Mark and Jessica Spangler

Mark and I have a new hobby, catch! So, while we were waiting for it to get dark we grabbed our gloves and played catch. While we were tossing the ball we began to see fire flies and so the kids ran to the tall grass to catch them.

Waving the flag!

Here is one of the fireflies!

Sparklers! Of course!

The family all together watching fireworks.

It was quite the show this year!!! I haven’t seen half of the fireworks that we saw that night. We had so much fun, it truly warms my heart.

Mark finally got his flight helmet in the mail. We waited and waited for this one to get here. Low and behold as I am looking through our downloaded folders, it looks as if everyone got to try it on! Hahaha, including one of our nieces! Today Mark made his own dew-rag. That is fit folks he forgot to order it and there rests very little time so he looked up online how to make one. He found one and showed it to me thinking I would surely make it for him but as I was sewing and hemming today he found fabric and started cutting. Slowly but surely as the day progressed he went step by step and by golly the guy cut out and sewed his own dew-rag to go under his helmet. Hahaha, I amm so proud of him, plus that is one less project I have to do before we leave! He did a good job, I will see if I can’t take a pic and upload it here in a minute.

Here is Caleb!

Zoe

Ali

Micah

Addie

Ali and Micah got to participate in the fourth of July parade this year!
Here is Micah with some of his all star teammates.

There they go!

After their float finished the parade we walked back to join the rest of the family.

Here is the JAARS float.

The kids are picking up candy that was tossed from floats.

Oh my! Lady liberties!

We hollered “eat more chicken” “I heart chicken”

Ali loves horses so we snagged this one and the horses passed by.

Well, Mark has been flying helicopters for our entire marriage and some. I have never gotten to go up with him until now! When Mark’s bro and sister in law decided to come visit we decided that would be the perfect time for Mark to give us all a ride! It was so much fun. I was so nervous. Shhh, don’t tell him.

Here is my view from the helicopter as everyone sat and waited their turn.

Caleb got to sit in front with daddy!

Zoe wasn’t sure if she wanted to wear the earphones, her hat, or nothing.

Here are some pics from the sky.

This is the field where Micah played his normal season on t-ball this year. It will be so cool to blow this pic up for him!

There is the runway over Mark’s shoulder.

This is a picture of our swimming pool.

Here is Niki with two more kids in the back. The older girls rode with her.

Getting ready to go!

Switching places.

It was so much fun! We all enjoyed our flight. I’m sure we will remember this for a long time to come!

There is a therapy dog that comes to the library once a month and you can sign up for ten minute slots of time to read to the dog. The kids thought it would be fun so they signed up!

Micah is too cute petting the dog and reading.

Ali read to the dog but I guess we didn’t have the camera out yet.

There is a special day of publicity 4 times a year at JAARS and this year we were here and got to participate. Mark even got to give rides. There was a pontoon boat on Crystal Lake and we took a ride on it!

Our friend Candi came along with us.

I took a picture of Mark flying, from the boat.

While on the boat we listened to a nice Aussi tell us all about maritime services. It was very interesting to hear all the ways boats are able to help bible translation!

Micah finished this puzzle in less than 60 seconds and won a prize.

Just a far away shot of Mark landing.

Here is Caleb working on the same puzzle. We had a super fun day!

Mark and I are celebrating our 10th anniversary today! I have a few pics from our evening at Brewster’s. There is a story behind Marks jersey. Hahaha, I have been banned from putting these pics on Facebook but he didn’t say anything about our blog :). Plus, who reads blogs nowadays anyways?

Every last drop!

Mark and I are celebrating our tenth anniversary! I used to imagine and fantasize about what this anniversary would be like and what it would mean to me. I thought maybe we would go on some weeklong second honeymoon or spend the evening renewing our vows and dancing the night away in a beautiful dress with my dear husband, my kids and our family and close friends. Well, that didn’t happen. But, we don’t regret not having a second honeymoon or renewing our vows today.

In fact, being at the end of aviation orientation we didn’t have the means or time to do anything big. A few months ago Mark did suggest ordering ribs and pizza and dogs with cheesecake for dessert from a place we like in Chicago. We did this on our second anniversary in Alabama and had food for a week! It was so fun! But, it is also rather expensive and the food would have disappeared quickly with all these mouths we feed. So, we let the thought drop. Well, low and behold Mark got to help a guy out with a helicopter problem and he gave Mark a frozen rack of ribs that he had smoked! So, we ate our rack of ribs today with sweet potatoes and homemade cole slaw. Then to top it off we went to Brewster’s Real Ice Cream Shop! Yummm, our favorite here in NC.

It is quite a drive since we live in the country. On our long drive to Brewster’s and even still on the way home we took a bit of a tally of our lives together so far. We are so blessed! We’ve been through a lot of hard times. Some of them self induced and others not. We’ve pulled through many times when we didn’t know how and where we’d go from there. We’ve sat staring at each other wondering how to go on or how to recover from a tragedy or huge change in plans. But, here we are still holding on to the gift called life. Together. ALL together with our beautiful, healthy, lovely children. We truly couldn’t ask for anything more. We are accomplishing our goals and desires! There are many road blocks, closed doors and hard roads in this life we lead. We’ve chosen to do hard things. But, we’ve chosen to do it together. Through thick and thin. Praise be to God who gave us the strength over and over to pull through stronger on the other end.

I laugh and giggle when I think of my fantasy of our 10th anniversary. What was I thinking?! I guess I was thinking 10 years was something special and was a really long long time. Hahaha, little did I know! I just acknowledged my adult hood when I turned 30! So, well if I just grew up how in the world could this have been a long time? I’m thankful to have grown up with Mark. I look forward to the rest of our gift called life, together! At the end of this day no matter how much stress and activity is going on in the midst of our lives, we are together. I’m so blessed! Thank you God not just for the gift of life and health I have but to share it with Mark and my kids! Happy 10th anniversary Mark!