Happy Birthday Izzy!

Izzy! Happy Birthday!! I'm sorry we didn't get to talk to you today. We hope you got our message and that you had a great birthday! Sorry we couldn't be there to celebrate with you but we were thinking about you all day. We love you and celebrate with you the LIFE God has given you and that we can share life together! Your present will be in the mail soon, I'll mail it this week.

Good times, Great Love

Some recent trips with our family and friends.

Happy Labor Day!

Enjoy your times together!



ooopppsss....cut the song off. Due to tech. difficulties and how late it was getting that done, we'll just leave it how it is :)

"Your Love Oh Lord"

After reading Ps. 57 this morning, I was led to this song and then found this video.
What is family? Who is your family? How can we be family, not just to our immediate family but to others too, especially those that need one?

I'm so thankful that I have a wonderful family, not just my husband, kids and extended family but so many others that I consider "family"! Thanks for loving us!

....as we wait upon the Lord......

My study this morning was Ps. 51....this is where i was lead....

Thank you Lord for your mercy, unfailing love, great compassion and your cleansing process.
"For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me....."

"Cleans me with hyssop and I will be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bone you have crushed rejoice."

Lord, we continue to wait upon you to reveal Yourself and your ways to us.

A wedding, friends and Horace Burgess

These are some "happy" moments from the last few weeks at Hannah and Daniels wedding reception, a friends birthday party and todays adventure with the Lawlers to "the largest treehouse in the world" built by Horace Burgess of Crossville, TN. It is over 97 feet high, 10 stories, 8000 sq. feet and 15 years of ministry. We want to go back again soon for those interested in taking a trip.

A Lesson In Waiting

Currently Reading: The Calvary Road by Roy Hession....a must read for all of us!

Another one of my journal entries: I wrote this one prior to this very difficult week. Sadly I failed my own advice here this week, so I have added in my confessions of this week to what I had written last week. However, I still think it's good advice and truth I will contiue to try to practice and play out in my life, not perfectly, obviously but I'll keep trying.

Waiting....ugggg...it must be one of the hardest things in life i have to do or have to learn to do. Hopefully I'm learning but I know I haven't mastered it yet b/c i struggle so badly with it and am often caught red handed at "jumping the gun" or "biting at the bit to jump the gun".

We've definitely had and are having some lessons/issues in waiting lately.
What have you had to wait for lately or long term? What are you currently waiting for? How do you react or respond to waiting?

What about the struggle of saying the right thing at the right time and in the right way? Another BIG HUGE weakness of mine. How do you do in lessons/issues of humility or of allowing the person(s) to learn the lesson the hard way b/c they wouldn't, couldn't or don't know how to listen? Or maybe you just knew they wouldn't listen or what you had to say wouldn't make a difference? Or maybe b/c you've been told not to say that at that time to that person.

When people are involved and people getting hurt are involved(myself included) I tend to get too emotionally and relationally involved, especially if I see "sin" that is going on or might happen or might could be prevented or helped if I spoke up, sometimes even before I have removed the plank from my own eye. 1st step: remove the plank in your own eye first before preceeding ahead, if possible(Matthew 7:3-5) How do you determine when you should let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit and do His job in speaking to that person and when you should speak up? It's a difficult determination for me and one I mess up on all the time. In these situations and in situations where I think I could help or am just willing to help, too willing sometimes, EVERYTHING in my body, my being, my mind, heart, soul and spirit, everything in me wants to come bursting forth like fire out of a dragons mouth to STOP the sin or devastatingly damaging or potentially damaging results, and sometimes it does, right or wrong or for good or bad sometimes "I" just happen. All of a sudden The intense BATTLE for my mouth and commitment comes rushing forward as two rams crashing forward butting heads for the approval of the Master of Creation.
My intense desire to set wrong, right. My overly aggressive nature of rooting sin out at its very core begins to burn so deep, so strong and so passionately that it has now boiled to an extremely dangerously disastrously point.......Now again MY sin is rearing it's ugly head. Which sin is worse, theirs or now mine? Which sin will do the most amount of damage? Which sin will do the least amount of damage? And how do I help in this situation instead of making it worse than it already is? And then in THAT quiet, quick moment(if I take it or take the time to ask) of me internally asking the Master of Creation these questions I hear HIS answer.......I hear his answer b/c so far(in some situations sometimes) I have waited, I have so far remained calm, I have so far not acted rashly and so far I have been asking 1 trusted friend....when we do that His answer comes when we ask, His answer to.....BE QUIET now and WAIT. But I don't/can't/haven't all the time act(ed) according to the above perscription, especially in the last week. I'd been making progress in this area, I had thought. I'd been trying and getting some good results and I will continue to try, repent and try, repent and try.
WHAT LORD??? Did you say BE QUIET? Be Quiet about this obvious sin being played out like a very strange play right before my very eyes? Be Quiet? Do not confront this sin right here and right now? And the answer again.....Be Quiet and Wait. He says to me it will get confronted, it will not go unchecked but now is not the time. My timing is perfect and my plan most effective. you will have a time later to make a greater impact re: the sin you see in this very moment and in their lives and yours but you must wait. If you don't wait it will not be rooted out but only scratch the surface and resurface continually. Or be made worse by the timing and manner in which you proceed. Wait my child, wait.......so here I sit, waiting....waiting but peaceful. Peaceful that God's timing, plans and our future personally and with others are a harvest waiting to be brought in exponentially.

