Bradley's Duck Hunting Trip

Who wants to get up at 2:30 am to go duck hunting on a cold December morning? These 3 guys do. Tyrus, Chad and Bradley went hunting the day before we went to Texas for Christmas.

Bradley hunting.

Bradley with the ducks they all got.

Tyrus' dog, Leroy.

Chad, Bradley and Tyrus. Is this before or after Tyrus fell in the water...:) Must be before...he looks dry.

I think this is Chad. :)

Merry Christmas!

Angy helped Santa put out presents for the boys on Christmas Eve.

John and Bradley put together Charlie's new Diego bike.

Charlie LOVED his bike that Santa brought him. He didn't want to open any other presents after he saw this.

Charlie's showing off his new Diego helmet, elbow pads and knee pads. He wore them all morning.

Bradley received a new camo jacket to wear on cold mornings that he goes hunting.

Jake helped pass out presents to everyone at my parents house.

Charlie is waiting patiently while I take a toy out of a package.

Mom is giving Grandma a gift to open.

Christmas at the Tomlinson house.

Hanging out in TX

We LOVED spending time with our nephews Charlie and Jake this past week. Since we've seen them last they've both grown up SO much. Charlie can sing his ABC's and Jake has started school and lost 4 teeth!! We miss you boys!!


Bradley and I went to Cabela's one day while in Fort Worth. We love to go to the Bargain Cave there to see what kind of "deals" there are. Well, we found this amazingly huge 6 person dome tent. Since it was in the clearance, we wanted to make sure that we had all of the parts we were supposed to so that night we "conned" my parents into helping us set up the new tent in their enclosed back patio. :) We had a great time!

Bradley's reading the instructions to make sure that we are setting it up correctly.

Finished product...we love it! And the inside height is over 6 feet tall...which will be wonderful to be able to stand up inside the tent!

Charlie loves his Uncle Bradley! The last evening that we were in Fort Worth, Charlie told Bradley that his "face was awfully hairy". We all CRACKED up...where in the world does a 2 year old learn how to correctly use the word "awfully"?? So cute.

John and Angy

Why we celebrate

This year, Bradley and I will not be at home for Christmas...we'll be in Texas with our family. So, we decided last night to go ahead and exhange our gifts from each other (plus a few that our family had sent to us here at the house). One thing that we absolutely want to be reminded of throughout the Christmas season is why we celebrate Christmas and exchange gifts...especially now that we are starting a family.

Bradley and I celebrate Christmas because it is a time that we remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is God that came to earth as a man. He lived a sinless life and as a young adult took the punishment of death for all mankind. Man is sinful and is seperated from God and because of that we could never have an intimate relationship with God without Jesus's payment for our sins. When Jesus died, he took the sins of all people. The miraculous part of the story is that Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead, conquering death and sin for us all. Now, in order for a person to have a relationship with God, all we must do is acknowledge that we are sinful, that Jesus paid our debt and accept his perfect Gift that He gave us. Both Bradley and I have this relationship with God and enjoy a relationship with Him. We want all people to know about this and throughout our lives will be sure to keep Jesus in the forefront of our family's minds so that our children will know why we really celebrate Christmas...the birth day of our Lord.


Papa (our cat) was interested in what we were doing.


Bradley's about to open one of his gifts.


Thanks Angy and John for the baby food "cook" book! I can't wait to look through it.


Bradley loves his "fishing" cart that my parents got him. He can load up all of his fishing gear on this cart and take it to the beach with him. That way he doesn't have to make a dozen trips to the truck for all of his stuff! Thanks Mom and Dad!


I LOVE my new food processor! Hopefully I'll be using it lots!!

15 weeks to go...

Well, I'm at the point now where I've decided to count down instead of continuing to count up. Our baby is definitely moving around tons now and I've begun to notice patterns of his/her movements. Most noticebly...it moves a lot in the mornings and after I eat. I think it's going to take after it's dad...ha ha ha...

