The Cordle Fam

I added a few pictures to an album in the photo gallery! I forgot to update everyone on my Summer!

On Spring Break Bailey and I interviewed with a outside boutique in Sea Side called “Perspicasity,” and WE GOT THE JOB! We will be starting work on the 19th of May and staying in Grayton beach until the end of July. I get out of school on May 7, so I will have a couple days to spend at home before we head to the beach. I am getting really excited!

I’m 19! My birthday started off very spontaneously (if thats even a word?) Monday night (my birthday eve) around 9:30, Bailey, Tara, and I were sitting around talking about how Bailey needed to find a formal date very soon or else it would be too late for them to rent a tux. Tara and I suggested she take her good friend that goes to University of Ala. So instead of calling him and asking him we decided she should ask him in person. so…. around 10 last night we headed to Tuscaloosa. On the ride down we wrote a song asking Phil(Bailey’s friend) to go to formal. We arrived at Phil’s(baileys friend) house around 12:30 a.m. Phil had no idea we were coming and we ran in his room and woke him up. We then sang the song to Phil–got back in the car and headed back to Auburn. ohh and don’t worry he said YES! We got back to Auburn around 3:30 where I came back to some birthday flowers from my amazing roommate! I got a few hours of sleep and then woke up to go to class!

The day kept getting better. Mom and John Hayden came to town for a lunch. Tara, Bailey, and Caitlyn decorated my room with streamers and balloons. I went out to dinner with about 15 friends AND I got tons of facebook posts, text messages, and calls saying “Happy Birthday.”

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so great!!

oh and thanks Bo for the coffee pot!

I am so thankful for the time we had to spend together this past weekend!

There was lots to celebrate…Anna Catherine turning 22! Caroline turning 19! The Hapatoochet coming out of winter hibernation allowing us to spend some brief but very refreshing moments on the lake! (Many thanks to the Garlingtons!)

But ofcoarse The Greatest Celebration was the death and resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the magnitude of what that means to us! A fresh word for me was from Luke 24 …

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus….As they talked about all that had happened on their way to the village of Emmaus, Jesus came up and walked with them; but they were not able to recognize who He was. When they reached the village they urged Jesus to stay with them still not knowing who He was… So He stayed and when He was at the table with them, He took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized HIM! They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us and opened the Scriptures to us?” They found the other disciples and worshiped together saying, “IT IS TRUE! THE LORD HAS RISEN!”

My prayer is that our eyes will be opened and we will recognize Him in ways we never have before! I pray that our hearts will burn within us with a passion to Know Him and His Word and to ask Him to open the Scriptures to us just like He did for the disciples! And I pray that we may truly Love Him with All of our heart, mind, soul, and strength!

Praises to Him!

much love to all,

mom

Saturday after the trip to the lake, the Cordle fam converged back in Newnan, picked up Anna, and went to Bones in Atlanta to eat. There have been two occasions in my life momentous enough to warrant a trip to Bones. Both have been the girls’ birthdays. As you may know, Anna’s birthday is March 21st, and Goob’s is March 25th. This means the typical birthday celebration in the Cordle house lasts from roughly March 15th on into early April.

I’m fine with it though, because I love no restaurant more than Bones. My first trip to Bones several years ago was a very memorable one. For some reason, the most memorable part was the guy who refilled the water glasses. I believe he’s the more ambitious younger brother of the guy who refills the chips at La Fiesta. From the time I sat down, he put me into his sights, and never relented. If I even looked like I was going to take a sip of water, he would sprint from across the room to position himself to refill my glass with reckless abandon. Somewhere between the snapper coming back to life in my stomach, and the cheesecake killing it again, I was self-diagnosed with water poisoning.

The lessons from that experience years ago remain with me to this day. I walked out of Bones on Saturday a happily successful man, having not drank too much water. The food was amazing, as usual…I was in gastronomical heaven.

Not wanting the evening to be over, Dad asked us what we wanted to do next. Goob decided that she wanted to see some “devastation”, referring to the tornadoes that hit Atlanta a week ago.

Well, as we turned onto Peachtree St., we saw something unexpected. A burning bush. Yep…there was a bush on fire right there in the yard of a Church. Dad thought it was a really cool effect, being Easter and all (well…it made sense at the time, anyway). But the more we looked at it, the more I wasn’t convinced it was an effect. Goob was spouting off all kinds of stuff she’d learned in psychology about the Bystander Effect or something. As we passed by, we realized that it was growing by the second, so I dialed 911. And got a recording. We pulled over behind a few others, and hopped out of the car as though we were driving a big red truck. One of the guys in front of us did get through to 911, but it was a rather hopeless feeling standing there watching this fire grow without any way to help. Luckily, some folks from the bars/restaurants across the street ran over with a few fire extinguishers and took care of it just as the fire trucks were rolling up. Certainly makes me want to buy a few fire extinguishers and throw them in the car!

After traveling all around Alabama, I found myself in Georgia on Saturday just in time to hop on the M/V Happatuchet (Garlingtons, please help me with the spelling there…). The Cordle Fam, minus Anna who was on the way home from the beach, and the Garlington Fam enjoyed a fabulous voyage around West Point Lake on their beast of a pontoon boat.

