Fast tempo!

Well, during Thanksgiving we decided to put our house on the market and see what happened. We did for sale by owner to save on realtor expenses since we werent necessarily in a hurry to sell. It took all of about 4 weeks and right after Christmas we agreed on a contract to sell our house. Initially we found a great house in Spartanburg, but they need to sell quickly and the contract on our house does not close until April. We feel like we are doing the right thing by waiting and it gives us plenty of time to figure out whats next. So, we will be closing in April, hopefully moving into a new house in April, and having a baby in June! Then life gets really fun! See ya old house - Youve been good to us...

New Years News

We're Having A ... GIRL! that's right, soon I will have two women in my life and I cant wait! I already have the most amazing woman and hopefully our baby girl will be just like her. Its almost time for dresses and barbie dolls, but hopefully she will like football too!

Sherry heard that drinking coke before the ultrasound would ensure that our baby would be active enough to "show" us if it was a girl or boy - and man was she! If the ultrasound was any indication of her personality, we will do good to keep up. This little girl was moving the whole time. Even the nurse doing the ultrasound had a tough time keeping up with the baby. But in the end it was quite evident that we are having a girl. Everyone says I am going to spoil her... but I don't know what would give people that idea. :)

White Christmas

My younger sister, Christina (aka Cre), lives right outside of Denver and they got almost 4 feet of snow from the blizzard last week! Here is a pic of her crazy dog playing in the snow! Every time they let her inside, she sat at the backdoor begging to go back out! Rusty gave up on shoveling the driveway and they just stayed in for a couple of days.
Cre and Rusty are driving to Gville this week with their 3 dogs. Please pray for their safety (and sanity!).

Life Changes...

Well, we dated for 4 months, were engaged for 6 months, have been married for 11 months, and are expecting a baby in 6 months!!! Things move quickly in our lives... but were cool with that. We are 14 weeks now and things are going well. Sherry has not been sick at all, but she has had a lot of back pain. It comes and goes and she is doing an amazing job of dealing with all of the changes. The strength of my wife impresses me more every day! Anyway, heres a picture of the little one... we should know in January if its a boy or girl. Apparently it has a lot of personality, because its waving at everyone... hahaha. We are SOOOOOOO excited!!!!!!

Relaxation and Nail Biting

Bye bye mall...Hello Myrtle Beach!! Ryan and I got some much needed R & R at the beach last week.

and we said our goodbyes to the Pavillion...

So after we destressed... we took a road trip to Tallahasee so that Ryan could get stressed out again. He didn't sit down once during the game. It was fun- just being together all week was fun! I even wore a salmon colored shirt to the game! Ok, it's not orange, but it's close...

Things change...

So as you all know, we have been in the mall doing the Veggie Tales thing for 3 months. Let me tell ya, it has been 3 looonnnngggg months! While the new venture has been fun, and semi lucrative, it was weighing heavy on us and we werent sure why. I have been into this questioning thing lately (some of you would say that I have been into that for 27 years now) so I began to ask questions. Sherry and I spent a lot of time thinking, talking and praying about the buisness and our lives. We came to the conclusion that the number ONE priority for us is to be at home together - or be on the same schedule. Especially the first year of marriage, it is important to spend time together doing every day stuff... and we werent doing that. Sherry would often have to work the late shift, or a 12 hour shift at the mall, and our time together was put on the backburner. Its true that starting a business lends itself to that, but due to our newfound priority - things just didnt line up so we had to change somethign.

The next question was what do we do about it... and the obvious, but very tough answer was to get out of the mall. After much prayer, we swallowed our pride and scheduled a meeting with the leasing rep at the mall. She was very encouraging and understanding, so by the end of the meeting we all agreed to terminate our lease and she would find someone else to fill it as soon as possible. That was one of the more humbling experiences I have had in my life, but sometimes you have to go through things like this for the good of family.

No worries though - we are still in the bizz... We still have our website, http://www.justmemusic.us/upstatesc , and we will still be doing shows and fundraisers. If you are interested in a CD or Book, give us a call. It may be easier for us to do it and ship it to you than you order it through the website. If you dont know our number, leave a post and we will get back to ya!

Alright well thats all about that... if ya didnt know, now ya know! If ya have any questions, let us know...

Later,

Ryan

Hey everyone! Sorry we haven't posted in a while! Between my 3 men- Ryan, Bob and Larry- it's been a busy summer!!
For me- things have been busy at the mall. People are already starting their Christmas shopping! Smart people.
For Ryan- things have been busy at work and at home. This is his traveling season, so he's been gone a lot. When he's home, he's been doing home improvements. I work a lot of weekends and Ryan isn't the type to sit around, so he's been painting the kitchen, pulling up bushes, replacing the outside light fixtures, painting the front door, planting grass and bushes, and installing a peep hole so I can see who's knocking! He's been busy and our house looks great! He is taking a little break in August for more traveling. Then he's going to finish the yard in September. We are hoping to get the house on the market soon...
Well, that's all for now! I'll post some pictures of the home improvement soon!!
Sherry

Randomness

Here are some random pictures that were taken with my phone. The first is titled "Take A Break", starring my size 12 feet.

The next is entitled "Scenes from a Gas Station", very introspective, dont ya think? LOL

Next we have "The Mailbox" ... and last but not least, "Beauties, and the Beast"!

Something for the Singles

This is something we received at VeggieTales training. It touched both of us and we wanted to share the encouragement with you.

