Weekend Fun

This weekend was our Annual Family Picnic plus a welcome home party for my cousin, Chris, who just got back from a 15 month deployment. Any bystander would find us standing around talking, eating lots of food, playing horseshoes, or drooling over Chris' new corvette! Fun times!

Update on Travis

Apparently four vertebrae in the lumbar region were broken. They took him into surgery around 8:00 pm last night to do an eight vertebrae fusion. The surgery was successful and he continues to do well. Praise the Lord, he does have some movement in both legs!

Thank you for all your prayers. Please continue to keep them before the Father's throne.

Also, they have asked that no one calls or visits them right now.

Prayer Request

Some of my reader's know who Travis & Joy are. Well, today a log fell on Travis crushing 3 of his vertebrae. The doctors say that he probably won't walk again. I ask that you join us in prayer for this family. They have a son who is only about 2 years old and Joy is expecting their second child. Please pray for the grace to get through this time, and healing if it be the Lord's will. The doctors have no hope, but God can work miracles.

I hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day as we remember those who laid down their lives for our freedom. May it also be a day to remember the most important sacrifice of all...that of Christ laying down His life for us.

John 15:13 ~ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Garden

We finally got our plants in the ground about a week or so ago. Planting was done on a separate day, and unfortunately the only pictures I have are of the garden after we were done. Since these pictures there are also some tires with potatoes, red & blue! I'll see about getting some pictures of those up soon.

Just Hanging Around

This was alot easier as a child!

New Blog

As some of you may know, Alyssa & I have been learning cake decorating. So far we have made the Sweetheart Banquet cake, Shannon's Birthday cake & will be making the graduation cake. I decided to start a blog solely dedicated to our cake decorating experiences. You'll find it on my sidebar under 'other blogs'. It's called AK creations.

Flute

For those of you who may not have figured out the "Math" post, I'm learning to play the flute. In fact, I'm teaching myself! It will be 3 weeks tomorrow since I've started. I have been borrowing a friends flute, but am happy to announce that I'm the proud owner of a flute as of today! I had the winning bid on a flute on E-bay this afternoon. I'm so excited!

Practicing "Sawmill Creek," which will be posted as soon as it's ready. :)

Happy Holland Happenings!

It's that time again...Holland Happenings. Our town was founded by the Dutch so during the spring there's a weekend dedicated to celebrating. If you happen to be here during such a weekend, you'll find that the traffic is exceptionally crazy on Friday because the streets downtown have been closed in order for booths to be setup. You can spend your Saturday strolling the streets of downtown OH looking at all the various booths, you can try to find a spot to watch the parade and you can go to the carnival if you want.

If you were to follow me around this weekend here's what you would find:

~FRIDAY~

After work, I hurried home to pick up my mom and the few things that I would need for the evening. We then went to go pick up Sandi, managed to park close enough (shh...don't tell anyone I ignored 'closed road' signs...Sherri told me to!) to the Candy Bouquet to pick up not only a candy bouquet but 31 balloons. After stopping at the bank and then Albertsons to pick up a previously ordered cake, we made our way to El Cazador. Hmmm...can you guess what may have been going on? Perhaps a party?! Why, yes! What a good guess! In fact, it was a surprise party for none other than Carolyn in honor of her 30th birthday. Many ladies gathered for the occasion and we had a wonderful time of surprising Carolyn, fellowshipping and giving her the present we all pitched in for...a skydiving trip! Much thanks to Sandi who reminded us that Carolyn's birthday was coming up quickly, Sherri who helped with all the party planning and got the birthday girl to the party, as well as to all who came! The evening was a success!!

~SATURDAY~

I slept in! Then we made our way down town, tried to find a parking spot (which is VERY difficult if you don't want to walk a ways) and then passed out special Holland Happening church invitations. After walking around a bit and visiting a couple booths, Nicki and I went to Albertsons to pick up some stuff for the SPG meeting. We got to Tim & Katie's and I made the best thing in the world...GUACAMOLE! I love guacamole. I could eat it forever. Tim braved the grill and cooked us some brats and then after everyone ate we all went down to the beach and some played while others golfed. It was fun!

