Hume Lake

We are back from our weekend and though it had it's challenges getting up there it was well worth it as usual. It's funny how you don't see most of the people except once a year and you just pick right back up from the last conference. Something about being in a group of men and women who totally relate to your life style and the challenges it brings to your marriage and your family really ministers to me. When we first got married I never realized how important this conference would be to me year after year after year. I LOVE that the guys work hard and then we all get together and play hard for the weekend.The weather was AMAZING! Cold but clear and beautiful. Dan got up every morning at 6am and ran around the lake, me? I slept in. :) Our speaker was amazing and as he taught on Romans 8:28 (you've never head it like this guy taught it!) we were reminded that there are no bad circumstances and then we took an oath not to complain........EVER about ANYTHING!
He reminded us that God's sole purpose in our lives is to mold us into his image. You can be molded like clay (turned on the wheel and formed by the potter's hands) or you can be formed like Iron (put through heat and beaten) He,hee! I don't know about you but I prefer the clay scenario! ;) Ken also said that we should give "thanks" in EVERY circumstance. Now hear me in this I didn't say "thankful" and nowhere in the bible does it say to be thankful but to give thanks is entirely different. God knows that I am not thankful for my illness but do I thank him for the circumstance I am in? Absolutely! If I wasn't in this circumstance at this time at this place I could not be molded into the image of Christ the way he needs me to be. Is your marriage hard and mostly up hill? Give thanks because that is what God is going to use to mold you closer to his image. God is more concerned about my holiness than my comfort level.

One of the things that he said was,"Complaining is going to the dark room to develop our negatives." Think about that one for a minute. Complaining wants someone else to fix it and crying out to God is wanting God to pull us out of the hole.


Last thing I will share that I took away from this weekend is that when Ken pointed out that maturity in Christ is NOT the ability to do allot of things it's the ability to rest in Christ. I must say that got a huge AMEN from me because if I have learned anything through having to slow down from my health it is that I am ALLOWED to rest in Christ.

When we got to our room I was treated to these and a lovely card from our friends Brian and Yvonne. Thank you friend for helping to start my weekend off right. I love them!! :)

Love Bites and A weekend away

Thanks to my blogging friend Christy P. I got the idea to make these little pieces of heaven today. We are heading up to our Firefighters for Christ conference this weekend and I always surprise our friends that ride with us with a home made goodies. This year I decided to make them Love Bites. I also made an extra box for our friends Brian and Yvonne who will be up there and for Jeff and Allie our friends who are taking the girls for us. So hopefully they all like them. They were a thumbs up at our house. :)
I cannot tell you how badly we need to get away this weekend. We plan this trip every year and this year we thought maybe just maybe it would be the first time in 11 years that we missed it due to my health and my scheduled surgery. I started praying that God would work all those details out and that my healing would be so fast so I could go, of course he did all of those things and more. But in the last two weeks since my surgery I have started Iron through IV in the hospital each Monday and lets just say that this last round didn't agree with me. I was violently ill this week and then Ryanne started wheezing when I picked her up from school on Wed. so I rushed her back to the urgent care since she had pneumonia back in Feb. So on top of home schooling, making all my Dr.'s appt.'s, rushing Ryanne around trying to get someone to tell me if they think she has asthma and being alone during most of this I am exhausted. I know satan does not want us to go to Hume Lake this weekend. Every year I throw my hands up and tell Dan we just can't make it work this year. Every year I stress about child care and being 5+ hours from the kids. Every year things start to fall apart right before we are to go and you know what? Every year by God's grace we make it and every year he restores and builds up our marriage. We have spent many hours and days at Hume Lake over the past 11 years with many amazing memories of tears, forgiveness, healing, rest, laughter, meeting up with old friends I could go on forever. The fact is that God has used this place and time that we make every effort to set aside every year to bless us and I am ALWAYS so glad we went. Once all the laundry is done, the kids are packed and shipped off and we are on the road (hopefully with Starbucks in hand) I know it will be good. Please pray for all of the fireman and their families as we commute from all over CA. You can't imagine the feeling of being in a room of 200 fireman and their wives and listening to their hearts and their worship, so amazing. Have a blessed weekend.
Oh and FYI if you were planning on breaking into our house we have someone watching it AND if you get past them could you just make sure you do any laundry I miss and wipe your feet OK!

I've Got peas in the river??????

Ok, so let's all just say it and get it out of the way,"Christy has an addiction to the Flip recorder!" There now we can move on free of quilt. :) Actually if you have met my kids you know full well I could post every single day and it would be too funny. But then what mom couldn't right? I will spare you the daily videos and only post the very best ones. Ryanne learned a new song at church on Sunday and asked me to record her as she sang it to our friends.

Translation: "I've got peace like a river, I've got peace like I river, I've got peace like a river in my soul!" AMEN sister! :)

A Laugh For Your Monday.......

Saturday night we had some friends over and while we were all visiting the kiddos decided to take up ballroom dancing. I did what any good mother would do and I peeked in on them with my handy-dandy Flip video recorder! I don't know why but I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to get in allot of trouble with this thing. :) I know you can't wait huh!

My Early Birthday Present

Today my new toy/early birthday present came in the mail. I have been wanting one of these Flip videos for about a year but had kind of forgotten about it until it popped up on Woot.com last week for $80!!! My birthday is not until April 19th but I begged Dan and the girls to give it to me today. Plus, I reminded them they could always go and buy me something else if they REALLY wanted to have something for me to open that day. He,heee! ;)
As you can see this little baby basically fits in your pocket and records up to an hour before you have to dump it onto your computer. I love to catch the girls doing fun things when we are out but I never want to mess with a bulky video camera and a case etc. This flip video you can toss in your purse or backpack and just go. So much fun!

Here is my first attempt at using the Flip. See what you think.
Also, if you ever get a chance (I check it every morning) go to http://www.woot.com/ and check out their daily specials. I bought my Dyson for $200 there, normally almost $500! If you love a deal like I do you will find tons of fun stuff on this site. Every night at 10pm they put something new up for sale but when its gone its gone! :)
P.S. this is morgan's piano debut. She has been playing for about 8 weeks now. :)

Why I Love This Weather......

We LOVE this spring weather! We have been outside as much as possible this week. Yesterday we met our friends for lunch at the new park in town. I love the look of excitement on Ryanne's face as she takes Lillie down this steep slide. I wonder what Lillie was thinking! ;) To bad our kids are so shy huh?

"Can you see me now mama?"

Do you know what's better than a new park? A new park where the sprinklers come on in the middle of the day. Ryanne took full advantage of the 80 degree temp.'s and as you can see by the look on her face LOVED every minute! Oh to be so care free!

She is in a full speed run down hill at this point. Good to be 4!

This was one of those days that makes me oh so thankful for home schooling our girls. We get everything done in the morning and then we can enjoy just being together for the rest of the day. After such a crazy week last week and spending most of Monday in the hospital getting my iron I was so ready to get back into the swing of things on Tuesday and Wednesday and spend some good time with the kiddos! :) Have a great rest of the week and enjoy the sunshine!

Why I love This Weather Cont........

Ryanne and her friend Seth painted pet rocks this afternoon. They both LOVE anything crafty and will sit forever coloring, painting you name it. So cute! We have this beautiful display of flowers that blooms outside our City Hall every spring but only for a couple weeks. This time we caught some pictures of them in full bloom.

A little itchy climbing through the flowers and dodging the bee's but the kids were troopers. :)

Luke, Morgan, Ryanne, Caleb, and Lillie