RIP Johnny Wayne Kemp

Unfortunately, we just attended a funeral yesterday. Jason's biological father, Johnny Kemp, passed away after a long struggle with multiple health problems. We (including Jason) only met Johnny within the last year, so this was especially hard for us to work through.

As an Army veteran, Johnny was able to have a military burial with the family flag as well. I know it is slightly strange to see pictures of a dead person, but we were never able to get good pictures while he was alive, and I wanted some memory of what he looked like.
Mammer and Papa Wayne dealt with their firstborn passing much better than we thought they would.
Jason's half brother, Josh. Josh had more of a relationship with Johnny, so he took the news a bit harder still.
The Kemp boys.
It was a peaceful viewing and a simple burial. There are still so many unanswered questions that will never be answered, but that is how life (and death go). RIP Johnny Wayne Kemp

Energy, mobility, and family

A while back I had posted on facebook how much Ruston needed a jumperoo since he always wanted to jump on my lap. Well, I found one on craigslist for $30, and my office had one in a storage room and let me take it for free... so Ruston now has a jumperoo at Nanny Cindy's house (where he is while I'm at work) and one at home. Although he doesn't look overly happy in this picture, he really does LOVE his jumperoo! It's a great way to get out some of his energy.

Since becoming mobile, this is often the view I have of Ruston.
Or this view... constantly trying to get SOMEWHERE.
Daddy and Ruston still have a good time just chilling in the chair. I can never seem to get Ruston to hold still, and Jason has a way of tucking Ruston into the chair with him and he'll just sit there... for a fairly decent amount of time!
Here's another attempt at catching Ruston moving. At this point, he uses his toes to push himself forward, but he gets where he's trying to go!
This is just a cute picture I had to add. I LOVE babies in overalls!
And lastly, I could have put this in a completely different post, but decided to just tag it on the end of this one. Over Easter weekend, Jason's grandfather went into the hospital, and was not doing very well, so as many family members as possible were trying to get to the hospital to see him. This is Jason with his brother and three of his cousins. From left to right: Josh, Jennie, Kimber, Joanie, and Jason. It was nice to get to hang out with the twins and Kimber because we don't get to do that often, even under the circumstances it was. However, we hope to be able to keep the communication up with them!!

Other Adventures

Amidst all these baby updates, I thought I would give a little rundown of some of the things Jason has been able to do.  Mostly he's been working A LOT at Aldi (a small grocery store) and Bass Pro as well, but he's had moments off that he's been able to enjoy.  We live pretty close to the Caney Fork River, which is known for its trout fishing, so Jason often goes down there for a few hours.  Several weeks ago, here was his catch.  The biggest one isn't a trout, but I can't remember what he said it was... it had teeth, that's all I remember!
Jason has also gotten several toys in order to keep our land from overgrowing us!  He got a weedeater, a riding lawn mower (no picture of that, but it was used)...
... and a chainsaw.  Jason's grandparents have 40 acres, and decided to get their woods thinned, so the loggers came out and took quite a few trees, leaving the tops that were too small for them to keep.  Jason decided to take this opportunity to cut up some of the tops in order to have firewood this winter, since we're planning to solely use our wood stove to heat the house.  Jason and Josh had some good brother bonding time haha.
This doesn't look like the brightest idea, but you can tell they were trying to pull some limb from somewhere... I believe Josh almost fell during this episode.
Jason eventually let Josh have a try at the chainsaw.
We (me, Shannon, Garrett, Gavin, Mammer, and Papa Wayne) watched from their porch... a good safe distance and in the shade!  Garrett seemed pretty interested in it, as you can see here.  Eventually he went down with the boys and attempted to assist them in any way he knew how; mostly by telling them which limb they should chop next.
Here's a couple more random pictures.  Jason was trying to lift this huge piece of wood...
... yeah, this is the same piece of wood he was trying to lift.  I think it needs a bit more chopping!
So there ya go... Jason has gotten to do some manly things while I've been nesting and nesting and nesting some more!  I will soon have pictures of the baby's room completely finished... well, all except a few things that will go on the walls.  Right now, the walls seem pretty bare!

