Way to long!

Ok, it has been way to long since I have posted to my blog and boy have we been busy.

The last week of March, we went to California and saw some of my family.  It was such a fun trip!  We drove to Southern CA and then we hit the ground running.  We went to the Cabrillo Beach Aquarium and learned about grunnion, then at 10pm we went out to the beach to see the grunnion run.  They come up on the beach, during a full moon and lay their eggs, it is really cool.  We went to some amazing tide pools in San Pedro.  We drove over Portuguese bend.  We went to Pointe Vincente to go whale watching and have a picnic.  We went to the movies to see Horton Hears a Who.  We went to the Griffith Park Observatory and looked through the telescopes and saw Mars and Saturn.  We went on a whale watching boat (unfortunately we didn't see any whales, but we had a blast!).  Then it was time to go home.  We had a BLAST!  The kids learned a lot of things and had so much fun doing it.  

Weekend

I had a great weekend, I had the privilege of being a host for The Revolve Tour.  It is the teen girl version of Women of Faith.  What an amazing weekend it was.  I had a blast!

While I was there I got to meet Natalie Grant, KJ 52, Hawk Nelson, Ayiesha Woods, Brie Reed and Chad Eastam and a host of other amazing people.  These people spent a lot of energy opening up their hearts, and lives and sharing their stories with these teenage girls.  They shared their struggles and heartaches and pain and most important they shared the hope they received through Christ and how He worked through each situation for their good.  Each one has an amazing story to share and I am sure that every girl heard something that ministered to them through the stories.  God was there and it was an amazing weekend!  

One of the highlights for me was meeting Sandi Patty.  I have admired her for a long time.  I feel she has an amazing talent, God has used her in incredible ways, she has an amazing voice!  It was such an honor to meet her!

I hope to be able to attend next year and serve again.  I enjoyed myself so much!

123 Meme

Ok, so my friend Tanya "tagged" me.  

So here is what I am supposed to do: 

The rules are... "simple".

• Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No Cheating!
  
• Find Page 123.
• Find the first 5 sentences.
• Post the next 3 sentences.
• Tag 5 people.

so, I looked around and at first glance found no books.  On my coffee table I found a book of Ethan's, a sports book but alas there was only 117 pages, so I went to my laptop bag and found the book I am trying to read called: "Rising from the Ashes  Rethinking Church"

So, page 123 sentences 6,7 &8 are:  

I think it's really important, that if we're going to say that what unites us is our common prayer, then we have to be faithful to the authorized text.  I don't think we can have it both ways.  One of the things we've said is we allow a wide spectrum of thoughts because we've not a confessional church.  

So, I guess I have to "tag" someone else......

Rachael Shelton

Danica Justice

I am not sure who else reads my family blog, so I guess that is all I will put...

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Ethan turned 8 today.  It's so hard to believe that he is 8 already.  It just seems like yesterday he was a baby learning to walk......

We had a pretty fun day.  We started with church, then he went to his best friend Kaden's house for a few hours and then home for a "Super Bowl/Birthday party" with friends.  

Here are a few pictures of him.........

Christmas Day

Ok, we had such a fun day.  We woke up to beautiful snow falling.  It continued to snow all day long.  I think we ended up with 8".

We started out the morning with opening our stockings, it was fun.  Even Shadow & Fiona had something in their stockings.  

Before we opened our gifts we called my Aunt & Uncle, as a kid one of the memories that sticks out is Uncle Dick reading the Christmas story before we opened presents.  We couldn't be together so we did the next best thing, we called and put them on speaker phone.  Uncle Dick read the Christmas story from Luke while we all cuddled together and listened.  It meant so much to me to share this childhood memory of mine with my kids.  

Next we passed out packages and began to open.  Emily & Ethan were so excited, they had so much fun and were so appreciative of every gift they received.  They both got new Bibles and devotion books and they loved their Bibles.  The Heelies were a big hit to!  They loved the telescope too!  (now if we would have a clear night that wasn't freezing to go check out the stars).  Ethan noticed that there weren't any gifts from mom and dad, Ted pulled out some more presents from the closet and they opened a few more.  They were so excited when they discovered their new game system!  

We had a wonderful lunch of Prime Rib, corn casarolle, layered salad, crescent rolls.  It was yummy!

We spent the rest of the day playing games and laughing!  It was awesome!

Ted's brother and his family were supposed to come over, but felt the roads weren't safe so they stayed home.  

Our very good friends Paul, Lori, Ryan & Jordyn drove up from Springfield, CO and made it safe.  We spent the rest of the evening laughing, playing & talking!  

What a great day we had!

Here are some pictures from our fun day!

Merry Christmas

What  a fun week we have had!  

On Christmas Eve we had 2 services at church and then went to friends house to eat dinner, play games and laugh!  We had so much fun!  The pictures above were taken on christmas Eve at our friends house.  

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Well, I love Christmas, I love to put up lights, the tree and all my decorations.  I really love snowmen.  I have a lot of them around the house.  The kids started to count and when they got to about 60, decided that they would stop.  They hadn't counted any ornaments.  We had so much fun decorating the tree.  I unpacked the ornaments and the kids put them on the tree. 

It was so much fun to unpack our ornaments.  Every year we get new ornaments, this year we bought a flute and a guitar (those are the instruments Emily & Ethan have started to play).    

As I put out different decorations, I was reminded of memories, from when I was a little girl, of my very special Grammie, things that she made and had in her apartment, and things that we have gotten since we were married and had children.  

 

The weather cooperated and Ted was able to get the lights on the house up and the other yard decorations.  

I love to watch White Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street and The Santa Clause.  I have watched each of them already.  

I have way to much shopping to do still, but I am trying to rest and enjoy the season.