Last I left you - I was faced with the riviting decisions of which couch to buy for the living room and what color to paint the walls. I guess you can tell from the before and after pics that I did settle on yellow - Mangrove yellow to be exact. Yellow is such a strange color because it changes depending on which wall it is on and what time of day it is. I had yellow in my kitchen back in AL, so I figured I would like it, but to go from beige to yellow was a REAL shock at first. It isn't quite as bright as the picture suggests, but it is BRIGHT and sunny! I love how it brings out the colors in the painting on the mantle (yet to be hung). No telling how old that painting/print is - it came from my great-grandmother's home in South Carolina. We also bought the burgundy couch at Ashley Furn. and will pick it up on Thursday....things are really starting to take shape. Now if we can just get the last piece of our wall unit for this room we will be set (faux wood blinds to come ???)!

The 4th of July wasn't quite the same without the Sportsman's Park fireworks/people watching, but we made due. We had burgers and hotdogs with Kyle's family at his brother Dustin's house and then stood out on his back deck and enjoyed the view of 3 or 4 different fireworks shows across the south San Antonio area. Summer was a little disappionted that we didn't go in-person to one of the displays, but it RAINED, and RAINED, and RAINED until late in the afternoon and we figured most places would be MUDDY! However, she and Kyla did brave the rain cooled pool at Dustin's and swam once the rain stopped - so she wasn't THAT disappointed. :-D

Thursday, the kids and I traveled with a group from church to the Natural Bridge Cavern. Travled is sort of a funny word to use because it is only about 20 minutes from our house. It was beautiful - I took several pics w/my 35mm, but none with my digital. I need to get into the habit of taking pictures w/both, but I tend to forget and only use one or the other. Most of the time I am just happy that I remember taking a camera - let alone 2! The nicest thing about the cavern is that it is still "alive" - the formations are still growing, but at a very slow pace. I think the tour guide said that it only grows 1 cubic inch every 100 years! SLOW!! It was very wet and they couldn't even take us down to the bottom because of all of the water that had seeped in due to the rains. Oh well, that will just give us an excuse to go back sometime. It hit me while we were down there under the ground that God even made the earth under ground beautiful - places we may or may not ever see - It just goes to show that it isn't about us, it ALL really is just to glorify Him.

I must sign off - there is kitchen painting yet to do and I want to be finished/cleaned up in plenty of time to watch the BIG race tonight. Yes, we still watch the NASCAR. :-D We are planning on fajitas for dinner - too bad we aren't close enough to get together w/Brian and Kim...however, if we were planning on it, one of our kids would surely be getting sick right now. ha!

More later as the home decorating saga continues!