Spring 2025 Fun
Here are some fun highlights from Spring 2025. Please excuse the fact that it’s all Zoe…Ava is not a fan of having her picture taken these days. I keep telling her one day she’ll love having the pictures that I’ve taken over the years but she still won’t agree to pictures.
Zoe is obsessed with makeup these days. I keep telling her she’s too young to wear it on a daily basis but sometimes she just likes to play with it at home.
The 2nd graders put on a play at school in March. It was really cute and Zoe did a great job with her class dance.
For Spring Break, Zoe and I took a trip up to Discovery Place in Charlotte again this year. She had so much fun exploring the science exhibits and creating in their mini maker’s space. This might become a regular Spring Break tradition for her!
Zoe and I had fun at the Panther Fun Fest (used to be called Spirit Fest) at her school. She met up with a couple friends and had a blast playing games, even in the rain!
Clemson Gymnastics
We had a special outing with just Zoe to see Clemson gymnastics. This was their second season and it was so fun to go support the Tigers in their newest sport. Zoe loved watching the girls and was inspired to do cartwheels all over the lawn outside Littlejohn.
Re-Craft Fun
One of Zoe’s favorite places to go in Greenville is Re-Craft. She loves to use all their recycled supplies to create all sorts of fun designs. We enjoyed a fun afternoon there after doing her hair and she had a blast creating. We love watching her mind work to come up with her designs!
Book Character Day 2025
Zoe got to celebrate Book Character Day at school again this year (for some reason they did not do it last year). She chose to dress as Zoey from Zoey and Sassafras. These are super fun books about a girl named Zoey and her cat Sassafras and how they use science to help magical creatures. It was the perfect choice for our fantasy and science loving girl!
Snow Again!
We were shocked in February to have another snow day. This one was more of a dusting but was still exciting after going so long without any snow.
Birthday at the Beach
DJ and I celebrated my 40th birthday with a little getaway to Charleston/Edisto. The crazy part of the trip is that a snow storm hit the area right before we left. We had updates from Eric and Jenn’s neighbors about the roads and safety getting there so we decided to go for it. The roads were definitely not great but we couldn’t pass up the chance to see Charleston and the beach with snow. It was beautiful and such a wonderful getaway for my birthday.
Redeemer’s Generosity Campaign
My friend, Jennifer, and I got to really use our event planning skills this winter/spring at church. In January, our church launched a Generosity campaign. The goal of the campaign was to retire our mortgage debt, start a seed fund to hire a pastor to lead a church plant, start a fund to deal with delayed maintenance on our current building and a fund to pay for an expansion on our children’s wing. Jennifer and I joined the steering committee as the events team and were in charge of the large Generosity dinner, two roundtable dinners for those who couldn’t make it to the Generosity dinner, and a dessert reception following the advanced commitment night. It was a ton of work but we loved every minute of it because we can’t get enough of planning events together. It was funny when our pastor texted us both about it, he said he knew we were both super busy so wondered if we knew of someone else who could take on the project. Jennifer and I both had the same conversations with our husbands that we’d be crazy to take on such a huge project but we also knew we couldn’t say no to planning these fun events. Nick was so excited when we said we’d do it. We all had such a great time planning for this huge endeavor at church and it has been amazing to see how God provided all the money that we had hoped to raise. We’ve already paid off the mortgage, funded the church plant and raised the funds for the delayed maintenance. Our church has been through so much in the past but God has been so faithful to sustain us!
The first, and biggest, event of the entire campaign was the Generosity Initiative Dinner. It was the kick off event for all adult members and active attendees. We set up 18 tables in the sanctuary and spent many hours setting up for this beautiful night for our church family. We enjoyed fellowship together, food from Lewis BBQ and desserts from Crust and Crumb bakery. It was such a wonderful event!
In February, we hosted two Roundtable dinners. These were much smaller dinners for the folks who couldn’t make it to the initial dinner. We recreated a smaller version of the dinner in the meeting rooms at church. They were much smaller but still very special evenings for our church family. Unfortunately, I had the flu and couldn’t attend the 2nd dinner but Jennifer and our team of helpers pulled it off beautifully.
Our final event was the Advanced Commitment Night. This was a night of worship and a chance for people to go ahead and make their commitment pledge before the official commitment Sunday. We planned a dessert reception following the worship service. It was incredible to hear the numbers committed after this first night. We’ve all been blown away at people’s generosity and the Lord’s provision for our church!
Snow!
After 3 years of now snow, we finally had snow in 2025! It wasn’t much but it was enough to enjoy. Our neighbor friends came over to sled down our hill and it was so fun seeing the kids enjoy the snow together. It was also Sookie’s first snow. She wasn’t really sure what to think about it but had fun playing with the kids.
The End of an Era
Sadly, I heard that American Girl was closing its store at Southpark. It felt like the end of an era of being able to take the girls to that store. So, I reached out to a good friend to see if she and her daughter wanted to join Zoe and I for one last trip. We had such a fun girls’ day shopping and saying goodbye to this incredible store. Zoe still says she misses it and keeps asking if we can go to the one in NYC…maybe one day we can make it up there.
Christmas 2024
This Christmas was very different than Christmas 2023 when we celebrated early because of DJ’s surgery. There were a lot of mixed emotions this year as the memories of the previous year kept surfacing. But, we were so grateful to be where we are now instead of the previous year. All the anniversaries of the past year hit hard. But, we are so thankful for how well God has sustained DJ and all of us through this past year. It was still different this year because of chemo and the side effects of that but we saw the light at the end of the tunnel with treatments too.
We enjoyed setting up our Christmas tree together again this year. I do still miss cutting down a tree but I am really enjoying the ease of the pre-lit tree! The girls didn’t really want their pictures taken (as usual) but I tried to snag some anyways.
We spent Christmas day at our house as usual. The girls were excited to open their gifts and spend the day together. We stuck with our traditional gift categories of something you need, something to read and something you want. Thanks to Facebook, we found a great deal on a gymnastics bar and beam for Zoe! We watched Charlie Brown Christmas and a couple other Christmas specials. We enjoyed our annual big breakfast and gingerbread cookies. It was a sweet day celebrating Jesus’ birthday as a family.
A few days after Christmas, we celebrated with my side of the family. Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of the girls with Piper or my mom. But, we had a great day with them. It was so nice being able to hang out for the day after not seeing them since they had moved back to Florida.
A few days later, we celebrated with DJ’s side of the family. The kids all had fun playing together and then really enjoyed going to see the Christmas lights at Hollywild and the animals. The bunnies were a hit with the kids!
We are so thankful this Christmas looked very different than last year! And we are thankful for the time we had to spend with our families.