I'm telling them," he tells the magazine. "I feel like I'm being used by God now, and all I can say is, 'God, please use me,' because someone else might need to heal from this, too."

- People Magazine, August 10, 2007 issue

Family - Kati & dad are starting their trek to CA today to stay the weekend with the Keiths! Jerry Keith and dad are going to Promise Keepers together in Fresno, while Kati hangs out with Sherry. I think its awesome our dads are spending some time together getting to know each other better & experiencing God in a deeper way through the conference. I look forward to hearing how it all went. Then I believe the plan is that dad and Kati will drive back up the coast and meet mom & the girls in Oregon for a little vacation on the beach.

Friends - I'm very excited to say that my best friend Tina is coming out to see me at the end of September. A great deal with SouthWest Airlines popped up and being the spontaneous girl that she is, she bought her ticket that day!!! Jay is being amazing by staying home with the kids, so we can have a girls weekend and do fun things like get pedicures and go to the movies - yea!! There's also a chance that Jason may drive down to Florida to write with a couple of his friends that weekend. But that's not for sure yet.

Church - Jason and I were recently asked to help serve more within our home church, Harpeth Community. We had been waiting to be a part of the congregation for close to a year before diving into service, and as we come up on our one year there, we were approached by one of our dear friends Melanie McRay, who is also over the children's ministry, and asked if we would be willing to step in and teach the 3rd Graders every other month. It's not a huge commitment, but it is a start in getting involved & getting to know more people in the church. I'm looking forward to it and it should be a lot of fun.

"Nashville" Show - A new reality show will be airing on Fox called Nashville. Some of you may have been seeing the advertisements already. It follows 8 aspiring songwriters/artists who are trying to make it in the music business. One of the artists is our friend Chuck Wicks, who sings and co-wrote the song "Right Where We Belong" with Jason, and if you remember, its the song we last danced to at our wedding. In this picture, he's the guy in the all white shirt sitting on top of the car in the upper left corner. Its kinda funny that this show is supposed to show his struggle in the music business, when he already has a record deal with RCA and should be finished wrapping up his album anytime now. Dan Huff and Monty Powell produced his album, who have also worked with Keith Urban and Rascal Flatts, so it should be a good one. From what I heard, Chuck will also be presenting at the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday night. That should be interesting, I wonder how they'll introduce him? "You have no idea who this guy is now, but you will." ???

Other news - School is back in here in Nashville and I've been surprised to see that Davidson County, which is primarily the Nashville area, has made uniforms a requirement for ALL public schools! I didn't know they could do such a thing! I've seen plenty of uniforms in private schools, but public? Every morning I drive by three public schools and see all the elementary, junior high and high school kids in their khaki's and polos. From what I heard they switched over to uniforms because they were having so many issues with the dress code & how kids were abusing it.

Weather - It's too freakin hot here. We've had close to three weeks of close to 100 degree weather. Today is supposed to reach 104. And in the evening it only cools off to like 93! I sleep with a fan blowing directly in my face and even still wake up sweating with a sheet on top of me. It's also been so dry and we've had very little rain, which is so sad because the trees are drying out and it might make for an ugly fall :-( Fall is my favorite season and it normally gets so gorgeous here, so I'm praying for some serious storms this weekend!!

Book Review - I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and I recently finished "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" by James Patterson. It was so good! I couldn't put it down and read it in only a couple days, which is fast for me. I'm currently reading "Bidding For Love" by Katie Fford, which is a cute story and I'm very much enjoying. But what I'm most looking forward to is reading "The Choice" by Nicholas Sparks which comes out September 24th - yea!!!! He is by far my all time favorite author and I can't wait for his next book!

That's about all the updates I have for now. I hope your all enjoying what's left of your summer. Can you believe, fall is just around the corner! We love you all - The Keiths!

LOVE THIS!

Mandy Moore did her own rendition of Rihanna's "Umbrella" and its amazing - I love it!!