Go Seahawks!

This summer Karoline and Abby went to the Myrtle Beach High School cheer camp and they got to cheer with the cheerleaders a little bit last Friday night. TJ and I actually missed it because we were at Wellspring's BIG community event, Movies In The Park, but we got pictures from Abby's mom. The girls had the BEST time and I think they have a wonderful cheerleading future ahead of them!

The Circus Came To Town

Another FREE activity from WMBF... We got to go to the Cole's Brothers Circus and it was cute. It was also HOT... no AC in the tent! :) But the kids had a great time and it was a fun little circus. Anderson was so excited about the tigers and talked about seeing them ALL DAY! As soon as the tigers came out he froze and would not even look at them! Silly boy...

Auburn FOOTBALL!

We are EXCITED Auburn Football is HERE! WAR EAGLE!

Back In The South!

After 5 years and two babies later, Natalie and Wayne FINALLY have moved back from Vermont to Birmingham! Wayne is doing his fellowship with Dr. Andrews so even though they are 8 hours away it's NOTHING compared to them being in Vermont!

We celebrated the life of Barna in Birmingham and Natalie and Wayne opened up their home for us to stay the night... Karoline WAS SO EXCITED about her sleepover with Emma Raines and Tucker! The last time Karoline and Emma Raines saw each other was in California when Karoline turned 2! We had not even met sweet Tucker, who just turned 2 this past Friday, until our stay a few weeks ago! That's HORRIBLE! But the kids had a great time together and we are excited about Baby McGough #3 that will be here in November and getting to visit more often!

Cousins

Our trip to Louisiana was very difficult but we were very thankful for the time the girls got to spend together! Ella and Karoline played SO well together and just had the best time together. Lainey tried her best to keep up! While we were at the hospital Jared and I took turns keeping the girls and later in the week some amazing women from First Baptist Rayville kept the girls so we all could be at the hospital together...

That is who bought the girls their matching pajamas that were such a BIG hit that they wore them for 2 days straight without ever taking them off and I think Karoline has worn them every day since! We are so thankful that the girls love each other so much and will truly miss them when they leave next spring for the mission field! We pray we get to spend a LOT of time together before they leave!

Take Me Out To The Ballgame...

Starting to try and catch up on my posts...

One of the perks of TJ's job at WMBF is that we get FREE tickets to a lot of events. We took the kids to their first baseball game on August 24th. The Myrtle Beach Pelicans are the minor league team for the Atlanta Braves. We had FANTASTIC seats and the weather was perfect too! We got to go to the dugout and meet the team & get autographs. The kids lasted about 6 innings. We had a great time! We can't wait to go to more games next year.

Sadly, we were on the way home from this game when we got the call that we needed to head to Louisiana to be with TJ's mom and family. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

We ran into our friend Olivia...

I made TJ take a picture with a WMBF add he designed that was in the program...

You HAVE to have ice cream out of a baseball hat!

School!

I have MANY posts I need to do to catch up, including a post in honor of my amazing Mother In Law which will take some time for my mind to process and write I'm sure, but I wanted to post the kids pictures from their first day of school today.

TJ, Karoline, and I drove home after the funeral yesterday in Birmingham and arrived at my mom's to pick up Anderson at 3AM! Put them in bed and woke them up at 8AM for their first day of school...

Karoline was SO TIRED! I got her out of bed, she went to the bathroom and got back in... I got her dressed, went to get something for Anderson and found her back in bed fully clothed! I FINALLY got her down stairs for breakfast, snapped a few pictures and we were off.

I am so thankful for their school... I felt like I was leaving them with family for a few hours! I am excited about this school year. I even got asked to be "Room Mom" for Anderson's class... why am I nervous about this!? haha... But the kids had a GREAT day and can't wait to go tomorrow! I pray the rest of the year goes as well as today! :)

Silly Boy... Silly Face

Anderson's Teachers: Mrs. Meehan and Ms. Candice

So proud and excited!

Karoline's teachers: Ms. Suzanne, and Mrs. Benson

One Last Thing...

These pictures are special to me. In July Barna bought these precious ballerina outfits for the girls. They did not arrive in time during their visit for us to get pictures of the girls. Barna was bummed and so was I!So when Jared was packing up the girls to come to Rayville and be with Kerry I asked him to PLEASE pack the Tu-Tu dress!

One afternoon while I was watching the girls and everyone else was at the hospital with Barna I found Kerry's camera (A Nikon which is like a foreign language to me... I'm a Canon girl!) and attempted to get some cute shots.

One of the last times I leaned over to talk to Barna, heavily sedated, I told her not to worry, I got the pictures of the girls in their ballerina tu-tu's. I pulled them up on my phone and showed her, even though I knew she was not able to see. I also told her I loved her SO MUCH and he was an amazing Mother-In-Law! She was! And told her she did an AMAZING job raising my precious husband! I told her I will miss her but I knew she was going to watch these girls dance from above and love it!

The girls love their Tu-Tu's Barna!

GiGi, Mama- We Love You! We Miss You!

Our Wife, Mama, Gigi, Sister, Aunt and friend is with Jesus now. We want you all to know how amazing it has been to feel your support and love through your fervent prayers. Your prayers were answered. Miracles happened. It was a miracle that she didn’t bleed to death in the beginning of all of this. It was a miracle that we all got to see her. It was a miracle that Daddy, TJ and I were able to see her respond to us and to recognize that we were there. It was a miracle to get amazing nurses and doctors who went above and beyond their job descriptions to help us and inform us and do everything they possibly could to try to fix her. Her healing has taken place in a different way than we had hoped but she is in heaven, completely healed. She is seeing her Daddy for the first time in 44 years. She and her nephew Brian and her Mama and other friends are reuniting and praising God together (with especially beautiful music today).

We will see His glory in this and we know that God will use this to draw us closer to Him and pray that it will draw other people to Him, through the blood of Jesus, for the first time. It is wonderful to see how many people were touched by Mama and we thank you all for loving her. The void in our lives will be huge. She took care of all of us and loved us and so many others with all of her heart. This will be a very difficult time for us, but we trust that the Lord will bring us through it with a renewed sense of confidence in His plan for each of us, knowing that our ultimate goal is to take as many people with us when we see her again as we spend eternity in heaven with our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Please say a special prayer for our Daddy. He has lost his best friend who has loved him for 34 years. His heart is aching and this road will be tough. He will be surrounded by the love of family, church family and friends but prayer is what will sustain him.
The body of Christ came through in a mighty way by ministering to us over the last few terrible days and we will be forever grateful to you for that.

In the Sweet Love of Christ,
Kerry, Sarah, Jared, TJ, Beth, Karen, Mark, & Heidi

“So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” 2 Corinthians 5:6-9