Vacation 2008 - Last Post

Friday (08-08-08) was the last day we did something special for our vacation. We used the Olympics as a starting theme and built up from there. We started by taking our girls to see Kung Fu Panda at the cheap theater. Since the Olympics were to be held in China.

Then we came home and had Wii Olympics for our girls. This was a lot of fun to watch them compete with each other. We even printed up medals for them and awarded them for each sport. We had competitions in bowling, baseball, tennis and golf. Here are the girls with their "hardware."

Abby was a little tired from all the excitement.

We picked up Chinese food for dinner. And watched part of the opening ceremonies. It was really neat to see the smaller countries' uniforms, they were actually original. We put the girls to bed about 10:00 pm (two hours after their bed time). I kept Richard up to watch the United States walk in. I was very disappointed with the uniforms and that the cameras spent most of their time on Kobe Bryant. I would have rather have seen some of the lesser known athletes. We were specifically watching for Allyson Felix, but later found out she did not participate that night. She was in another part of China preparing for her race. 

All in all it was a great day to make good memories with our daughters.

I forgot to post my favorite camp picture. It is of my amazing husband. 

Thank you for stopping by!

A Happy Return

By God's grace last night I found out that one of my favorite blogs is back up and open to the public. You'll remember I wrote about Jewels at Eyes of Wonder back in January. She was one of the inspirations for starting this blog as a way of documenting our journey in life as we serve God.
If you would like to just relax and see peace personified stop by Eyes of Wonder and see what is happening in Jewels world.

Happy Birthday Gracie Loo Hoo!!

Today is our sweet friend's birthday. Grace is an amazing young woman who loves the Lord. She is so talented. She writes songs, plays the guitar and sings. Today is her special day. Unfortunately, we are unable to see her today as she just moved out of state last week to go to school. My girls had the hardest time saying good bye to her. Driving home was so sad listening to the sniffling from the back seat.

Bekah, Grace, Peter, Becky, Ingrid and Rachel

Grace and Jewels singing.

Girl sandwich with chocolaty Nathaniel.

Grace and her family at Rachel's graduation.

Grace and Jewels leading music at Awana.

*Update- We just tried to call Gracie to say Happy birthday, but she is so loved that her voice mail box is full.

Camping 2008

Around the campfire. Notice the train coming from the left.

As I was transferring pictures from my camera to computer today I realized I had not finished posting about our vacation this year.
Our vacation in a nutshell was very much God's will not our plans. Many of the things we planned on doing just did not happen. As I reflected on it later I realized God kept us home to rest up for the upcoming busy season.
One detour was our week of camping. We left for the campground on Monday morning and returned home on Tuesday evening. We were supposed to spend a week there. Richard and Rebekah had the stomach flu and Hannah had Fifths Disease. We decided Tuesday evening we better head home, Richard was in pain, Bekah was just miserable and Hannah could not be in the sun. We told the girls we were leaving and they all cried, but I am happy they all got on board to tear down camp.
By God's grace I took 51 pictures in the short time that we were there. Here are some of the highlights.

The train going by overhead. These trains are so quiet.

Making smores!

Our campfire right before we put it out. Notice the pretty heart shape.

VBS

Well, we are almost done with our VBS this year. It has been a wonderful time of serving along with other brothers and sisters in the Lord. I am always amazed at what God uses to encourage me, this year as well as last year God has used those serving to truly encourage me. I watch as people who are serving together are also getting to know each other better. By serving in VBS you are often put with people who are not in your normal circle of friends. I am encouraged as I watch our church grow deeper in their relationships with each other and also with God. Some of the standouts have been:

• Our director is a beautiful single woman, who is serving the children of our church and neighborhood. This is an amazing picture of Christian love and sacrifice for me.

• One of our kitchen workers is not saved, but is faithfully coming to serve dinner to our workers and prepare the snacks. Tonight, she listened to the teacher teach his lesson to her first and encouraged him as he went out to share his lesson with the children. I am praying for her salvation this week. I must add this woman just found out her cancer has returned and she is facing chemo again.

• One of our workers shared with me tonight, "This is so fun," even though she was feeling sick all night.

• My youngest daughter's first words this morning were, "Today is penny day!" We collected pennies for a local Navigators missionary to UCI today. The boys won.

• My oldest daughter has taught the young children twice this week. Tonight, she was able to keep their attention! She spent over three hours preparing pictures to show the children for their lesson about Noah.

• Most of our workers have full-time jobs, but they continue to come and serve even though they are exhausted.

• We have had many children come from the neighborhood. Also, two of them accepted the Lord.

What a wonderful week we have had. God is so gracious to give us sweet Christian fellowship as we serve Him.

I will post some of the 250+ pictures tomorrow. I need to go to sleep now.

4th Day of Vacation

Today was a quiet day for us, we didn't do a day trip. We hung around the house and even took a nap (yeah!!!). In the afternoon we ran some errands and came home so I could cook dinner. After dinner the girls cleaned up and now I am blogging. I am planning to go to bed early. Here are the only two pictures I took today:

Bekah and Hannah doing the dishes.

Rachel sweeping under the table.

Hopefully, we will do something a little more exciting tomorrow.

Where is the Book?

Today I received and email from Amazon announcing the EPCA Christian Book Awards: 2008 winners. What has happened to Christians when our book of the year is an audio drama. 

Now I like to listen to books or dramas (Odyssey or Chronicles of Narnia) while we drive, but this is the "BEST" Christian book? Are we that lazy that we don't want to pick up God's Word and read His Words to us?

I just don't get it. There are many great Christian books out there that will challenge us and encourage us in our love and devotion for our Lord and Savior. Even more troubling to me is the youth and children's division winner.

Here is the description of this book:

Following up her best-selling editions of TeenVirtue and TeenVirtue 2, Vicki Courtney's TeenVirtue Confidential takes an even more interactive direction than before by offering God-focused answers to real questions sent in from teenage girls. The main topics here are: The Future, Guys, Body Development and Sex, and Faith.

Some featured articles in this bright and fun magazine-styled book series include "Your Top 10 Questions for Guys . . . and Their Answers," "Your #1 Question for God," ""Words of Wisdom from College Women," "Quiz: Are You a Cell-Mannered Girl?," and "Sex Questions . . . We Have the Answers."

Vicki Courtney is a greatly trusted name among Christian moms, and TeenVirtue Confidential is a safe and cool pick for their precious daughters.

Here is my advice (it's free!):

• Read the Bible to your children.

• Give your children a Bible to read when they are able to do so.

• Ask your children questions about the Bible.

• Do not dumb the Bible down for them.

• Study the Bible yourself, we will pass on our excitement to our children.

• Have great godly books in your house for yourself and your children.

Warning Against Apostasy

11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

                     Hebrews 5:11-14