This Family is...

special,
loving,
incredibly faithful,
and have been successful at stealing our hearts in just two short years!

We will miss them more than they know!
We love you, Sheltons!

This Monkey Means Business!

Last Saturday (Memorial Day weekend), Meredith participated in Brevard's annual Squirrel Box Derby race. She did AWESOME!! She came in 4th place overall in her age class. But missed third by 1/10th of a second! Man! Here's an excerpt from the website: "This gravity race is the only legal opportunity in Brevard where you can try to break the speed limit down Jailhouse Hill! All vehicles were hand built and decorated to please the crowd, as well as designed for speed. Contestants competed for trophies for the fastest critter, the squirreliest theme, and the nuttiest design."

In addition to 4th place, she won the Nuttiest Design and the Village People award (people's choice).

I actually bought the "derby car kit", partially assembled at a yard sale. It had to be modified to meet competition requirements. So Mark, and several handy family members, went to work on making it the speed machine that it is today! They added a new braking system, a roll bar plus fresh paint on the metal and wooden parts. Then we had to come up with a design for the shell.


Meredith has loved her sock monkey for a long time, so we thought it would be cool to incorporate that into the car. We took her sock monkey to Signs and More in Brevard. They photographed it and made the giant decal for the body. It turned out great. Old and young alike seemed to really take to the design!


We also had t-shirts made that had the monkey on the front and "This Monkey Means Business". We wore them the day of the race and everyone loved them. We even had several people ask if we were selling the t-shirts, because they wanted to buy one!

She and her Daddy prayed together before the trial run. She was pretty nervous, but she did amazing!

Cruising down the hill, she hit about 31mph! By the end, she was loving every minute of the race!

Biltmore/Kiwanis 5K Classic

Wow! It does feel good to have accomplished this goal. My friend Sherrie, and I set a goal back in January to begin training for this 5K. So we began walking/running at intervals of 90 seconds. We worked our way up to running over two miles before walking. On Sunday, May 16th we (Me, Mark, Sherrie, Dave and Katie) ran the race. Sherri and I finished in 36 minutes! These are a few shots from before the race. Very early...very foggy!




And a few from after:

We were so excited to be finished! And really proud of our accomplishment!


Here's the whole gang! Shortly after this we went to Cracker Barrel for a celebratory Pig Out!