July flashback and 18 months

Here's a July6th and 7th flashback to be exact. After July 4th weekend Isaac and I traveled to Auburn a few times while Steven was playing doctor in Montgomery. My mom was out of the country on a mission trip at the time and little buddy and I saw Camille off to camp.

Here's just a few of my favorites from our travels...

We first met Camille in the country to feed her beloved horse.

Later that day, my dad, brother, and I took the family dogs (including Major) to a big open field so they could run around as much as their little doggie hearts desired.



Major thought he had died and gone to heaven...

After hitting up the campus ice cream joint more times than I like to count we walked around campus...









Our little buddy is 18 months old!!! It really is difficult to believe that a year and a half has gone by... It's almost hard to remember what life was like before him. I mean, don't get me wrong, I can definitely remember (especially when he's being extra bad ;) ). But there is not a day that goes by where I am not truly thankful for this little guy.

Those who know him can tell he has my personality to the extreme. I think he has my personality as a child times 100...because he's a boy and a little stinker. I have started to read the strong-willed child book at many mother's advice and it's been helpful thus far. There are many days where I don't know what to do with him--when he's in one of his fits, or hitting me for attention, etc. But, I already feel like I've learned so much and especially about patience, grace, and Christ's love for me. So often when Isaac is in one of his "terrible 2" moods (oh yes, he's already there) I think about my relationship with the Lord and how I'm the exact same way with Him. Okay, so I'm not hitting God or crying uncontrollably at the top of my lungs, but I definitely don't like to do what His word tells me all of the time and I pitch fits in my own little way....and yet through it all, Christ's love never wavers. How thankful I am for that. It also reminds me that "we all fall short of the glory of God"...but oh how wonderful that HE made a way and now we are declared righteous before His eyes after turning from our sin and ourselves.

I definitely don't want to portray Isaac has a wild child or that I'm not so thankful and in love with him. I find myself many many times a day laughing uncontrollably with him. The looks he gives, the sweet smiles he brings, the playfulness of his hilarious personality!! I wouldn't want anything less!

He doesn't say many words right now. Slowly but surely he's getting it. I do feel like he is at the stage where he's learning something new each day. Like just today, he said the word "cold" for the first time. I've been trying to teach him this for the last few days now because everytime he touches his sippy cup or inside the fridge, he says it's "ott, ott." And I say, "No buddy, that's not hot, it's coooold, cooold, can you say cold?" Blank stare.

Okay, okay, so enough about Isaac-poo. We love him so very much and look forward to each new day we have with our son!

A Pleasant Weekend

We had such a great weekend visiting with old friends from Bradenton. When we lived in Florida for three years we enjoyed our friendship with this sweet family of five, the Pleasant family.

They made the 10 hour trek to Lake Martin on Friday to spend the next few days with us. We have definitely missed them!! We had the best time catching up and we did everything from wakeboarding and tubing to laughing and eating. Those girls of their's can make a yummy dessert.

Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is.

Isaac enjoyed the fellowship as well and took immediately to Tim Pleasant and their son, Tad. But no surprise there, he prefers guys most of the time.

That's not to say he didn't attract some girl lovin' along the way...

The eldest Pleasant, Karlie, just graduated from Florida State and is on her way to enter P.A. school. She is such an awesome girl!! She longs to be a missionary one day soon and I enjoyed our conversations regarding the mission field.

Their next in line is fun loving Darcie. I had the priviledge of discipling Darcie when we lived in Bradenton and we watched many a Beth Moore video together. In addition to Beth's teaching we loved commenting on what she was wearing each week. I can only hope to be as fashionable as Darcie one day. :)

And we must not forget their youngest and only boy, Tad. He is such a precious boy and when we lived in Bradenton he was "little Tad" to us. Now he's growing up and going to be a senior in high school, so hard to believe. We often found ourselves commenting the entire weekend on his washboard abs straight out of the movie 300. Eat your heart out teenage girls!

But it's not just about looks with these kids, they have the heart to match. We are so excited to see how God continues to work in their lives!

Speaking of wonderful hearts, these two parents are so great! Steven and I always considered them role models for us where parenting is concerned and definitely still do.

Kelly was so thoughtful to bring bubbles for Isaac.

I'm ashamed to say it, but this was only Isaac's second time to see bubbles in his lifetime. I realize his lifetime has been short so far but most kids his age have associated themselves with bubbles more times than once. He didn't know what to think at first...

But slowly began to befriend the bubbles



And it didn't take long for him to enjoy himself.



We did plenty of swimming down by the lake...in 100 degree weather I might add!! As Isaac likes to say, it was "OTT OTT!!!"

Isaac told us to forget about the heat and just spin a wheel or two...

And also make a pretty girl swing you from time to time...

The Pleasants made for a very pleasant weekend! The only problem is, it made us miss them even more.

Oh, and thank you for your lovely comments regarding my long jean skirt in the last post. I'm so glad you liked it. I didn't mean to make you all jealous. I mean it, really I do!

But, yes, the Duggar girls called and they want their skirt back.......but, I'm not givin' in. I just may start wearing my hair slicked back with poofy bangs soon...

New Look

As you can see the blog has been completely transformed, and I love it.

