Maiden Voyage

This past week my husband took vacation days off work to spend time with us, me and him alone and to go camping.  Our maiden voyage of the USS "G" camper.  

Monday started with excited packing of the camper while Mr. G did  tests on all of the electrical systems, camper brakes and hook ups.  After 45 minutes of working on things, he got it all hooked together, showered and finished gathering the jeans he wanted to take (I didn't know which ones were his preference, so he told me to not worry about it.)  I got the kids, dogs and everything else ready to go and in the vehicle waiting for Mr. G who wanted to clean up before we left.  

We went through Smethport, Port Allegheny, Roulette and Coudersport to our destination. We went up and down some pretty big inclines until we arrived at Potter County Family Campground.  This campground is at the Allegheny Summit at 2,424 ft above sea level.  I know it isn't the Rocky Mountains by any stretch of the imagination, but it is still absolutely beautiful!  

This was our campsite once my beloved parked the camper.  We got everything situated and ready for good times.  We got in to the vehicle to go get something, Mr. G put his foot in the brake and the pedal went all the way to the floor.  We didn't have any brakes!!!!  We got out and looked on the ground in front of the vehicle thinking it was radiator fluid (that it had a hole in it), but it wasn't.  Brake fluid had sprayed everywhere!

Here is Mr. G beginning to take everything apart to look inside where he found a bigger problem than he would have liked, but so very thankful that it decided to not burst until we backed the camper in to the space.  God is so good!  He answered our prayers for safe journeys!

Mr. Frustrated at the moment.  It was definitely NOT in his plan to work on the brakes during his mini vacation!  Whew!  

BUT!!!  

We had friends who lived close by who helped us through all this predicament.  What a blessing Lisa and Dale were to us!  We'd planned to have them over for s'mores and fun that evening, then off to their house for more fun the following day, so we just altered things a little.

The kids and I made hot dogs over the fire.

Beautiful daughter making hot dogs.

Daddy...diligently working on figuring out the problem.

(As it turns out, the brake line that went clear underneath a few things had ruptured.  The next day he ended up replacing it with regular brake hose and it worked well.  God was so gracious to us!  We didn't have cell phone service, it was raining, so Dale come up to get us, then went with Mr. G to get parts for the vehicle, work on the brakes, then came back to their house.  What a wonderful answer to prayer!  I'd prayed for them to be done before 5PM and they pulled in to the driveway around 4:10!!!)

Oldest son, DA doing what he likes to best when camping--roasting hot dogs.  

All but 2 of the kids walking/running/hiking around.

Lisa and the other missing 2 children from the picture above.

He was so excited about getting to go through this tube!  Such cuteness!

Lisa's husband, Dale and their beautiful daughter working on her crossed stitch.

Lisa's 2 oldest boys, then my youngest son JL on the right.

Another of Lisa's beautiful daughters...blurry, but that's ok.  She doesn't like getting her picture taken.

My daughter, HJ, making moose ears behind Dale.  Must be a fun thing to do, huh?!  LOL

More horsing around.  

Watching everyone play computer games while it rained.  I tried snapping this picture just a few seconds before when Lisa's youngest boy was sitting on JL's lap snuggling while they watched, but he hopped down really quick!  

The men got back, Mr. G showered and they both got something to eat.  Mr. G fell asleep in the recliner--something I'm sure he thought he'd NEVER do with 10 children playing around him!  LOL

After he woke we had Lisa's wonderful Split Pea Soup, we brought pasta salad and my daughter made No Bake Coconut Macaroon Bars that fell apart, so we sprinkled it over some ice cream.  Darn!  LOL

We walked around while the kids rode bikes and generally had a blast playing since the rain cleared up.  After returning we visited on the porch a little while until the kids returned from riding so we could go sing.

What a wonderful time we had inside having a wonderful hymn sing, praising God for His goodness toward each one of us.  

After we were done singing, we needed to head out because it was getting late.

This morning, my beloved told me that he was going to take me to a yarn shop in Coudersport.

Just so we could look at all the beautiful yarns and crafty things they had to offer.

We waited until opening time, but no one came to open the door.  *sniff*  *sniff*  I guess we'll have to go back some time?!

Yes, this is what my hair looks like after the heat and humidity rises & camping!  LOL   But, sitting next to my beloved was wonderful nonetheless.

Handsome young man.

One picture and it really shows their personalities!

We love old buildings and architecture.

We love quaint old towns!

So here we are, home at last.   Dinner has been consumed, laundry is going and we're relaxing and beginning to think of our next camping trip.  It was a lovely trip, in spite of the brake issues.  God was gracious and kind walking with us each step of the way.  

