Anticipation

Sweet husband has started the long Army journey home for 15 days of R&R, which in the past was called rest and relaxation, now it has some other name, but it means the same thing! His first flight on the first leg of the journey was canceled due to dust storms. The new plan was convoy! After much prayer and trusting, I received the call this morning at 4:45am, safe and sound. Now the next part of the journey begins. I do not know when or where for sure, and that is o.k., because I do know ultimately whose hands he rests in, always.

We wait with great anticipation for the final phone call, saying come pick me up, I am HOME! Preparations are going on, cleaning, grocery shopping, making sure that all the comforts of home are in tip top shape for his homecoming. I know that everything to him will seem wonderful, and I don't have to make a big fuss over him. He never has asked that of me, but I want everything to be just right.

He needs the rest. He needs the relaxation. He still has to return and finish the rest of the time of his deployment. Praying for strength and wisdom to know when to do what and how to minister to him. Thank you Lord for this homecoming. I will always remember these 15 days!

Ginger's Return

Our 10 month old yellow lab mix Ginger has returned from her extended time away at doggie boot camp! We are very happy to have her home once again with us. She is now peacefully sleeping in her crate...content to be with her family once again. 

She got to hang out with a lot of really cool dogs, and I think she learned a thing or two from them! She sure has better manners. We ventured to the Millbrook Exchange dog park with her today. She loved running around with all of the other dogs during the work day for the park. She came back to us when it was time to go! I was very impressed! When we got her home we gave her a very long and soapy bath with Dawn dish washing detergent! She is squeaky clean and smells great. She had a compressed raw hide bone and lots of hugs and pats and some ice cubes too! 

Now I have to continue all of her training at home with a firm hand and authority. We will see...I believe I have it in me...I just have to find my pack leader mentality and we will be set! Welcome home Ginger baby! We missed you so much! Sandy even missed you, I think!

Rainy Day Reminders

I am grateful for the rain. Today is a reminder of how much I thirst for God's love, to show it to my children, to feel it from Christian friends, to give it with graciousness to all the people in my life. Thank you Lord for the rain. My sweet husband needs to feel the "rain" of God's love in the dry desert land he is in right now. He is weary, he is parched from long hours,sleep that is hard to come by and separation from his family. He would be receiving words of encouragement and rest if he were here with us in his normal daily life. Please pray for his comfort, for him to feel God's love all around him in a dry and barren place that sees dust storms, not rain storms. Pray for him to see the "rain" in the desert. Thank you and hold on sweetie, the rain is coming for you too!

Summer Time and the Livin' is Easy!

We have been going pretty fast through the month of June and the start of summer with all kinds of fun and adventures. I want to catalog the events of June before we get too far into July! First, we finished up Ginger's obedience classes for puppies. She did graduate, but she is a handful and then some! I cannot believe how much she has grown. She weighs 40 lbs. and is much taller than Sandy our 15 year old hound mix. Ginger is a sweet dog and fills Sandy's days with lots of boisterous puppy behavior!


Youngest son has been playing coach pitch baseball this summer and has had a blast. He has never played before so it has been an experience watching him learn to run the bases and when to run and when to stay. He has mostly played in the outfield but he can really field a ball. It has been great to watch him as he plays and learns more about the sport. He has gotten at least one hit every game and has been able to bring in some runs as well. It has been a great first year of ball. Go Volcanoes!



My dear daughter had her friend birthday get together this month as well. Just could not pull it together during the month of April so the slumber party to end all slumber parties was held in June. There was swimming, jewelry making, blindfolded makeovers,silly string and more! It was lots of fun for the girls and for this Mom! She chose a luau theme, just perfect for a warm summer night!





Finally at the end of the month, after a week of teaching Missions on the Boomerang Express in VBS at our church with 450 kidderos. It was time to help pack up oldest son and send him off for a week of Boy Scout summer camp. I have received reports of low humidity and cool evenings, a campsite by the lake and night time owl hunts. Sounds like fun to me! It was quite a feat getting him to hold still and actually let me get a picture to document this outing, but I did get one. Hope he had a great time! He comes home July 4th so we will see. He looks extremely happy to be having his picture taken doesn't he? I do what I gotta do to capture the moment!