Heads Up-new name!! Read this now!

Here's a heads up for everyone. I'm going to give everyone a week to hopefully read this and be prepared. On August 7th, I'm going to be changing the address of our blog. Why, you may ask? Well, Jason and I changed our last name today, well, at least with the social security office we did. Most everyone already knows this, but our new last name is KEMP, which is Jason's real last name by blood. SO... our blog address will be changed to http://rachelandjasonkemp.blogspot.com on August 7th. Make a note, because I think once I change it, this one won't exist and all of my stuff will transfer to the new one... I THINK. We shall see. At any rate, I don't want to lose anyone who has been following along in our little life!

New Year's

No pictures this time, however, I just had to post this because it's happened on every holiday so far. We got a wonderful phone call from Garrett on New Year's, but this time it was a bit different. Garrett called Jason on his cell phone while Jason was on his way to work, and he said Happy New Year's, but then he wanted to talk to me. Jason tried explaining that he was on his way to work and that I was at home, but Garrett thought Jason was joking with him, so Garrett said "I want to talk to Rachel RIGHT NOW!!" I thought that was funny.
Then I got the phone call at home too, so he was able to talk to me as well. We thought it was pretty funny how much he wanted to talk to me even though normally he's all over Jason when we visit!

Christmas #3

Did I mention number 2 was actually on Christmas day?  Yes, it was.  Anyway, now to Christmas #3, which was the day after Christmas.  We headed up to Lafayette, TN to be with Papa Wayne and Mammer for the day.  They weren't expecting any gifts, but we (Josh, Shannon, and the two of us) decided to surprise them with something.  Here's Papa Wayne opening his fruit basket (apparently he's a VERY big fan, since he quickly ate a pear out of it!):
Then you have Mammer opening her picture frames... she was talking so she has a funny look on her face!
Katelyn got a new guitar for Christmas, so she brought it over and Jason was trying to play it... he's learning!
Katelyn decided to teach Jason a few chords... it actually sounded good, and Uncle Robert said he was doing really well for never playing before, so there may be some hope.  Katelyn thought it was weird that she was teaching her older cousin how to play. :)
Then there's Gavin... he decided this orange was his best friend.  I'm sure the orange was VERY juicy by the end of the day, with it being rolled on, dropped, and carried around the entire day.
And as one last laugh, here's Josh asleep in the chair.  Sometimes you just need a nap!!

It was great to be able to surprise Mammer and Papa Wayne with gifts since they were not expecting anything at all. :)  And that concludes our Christmas festivities, although we'd have Christmas #4 if my mom would send our stuff. ;)  Just kidding mom, no pressure, as long as it doesn't take as long as my college graduation present!!

Christmas #2

Sorry for the extremely long post, but I had to get it all into one post!!  Our second Christmas was with Josh, Shannon, Garrett, and Gavin.  Jason got a phone call at about 8 am Christmas morning asking us where we were because no more presents could be opened until we got there... it was Garrett.  He had already opened some of his gifts because he snuck out of his room before anyone noticed!  Once we finally got there, this is what we saw:

