Show Us Your Life--My Testimony

Kelly's Korner is showcasing testimonies from whoever wants to share. I really have thought all day about this and first came to the conclusion that I didn't really have a testimony. Just loved God and was saved by his grace....then it hit me. I guess I was literally waiting for God to hand me a post-it note saying, this is it. I didn't get the post-it, but got the message.

When Kody and I met he was your typical 18 year old boy. Party boy at least. I was a year younger and quite a bit more tame than he was. What was it that attracted me to this fixer upper type? Not sure what it was, but we clicked. Against many, many, many odds and trying times with a long distant relationship at 17 and 18 years old, we have made it and look how FAR we have come. I truly believe that God lead me to Kody and Kody to me. I helped Kody overcome the wild years and we just really connected. The odds were my parents having a COW that I wanted to date a boy 3 1/2 hours away...I would be the same way!

Through the years we grew closer and eventually got engaged. I started just praying for my future family and for us to be able to have a church home, to feel comfortable there, and to raise kids in a church. Kody was very resistant at first, and I mean very. After we got married he still wasn't keen on going every Sunday, but I continued to ask him to go and leave it at that.

It was in January of this year that our friends invited us to their Sunday School class. I wanted to go but thought, yeah right like Kody will ever go for that. But he did. And loved it. Ever since that Sunday we have only missed for leaving town to see his family. He doesn't even want to leave town because he misses church. Can we say complete 180?

Kody has gotten involved, sings at church, paraphrases sermons for me, reads the Bible, prays with me, and it just completely amazes me. We are not a couple that just comes in and fills the pew. We are getting involved and serving the Lord in many ways. We love our Sunday School class and are working on making relationships with those people as well. By all of this I have fallen in love with GOD more and my husband. I never imagined in my life I would be so heavily involved in a church, let alone before I had kids to raise in church. We are thriving and I just want to constantly PRAISE GOD for that. He even went up front and joined the church by himself in front of the whole congregation and his parents while they were visiting. That was 100% his choice and I was beaming that day, so proud of him and so proud of God for providing this life with him for us.

I never thought our marriage needed work, but it was evident that all marriages need boosts of energy and constant renewal and by having a marriage of 3....the Lord, myself, and Kody, we are fighting battles together and getting through life's constant, ever-changing ways.

So I thank God for bringing Kody to me, literally out of nowhere...I thank him for his family that fits me like a glove and how mine fits him perfectly. I thank him for bringing our friends to us when we needed to be in church and worshiping him. He made all of this happen and I am forever grateful.

Harley Davidson!

I forgot to include in my Tulsa posts that we were staying very close to the Harley Davidson dealership. My mom had been to Tulsa in May and brought back KT a shirt because he loves shirts from all the different places. She said it was themed Route 66 and a really neat one. We made a stop on Tuesday afternoon and it was cool! We enjoyed looking at the different bikes and clothes. We are always looking for the different Harley places when we travel. We found one in Joplin, MO on our way there but decided not to stop. Kody loves to ride his motorcycle and I will admit I love to do a little neighborhood riding myself! It's fun and relaxing. I'm not the let's jump on the bike and go cross-country type of girl though and he really isn't that type either. More or less it's a fun toy for him to drive back and forth to work when it's nice to save $$ on gas!

Tulsa...Take 2!

We finished Tuesday evening off at one of the many Braums locations. Great ice cream! :) We were gearing up for the next day and night, when we were going to venture to the Melting Pot for the first time ever!

Kody was in class til about 4:30 on Wednesday and I shopped at the nice mall, SUPER TARGET, and a few other stores, and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory....which was incredible! I had never been to a Super Target, and Tulsa had 2! They were awesome! Full grocery sections and LOTS of merchandise to choose from. I didn't buy much, some baby stuff that was so clearanced it was basically free, and a new toothbrush holder for my bathroom because I broke the last one. The baby stuff I just put in a drawer...it's either gifts or for us!

