Hello Monday! NC State Fair

   It's harvest season in Eastern North Carolina, and this is what all of our fields look like right now!  Do you remember the "Song of the South" by Alabama?  I listened to it growing up, but the lyrics "Cotton on the Roadside, Cotton in the Ditch" never made a lot of sense until I moved to Eastern NC.  There's cotton everywhere!  As the trucks harvest they drop it on the sides of the road, and honestly I just think its so stunningly beautiful!  I always miss it once its harvested, but to me its always a sign that the air is cooler and we are appraoching the Holiday seasons, which is unbelivable!

    I'm so very tired.  I feel like we have been in high speed for a month now, and I'm just exhausted.  There's so much that needs to be done around the house, but I'm rebelling against my personality and saying I'm just going to spend some time here today, writing and sharing my heart.  

   I made a rule for myself years ago when I was really struggling with pulling my attention offline that I would only allow myself one social media outlet at a time.  No matter what it was, I wasn't going to try and be completely offline- but only one.  For a couple of months I've been going back and forth between blogging and instagram.  A few weeks ago, I decided that I think instagram is just not the medium it used to be, so I am returning to blogging instead.  I'm happy about that decision.  There's just something different about blogging.  It slows my pace, it slows my pulse.  It makes me think and create- instagram doesn't do the same for me, its such a fast-paced form of media, I think it does just the opposite.  So I'm once again creating my blogspace, and happy to be doing so.  Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll follow and leave me your blog so I can follow you!

    I'm linking up today with Holly for Hello Monday I’m also visiting Slices of Life with Talking about it Tuesday! I've just began blogging again and it feels so amazing!

    Last week started out wonderful!  We began revival on Sunday night.  We had four amazing local Pastors come and bring the message nightly.  Each night it was a blessing!  The third night was "Calling the called" and we had seven men step forward and submit to the call to ministry.  One of them was our oldest son.  I can't say that I'm surprised, but I'm so proud of him.  He's grown up in Fulltime ministry, so that's honestly such an enormous blessing.  I took this photo when he was around three years old.  The man in the pink shirt is my husband, we were at a revival service and he was worshipping with all his heart.  If you'll look on the front pew, all the way to the right side of the photo, you'll see a little boy with an iron man shirt on, looking at his Daddy and emulating him.  That's my Hudson.

Now he's 17 and about 8 inches taller than me.  I'm so thanfkul for his heart!  Here is a photo of him 

being refree at our Upward Football games.  I'm SO excited to see what God does in his life!!

    Thursday we had to leave the house at 5:45 am to get to Raleigh in tine for Callie's first class in the NC State Fair Horse Show.  We had two families from church join us, as well as my sister from Fayetteville and her family.  I was very nervous for Callie, since she hadn't shown since May and she's been so busy with school that although she rides at school she has not been riding her show horse very frequently, but as she went into the ring, she looked so good!

And sure enough, she won first place!

Haha it looks like Trouble is smiling at me in this picture!  He was such a good boy all weekend!

We really enjoyed spending the day at the fair!  We have some friends who have a food truck

with some of the best carbcake sandwiches I've ever had in my life- and since crabcakes are my favorite food, I've had a lot, lol.  It was also so fun seeing them and their sweet baby boy!  

We also LOVED spending the day with my sister, brother-in-law and my sweet little niece who just turned two!  She loved the crabcakes as well!  It was a beautiful, perfect fair day!

  

Hudson also entered a photo in the photography contest!  (the one above the cow, with the birdhouse) and it was so neat to see his photograph on display!

They randomly put their faces in this photo op to take a picture, I didn't tell them who they were hahah!  Sawyer was unhappy that he turned out to be Peach.  It was silly.

And of course, the fair has funnel cake- which is the BEST!

We ended the day with her last class, some of our church family stayed and another couple showed up to watch as well!  She came in Second place in!  We also had several other girls from the barn snowing, so the barn family took home lots of State Fair Ribbons!

So all in all, it was a successful state fair with lots of family and friends!  I love our family, the sweet barn family that Callie is a part of, and our sweet church family!  They love my kids so very much, and its so neat that they show up and support them!

   The rest of the weekend we spent trying to get things cleaned up, Sunady was homecoming at church and my children's 'adopted Grandpa' from our very first church in the coast came to spend the day with us.  We had an awesome sermon and So. Much. Food.  I think we set up to feed 250 and if every seat wasn't full it almost was!  It was a fantastic turnout, and we are so so so very blessed to be serving in such an awesome church!

   I can't wait to visit all your posts and catch up!  Its so good to be blogging again!  Happy Monday friends!