We were so blessed! 

Graduation

Although I do not have a graduate this year, I will have one next year.  This year, however, as a "Junior Mom", it is our privilege to serve the graduating seniors and their families for the graduation reception.  This is our first year of ever being a part of or taking part in graduation.  I don't know the schedule of events during the ceremony because I've never been to a graduation.  All that said, I'm greatly relying on a dear lady from our home school group whose son is graduating this year.  She's given me tips, hints and suggestions from her experience last year to help.  What a blessing!

With all of this graduation reception preparation, it is thrusting my mind and thoughts, whether I like it or not--on the inevitability of my oldest son's graduation next year.  I didn't want to think about it just yet, although we've worked toward that goal for years.  Right now I feel as if I'm in the thick of the school days' lessons up to my eyeballs to just keep things moving along.  How can it be that in just one year I will have a graduate myself?

It is a bittersweet realization.  It seems so very close, but yet so very far away still.  But, in the blink of an eye, it will be done.   Then he will be off to college for his first year.  Then it will be my daughter's turn, and my youngest.  I'm thankful for this time with my children.  What a blessing from God!  In the same token, with each step, the bittersweetness fills me.

I remember when...


Now the thoughts, preparations, and plans for the next season of our lives not just begin--but continue with greater clarity of mind, knowing the target for our arrows is for the glory of God.

Disjointed Post with Pictures

Just the beginning of his seasonal trimming.  He's happy to get his hair cut.  LOL

This is my concerned Mom face....referring to the next picture....

He's looking up wild boar hunting for his birthday this year.

Rustie's "flat top"  

HJ decided to french braid my hair this morning, so I asked her to drape it.  She took it a little further with tucking it and adding a flower.  =0)

Happy doggie.  I know he doesn't look like it in these pictures, but without all the hair he's much happier in the summer time.  

He looks like a different dog with just his undercoat showing.  He's half husky, so the color you see during the winter that has grown back is much darker.   He really is happy about his hair trimmings.  Honest!  LOL  This is the face he makes when someone is scratching his back.  LOL  

As of Late...

Proverbs 1:2-9  

"To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight,  (3)  to receive instruction in wise dealing, in righteousness, justice, and equity;  (4)  to give prudence to the simple, knowledge and discretion to the youth--  (5)  Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance,  (6)  to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles.  (7)  The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.  (8)  Hear, my son, your father's instruction, and forsake not your mother's teaching,  (9)  for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck."

I love to learn. My learning since college has taken such unforeseen twists and turns and I've ended up teaching knitting and crocheting to some young ladies the past 2 years.  What a lovely time I've had!  

Job 28:28  

And he said to man, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.'"

I've learned so very much in college, but honestly, I've learned more useful true to life skills by studying books, reading articles, and watching videos to learn what I wanted to know.   I enjoyed college, but I truly was "forced" in to taking classes with professors I did not like.  When the only professor available is that "one" professor, and you want to graduate at a certain time, you have to do what you have to do.  I took the class and received a B by just barely getting by, but only because I had to.  No, I did not work to the best of my ability, I shamefully admit.  However, the way around dealing with professors who do not have one's own interest at heart is to attempt something else.

I've found that self directed education is a wonderful tool.  If you've seen the book list along the left side of my blog, you'll see that there is a huge list of books with a variety of topics ranging from gardening to education and marriage to spiritual growth.  On my life's path, these are topics that have come to my attention that I need to study.  It is only with conviction of heart and soul that I currently study the topics along the side.  Once things become needful, it's time to gain knowledge and understanding. 

Proverbs 3:5-6  

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  (6)  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

I've looked in to returning to college to finish my degree.  I've gathered my transcripts, searched out reciprocal teaching laws for the state certifications, searched out costs of colleges in Georgia, Liberty University for online courses as well as a local University.  I've prayed and sought out counsel from my dear husband.  Now I'm letting it be for a while.  If the Lord so desires for me to finish my degree, then He will make it abundantly clear, providing for the way.  If not, then I will take that as a closed door and that the Lord has something else in store for me.  

Plans for my husband's retirement are in full swing and finishing my degree is but a small part, if the Lord so desires.  If it isn't His will, then he will open a door to go a different direction.  It's always His way of doing things, I've found.  His way always turns out to be the best way.  The hardest part is the waiting.

In reading the most recent Above Rubies Magazine, I found an article titled "Success Without College" that looked intriguing.  There is a book recommendation called Chucking College by Melanie Ellison.  I'm getting ready to read the excerpt and discuss it's merits with my hubby.  I haven't read the whole article yet, but I will read it this evening.  If you've read it already, please feel free to post your thoughts in the comments! 

