Great Giveaway!

Head on over to Miss Mustard Seed's Blog for a chance to win a whole box of gorgeous antique items for your home. You won't believe all the beautiful things that she is putting in her giveaway box. If you love old things, then this giveaway is for you.

I just love her blog and she is a pro at refinishing furniture. She always has such great decorating ideas. This giveaway is in celebration of reaching over 2,000 followers!!! She is one talented lady and the wife of a youth minister. Busy lady!!

Check out her blog. You will be glad you did. Have a great day!

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Summer Wedding!!

Don't you just love weddings? This past weekend, Adelaide and I attended a beautiful wedding at this adorable church in Banner Elk, North Carolina. Banner Elk is in the Blue Ridge mountains. One of Adelaide's girlfriends was getting married.

I loved the view of the church from the parking lot. There is a huge butterfly garden, then a row of hydrangeas and the church in the distance, with a gorgeous Carolina blue sky. It could not have been a prettier day for a summer wedding!
There were butterflies everywhere in front of the church in the butterfly garden. So pretty!!!
As we approached the church, a bicycle built for two was parked outside. It was decorated with white balloons. A bicycle built for two was also printed on the wedding invitation.
Don't you love the JUST MARRIED sign on the back of the bike?
There were 2 of these beautiful wildflower arrangements on the doors of the church. There is a wildflower farm somewhere in the area that the family got the wildflowers for the wedding. You get to go and pick your own wildflowers to use in the bouquets, etc. I think that is such a neat idea.
On the ends of the rows of chairs in the sanctuary were Mason jars filled with wild flower arrangements. That was such a cute idea!
I loved the windows in the church. They were so pretty!
Here are 3 of the bridesmaids. I really liked their dresses. You can see their pretty wildflower bouquets.
The bride and groom. I caught them in a serious pose. The groom is Canadian, so they will be moving to Canada.
I loved the little bride and groom figurines. They are so cute!!!
Adelaide and some of her girlfriends posing with the bride and groom. Adelaide is in the pink dress standing next to the groom. All these girls were in high school and Young Life together. And the bride, Sara Katelin, is the first girl in Adelaide's age group to get married.
This is Adelaide and her friend, Sarah Kathryn. They were roommates in college their sophomore year and they are sorority sisters (Kappa Delta). I love their Lilly dresses!
This is Adelaide and me with our dear friend Sherian! I am wearing my Lilly dress too. My girls and I love Lilly.
The happy couple leaving the church after the wedding and the reception.
Congratulations and best wishes to Sara Katelin and Randy! Best of luck as you start your life together in Canada! May God bless your marriage.

As you can see, we had a wonderful time at the wedding. It was fun for Adelaide to see old friends from high school. I spent the weekend with my sister and also got to spend time with my sweet parents. Adelaide enjoyed time with her girlfriends over the weekend. It was a gorgeous weekend, but the weather was extremely hot for the mountains. In fact, Saturday's high temperature set a record.

I hope you enjoyed the wedding pictures. I always love attending weddings and this one was so special. The bride's father is a minister and he married them.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Off to the Mountains!!

Hey all, Adelaide and I are off to the mountains this weekend to attend a wedding on Saturday. One of Adelaide's friends from high school is getting married. It will be so much fun to see her high school friends. These girls were all in Young Life together.

We will get to see my parents while we are there, as well as my sister and her husband. One thing that we are looking forward to is some cooler weather. It is still going to be hot for the mountains, but much cooler than where we live. Our temperatures at home are supposed to be near 100 degrees. That is a bit toasty!!!

I have all my pictures uploaded from the Michael Buble' concert, the 4th of July and our beach vacation and I promise to get them posted soon. This week has really been busy since returning from vacation. Where is the summer going? I can't believe July is quickly drawing to a close.

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend doing whatever you enjoy and spending it with those people who make your heart sing.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

On Vacation!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week doing whatever makes you happy!! Our family is off to the beach today for a much-needed week of rest and relaxation. We are going to a North Carolina beach.

I am looking forward to just chilling out..... walking on the beach, sitting in my beach chair and reading my book, looking for shells, watching movies at night, going out to eat, laughing, talking with each other and just having a great time being together!!!

I am taking a break from the computer, so I won't be making comments on your blogs. Take care and I will see you next week!

Oh, the Michael Buble' concert was amazing!! He was awesome!!! I took some pictures, but did not have time to post them. I will do a post when I get back. If you get a chance to see him in concert, by all means, be sure to go. He was so good!!!! And it doesn't hurt that he is so handsome and just plain cute! He loves to talk to the audience too, which was fun!

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Favorite Bible Verse

I am linking up with Kelly today at Kelly's Korner. She is hosting a favorite Bible verse party.