My post would not be complete without showing you what our plants look like. We have a jungle growing in our kitchen. We hope to get them transplanted Monday.

Math

PLUS

EQUALS

Family Pics

As a Christmas present to my parents, the 3 of us kids pitched in and had family pictures taken. They've recently been put up on his website. Go here to see them! Go to Gallery and then Family. There are 3...family, parents, kids. Enjoy!

And they're off!

Maggie and I planted our seeds on Saturday and they're already sprouting up! It's been so neat to watch them grow. It seems that just about every time I go look, something new has come up. We've planted green beans, lettuce, carrots, spinach, bell peppers, peas, basil, parsley, rosemary, sunflowers, zinneas and cucumbers. So far, the rosemary, parsley, carrots and bell peppers are the only ones that haven't sprouted. We also got a blueberry bush. We've also adopted Sandi's tomato plants.

This was Saturday, after we planted. (I must confess the gloves were not used...but they will be soon enough.)

Snowboarding

For Andy's birthday, he wanted to go snowboarding. So a couple of Saturday's ago, we headed up to the mountains. I think I did more snowfalling than snowboarding. :) Here are a couple of pics. We couldn't seem to get a picture of all of us without someone's eyes closed. Also, Maggie & I on the ski lift....my favorite part!

Oh...did I mention we got sun burnt? Really bad! I was sportin' the raccoon look for a few days!

Don't Worry...

I'm still here. I've just been very busy. I need to get some pictures together and then I'll have a couple new posts hopefully by tomorrow.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

How does your garden grow?

Well...in case you haven't figured it out, I'm going to start a garden this year. It was one of the things on my list of things to do this year. It hasn't been started yet, but I'm pretty excited about it. We used to have a big garden years ago, but it was so much work (especially when my dad was doing all of the work). This year I've decided to learn gardening and my dad is going to help. Maggie wants to help with it too. Right now we're trying to figure out what we're going to plant. My dad was so nice and built a raised bed for it this weekend. All it needs now is some soil and seeds. I'll be sure to keep you updated on how it's going.

Shall We Gather At the River?

It's too cold for the river, so the baptismal will have to do! :) A few weeks ago I was able to be at the baptism of a lady from the jail ministry! It was so exciting to not only hear of her salvation, but to see her take that next step and get baptized! She is now one of the newest members of BBC where Jersey Mama's dad pastors.

Stuck In My Head

I've had this song in my head today. If I'm going to have a tune constantly running through my head, this is definitely a good one! How often do we really think about the words of the songs we sing? I know I'm guilty of not really taking in what it's talking about. As I read the words to this hymn, I can't help but think how timely it is to have such a song in my head. Our church is about to go through a big change, considering the Lord has called one of our pastors to go and pastor another church (this church was without a pastor). It was a shock when we found out, but peace is found knowing that God knows exactly what He's doing. We'll be fine. Life will continue. And, as this song says, Jesus is constantly abiding. He's always here with us no matter what life brings.

Hebrews 13:5c, "...for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

CONSTANTLY ABIDING

There’s a peace in my heart that the world never gave,

A peace it cannot take away;

Though the trials of life may surround like a cloud,

I’ve a peace that has come here to stay!

Refrain:
Constantly abiding, Jesus is mine;

Constantly abiding, rapture divine;

He never leaves me lonely, whispers, O so kind:

“I will never leave thee,” Jesus is mine.

All the world seemed to sing of a Savior and King,

When peace sweetly came to my heart;

Troubles all fled away and my night turned to day,

Blessèd Jesus, how glorious Thou art!

Refrain

This treasure I have in a temple of clay,

While here on His footstool I roam;

But He’s coming to take me some glorious day,

Over there to my heavenly home!

Refrain

Jon and Kate Plus 8

For those of you who aren't familiar with this show on TLC, I'll briefly explain.

Jon met Kate.

Jon and Kate fell in love.

Jon and Kate wanted a family.

Jon and Kate had twins.

Kate wanted 'just one more'.

Jon and Kate had sextuplets.