A letter from Jesus:

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone- to have a deep soul relationship with another, to be loved thoroughly and exclusively. But God to a Christian says, "No, not until you are satisfied and fulfiled and content with living loved by Me alone. I love you, my child, and until you discover that only in Me is your satisfaction to be found, you will not be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you. You will never be united with another until you are united with me- exclusive of any other desires and longings. I want you to stop planning, stop wishing and allow Me to give you the most thrilling plan existing- one that you can't imagine. I want you to have the BEST. Please allow me to bring it to you- keep watching Me, expecting the greatest thing- keep experiencing that satisfaction knowing that I am. Keep learning and listening to the things I tell you...you must wait.

Don't be anxious. Don't worry. Don't look around at the things others have gotten or that I've given them. Don't look at the things you think you want. You just keep looking off and away up to Me, or you'll miss what I want to show you.

And, then, when you're ready, I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful than anyone would ever dream. You see, until you are ready and until the one I have for you is ready, I am working even this very minute to have both of you ready at the same time. Until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me and the life I have prepared for you, you won't be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with Me...and this is perfect love.

And dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love, I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me, and to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty and perfection and love that I offer you with Myself. Know that I love you utterly. I am God Almighty. Believe and be satisfied"

Jesus

Husbands

About a year and a half ago, I was reading a Christian Women's magazine and saw an advertisement for a VeggieTales ministry that gets the Good News into the hands of children that may not have heard it otherwise. I felt like the Lord called me to do start this type of ministry in Greenville. So I prayed about it- and waited. And prayed about it- and waited. Over a year later, two months before my wedding, I felt like the Lord said 'OK- now'. What? Two months before the wedding? Wow! Sometimes it's hard to understand the Lord's 'perfect timing'! So I started the endless paperwork and planning. I remember putting the deposit down for a franchise for the upstate 2 weeks before the wedding. Suzanne, the lady at the corporate office who takes care of all of that, said 'Ok, you have your territory locked. Now don't call me again until after the honeymoon!'
You may wonder why I titled this 'Husbands'. It's because God knew I couldn't have done this without Ryan. That is why His timing is perfect and why at the time, I had to just trust His timing. In hindsight, it was the perfect time.
Throughout this whole thing, Ryan has covered me. When I got so discouraged that there was no way we could come up with the money to start this, Ryan kept praying with me and reassuring me that God would provide. And He did! You know it's God when someone that you have only met once hands you a check for thousands of dollars! In fact, after Ryan and I told them about what we were starting, the wife looked at the husband and said 'We wondered why we had that extra money in the account this month'. Wow! God has shown us miracle after miracle through all of this!
There have been times when I would get so worried and upset, and Ryan would call me and tell me to skip ahead and read a chapter in the Bible study we are going through. It would be exactly what I needed. There are many times that I would cry and think about quitting and Ryan would grab me and pray with me. When I am overwhelmed, he somehow knows it, and tells me what a good job I'm doing and how proud he is of me. I worry about our future finances from this- we have put all of our savings and money on the line- and Ryan constantly tells me that the Lord would not have brought us here to let us fail. While my faith has been tested over the past few months, it has helped to see how solid my husband's faith is- EVERY DAY. It helps increase my faith because with Ryan, I do things that I would be scared to do alone, and I see God work- and my faith increases.
So many people congratulate me on the new business and Ryan just smiles. If they only knew to congratulate him, too, because without his constant covering and encouragement, there would be no business.

Birthday Boy!

Yesterday was Ryan's Birthday! The big 27! We went to lunch with a group of his friends from work...


and laughed as the sweet lady that makes cookies sang him a "Marilyn Monroe" version of Happy Birthday on the microphone!


For dinner, we went to Ryan's mom's and celebrated! Ryan made a few comments about how funny my homemade cake looked (it was topped with melted marshmellows instead of frosting), so I think he may be getting a big Barbie cake from Publix next year! :D

Ryan loves reminding me that no matter how old he gets, he'll never be as old as me! :-<

He had a great day! He is spending his Birthday money on Clemson season tickets, so that makes him VERY EXCITED!!!!

Home Improvement...

Its time for HOME IMPROVEMENT! This font color is in honor of our newly painted room, and has nothing to do with the fact that I LOVE ORANGE!

Since Sherry has her own business, she needed an office at the house. So we decided to take one of the bedrooms and do a little retro, post modern action to it. (I sound like I know what I am talking about huh...) We had a brown couch and very cool picture that needed to be relocated from the den, so they found a home in the new office. When Sherry said that she wanted to do brown and orange, I couldnt believe it! Orange isnt exactly one of her favorite colors, if ya know what I mean. But orange it was... and we began painting!


All of the orange reminded me of my college days, but Sherry quickly reminded me that this room was NOT a tribute to Clemson! As we finished the room, i couldnt believe how good it looked. Sherry and I should host one of those remodel TV shows! LOL, well she could anyway...



Finished product... Pretty cool, huh!

Ryan and Sherry

MOOOOOOO...

We love our house. It has a private back yard full of trees, and backs up to a pasture.

Well ole Bessie came to visit this afternoon.

Yes, we have a cow living in our back yard! She lives on the other side of the fence, but she might as well be in our back yard... The funny thing is, we have a cow living in the house too! Our dog, Myrlot, loves eating grass in the back yard. Sounds like a cow to me, dont ya think? Her and Bessie get along well from a distance, but as soon as Bessie gets close, Merlot is no where to be found. Some guard dog, huh...