Garrett didn't feel like getting dressed that morning, so we opened presents.  I could hardly get a picture of Garrett actually opening presents because he did it so fast!!
And then there's Gavin opening one of his presents too.
Shannon doing the parently duties of undoing all the little ties that keep the toys in the boxes...
Josh opening one of his presents... bullets from his wife!
Garrett had to try out all of his presents as soon as he got them.  He got the road rug (on the left) and a truck full of cars for his birthday and Christmas presents from us.  He was pretty excited about them.
I'm not sure if they did this on purpose, but I happened to look over once and both of these guys had bows on their shoulders, so I had to get a picture. :)
Here's the mess of wrapping... Shannon is behind that somewhere. 
Then Garrett had to try out his bowling pins... those were a hit as well!
We then went over (next door) to Josh's mom's house where they had a GREAT breakfast and more presents for the kids.  Apparently I didn't take a picture of the food, but it was REALLY good.
Gavin's favorite things were his baseball bat from one of his toys, as well as a plastic baseball from Garrett's t-ball set, I think.  He reminds me of Bam-Bam from the Flinstones, and walked around pretty much all day like this.  Yes, he's walking all over the place now.
Now the random segway to the piano.  This piano was in Josh's mom's basement, but it is Josh and Shannon's.  While there were several strong men around, they decided to move it next door, but instead of heaving it across the grass, they rolled it up the driveway, down the road, and down the other driveway... I wish I would have gotten a video of it... it could have been sent to America's Funniest Home Videos as a Redneck Christmas!!
One of Garrett's other toys... a bike that looks like a dirt bike... it's a little big for him and the training wheels are still on it, even though he knows how to ride a bike... he had to show EVERYONE his bike.  Yay for Santa!!
Jason and Garrett playing baseball.
And then soccer.  Jason was trying to wear Garrett out, but I think it ended up the other way around!
Jason got a bit of time with Gavin too... for some reason Gavin was very interested in Jason's tongue.

Finally, here's Josh coloring with Garrett in his giant coloring book... oh the joys of Christmas!
It was a good day, and as soon as we got home and I hit the bed, I was OUT!  It was exhausting, but a pleasant day as well.  As for us, I got a little Acer laptop from Jason that I will be able to use for work while I'm in the car, and a few other smaller things... but that was the big one.  I don't have a picture of it, surprisingly!  Jason got a new digital camera with a lithium ion battery since he was complaining regular batteries just didn't last long enough in his old camera, and not having a camera when hunting is not acceptable!  The post for Christmas #3 is on its way!!

Some cousins... and a date

Like I said the other day, I'm trying to catch up on my posting... so here's a post that should have been done last weekend.  Jason and I headed up to Lafayette for the day, and Jason's cousins Emily and Katelyn were there.  Their dad is Uncle Robert, who lives right next to Mammer and Papa Wayne.  Jason had met them previously when I wasn't able to go up there, but this was my first time meeting them... SO more people for me to remember the names of!

Katelyn's on the left and Emily's on the right... and I think we know who the handsome man in the middle is. :)

Of course we had them take a picture of us too...
Then the girls decided to take some self-portraits... the last one was Emily's glamour shot, I guess. ;)


After being in Lafayette all day, Jason and I decided to go on a little impromptu date.  Jason's been wanting to take me to the Opryland Hotel to show me the Christmas lights, so we drove to Nashville to see the lights.  There were a lot of lights outside, but it was cold and we were walking around, so we didn't feel like taking the time to freeze while taking pictures outside.  However, inside was this gorgeous tree... GIANT tree.  
There were also several of these very large wreaths.  It's hard to see because it was so far away and obviously my flash doesn't work for things that far away, but you get the idea.  There's a big chandelier behind it.
And there were a bunch of these things... they're hot air balloons, but they were hanging from the ceiling, so obviously they weren't real, but they were cute.
This is Delta Island (I think that's what it was called).  It's an "island" inside the hotel where there are a bunch of little shops and restaurants.  There's a river inside the hotel, so the river goes around this island.  It was dark outside, so although the entire area in this part of the hotel has a glass ceiling, there wasn't much light... hence all the dark photos.
And this last picture is a picture of the station where we got on one of the riverboats and got a little tour of the hotel... learning about the history and quick little facts too.  We have a picture of us on the boat, but that's coming in our Christmas letters, so if you want one and you don't think I have your address, you better post your address so I can send you one!

So that was our impromptu date.  It was nice to spend a little bit of time with each other again without anyone else.  Our jobs don't allow us to have too much time together since I work regular hours Monday through Friday, and he works 130-10pm on random days, usually weekends included.  Luckily though, Bass Pro is going to be trying to give Jason every other weekend off, so we should get some more time together. :)