I picked Kody up and we headed back to get all dolled up. If you haven't heard of the Melting Pot, go to their website. It's a really nice fondue restaurant. It was really romantic how they had things set up. Lots of privacy. It was pricey, but worth it. We first ordered a swiss cheese fondue. The waiter made it at our table. We had these cooktops and a fondue pot. We had bread, apples, and veggies to dip in it. Talk about tasty! We then had a salad before our entrees. Unfortunately Kody was really not feeling so hot so he was a light eater, but still enjoyed it. For our entrees we had salmon and chicken...here's the catch, it came out raw. Then the bowl you see had a vegetable broth in it and we put the meat on skewers and set it in the broth for a few minutes. We had lots of dipping sauces with it. It was REALLY good! And neat! I think next time we could get by with just eating the cheese fondue and the dessert fondue. For dessert we had a chocolate and crunchy peanut butter fondue. OHHHHH my goodness! Definitely the best part of the meal. It came with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, rice krispies, cheesecake, pound cake, brownies, etc to dip in. We ate every bit of it. The restaurant was on the Arkansas River and had a little outdoor shopping area with restaurants. It was really neat and reminded us of a smaller Branson Landing. The sun was setting and the clouds were a pretty pink out.
Not our best shot...

That pretty much concluded our trip. We went back to the hotel full as ticks and decided the hot tub may do our bodies good. We were able to breathe for awhile but the chlorine really started to get to us.

I felt so bad Thursday I slept til 11:30 after dropping Kody off at class. He surprisingly called then said, "I'm done." I was like OH NO! I was in my pjs, no makeup, no hair done, and the car wasn't packed. I threw on some clothes, went to get him, and we came back to the hotel and loaded it up together. I'm glad he got out early because we were home with our boys by 6....and he unloaded everything, unpacked, and started laundry. As bad as he was feeling he knew I felt worse and even when I feel great I hate to unpack and am really bad at it. Thanks babe! After I took a nearly 2 hour bath reading we rested for the rest of the night. It really sucked to have looked forward to this getaway all summer long and us both get sick. :( Oh well!

My friend Jess was supposed to come this weekend but we postponed it because of me being sick. She's coming in a few weeks though and I'm super excited. Today I went to the doctor and got a Zpack, hopefully that will knock whatever this is out of my system. I also met some friends for lunch today. My friend from high school, Gretchen, moved away and rarely comes back to visit. It was SO good to see her, she has not changed at all. Still funny as ever.Casey, Ashley, Brooke holding Garrett--Casey's baby, Gretchen, and myself at El Charro's!

Oklahoma.....

Hey friends! I had all intentions of blogging while I was gone but the Internet connection was not great in the room and I kept losing connection! Anyways...I'll recap our trip for you!

We got into Tulsa about 5:30 Monday night. We checked into the hotel, changed clothes, and went downtown to an Irish Pub for dinner. They have a really neat downtown district with huge buildings and lots of historic architectural buildings. We ate at a place called McNellie's and it was great! Neat atmosphere too and cute waiter! HA!

We were looking for something to do downtown but never found anything. I guess with it being a Monday night things were somewhat dead. We did get to walk all over and I fell in love with their City Hall building. I know, how dorky...but hey, when you work at a City Hall you notice other city halls! It was this huge glass building!

On our way to Tulsa we drove under this cool McDonald's...I know, it's the little things in life that amuse Kody and I the most! We finally headed back to the room around 10 and called it a night. Kody started class the next morning at 8, so we needed rest!

Tuesday we got going and I dropped Kody off at class and went back to rest a little and get ready. I left the hotel a little before 11 and ate lunch at Olive Garden and went shopping! My favorite hobby! We both woke up Tuesday with sore throats, but we thought they would get better as the day progressed, instead they got worse. When I picked him up at 4 that afternoon we were still hurting. We went back to the hotel to rest for a few hours and then go out later. I wanted steak, but Kody wanted sushi, so we went for sushi. We couldn't find any sushi steakhouses so we knew of 1 place downtown called Yokozuna's. It was mainly sushi, which Kody loved, but I tolerated. I had a rice dish and it was ok. We went out for ice cream afterwards so I was definitely FULL! We weren't feeling up to much else so we called it a night.

On our way back to the hotel we ran into this gorgeous Methodist Church downtown. We took pictures of it at dusk and you can see me barely in 1 of the pictures, just showing how tall the steeple was. It was beautiful! We wished we could have seen in the sanctuary.

I'll write another post to finish our trip off!

GIVEAWAY WINNER!