Working on the fence

Bradley took on a huge project when we moved into our house. We live on almost 3/4 of an acre of land and probably 1/2 an acre is our backyard. Well, in Fort Worth we really got spoiled with our privacy fence and really wanted one here too. Problem is...here in NC, privacy fences (and actually no fence at all) is more of the style. So, we rarely see fences on the properties around here. So, we knew that we would have to likely put one in wherever we bought. And this was true for this place too. But, Bradley has a great amount of construction experience and figured out how much lumber to buy and how many fence posts and panels etc that we'd need. But, it just took a lot of time to do. It rains a lot here, it was really hot this summer and when he had his accident a few months ago he couldn't work on it at all until he healed enough. But, finally we're done. Or as Bradley says..."99.9% done". :) He's still got a few things to do on it...but for the most part we're done. Our backyard is completely enclosed and on Wednesday we were finally able to let Baxter run around, leash free, for the first time in months! I'm SO proud of Bradley and actually never thought that I'd get so much joy from the look of a privacy fence. I love it and am so thankful for Bradley's persistance with the project.

On a side note, I didn't help with hardly any of the project (most of it was heavy lifting and very physical labor...and that is NOT for me!). :) Well, on Wednesday Bradley was able to find a project that I could do. There were a few extra boards that needed to be nailed onto each panel so he showed me how to use the nail gun and off I went...6 months pregnant. :) But, I had a great time with it. I felt like I was getting a good workout and helping my husband and my dog too! :) But, let me tell you...I was SORE that night and the next day...that nail gun is kind of heavy!




Look at the awesome looking fence!

Baby Names

While I was in Fort Worth Jake told me that he thought that our baby was going to be a boy. So, I asked him if it was a boy, then what should we name him? He suggested "Megatron" (which is some kind of super-hero something or other). Stiffling a laugh, I asked what other name he'd suggest. He said "Optimus Prime" (who is a Transformer). Well, at this point I was totally cracking up. I told him that I didn't think that those names would be ideal for a little boy since they were super heros. I asked him to suggest a little boy name. He said "Charlie" and I said that we already had a Charlie in our family (his little brother). So he suggested another super hero..."Bumble Bee" (another Transformer). Oh well...I may not have any new baby names but I sure did get a good laugh out of it!

Fun Times in Texas!

Right now I'm spending some time with my family in Texas. We've been having a blast too! I've had some great times with my mom, dad and sister. And my nephews have had me laughing constantly. Like today, I asked my 6 year old nephew what he had for lunch today and he said that he got something "Olive Cart"...which in 6 year old language is "A La Carte". Totally cracked me up! I've already been able to eat at some of my favorite Texas restaurants and have really enjoyed just being in Fort Worth again after not being here for almost a year!


Charlie has no problem saying "Cheese" for the camera.


Jake asked me if he could show me what he wanted to get for his birthday. I said sure, so he grabbed the Toys R Us catalog and crawled up in my lap and went page by page and showed me toys that he liked and toys that he thought my baby would like too. I thought it was SO sweet!

19 weeks and counting...

Well, I've had many requests for a preggo pic...so here it is. I'm around 19 1/2 weeks (just about halfway through the pregnancy). It really seems as though the baby/belly grows every single day! I'm continuously amazed that there is a sweet little life growing inside of me. I know that I've shared this verse before but the Lord is continually taking me back to it...

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward". What a blessing our little baby has already been to us. We just can't wait to meet you in March!

Camping at Jordan Lake

Last week Bradley and I decided to spend a 3 day weekend camping. He loves to camp at the beach so that he can go fishing too...so we decided to go to Topsail and take his parents' pop-up camper. We love it b/c we can regulate the temperature better in there, you have more space and right now...since I'm halfway through my pregnancy, we thought it'd be much easier for me than getting in and out of a tent. Well, we drove down on Friday night and began the process of setting the camper up. Unfortunately, we didn't get very far. Some cables or a pulley or something on the pop-up broke and we were unable to crank it all the way up. So, after an hour and a half of trying to get the thing put back together again (oh, what an ordeal since Bradley's collar bone is still healing and he hasn't fully regained all of his strength), we packed everything up and headed home...very disappointed. Well, on Saturday we decided that we still wanted to go camping, so we regrouped, got all of our tent camping gear (including the trusty air mattress!) and headed for Jordan Lake State Park which is only about an hour away. We found a beautiful campsite right on the lake and stayed there for 2 nights. Chad and Jamie came and camped with us one night and on Saturday, since we were so close to Raleigh, Ashley came and had dinner with us all. It was such a relaxing time for us. Bradley may not have been able to fish at the beach, but he still was able to fish and we still had our relaxing weekend...after a few bumps in the road. :)


The view from our campsite was amazing. The lake was on 2 sides and we could just walk right down to the water.