The restaurant we normally eat at was closed for renovation or something, so we were forced to venture down to the dam and eat at Mr. Robby Nichols’ marina. The service was exactly what you would expect for a super country lakeside joint. Here are the highlights from our experience with the waitress…

• I thought she was going to physically injure Scout for suggesting that she take the orders counter-clockwise. Her system only permits a clockwise rotation.
• While taking our order (clockwise, mind you), she suddenly stopped to express concern for the lack of sun-protection on Todd’s head. It was a rather awkward insult, and her delivery ruined any chance of the humor she may have intended.
• After enjoying our meal, she had to seal her place in the blog by yelling at Todd “What in the H3(( are you doing?” Not that the question didn’t need asking…

Regardless, the food was outstanding (although I’m glad I didn’t have to eat any of the raw oysters), and we’ll certainly be back.

The conversation mainly centered around Mo and Barkley (the Garlington’s dog), however, we did find a little time to make fun of Dad’s occasional arm spasms. We haven’t really explained this on the blog yet, but it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. His first spasm of note happened after he got a great big coffee from Starbucks. He got back in his car, and all of the sudden his right arm (coincidentally the one holding the coffee) went nuts. Within a second both he and his car were completely covered with coffee. I was lucky enough to witness one such event this past Christmas. It involved a Santa mug and some iced coffee. One minute, we’re all standing on the porch having a good conversation, and the next I hear a “Whoa” and look over to see dad with his right hand all the way inside his Santa mug, and iced coffee all over himself. I still can’t help but laugh out loud when I replay that scene in my head…it was absolutely hilarious.

Anyway, we’re starting a list of jobs that Dad can’t perform because of his lack of limb control. Todd led off with a Surgeon. Kaiden went with Pilot. I’m thinking the obvious Starbucks’ Barista. You have a good one?

We are completing our few weeks of break… I am quite sad to get back into the real world. I just thought that I would put up a picture from today. Bo came in town last night and he took us out today on the boat. It was alot of fun. Right now he is cooking us dinner. What a great Big Brother. Here is us on the boat from this afternoon. I will put more pictures up later and write more about these past few weeks.

What an odd weekend it was. As you may know, I spent all last week in Atlanta prepping for, and working the Men’s SEC Basketball Tourney. Me and my counterpart at UGA were in charge of operating the courtside LED tables. As luck would have it, I was actually back in Auburn on Friday night when the tornado hit the Georgia Dome (it was our last home gymnastics meet of the year). As soon as I left the Coliseum, Mike (from UGA) called me and asked if I could go ahead and head back up to Atlanta to give him a hand.

I didn’t get up there until about midnight, and by then they had decided to postpone the last game until Saturday. So, around 1am, me and Mike walked around the CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park. I couldn’t believe it. It’s only by the grace of God that there weren’t hundreds of people killed. For one thing, when the tornado hit, the Mississippi State game was in overtime. Had Mykal Riley not made the 3-pointer to force the game into OT, you’d have over 10,000 people standing outside of the Dome at that exact moment.

This was a picture I took on Friday night. On Saturday, I saw Jim Cantore doing a live shot on the Weather Channel standing in the exact same spot. Crazy.

It was eerie to be walking around so much destruction. We walked through the lobby of the Omni Hotel, and the janitor was wiping up blood stains off of the nice tile floor. It was nuts. I’m also amazed that there were no major injuries reported inside the dome itself. One of the guys who works for me said that a bolt fell from the top of the dome, and landed on the seat beside him. Those things could kill a fella. Here’s a shot I took from inside the dome on Saturday.

Since they moved all of the games to Georgia Tech, I ended up with Saturday and Sunday off. I was able to hang out with Thomas & Leah on Saturday, and watched the UGA game Sat. night at Thomas’s place. And since I was still in town, it just so happened that I made it to Tech on Sunday to watch Georgia win the SEC title. Who would have guessed that one? As soon as I got there, I found out that they were handing out tickets at the gate, so I called Thomas & Leah, and they came out as well. It was nice to be able to take off my credential and just be a fan for once…

Anyway…I’m busy this week getting ready for Auburn’s spring football game. I may try and visit Anna for a little bit down in Gulf Shores though. Hope y’all are having a great week!

O My Gosh, Words just can’t explain how much fun the past 4 days have been. I have been in Hilton Head at the Van Dee Mer Tennis Complex helping out with the Tennis portion of the Special Olympics. There were about 100 athletes from 12 different states competing. There were around the same amount of JSU Students there helping. All the athletes competed in a singles match against each other and then each athlete was paired up with a JSU student and they were doubles partners.  So, I was paired up with a girl named Jen Myers from North Carolina. She was a really good player. She came determined that she was going home with the Gold! We pulled it out and she went home with 2 Gold Metals. One from singles and one from doubles. I was so proud of her.

This week I have so many funny stories and many memories. I wish I could tell you about all of the players. Just to give you a little bit of a better understanding of what this week has been like, Janele came up to me in the middle of the week and said “I feel like I am living in the movie, The Ringer!” It is so true! As I type this right now I am thinking of all the memories and I am seriously laughing out loud! These athletes are great! I had so much fun getting to know them. I wish that everyone could go and experience what I have experienced the past few days. I have some videos and many pictures, but I will have to tell you more later.

This is a picture of me and my partner Jen after we completed our doubles match.

And here is the the picture where we are receiving our medals!