Hey gals! I'm live from Tulsa, OK tonight. I have our winner too! By using www.random.org I entered 14 comments and came out with #1, which happens to be Lynsie Gabel! Lynsie is a great blogger and a REAL life friend! She's from my hometown. I hope you can use this at your new house, Lynsie!

You can email me at zizzer05@hotmail.com and we can figure out when you can get your mop! Since you live in town we'll arrange a pick-up time!

Thanks to EVERYONE for entering. I will begin working now on the next giveaway!

Until tomorrow....

Show Us Your Life--Grilling Recipes & GIVEAWAY

Today at Kelly's Korner she's featuring your favorite grilling recipes. I hope this is a link I can check back on often. We are grilling fools at the Thompson house, in fact we've grilled every night this week. We had a Weber Charcoal grill forever and loved it, but didn't love the time it took. Kody's parents got him a nice 5 burner gas grill for his birthday....well we use it constantly! I love to cook on it!

My favorite thing that I recently made was smoky bbq chicken. For KT's bday he got a rub kit from Pampered Chef from Aunt Robin.
I took the boneless, thin chicken breasts and brushed a little olive oil on them. I then took the rub and shook all over each side. I made up my own sauce that consisted of quite a bit of Kraft Hickory Smoke BBQ sauce, ketchup, lots of honey, a little Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, and then a little of our Grandma Hilton's homemade BBQ sauce. I just did it by taste really, you could use whatever.

I coated the chicken with the sauce after I put them on the grill. Each time I flipped them I brushed more sauce on. I flipped them often and did not want to char anything too much. We hate overcooked foods! They turned out incredible. Very moist and I think the olive oil helped that. You could taste the rub and the flavor in the bbq sauce was really good. Kody said he will leave me to grilling the chicken from now on. ;) We love to butter corn up and grill it. Since we have our massive garden we always are grilling squash and zucchini. My favorite way is to coat the slices with olive oil and sprinkle lemon pepper. Nice and easy!

It should be perfect grilling weather this weekend, fire it up and give it your best shot!

**Don't forget the Bona Hardwood Floor Mop Kit GIVEAWAY**

GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's finally time! I'm doing another giveaway! I'm really excited about this one too because I use it all the time and would be lost without it. It may not be super exciting, but trust me....it works!

Last year I had a rough time keeping my hardwood floors clean without leaving any kind of film on them. We have 2 German Shepherd dogs which means there is a ton of dog hair. After vacuuming I always like to mop with something, just preferably not water & vinegar...which is not good for your floors in the long run.

I found and fell in love with the Bona Hardwood Floor Mop. You can buy a kit that sells around $40 and it comes with the mop and pad for cleaning and the cleaner. You can buy the cleaner for about $8 at many different stores...I know Bed Bath & Beyond and Lowes carries Bona products. Bona asked me to review the product and sent one for the giveaway. I will show you briefly what I do each week to keep the dust and dirt off of our floors!

I vacuum the whole upstairs first. That gets loose hair, dirt, rocks, whatever off the floor. There are always paw prints, foot prints, etc. I'm not a nag and make you take off your shoes! We definitely LIVE in our house and it's a good feeling. This is what my floors looked like last week after the rain, wet grounds, and forgetting to wipe paws...Please don't judge! This isn't the best picture but you can see the dust under our armoir very clear. Sorry the flash must not have gone off. When you start with the mop, there's a trigger that sprays the cleaner. I pull once and it sprays out and I just run the mop over it as far out as I can.
I continue this until the floors look like this... I love this mop because it gets in hard to reach places like under the armoir where dust collects very easily! Afterwards you just take the Velcro pad off and throw it in the washing machine. You can wash it with towels on regular cycle but do not put in fabric softener!

The cleaner itself looks like this and is easy to snap into place. Bed Bath and Beyond is constantly sending me 20% off 1 product coupons and $5 a purchase of $15 or more, great time to stock up on Bona refill!

The kit looks like this..................... And that is what ONE lucky winner will receive! Now, I know not everyone loves to clean. I don't enjoy it really at all, but this product makes my life easier. And anything that makes my life easier, I'm going to want one of!

