Time to catch up!

I've been quite neglectful with updating the blog with pictures.  Between work and being pretty tired from the baby in my tummy, I've not wanted to take the time to do it.  But this week, I've not been AS tired, and I actually feel like doing it, so here goes some pictures!

Back in FEBRUARY (see, I told you I was behind), we went up to Lafayette for the day to spend some time with family again... and Jason decided to go squirrel hunting.  Papa Wayne and Mammer always talk about how there are squirrels everywhere up at their house, so Jason was itching to kill some of them.  he managed to get 3 that day.  They're in our freezer... I told him I was refusing to try squirrel for my first time while pregnant because I knew I definitely would NOT like it!

In March, Jason had his personal interview for Nashville Metro PD.  Doesn't he look spiffy?  We managed to find this suit at the outlet mall for a pretty good price.  I'm trying to encourage him to dress up a little more. ;)
As an update on his hiring process, he is currently under a conditional offer of employment, assuming he passes all further medical and psychological exams, including a voice recognition test (instead of a polygraph).  He has two more appointments, April 27th, and May 4th... and I think that will be all of them.  THEN he goes to the academy in June!  Keep praying that everything goes well with that!

On the weekend of March 19th, Jason participated in the Middle Tennessee Kids Hunting for a Cure hunt and auction.  They do a juvenile hunt for turkeys, and the juveniles have to be accompanied by an adult, so Jason was one of those adult guides.  They also do a live auction to raise money for St. Jude's (I believe).  The night of the auction, they also had a live concert by Buddy Jewell, who was on the tv show Nashville Star awhile ago.  Jason knew who he was pretty well, and listed off several of his songs.  I knew the songs once I heard them, but didn't realize he sang them.  Here's a picture of us with him.  He was a really nice, genuine guy... like many country singers!

And here he is singing.
I couldn't help but put this in here.  The organizer of the event was one of the Jason's friends off of tnturkey, and this is one of his sons.  He managed to get ahold of this HUGE camera, and was trying to take pictures of Buddy with it.  The size comparison just made me laugh.
They also had several other singers at the event.  This is Gina West, who is an incredibly talented singer and songwriter (aren't they all in Tennessee??).  They wrote a song for a veteran who was hit and wounded twice in 6 months by IEDs... he was at the event, and drove all the way from Florida for it.  Gina said she's going to get us a copy of that song because Jason told her it made me cry lol.
Alright... next topic.  I found a new little critter by our house a month or so ago.  I was going to open the front door and put the baby gate across it so we could have some fresh air inside and Taco could look outside (he loves that),until I saw this little guy on our front steps sunning himself.  This was from one of our warm weeks before all the storms came.
We've had a lot of severe storms lately... and we've managed to survive them all.  The rain amazes me, and as you can see... there IS a house back there.  This picture is from the front door looking across the street.  I was impressed that the rain was SO hard that you could barely even see the neighbor's house.  Oh yeah, and this was in the daytime, but the street lights turned on due to how dark it got!
We've had about 3 pretty good severe storms so far... and this week's forecast called for storms 4 of the 7 days, so we have more to come.  Yesterday when I woke up after already being awake from 4-530 am due to the lightning, thunder, and rain, I looked out the front door to see this:
Yes, that is the neighbor's house, and their tree was completely uprooted from the winds.  What you can't see because the angle was wrong no matter how I tried, is the other house on the right.  Behind the very green tree on the right of the picture, is the next house over.  If that tree would have been 5 feet closer to the house or 5 feet taller, the house would have been damaged, but as it is, the branches are definitely touching the corner of the house!  Talk about LUCKY!  We've had several tornadoes touch down within about 30 minutes of us, but none real close to us.  Murfreesboro got hit really hard yesterday, and another one of Jason's friends from tnturkey was 2 streets over from the severe damage from the big tornado... needless to say, he has a lot of debris in his yard.  It was at least an F-3, possibly an F-4, and was up to a half a mile wide.

Ok, now I'm updated on pictures!  I will try to be better at updating the pictures when I have them instead of waiting forever, especially since I have had a little more energy lately.