Bradley's setting up all of our gear.

Bradley was able to get many hours of fishing in. I'm glad that he was still able to fish, despite the fact that we weren't at the beach!

Chad and Bradley sitting on the shore fishing.

Well...finally!

Okay, okay...it's been June since I last updated our blog. I know...it's ridiculous...but I'm gonna try to get better at it. A lot has happened in our lives since then.

First, Steven, Tara and Adaya came for a visit. We finally got to meet our precious little niece. They were in NC for 10 days and we just wanted to spend every waking moment with them! Some of our most treasured moments during that 10 days were just spent hanging out with family at home. Tara and I were able to spend an afternoon shopping and the entire family took some really great family pics that we will treasure for years to come. I loved spending my lunch break with Tara a few days...just talking and catching up...sharing our hearts and loving on each other. We miss you guys terribly and can't wait till we see you again.

Next to visit were my mom and Jake. We were only with them for a short weekend, but boy did we have SO much fun! We ate great food, played games, watched movies and more. Since we only have one extra bed, we made a fun little pallet with a sleeping bag in the floor of my mom's room for Jake. But, since it was a new place, he got a little scared both Saturday and Sunday mornings. And since I told him that if he got scared to come into our room...we had a little visitor both morns. But we SO didn't care. We let him crawl up into bed with us, flipped on some morning cartoons and just savored the moments that we had with him. The pic below is after a looong day of activity. We decided to watch a movie at the house, but had to turn it off early because we were all so tired and ready to go to sleep! :)

We've also done some traveling since June too. We went to Boone (which has amazing weather in the summer...just perfect!), New York City and Nashville. Just loved all three and were able to see family and friends that we hadn't seen in quite a while.

Well, 2 significant things have happened though since June. Two things that have changed both of our lives. First, we found out that we are having a baby. (Yay!). The baby's due date is at the end of March. We've finally gotten used to the idea of being pregnant...but now are starting to have to think about buying baby furniture, preparing the nursery etc. We've had a blast and are so thrilled to have been blessed with a child. The Lord says in Psalm 127:3(a), "Behold, children are a gift of the Lord" and we really and truly believe that they are. I am excited to meet our little baby in March and am curious about so many things...will it be a boy or a girl? Will it look like me or Bradley? Will he/she be stubborn? sweet? tender-hearted? funny? tall? So many things that I'm curious about. I look forward to sharing the journey with you in the days, months and years to come.