New Braces!

And so we enter the world of braces! 

DA is the first, so we'll see what happens with the other two children.  We've decided to wait on braces for all of them until each of them have their wisdom teeth extracted.  DA had impacted wisdom teeth, so in December it was time to get those removed and the next step was braces.

Today we discovered that he will "only" spend ONE Christmas not able to eat Christmas candy.  His reply, "It's alright!  I'd rather have straight teeth!"  LOL

Peace and Quiet

After a long, busy, rainy, frustrating day, I'm in my bed next to my sleepy hubby.  I have the radio playing our favorite station   (click the link and listen) and all is quiet.  

The dishes have been done, for the most part--except the hot casserole dish still on the stove.  It can wait until tomorrow.  The stove, counters and table have been wiped and the clean dishes put away.  These are the children's chores each meal time.  It continues in a seemingly never ending round.  One would figure that since it is predictable, there wouldn't be much fuss.  It's expected, so what's the big deal?  Well, amazingly it is a big deal.  I hear things like, "Why am I always the first one everyone looks at when it's time to get the kitchen chores done?"  To which I usually reply, "Because everything hinges on whether or not the clean dishes are put away."  They are finding that their jobs are integral to the greater running of the household.  Everyone is important.  

Most of the time there is peace, some teasing, laughter and play.  Other times there are melt downs where Mom or Dad have to step in and nip attitudes in the bud.  I'm sure, dear readers, things are much the same in your homes.  

More recently, however, our home has taken on a challenging time where one of our children is showing increasingly more depression, anxiety, rigidity, judgement on everyone around them and the world, stoicism, loosing track of time, staring off in to space for a time instead of doing school work, disappearing to the basement to just sit and mull over the ills of the world and the list continues.  

These idiosyncrasies have only surfaced more since my husband was saved in December.  We are dumbfounded and lost at times.  This truly has thrown us and our other two children in to a tailspin wondering where the other child gets these "off the wall" hurtful thoughts in response to the harmless banter between them, or something this child has mulled over from 2+ years ago.  Forgiveness is a foreign concept, mercy and grace as well.

This young person has been counseling with our pastor, but we've become keenly aware that we need to take said child's treatment to another level.  (No judgement please)  We need a diagnosis so we know how to better help this young person.  

If we come to your mind, would you please shoot a couple prayers up on our behalf?  We've had an impression that something like this was there all along, but the incidents now are too frequent to shake them off as coincidence any longer.  

Needless to say, sitting here in my bed listening to praise music is just the kind of peace that this tired Momma needs for the sake of quieting my soul.  Today has been busy and stressful.  Tomorrow looks to be the same, but in a different way.  

With all of this we continually praise the Lord!

He gives us more than "WE" can handle 

just so we can lean in to Him MORE!  

Warmer Weather

I'm loving the warmer weather as of late.  The flowers are starting to come up and my hostas are beginning to make their appearance.  I have plans to thin them out, putting half of them on the opposite side of the back porch.  We took out barn stones and these evergreen bushes a couple years ago and after amending the soil and trying to decide what to do with the area, decided to put the hostas there.

The picture above shows the area, sort of, behind the two chairs to the left.  My bee balm is already there, but it's time to add more plants.  :)

In the front yard, plans are continuing for our new sidewalk.  We need to get a load of gravel to line the bottom, then fill in the sides with the forms, then start mixing concrete.  After the sidewalk is in, we'll add more top soil, then start planting some other perennials.  I'd love to line the sidewalk with Spring flowers and lavender.  I'm quite fond of lots of perennial flowers.

My daughter has asked to plant some flowers this year as well.  She is doing marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, and daisies.   I'm not sure where we'll put those this year, but we'll find a place. :0)

At some point this summer, we plan to replace the fascia and repaint the trim on our house.  It's a slow process, but it will be done nonetheless.

It has also come to my attention that we need to rethink watering the garden and how we do it.  When our well went dry, we needed to feed a hose through the laundry room window to attach it to the spigot for the washing machine.  This year, I'm not sure what my husband will decide to do, but installing a spigot on the outside of the house under the laundry room window would be a very welcome idea.  

I'd love to have all of this stuff done by the end of July.  That way when canning season comes around, we can concentrate our efforts on that instead of home improvement projects.  

This morning, though--I think I'm going to get my work clothes on and go do some raking after I have my yogurt.  The temperature is at 50 Degrees right now and the sun is shining.  What a perfect time to get some raking done!  :0)  I'd venture to say some prayer time while outside is a given.