Before the transformation began I wanted to add a little title to our blog. You see, "The Sprayberry's" was boring to me... I still wanted Sprayberry in the name somewhere so, I thought of all the ways I could use that in the title. Sure came up with some amusing ones--who knew there is so much you could use with "Sprayberry!" Sprayberry shortcake (Kelly's idea), Sprayberry bundle, etc. I mean the word play on BERRY is just endless! ;)

But after all was said in done I continued to come back to my orginal thought, "The Sprayberry Safari." And here's the reasoning (if you care to listen)...

1. Safari means: an overland expedition, a journey. When I think of our blog I think of it as a

journey through our lives...taking other people on a journey with us.

Actually safari in arabic means journey and it's so fitting with my little sister living

in the middle east right now and learning Arabic as her second language.

2. Safari sounded good with Sprayberry

3. Third, one of my very first mission trips included a trip with my dad when I was twelve years old. He took me to Kenya, Africa where he did medical missions at Tenwek hospital and I helped with vacation bible school for the missionary kids. It was such a special trip and one I will always cherish with my dad... Plus, we had the privilege to go on a safari the last days we were there and as a twelve year old, you can imagine how exciting that was! So needless to say, Africa has always held a special place in my heart and was even able to experience the country again in 2000 with my entire family.

My dad with a few of the nurses.

So, there in a nutshell is why I named the blog this. I also thought the verse was so fitting to "our journey through life" because the only giver of life is of course Christ and Praise God that He came down to earth so that we can have LIFE and have it abundantly throughout all eternity!!

These are the only pictures I could find of our journey through Kenya in 1995. I hope everyone gets a special kick out of me and my long jean skirt and baggy Auburn sweatshirt!

And what a wild journey the Lord has taken me on since this...

I can't wait to see where He takes us next.

Uniquely Yours

This blog is definitely now "uniquely mine" thanks to Rachel and her talented self. :) More on the blog update and new pictures shortly...

Heat Exhaustion

During this extreme summer heat, please don't get caught unprepared with heat exhaustion.

Symptoms of heat exhaustion:

heavy sweating:

dizziness:

irritability/headache:

moments of delirium




Treatment of heat exhaustion:


drink cool, non-alcoholic beverages, as directed by your physician:

get plenty of rest:

stay cool:



and finally, always wear lightweight clothing:

Seek medical attention if symptoms worsen or last longer than 1 hour...or if people laugh at you in a diaper.

July 4th

You can just call us gypsies for the week. I can't even count on one hand all the times I've had to transfer the car seat into different vehicles... But despite this fact, we've had a great week. Like I said before, Steven has been assigned to a rotation in Montgomery this month and Isaac and I didn't want to stay in Birmingham by ourselves. So, we packed up and traveled back and forth from the lake house and Auburn.

This post will just be about the 4th.

And speaking of the 4th (I'm so glad you asked)... Little known fact about me: I LOVE the 4th of July!!! Maybe it's because summer is by far my favorite season, maybe it's the fact that one of the only subjects I enjoyed in school was history, or maybe I'm just really patriotic. But whatever it is, it continues to be one of my favorite holidays. Plus, the weather could not have been more gorgeous that day...high 80's, no humidity, nice breeze...perfect.

This year my dad was able to make it to the Sprayberry lake house including my little sister Camille, my brother Cameron, and his cute girlfriend Rachel (unfortunately she's taking the pic). We missed my mom who is currently in Africa and my two other sistas.

We even enjoyed fellowship with our friends and neighbors from across the street in Birmingham. We can play some pretty competitive hand of Spades...the girls usually win (boys, I said USUALLY, not always...don't get so upset, and from the lips of Charlie Brown; "good grief").

They even brought their doggie along for the trip and who knew Boxer's are not the best of swimmers!?

Cousin Rowen decorated an extremely festive cake and did a mighty good job.

Not to mention the cake was yummy on the palette and don't let this pouty look fool you because Isaac thoroughly enjoyed the edible flag in his mouth.

Cousin Hudson is Isaac's constant companion and babysitter. Not to mention pretty darn adorable too.

We were privileged to have a fearless boat driver.

And a fearless lifejacket wearer.



We ate a lot!

We laughed a lot.

And gave a certain stubborn little boy "the eye" a lot.




Ahhh, the classic "you know you shouldn't be doing that" look.

We are really seeing a change in our little boy lately. He is definitely growing up and looking and acting more like an 18 month old. He really hasn't been saying many words besides his constant jibber jabber, and this is no small jibber jabber...he really thinks he is taking on a conversation with you. Of course if I only knew German/Japanese/and French all together I could make out what he was saying. But luckily for us he has been using English words a little more. So far he can say, "Mama, Dadda, ball, up, and make a monkey sound (only when he wants to)". But other than that I usually have to use Rosetta Stone to communicate...

But he sure knows how to throw a mean football.

*I see a quarterback in our future who plays for some team over seas in Gerjapance (country that only speaks Isaac language).

Isaac enjoyed watching firework celebration. Well, maybe "enjoyed" isn't really the right word, but he did get used to them after a while. The first crackle and pop was pretty close to the lake house and unfortunately created a few tears, but he soon got over it.

Hanging out with CC, but apparently still unsure about the fireworks.

All in all, it was a great weekend!

Let's just say a certain someone was not very happy the 4th of July had to come to an end.

Don't cry little buddy, I feel your pain. Just think! We are one day closer to July 4th, 2011!!