This has become my new favorite show. I don't have TLC ;( but I got the first 3 seasons at a great price from Discovery Channel, so needless to say I've had some J&K+8 marathons. When Carolyn and I were housesitting, this is what we would find ourselves doing in the evenings. :) Understandably there's complete chaos in their home, but the kids are just so cute!

Knowing my love for the show, Carolyn bought me their first book MULTIPLE BLES8INGS:Surviving to Thriving with Twins and Sextuplets. This was quickly added to my list of books read. It didn't take me long at all to read it. It was really good. It starts with how they met and then takes you along for the ride through the whole process of having the twins and sextuplets. I was thoroughly impressed with how often she attributed everything to God. She often talked about how it was only because of Him that she made it through each day and how she witnessed Him providing for their every need in ways unimaginable. I would definitely recommend this book. I can't wait for her next book to come out, Eight Little Faces.

On the TLC website you can watch full episodes as well as clips of the show.

It's A Busy Life

Some of you probably kept looking at my last post and said to yourself, "I thought she was going to keep up with her blog?" As my title says, things have been busy and when I have a moments rest I don't want to blog. Also, there were several weeks when all that I did was centered on the Sweetheart Banquet and obviously I couldn't divulge all the secrets about that because who knows whose reading this!

My life since my last blog:

• Trying to get my room back together. We had our carpet replaced in September(?) and my room has still yet to get back to normal. I took on the task of repainting my dresser (with my dad's help). I got a new nightstand that doubles as a filecabinet. It's really nice! And I'm still in the frustrating process of getting a bookshelf from Target. I'll tell that story another time along with pictures once everything is done.
• Sweetheart Banquet - I seem to have misplaced the CD with pictures on it. As soon as I find it or get my hands on some pictures I'll do a post on it.
• Bible Institute - Biblical Discipleship
• My computer at work broke down. That was a real set back. Although it was nice in the long run getting '07 and '09 programs!
• House sitting and watching two dogs that wanted to share their hair with everything I owned. How thoughtful! I'm still finding dog hair on my stuff.
• I turned another year older. Woo hoo! It's kinda weird when you realize that you're the same age your mom was when she was pregnant with you.
• Oh, and I've been working on a wonderful piano piece for our Patch-the-Pirate Club...Look to the Ants. It's 'The Ants Go Marching' plus some new lyrics.

Heard enough excuses? LOL...I sure have.

I've continued working on my book list. You'll see that one more has been added (Before You Meet Prince Charming). That was a really good book! I highly recommend it to any single young ladies.

Long Time Coming

Back in June I promised pictures from our white water rafting trip. Here they are!

Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye?

This is the title of book #2. I can't remember exactly when I started it. I've been reading it off and on for a while now, but I finally finished it tonight. I probably won't blog about every book I read, but considering the title of this one I think it's a good idea. :0)
Briefly...this book talks about the life of a single woman. Singleness is a gift that God gives to us, just as marriage is. It talks about how we should use our gift of singleness in not only different aspects of our own lives, but how we can minister to others as well. The "Proverbs 31 Woman" is referred to quite a bit. All in all, it was good. Probably one of those books you need to read at least a couple of times to get the most out of it.

El Libro Numero Uno (Book Number One)

Did I say that right? It's been so long. :) Even though I'm not married, this (The 5 Love Languages) was a really good read. A special thanks Carolyn for buying it for me for Christmas! So that's my first book on my list. I'm currently in the middle/at the end of several books! Some of which were started quite some time ago! So, I'm trying to finish them along with some new reads.
One more thing...when I read a new book, I'll try to remember to make it a link to Amazon or some other place so you can see it or even purchase it for yourself. I know, I know...so thoughtful of me. :0)

New Year

I'm not one to make New Years Resolutions, but this year I made a list of things that I'd like to accomplish. I haven't decided as to whether or not I'll put a list up of everything, but I'll post about most if not all of them as I see things coming to fruition. One of the things I want to do is to read more. I put up a list on the side so you can see what books I've read in the year 2009.

Let's give this another try!

Wow! It's been along time since I've blogged. I have been contemplating for quite some time as to whether or not to pick it up again. I've decided that I'm going to give it another shot. I'm going to try to keep you up to date with what's going on in my life. Warning: It's nothing terribly exciting as of right now! ;0)