Climbing up the Attic Scrapbook Pile

I have been working in the attic for the last several days. I had to stop for a couple of days because it has gotten so hot here, near 100 degrees for two days. I realized that the attic had become a sort of scrapbook pile from our last 8 months or so. I came across fall decorations, Christmas odds and ends, winter clothes and outgrown clothes, wreaths from the seasons, Easter eggs, lots and lots of Easter eggs... I realized that since dear husband has been away that I have not put away things like I use to. The attic door gets opened and items are placed strategically so that they will not topple over onto the other piles.

I finally realized that I must address the situation because we are going to start repeating the time frame, and I will not be able to find what I need because it will be on the very bottom of some pile. Sigh...I cannot believe I will be repeating the same time frame without dear husband. Well, on a bright note I am making progress. The kids say the playroom looks like a hurricane went through with the explosion of clothes everywhere. I have finally learned that I procrastinate the jobs I do not want to do because I am forced to make a decision about what to do with something so it is much easier to just put in on the pile! Put it in a pile and put off making the decision.

Perhaps I will show an after picture when I am all done. I need to work on school stuff next. That is another area I have been putting off because I just do not want to make the hard decisions about what stays and what goes out of the house to someone else. I did get two bookshelves and I bought the paint for them. Now I need to get them painted up, then they will find there way up to the playroom area and immediately be filled with books. It will be great and I will be so excited to see it all done. The hard part is getting to the end product!

We have VBS this coming week. I will be teaching the Missions lessons to 400 plus Outback Trekkers preK-5th grade. Always a fun but exhausting week! Not sure how much I will get done on cleaning up the attic scrapbook piles, but I will keep plugging away. Fall is not too far away and I would like to hang my wreath and find my fall flag and youngest son keeps on growing so he will need some clothes that have been tucked away for him and...

Pictures from Afar

Sharing some photos from my sweetie, remembering the brave fallen heroes KIA of the 30th HBCT at their memorial service. Praying for the families who lost their brave soldiers and for the long road they have ahead of them. Praying for the soldiers that continue on, that they be encouraged.


I am really thankful that we have the internet to stay connected to dear husband. It is amazing what a little bit of conversation and laughter can do for the morale of both soldier and family. Thank you for the internet dear Lord and for Skype!



My sweetie and his legal buddies over in the desert. They look pretty cool for temperatures around 110 degrees! What a handsome bunch of soldiers.

The Boys Of Summer

I cannot believe May is just about done and June and summer time is upon us! This last month has really been a blur of activity. We are finishing up with school and getting ready for next year as well. I need to get some new bookshelves so I have started to look into that. I would love to get some heavy duty ones that will hold all of the books that we are collecting with our Tapestry of Grace studies. I love books and I thought I had a bunch, but now I really am getting more because of our Tapestry curriculum. I want to find just the right bookshelves to hold the books.

I have also been really sick this week. I think I must have picked up something at the NC Homeschool Conference last week in Winston-Salem. The kids and I had a great time. Dear son went to many of the Teen track classes, the kids swam in the indoor pool and went to the Talent showcase one night as well. We stayed right next to the convention center so once we arrived the car stayed parked for the entire time. It was a great conference, very different from the other two times I have gone. This year was very laid back because of having the children with me, I did not make every session I wanted to do, but I got to the ones I needed to hear. The kids got to experience the book fair, but I did not buy a lot in the way of curriculum this year. I bought just a few handwriting books and phonics books. I did make one major purchase from Summit Ministries. Bradley and I listened to the a speaker from Summit named John Stonestreet. He was amazing to listen to as he lectured about world views and the importance of having a Biblical world view as a Christian and what that really means. I also enjoyed talking to him in the book fair at great length. I got the curriculum to work through at home with dear son. We are both excited about it.

After the conference crazy Mom decided we should fit some time in at the beach as well. We drove from Winston-Salem to Pine Knoll Shores for some beach fun with the my in-laws. The kids had fun with cousins and we got a little too much sun. The weather was cloudy and some showers so we kept wiping on and off the sunscreen and ended up a little crispy! It was a good peaceful time, and I enjoyed the Sunday Memorial Day service at Bogue Baptist church. I had a difficult time over the holiday weekend and going to the beach and being at the service at Bogue Baptist were the things God used to show me His love for me as I walked through this stressful time. He is such an amazing God, so intimate and personal to me. Even the music on the radio made me feel loved and held by Him.

I praise God as we head into this new month and into the summer time... I know He has much to show us as we start off our summer. I hope that I can embrace all that He has to teach us with as much enthusiasm as the boys of summer in this great picture!