The Culbreaths

As many of you know Dave and I have wanted to start a non-profit for a long time and that dream is quickly becoming a reality. We have talked about it since we took our first group to Jamaica 2002 but we thought it would be more of a long term goal. Thanks to cj Advertising, the company Dave works for, they are helping us get it off the ground. One Love Outreach will be dedicated to providing aid and relief to Jamaicans who are in need of basic essentials such as food, shelter, and clothing as well as working with schools and hospitals to provide them with supplies. Eventually, we’d like to broaden the scope of our efforts to the entire Caribbean.

cj is graciously hosting a kickoff lunch catered by Calypso Cafe at Cummins Station from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, August 28. There is no fee for a ticket, but donations are appreciated. We’d love to see you there! You can visit www.camelswithacause.com to RSVP by Monday or for more information. Also, be sure to check out www.oneloveoutreach.com for our future progress!!

Thanks to custom bladeless lasik by Dr. Loden, Dave now has 20/20 vision. I have never worn contacts or glasses in my life so I can’t imagine the thought of not being able to see. Dave has worn glasses since the third grade and has wanted to have this surgery for a long time, so we finally bit the bullet. As soon as he sat up from the procedure he could already see the clock across the room. Everything went extremely well and his eyes are healing more each day. He does still have some red spots on his eyes where the suction left a hickey mark - hopefully this will go away soon. So far, so good.

Before…

Right after and a little drugged…

After…

We got home on Sunday from our second trip of the year to Jamaica. This time we were with 40 other people from our home church, working with the Spanish Town congregation. I had never done a VBS in Jamaica before or stayed in a hotel, so there were lots of first for me. The VBS was very successful with nearly 300 kids coming on the last day and we poured a sidewalk around the church building for our work project. On one of the last days we made the trip over to Morant Bay to see the progress on the new Soho building. For the past 3 years, we’ve been working with this community and thanks to the hard work from the Tusculum and Madison groups they should have their first service next month.

Dave and I both got sick so it has taken a few days for us to recover and get caught up on our laundry, but we’re ready for our next trip in March!

Dave and I went to Seattle (otherwise known as the Jet City because of Boeing’s headquarters) this past weekend. It was a long trip for a short weekend, but well worth it. Dave has been to a web conference in Seattle for the past 3 years, so since I’ve never been before I decided to tag along this time. We tried to cram as much in to a day as possible. Here are some highlights of our trip:

- The Space Needle - Probably the most well known building in Seattle built for the World’s Fair in 1962.
- Experience Music Project - Very cool museum. There are tons of bands that came out of Seattle including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Kingsmen who sang Louie Louie.
- Pikes Place market - I could have stayed here for days….they had fresh flowers and every fruit and vegetable you could think of. I ate almost a pound of Ranier cherries all by myself. And who could forget the place that’s famous for throwing fish - very cool!
- The original Starbucks - I don’t think the coffee is any different than what you would get at your local Starbucks, but we had to go since it was the 1st one. Boy was it crowded!
- Puget Sound - The water was beautiful and there were tons of boats and cruise ships loading up.
- Underground tour - Seattle burned years ago and they rebuilt the city on top of the city. Hard to explain, but we took a tour of the old city, now underground.
- Ferry ride - We rode a ferry to Bainbridge which was about 35 minutes away. There were some amazing homes right on the water.
- Fresh seafood - We ate fried salmon, crab cakes and dungeness crab which were all fabulous.

I highly recommend going to Seattle, maybe even checking out the pacific northwest, including Portland. It’s beautiful, they’ve got great food and there’s lots to do inside and out. Check out more of our photos here.

We have our first signs of progress on our house. The block for the basement is complete! Next week there are some odds and ends that will take place and then we’ll begin framing. I’m so excited for it to start looking like a house : )

This past weekend we headed to Atlanta to visit my grandmother. We try and go every summer or so and do some work around the house but it had been a few years since we’d been able to go. This year we went along with my parents, Aunt Sherri, Andrew, Casey and Tanner. It was great to be with everyone and spend time catching up. The men worked on the garage and windows that needed repair and the ladies followed behind doing touch up paint. We also had time for our annual makeup free-for-all. My grandmother saves up all of the free makeup gifts that she gets throughout the year and we take turns picking out what we want. We each got a couple of bags and then we filled them up. I think I have enough mascara to last me a few years.

Tanner and her Pops. She loved riding the horsey : )

We missed the rest of the Nichols clan that couldn’t be there. I’m looking forward to our next together…..hopefully sooner rather than later!!

Saturday we went to an all day concert with Jennifer, Jansen and 50,000 of our closest friends at LP Field and boy was it hot! We got there at 3:00 and didn’t leave until almost 11:30. It really was a great line up: Gary Allen, Leann Rimes, Sammy Hagar, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney. Everyone was so good and we were quite impressed at how involved they were with the crowd. They would be signing autographs as they were singing and Kenny ended up giving one of his guitars away to a little girl from the crowd.

This was a great show that I highly recommend. Even Dave, who really doesn’t like much country music had a good time. I’ll try and post a video later.

Well, we are officially out of our old house. Our family and friends helped us all last weekend and we finally got the last boxes out on Sunday night. It was an emotionally draining weekend that I wasn’t quite expecting. Our house had been on the market for 9 months so I thought it would be exciting, but it ended up being very sad. Since this was the first house we have lived in, it was difficult leaving all of our memories as newlyweds. It did make it a little easier once we closed on Monday and had a check to put in the bank!

As you can see we packed in every thing we could with no room to spare.

Dave’s parents have been kind enough to let us crash with them until the new house is completed. This is going to be such a huge help for us. Let’s just hope we don’t over stay our welcome : ) Now, on to the next chapter….

We started packing up our 16 foot SAM (store and move) container tonight with the help of Dave’s parents and our friends Michael and Von. We were planning on moving the bulk of everything this weekend but we needed to figure out if we would need more than one container.

We were surprisingly able to get quite a bit done. This picture was taken early in the evening before the love seat and sectional were loaded up. Based on the fabulous packing skills of all the men we should be good to go with one container. Just a few more days of this and we’ll be done!!

I think the rain is trying to ruin all of our weekend get-aways. First Chicago, now Orlando. It wasn’t really THAT bad…I just wish it had not made an appearance. We are completely crazy for going out of the town the weekend before we move, but for the record our trip was planned first. I had to work a trade show Saturday morning so we figured Dave would tag along. We attempted to go to Typhoon Lagoon Saturday afternoon, but after being there about an hour the park was shut down due to the “inclement weather”. Sunday we went to Hollywood Studios & Islands of Adventure. It rained off and on all day, but luckily nothing was shut down. We did get vouchers for Typhoon Lagoon that don’t expire so I guess we’ll be going back some day : )

Our first storage pod comes tomorrow, so I’ve got to get back to packing!!