The Beginnings of a Song?

On the way home from our trip down south a week or so ago I wrote a few things.......here's part of one of my journal entries.

The main question I have for everyone....the question of the day....the question of my purpose and being here on earth is this......

Would anyone, anyone in their right mind tell Jesus, our Perfect Lamb, our Lord and Savior, our Messiah, our One Way, the Way, Truth and Life, their saving Grace, their second chance, their Redeemer and Friend, Your beginning and End......would any1 of us tell him.....

You took on too much???

Not me my friend, not me!

I can only breath out through saturated hearts and checks

On my knees w/ unworthiness and thankfulness

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you My friend.

Olympics, A New Job and A Win for the City!

We are lovin' the Olympics and our study of it! It brings excitement and interest to learning everyday. I am most amazed with the swimming so far and man! is Michael Phelps determined and dedicated or what?!? INSPIRING HUH?! So far we have the count of total metals as follows: USA is in the lead with a total of 22 total metals, China next with 20 and in 3rd is S. Korea with a total of 12 metals.

Thanks to a very good friend I now have a 3 month membership to the top gym in town. The first day we went to get our membership and work out I got hired to teach aerobics classes. USA GYM teaching Mon, Wed. and Sat. mornings. Low Impact on Mon. and Wed. and I think a mixture of things on Sat. morning. Come join us and Get Fit McMinnville!! I've also begun training for the 1/2 marathon they will be having here in McMinnville in Oct. I'm so stoked about it! I was supposed to run in one this past April in Nashville but due to our extenuating and changing circumstances wasn't able to. The gym has now become my second home.

I engaged in my first political/city admin. meeting/hearing tonight. I LOVED IT! I don't know why my dad didn't encourage me more in this area due to his experience and expertise but I'm glad I got involved. You see we, along with lots of other people bought pool passes in the beginning of the summer to be used until Labor Day. We've had pool passes for the last 4 years or so and we've always been able to use our pool passes all summer and when school starts back, after school and on the weekend until the pool closes on Labor Day. Due to some difficult financial times and bad budgeting our city recently made some cuts and one of those cuts was to close the pool every afternoon now and only have the pool open on the weekends from now on until Labor Day. Well, that's not what we paid for and no one informed any of us of that. So I decided to get involved, drew up a letter and petition and submitted tonight. They called a special meeting right after the regularly scheduled meetings and the POOL WILL REOPEN FOR AFTER SCHOOL HOURS BEGINNING MONDAY AFTERNOON!!! How cool is that! See sometimes we can make a difference. Many, most people were saying I was just wasting my time and that they weren't going to do anything about it. Well it never hurts to try. So all of you out there, to THANK THE CITY, GO TO THE POOL AS MUCH AS YOU CAN ONCE IT REOPENS AND BUY FROM CONCESSIONS! Also support Meals on Wheels, The Senior Center and Main St. McMinnville as they are in need of financial help. I'll do my part, you do yours and together we can make a difference! Wow, do I sound like a politician...that's scary but my dad might be proud :)