My favorite verse is:

I Thes. 5:16-18

Be JOYFUL always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.


I have this verse on my computer, so I see it every time that I am on the computer.
It reminds me of the many blessings that God has given me!!!

Love & blessings from NC,
Melinda

Let the Vacation Begin!!!

Today was my last day to work until July 19th!!! I am so excited to be going on vacation with my family on Saturday for a week at the beach, but on Friday night Adelaide and I are going to see Michael Buble'!!!! Won't that be awesome? We are so excited! Adelaide and I are going with our dear friend Sherian, and her sister Pam, who is from Houston.

The concert is in Raleigh, so we are heading down there on Friday afternoon and we will eat dinner out before the concert. It will be fun for the 4 of us to be together. I'm sure it will be non-stop talking and laughing the whole way down and back.

I have featured one of Michael's songs for you to hear, in case you aren't familiar with him. This is one of my favorites. Michael has a girlfriend, but he is still cute as a button and I love his music. Can't wait to see him in person and have a fun girl's night out with special friends!!!

Then on Saturday, Tom, Adelaide and I will leave for a week at the beach. My married daughter, Lauren and her husband, Thomas, will come join us for the last weekend that we are there. They will be just starting their week of vacation with another couple, so we will enjoy spending a little bit of time with them too.

I am planning on doing nothing next week but chilling out... reading on the beach in my chair, walking on the beach, looking for shells, eating out, sleeping late, watching movies, reading magazines, etc. Just being lazy and enjoying my family! I hope all of you have a wonderful week.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

4th of July in the Mountains!

This sign says it all, doesn't it? We are heading to the mountains of North Carolina for the 4th of July weekend. My sister and her husband retired and live in the mountains of North Carolina. My parents have a home there as well, that they live in during the spring, summer and fall. We live about a 2 hour drive from them and we go up every chance we get. Not only is it about 20 degrees cooler up there in the summer, but it is God's country and is sooooo beautiful there. We love it!!!
We will be spending the 4th of July with my family in the mountains. This is a view of my Mom's porch. We all love this porch swing. My girls have lots of memories of good times sitting in this porch swing when they were growing up. They love to sit here and read. You can hear the water in the creek when you sit on the porch. It is so peaceful! There is a mountain behind the house with cows grazing on it and the mountain in front of the house has Christmas trees growing on it. That is where we cut our Christmas tree each year.
Here is another view of the porch. My Mom loves flowers and she has them everywhere. She loves to decorate for the 4th . Her little sign, God Bless America, lights up at night. Mom even has a fountain that sits among these flowers, but it isn't on in this picture.
This is my parent's house that they live in during their time in the mountains. It is the home that my father lived in as a child. (Remember he is 89 years old, so this house is old too!) It is where my Grandparents lived when they were living. We used to visit them here and I have so many wonderful memories of times spent with my Grandparents, my aunts, uncles and cousins. This house used to be heated by a wood stove. My grandmother cooked on the wood stove in the kitchen. There was not a bathroom when I was a child and we had to use an outhouse. We took our baths in a metal tub in front of the wood stove. (There is a bathroom now, thank goodness!)

Doesn't this look delicious? This was our 4th of July meal last year. We will have the same type of cookout this year. Hamburgers and hot dogs, with all the trimmings and lots of yummy desserts.
Here is a picture of some of the family that was there at my sister's last year for our 4th of July cookout. There is my sweet Dad in the bottom left of the picture.
This is a view of my sister's beautiful farmhouse! I just love her porch. She has a porch swing and lots of rocking chairs. We love to sit out on her porch too and rock away the evenings. So peaceful!!!
I love the houses all decorated for the 4th!!!
My Mom and Dad's house and my sister's house are next to each other, but there is a field between them. My brother-in-law has a big garden and my Dad has blueberry bushes and apple trees. I love it when we go up in the summer, because we get to eat lots of good food from the garden.

There is also a street festival that goes on this weekend downtown, so we will enjoy going to that. Lots of great music, street dancing, crafts, food, etc. It is called Christmas in July and it promotes the Christmas tree industry that is so big in this part of our state. A huge portion of the Christmas trees that are sold, come from North Carolina.

I will take pictures and do another post of our trip this weekend, but I thought you all would enjoy seeing pictures that I took last year, so you could see where we were going to be. Now you can see why we love to go up so much. It is so pretty up there and so nice to have the cool mountain breezes!

I hope all of you have a wonderful 4th of July being with family and friends and celebrating the freedom that we are so proud to have! Thanks to all of you who have family members who have fought or who are presently fighting to give us that freedom. Praying for travel mercies for all those traveling and may you have a great holiday weekend filled with lots of rest, relaxation and wonderful memories.

Love & blessings,
Melinda