The second significant thing that we experienced was actually really scary. On September 19, Bradley was driving to work on his motorcycle and had an accident. He was taken to a local hospital and was there for about 2 hours before he was air-lifted to a trauma center in Raleigh. He was awake and was able to move his hands and feet the entire time. However, he suffered from short-term memory loss. Basically, he couldn't remember anything that had happened the previous week of his life, nor could he remember things that you had just told him 30 seconds prior. I was actually at the dentist that morning and had my cell phone turned off...so no one could get a hold of me. Luckily my good friend and co-worker, Kristin, knew where I was and came and picked me up at the dentist and took me to the first hospital. By the time I got there though, Bradley was already in the helicopter about to be moved to Raleigh. I never got to see him. Thankfully, his parents had been able to see him and speak to him and were able to assure me that he was awake and able to move and that he was even asking for me. (Praise God, he still knew who I was). It was a difficult morning for me not knowing if my husband was seriously injured or not. But, I prayed what I could...for the Lord to protect him. And the Lord answered my prayer. By the time I was able to see Bradley in Raleigh it was noon. He'd had the accident over 3 hours prior to that. We spent all afternoon in the ER waiting for test results etc. While we were waiting, Bradley continued to ask me questions. What happened? Was anyone else hurt? Where was he? What day, month, year was it? Where was his family and were they upset? He asked and I answered the same questions over and over again for 3-4 hours. He started to calm down around 4:00. We found out that he had a grade 3 concussion and a broken collar bone. The hospital kept him overnight for observation. By 7 that night, Bradley's memory was beginning to return. All visitors left the hospital (except for me) around 9 that night and Bradley and I spent the night in the hospital room. I always thought that the first time that we'd spend the night in the hospital was when I'd have a baby. :) I was just so thankful that I could be with him. I shed many tears that night and over the next few days as the reality of the situation hit me. That night, Bradley asked me some of the same questions that he'd asked that afternoon, except this time, he could remember...He knew what hospital he was at. He knew what day it was and that we'd celebrated his mom's birthday 2 days prior. As we were talking, and I could tell that his memory was coming back to him, I just cried tears of joy and relief. Neither of us slept much that night. For one, we had tons of nurses checking in on him...but also we stayed up and just talked about the days events. The next day he was released from the hospital and the healing process began. Over the next few days Bradley and I would have many conversations about the events of the day that Friday (btw...he still doesn't remember anything about Friday until about 7 that night...he cannot remember what caused the accident). And as we spoke about that day, we just couldn't help but be so thankful to the Lord for saving Bradley. The Lord could have chosen to take Bradley that day, but He didn't. As Bradley put it...the Lord wants him here to do more of His work. And I'm grateful for that. Another thing that really amazed Bradley and I during this time was just how amazing the Lord's family (the Church) is. We had people all over the country and the world praying for Bradley within a few hours of the accident. Word spread like wild fire. We had telephone calls and emails from people in Massachusetts, Florida, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and East Asia. We had so many visitors in the hospital as well. We are SO thankful for the love that was showered on us during that time. It really helped to pull us through. And we know that the Lord answered all of those prayers. If there is one thing that we want other people to realize out of this near tragedy in our lives...it's that the Lord answers prayers, the Lord Saves, and the Lord works miracles. We love the Lord. And we want others to know that He is our comforter, healer, friend and Savior. Thank you all for praying for Bradley.

Well, I will keep on trying to update our blog when possible. We have been slack on taking pictures, but will try to update as often as possible...as we have many changes ahead.

The Great Escape

Everything is back to normal now, but several hours ago Baxter had a Great Escape. I gave him an inch and he took a mile...well, about half a mile! He slipped right out of the dog run and ran right into the woods. Thankfully Everett and Julia live just a few miles away, so they came over and helped me look for him. Everett and I ran into the woods down the same path that Baxter took and Julia took the car and drove around to the other side. Eventually Everett and I came up on a horse farm and a man there said that he saw Baxter. It's over 90 degrees here and I guess he just got too hot. Plus, we wonder if he got into one of the electric fences and it might have stopped him from running any further. But, nevertheless, when we found him, he was laying in the middle of a field, surrounded by an electric fence. Thankfully the farmer had turned the fence off, but Baxter didn't know it...and when I called him, he came right up to me and I slipped the leash right back on him. Oh, I was frantic when he ran away. I couldn't believe that I was traipsing through the woods either! All I could think about was the possiblity of snakes crossing my path! The whole escapade only took about 40 minutes, but that is definitely something that I never want to do again! Julia met us at the farm and we all jumped in the car and drove back to our house. You better believe that I won't be taking the leash off of Baxter again unless I've got that gate closed! I learned my lesson today!

Baxter moves in...finally!!

Bradley built a dog run in a corner of our backyard for Baxter.


Well, it may be 4 months after we moved in, but today, Baxter finally moved in to our new house.



He looks so happy to be here...thanks Bradley for building him a dog run!!

Weekend Activities

Papa thinks that the new rug that I purchased this weekend is just for him. He loves to lay on it.


Bradley and Everett took the first opportunity they could to use Bradley's new chainsaw. Bradley got it from my parents for his birthday and he loves it! Thanks mom and dad!



Bradley's checking out his work with the chainsaw in hand.