Where did the Summer go?

The summer has just flown by! I feel like just a few days ago we were shoveling snow from our driveway. Now when I say we, what I really mean is Ricky :)

The summer was great. Families got to come and visit and we even have some coming this weekend, so that's exciting! We got to go to Worlds of Fun, to our local water park, bowling for a cause, saw movies, went camping and of course played tons and tons of "Settler's of Catan" board game, of course with all the expansion packs with our friends. We have gotten closer to some good friends from church so that has been a lot of fun!

The joys of being a homeowner also took their toll on us this summer. We were going to use our incentive check from the government to build a deck, however our air conditioner wasn't working for a bit. So we thought we were going to have to purchase a new one. Fortunately, I found a really trustworthy AC man and he fixed it for us. We still just put that money in savings cause we just don't know about are AC, it is original to the house so it is at least 25 years old. We just recently had to replace a spring on Ricky's garage door. We haven't yet but we need to do some repair work on a front porch/stairs. Some of the concrete has fallen off, it looks like it has been patched before, so that's are next step. I have decided I really don't know if I like being an adult. Can one be an adult without those responsibilities?

Don't get me wrong, I really love the house we are in and it is the perfect size. It could be much worse. It's just it seems like there is always something to do to it, but I guess that's with everyone.

Fall's coming up pretty soon, so that means, lots of leaves to rake, my birthday, Pumkin Fest, eating pumkin seeds, cooler weather, and Thanksgiving!

Until next post have a great day!!

Love ya,
Ashley

Family Visit

We had a great time with family this past week! It went by too fast but it was fun.

We took them shopping, eating out, to the insane asylum museum, swimming, our testing for our high green belt and shopping/eating in Kansas City.

While they were here we celebrated our 4 year anniversary and Ricky's mom's birthday. It has been a fast 4 years of marriage! And we were saying if someone had told me 4 years ago on our wedding day that in 4 years I would be living in St. Joseph, MO and testing for my high green belt on my anniversary, I would have just laughed and said I haven't even heard of St. Joseph, MO. How times flies!

I will add some pictures of the trip soon! Have a great rest of the summer everyone!!

Getting paid to shop...

Hey Everyone,

I can't believe it is almost August! It feels like yesterday we were shoveling snow off the driveway!

Ricky and I are getting excited because this weekend his family is coming to visit us for a week. We always have a great time with them. I'm sure I will have some pictures to share a little later.

Also this weekend our church is participating in the Beth Moore Simulcast. I am excited about that. I have signed up to help work at this event in our church. I am on the setup/cleanup crew and on the follow up team. Setup/cleanup is self explanatory but the follow up team you might have questions. As did I. Basically we will follow up on the visitors that come to the Simulcast. By writing them a note or calling them a little later on in the week. In addition to that, if someone goes forward during the invitations, we are to follow them down and help them out. Is anyone else doing the Simulcast at their church?? I know a bunch of Bellevue people are going to the actual place that she will be at in Louisville, KY.

Alright so at this point you are thinking what does the title of this blog have anything to do with what I am reading? I am fixing to answer your question. My boss has also commented about how she just loves my earrings that I wear. She is always asking where I get them. Well today she said that she would pay me gas money, $20, and of course pay for the earrings, if I went earring shopping for her. Well what girl can turn down shopping?!?! So of course I said sure! So I'm going to get paid to shop for earrings!

I guess thats all for now. We are testing for our high green belt next week, so Rickys family will get to see that. We are green belts now and the next level up is just high green. You keep the same belt but you get to add a stripe to your belt and that makes you high green.

Have a great week everyone!!

Love,
Ashley

Lets paint......and camp!

Hello Everyone!

Raise your hand if you have busy lately? The Gipson's hands are up!

We have been busy, busy, busy. We had a neighborhood garage sale earlier this summer and decided to participate and sell some things. Including our couches and desk that were down in our basement. Well we did pretty good at the garage sale. We got rid of the couches and purchased a nice futon for the basement. Since the couches were gone we thought, well now would be a great time to paint the basement. (We have been wanting to do it since we moved in) We also wanted to rearrange the room. So we got our paint brushes and went to town! Goodbye wood paneling! We haven't completed the room yet, we are done painting and have the big furniture in place but we still need to organize the little things. So there will be after pictures shortly. Here are some pictures of the painting process.

Furniture is in the middle of the room and fixing to start priming.

Priming is done.

Ricky painting.

Taking down the tape because painting is done!

Now time for camping. The same week were finishing up with the basement was the same week we were trying to get organized and ready for our camping trip that we had planned. We wanted to take a vacation this summer and when we started pricing places, like big cities far away the costs of everything were crazy!! So we thought well we both love camping and it's a lot cheaper, so there ya go. Next thing I know we are making reservations at a state park that is about an hour away from us. It is Watkins Mill State Park in Lawson, MO. We left this past Sunday and planned to stay until Wednesday. Now Ricky and I had never been camping just the two of us. It has always been with family or friends. So I was looking forward to some bonding time with Ricky! So the park is wonderful, beautiful, woodsy, we have the perfect spot, a lake for Seminole. It was great. We pitched our tent and went exploring. It was a lot of fun just the two of us, really good quality time. I would not trade it for the world.

Then a little bit of a downfall happened. We began to discover a lot of ticks! In just a two day period Ricky had found 5 ticks on him. Just one that had attached and the rest he found in time before they did. I found one on me, just walking, not attached. We saw them on our tent (on the outside thankfully) and we had to pull one out of Seminole. So after just two days and two nights of camping we decided to come home a day early. We were tired of the ticks!! Or should I say we were ticked off at the ticks!! I know that when you camp there are going to be bugs, and ticks. But Ricky has camped a lot in his day and never encountered this many in this short of a time. On top of that we know the affects of Lyme disease from a tick bite. A girl had that at our church in high school and we always heard of the horrible things the disease does. So we aren't fond of ticks!

So besides of the ticks the camping was great and we had a great time with each other! I leave you with some pictures of our short camping experience. Enjoy!

My parents bought us these t-shirts. They have a person in a sleeping bag and a yellow
dog lying with them. Under the picture there is a quote saying "Stay out all night." It is
from the brand "Life is Good" if anyone is familiar with that. So we had to take them camping and of course get a picture :)

We went on a hike around the lake at the state park. The entire thing around is 3.75 miles. Halfway through we found a nice little creek, apparently Seminole was really worn out and hot so he decided to just lay in the water awhile.

Our campsite....it was wonderful. We were at the end of a cove and we just had someone on the right of us but no site on the left so it was great!

Have a great rest of the summer everyone!!!