Big Party with a "Big" cover

WHO: Youth and friends
WHEN: 6:00pm Friday - 8/8/08
WHAT: Watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, hang out and eat (chinese food cause the Olympics are in China but we'll get a few pizzas too)
WHERE: 138 Club Dr. Apt. 2 = the back of main brick house (Sunset Court Apartments - across from Civic center ball fields)
WHY: it's something fun to do with people who are fun to be with

BIG COVER: $5 (for food and drinks), bring a snack and/or dessert, your own seat (like the chinese you might be sitting on the floor, so bring a pillow or something), and wear something to represent a country or something chinese.

If you have any chinese, Olympic or American decorations (flags, souveniers, stacking dolls, blankets, etc.) please bring them and we'll take a dollar off your cover charge.

NO CHOPSTICKS NEEDED, We have got that covered.
Questions: call or email
Looking forward to seeing ya here!!

To London with LOVE

Wow, well it's truly been awhile eh? Do I have any friends left out there that still check and read this? Let's take care of first things first.....it never hurts in life and relationships to start with an apology. I think we all should just go ahead and start off each day and end each day with an apology. Why not right? What could it hurt? Everyone has something they could apologize for at least 2x a day right, no matter who you are or how big or small the incident. So first I'm sorry for my lack of communication dear blog and friends of mine. Do I need to explain why or is it pretty self explanatory for most of you? Since we moved our of our house and really before that, preparing for moving out of our house, my life, our lives have just been turned upside down and as I've said before it's like having a baby, there just no way you can fully prepare yourself for something like that. There's no way to know just exactly what that's going to look like, feel like, be like and how I will respond to all that until it actually happens and you have to actually walk in it, through it and out the other side. So now back to the apologies, For instance.......(I'll go ahead and be transparent and start this in my own life tonight and begin with two apologies tomorrow), Matt I'm sorry that I didn't help you load and unload the van more on this trip, you know that packing and organizing are more of my giftings but that doesn't mean I can't help load and unload sometimes. And by the way thank you for doing all that without complaint all week until today. Thanking people at least twice idea is not such a bad idea either now is it. And I think we Americas would be a whole heck of a lot more polite if we did use our manners that our mamma's taught us more often. This would probably mean we would say thank you way more than 2x a day. I think I'll do an experiment with my kids on being mannerly and what that looks like. I think we'll have a "try to be mannerly at every moment day" and count how many times we could be mannerly :) I don't know if I can start that tomorrow as we are still out of town but it's definitely a beginning of the school year experiment.
Traveling, yes we are and yes we have been since last Monday and we thought we might be home by tomorrow but it just doesn't look like that. We've had several more visits with churches and individuals than we had expected, this a a good problem, a very good problem when you're in our shoes, so we hope to be back home by the end of this week. Oh, actually we must be back by Sat. because we have company coming Sat. for a week. And then after that week we go on another support raising/birthday trip. And then we come back and SCHOOL STARTS @ Jackson Academy!!!! Actually we'll start alittle earlier than that but that is when full days will start. We ease back into things slowly and for the first 3 weeks we will be watching and studying the Olympics(thanks Denna for that unit study idea!!!). Studying the sports, the history of, the training of the athletes, etc. I can't wait, now thats fun school!!! And of course we'll be doing some training, sports and physical exercise of our own. I digress....or do I? I need not only digress I need to go rest. We've had more late nights than I can count lately trying to catch up with all of Matt's family and prepare and recovery from the wedding. Amazingly this was the first time in 12 years that all of Matt's family has been together and then throw in about 40 swedes and it was basically a big party all week long! And last night was only 3 hours of sleep and it's already very late so I must go to bed. I'm so thankful to be at my sisters and have such convenient blogging access. Oh how I have missed being able to blog....it's therapy for me ya know :) And hopefully I can have time tomorrow to go read up on all my blog friends, I miss you all and your lives sooooooooo much but I am thinking of you often.

And what in the world did this have to do with To London with Love....well I digressed so much I didn't even get there so that will have to wait for tomorrow or the next time I can blog