Beginning Preparations

God has such a sense of humor with His creation!  Since we purchased a "new to us" Suburban, it has a reflective quality around the bottom of it and a robin has found it very bothersome!  How dare that other robin show itself like that!  So, it pecks, poops and flutters all over the reflective area.  It gives Mr. G and I quite a chuckle.  We really don't mind because quite honestly, the robin will eventually "get a clue" and go away to do their own thing, eat worms, build a nest and get on with it's life.  

Our youngest son, however, thinks of things a bit differently.   He was trying to scare it off by shooting his Air Soft gun in the air.  Not hitting the bird, but just trying to scare it off.  After trying to convince him that the robin would find it a futile pursuit--trying to fight the robin in the reflection--he/she would leave and get on with their life, he wasn't convinced.  He was more bothered by the poop on the running boards and the bird pecking at the vehicle than just letting the robin decide for itself that the robin in the reflection wasn't so bothersome after all. 

That was yesterday.

Today, I sent my oldest out to see if he could video tape the robin.  The above video is what the robin has been doing.  However, today has been a bit different.  The robin is taking more time away from the vehicle, turning away from the robin in the reflection and just beginning to settle down and accept the reflection.

(seems that each of us could do that, huh?)

...not waxing philosophic--just glean what you will...

Anyway, all of this hilarity has occurred throughout our daily preparations for our first 

camping trip in 8 years.  

There's more, believe me!  

...this was just one instance of hilariousness...

Blessings--New Pictures Added

Crocuses popping up through the leaves.

We've been going through some very roller coaster like times lately, so it helps to focus on the blessings.

For those of you who do not know, we had a house fire that started in our basement in March of 2005. 

This is what our basement looked like. 

God took this mess and not only blessed us through it, but also the lady who bought our house.  Everything was fixed up nicely for her with a new furnace, hot water heater, electrical, duct work and everything was painted fresh for her.

Our prayers were answered!  

During that time, we'd lived in a campground in a camper so that our children would have room to ride their bikes and play.

We started out in an 18 foot camper with 3 kids and 2 dogs.  Yes, things were cramped!  We traded up to a 35 foot 5th wheel and spent 4 more months in it.  Needless to say, we were ready to move in to our house, which seemed so roomy and spacious when we first moved in.  

During the past 8 years my husband has had no desire whatsoever to do any more camping.  He didn't even want to consider a camper unless it was a drive-able Winnebago type RV.  He was so very disgusted with the thought of camping that we just stayed in motels whenever we went somewhere and didn't have friends to stay with.

Last year when we went to the end of the school year field trip to Columbus Zoo and the Creation Museum, we stayed in motels.  Plus we left our dogs behind with some good friends.  He wasn't too thrilled with doing that, but they were left in good hands. (He's attached to our doggies. )  Couple that with the cost of the motels and he was newly convinced that we probably should consider a camper.

We started looking, but not too seriously.  We just wanted to check prices and see what we needed to start saving for.  We realize that both of our parents are getting up in years and we needed to go see them, even if they did live thousands of miles away.  The best way for us to do that was to drive and camp.  

The Lord had His hand in this so much so that we just could not believe it!

About a month or two ago, a friend from church approached my husband about a camper.

"Huh?!" said my husband.  "Have you been talking to my wife?"  Our friend said, "No, should I?"  And the Lord worked out the details through my husband who didn't want to go camping for 8 long years.

I will say that the Lord works in mysterious ways.  His ways are not our ways, so when this camper was literally dropped in our laps, we decided to accept it without question, even though we didn't have a good vehicle to tow it with, yet.  We figured if the Lord wanted to give us a camper that He would provide the good quality vehicle to tow it with where ever we needed to go.

What an undeserved blessing this is for us!  The kids are smiling at the thought of making more memories, going camping, and enjoying our family.

When our friends delivered it, I was gasping because I didn't realize it was so HUGE!

The front of the camper complete with working stove, oven, microwave and full size camper refrigerator.

To the right is the shower and just below, the potty.  (I know...something you always wanted to know.)  LOL

Turning around looking toward the back of the camper--behind me is the table.  The first closet to the right is a pantry or linen closet, then there are clothes closets.  To the right is the bathroom and, of course, the bedroom in the back.

The bedroom, of course.  We bought ourselves a new mattress, so our old mattress went out to the camper.  

God bought us a camper.  It was only done through Him.  Just about everything we'd been looking for in a camper was given to us.  Isn't that just like God?  :0)

God is so good!

What an awesome blessing!

Good Days

1 Peter 3:10-11  

"For Whoever desires to love life and see good days, 

let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;  

(11)  let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it."

Amen!