Grayson's 18th Birthday

Grayson reached the BIG 18 on July 8th. There had already been lots of partying going on for him lately, so we kept it pretty simple for the big day. He got some very nice gifts and we went to dinner at Pancho's the night before.

Yes, we made him wear the birthday sombrero and get sung to - the tradition continues!

Then on his actual birthday, he wanted to go out to dinner just with a bunch of his high school buddies:

Davis Fuqua (left end) and Thomas Mogish (right end) -- gotta get the other names from Grayson.

Hannah and Spencer Bennett brought him this special Birthday Cupcake!

Hard. To. Believe.

Randomness

So...some random happenings:

I was driving home from work one day, on a different route than I usually take due to traffic. It's a wind-y road that has lots of hills and curves, and it was sprinkling just a little. Sort of out of nowhere, the cars coming toward me were blinking their lights -- I thought there must be a cop up ahead. I wasn't speeding, so I wasn't worried. But then almost every car was flashing their lights so I slowed down even more...AND THEN *BAM!* AROUND A BEND RIGHT IN YOUR FACE  -- WAS THIS:

Seriously...how does this happen?

 

UMMMM...these OREO BROWNIES were pretty much just delicious.

 

I posted this picture on Facebook for Father's Day. It was taken in 1962, probably at BYU. It shows Dad holding me -- and he actually had a little hair left! :)  Aren't Mom and Dad cute? And of course, big brother, Danny (not Dan back then).

 

 

 

 

Some beautiful clouds one night on my way home from work...Tennessee really has gorgeousness!

 

 

For my friend, Janice Long's 81st birthday, I made her this tumbler filled with 81 chocolate kisses. We went to lunch in July to celebrate both our birthdays.

I found this cool little tool at Sam's club. It's like a huge apple slicer. We've used it several times this summer!

Okay...that's all the randomness for now.

The Corizon Crew

Corizon has gone through a lot of transition over the past 3 years. I won't go into detail here, but it's been very difficult. So when we can get together with our Marketing department, it's great. This fun, cohesive group is the reason most of us are still with the company.

Jennie Latimer (holding pink bag) was my Marketing Coordinator, and she left Corizon the end of April to take another job just down the street. We had a going-away lunch for her. This is most of our Marketing team in the Brentwood office.

Me, Melanie Taylor, Holly Rawnsley, Jaime Starkey, Janet Vogelaar, Jennie, Doug Devlin, Briana Lutes
and Jenny Carroll (the new CEOs assistant -- not Marketing).

 

We had our annual Employee Appreciation Picnic at Granny White Park in June. It was okay. The morale is very low, and it was hard to feel very appreciated. But it was a nice gesture by our Team Corizon group that coordinates our activities.

 



The funnest part of the picnic was the Marketing team playing Bocci Ball. Thank heaven I was on Melanie's team, because she's really good, made up for my 'first timers' terribleness, and WE WON!

Jaime Starkey, Briana Lutes, Melanie Taylor and me

The vendor we use for our Company Store is Corporate Selections out of Gurley, Alabama. Whenever the owner, Gail Berkowitz, comes to town to work on our inventory, we always go to lunch at Merre Bulle's across the street from our office. It is so yummy! We took this picture and sent it to Jennie (after she left the company) to remind her what she was missing. Haha 




Me & Gail -- Partners in Shopping!

Party at Paine's

One more graduation celebration -- there were five graduates from our ward, so Jeff & Carolyn Paine hosted a BBQ at their house that day after all the graduation ceremonies (3 different high schools). It was nice to get together with all of the families.

Grayson, Blake Scott and Jordan Johns -- with three of Ben Paine's friends we don't know.
(Ben isn't in the photo, neither is Hannah Bennett, but they were there)

The Bennett Clan -- Gordon, his mom Zelma, Michelle, Brian and his wife Jen, Whitney holding Isla

Nathalie with the kids on the swing sets

I thought these were some fun photos of the kids playing volleyball. I got some good action shots! (It helps that they were playing with a beach ball that stays in the air longer...haha)

Good times.

Sam's 14th Birthday

 So...lest we forget, in all this catching up and celebrating all of the fun stuff for Grayson in May -- our youngest, and "forgotten child," as he called himself during all the Grayson mayhem, celebrated his 14th birthday on May 16th. My BABY is 14.

He actually got to celebrate a little early because our cell phone contract came up in April, and I needed to upgrade to allow my work email on my phone, and there were some great prices and closeout rebates on the outgoing Samsung S4 because of the pending release of the Samsung S5 -- so we both got new Samsung S4s. He was a bit elated!

 



Distracted at dinner...

Of course, this was the BATMAN phone cover we got for him.

This was taken on his last day of 8th grade...as is tradition, they get out of school early, and we go to lunch at Canton Chinese Food.



Love this kid (who has my dimple).

He had a scout campout the day/weekend of his actual birthday, so Dad and I took him to a birthday dinner at Outback earlier in the week. But perhaps MOST importantly, he was ordained a Teacher at church on May 25, 2014.



Handsome! Handsome! Handsome! Handsome!
(and look how close they all are in height!)