From the Bona website...
"At Bona we are committed to the whole lifetime of hardwood floors. We are devoted to providing solutions that keep a floor perfect during its entire life. Through our long commitment and constant search for innovation we are able to offer lasting, sustainable results for professionals and floor owners. With Bona you can expect a commitment that lasts for generations."

From the statement above I can 100% completely agree they make an exceptional product. When my floors are clean they shine and sparkle like they are brand new, thanks to Bona! They are also a green company and are always finding new and better ways to better the environment. Bona also makes products for laminate floors, tile, and stone floors.

Now, here's how to enter. For each entry please leave a separate comment to better your chance of winning!

1. Mandatory Entry: Must be a public follower of this blog!

2. Blog about this giveaway and comment with the link to your blog post.

3. Let me know what room you will use this in and why you are excited!

4. Head over to http://www.bona.com/ and view their products and let me know which one will fit you best!

Thanks to everyone who enters! I will have Random.org choose a winner Monday night! Good luck! Special thanks to Bona for providing the mop kit for the giveaway!

Random Thought Thursday

*Please check back this afternoon! I'm working on our giveaway post, so please check back then!*

It's Thursday and I'm so happy! Last night we worked hard til past dark. I made smokey BBQ chicken on the grill, baked potatoes, and a nice salad for dinner. Kody received a rub kit for his birthday from Aunt Robin and it's Pampered Chef. It had a smokey bbq rub in it and we oiled up the chicken, sprinkled that on there, and then I made my own sauce to grill. It was scrumptious! It all looked pretty too, too bad I didn't take a picture! Kody mowed the back yard while I made dinner (Once again, I'm THRILLED to have our gas grill, I cook all the time!) and then I watered the garden and picked weeds. We have quite a few watermelon getting big, we're very hopeful we get to try one or two!

I have been meaning to put this on here to show off my new wreath! My Mother-in-law had it made for us. I picked out the flowers and it looks awesome on our front door! We don't have many visitors, people claim we live far out, when really it's only 4 miles out, so we haven't gotten to show it off. I love it though! Thank you!!! It is perfect for late spring, summer, and early fall.

When Kody had to work super late the other night I made shrimp tacos. My sister-in-law Kaci came up with the recipe and they were super good. I bought the wheat tortillas and could barely choke those down though, I would definitely go with the flour tortillas! You can make these several different ways, but this is how she does it....

Shrimp Tacos!

Ingredients
Cooked Shrimp (frozen)
Tortillas
Shredded Cheese
Shredded Cabbage
Chopped Tomato--optional
Chopped Onion--optional
Garlic Salt
Chili Powder
Cumin
Light Ranch Salad Dressing
Salsa


Instructions
1. I mixed (without measuring) garlic salt, cumin, and chili powder in a bowl. I just kind of coated the shrimp in the bowl. It would probably be easier to sprinkle the seasonings on the shrimp once on the grill---I thought of that after! Be sure and chopped the tails off the shrimp!

2. Chop up your cabbage, onion, and tomato, and mix a little Ranch dressing and salsa together.

3. If you have a grill with small enough grates (if that's what they are called) you can lay the shrimp directly on there. Ours were too big so I put them in a grilling basket. I chopped up squash and coated with Pam and lemon pepper seasoning and grilled those also.

4. It doesn't take long at all to get them warmed up and ready. Just the amount of time you want to spend on the grill really is all you need, around 10 minutes. Assemble the taco and ta-da you are ready to eat! I'm looking forward to this weekend. We do not have plans and I hope we don't make any. Lots of stuff needs to be done at the house before we can leave town. Pulling weeds, dusting, cleaning, etc! We're pumped for Tulsa though! We'll finally get to try all these yummy restaurants people have been talking about; PF Changs, Cheesecake Factory, the Melting Pot, etc! I will have to PACE myself! Once again, if you know of anything fun to do there...let us know!


My parents are moving my brother into his apartment today in St. Louis. He is excited, he'll come back home this weekend though for the rest of the summer. The place is really nice...hardwood floors and WHITE walls. Oh Lord, please help those boys keep it clean! He'll have one roommate. I can't wait to see it in September when I go up for business.



My friend Jess Ladd is coming to visit next week! We are excited. We're going to shop, maybe layout, eat out, maybe grill, who knows...but we'll definitely enjoy our time together! That's all for now, check back later for the giveaway!