What A Guy!

Here are the lost pics I was telling you about in the Anniversary entry a few days ago.

The flowers Keith bought a few days before our anniversay.

His creative genius with peppermint patties!

He also bought this Precious Moments figurine.

Matthew and Auntie Pics III

Wide Awake Matthew and Auntie Hannah

Matthew and Auntie Pics II

Sleeping Matthew and Auntie Bek

Matthew and Auntie Pics I

Auntie Laura holding Matthew wearing an Argentina soccer jersey she bought him in Argentina.

Matthew winking at Grammy and looking just plain cute!

Our 30th Anniversary

Keith and I celebrated our 30th anniversary on the 17th of June. He gave me a bouquet of pretty pink flowers on the Saturday before. I had a picture on my camera, but I guess it got deleted. Keith also made the number 30 out of peppermint patties and I also had a picture of that which I can't find. That is the problem when you let your kids share your camera. The day before our anniversary he brought me home a white rose. That picture is at the top. The other pictures are of a bear that the girls got us at Build A Bear. I am trying to get a video of it to download as it says, "Aloha, Happy 30th Anniversary! Love You!" It is really cute. We are hoping to go to Hawaii later this year for our anniversary. Thus the hawaiian bear. Josh, Mary and Matthew got us a gift card to Applebees and Sarah, Donald and baby girl got us a gift card to the Creation Museum in KY.

On our anniverary, Keith and I went to the Cheesecake Factory. The cheesecake was really good, but we didn't think the food was that great. We will definitely go back for the cheesecake. We had a good time anyway. I can't believe we have been married for 30 years. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around that number. We have had our ups and downs, but overall marriage has been a good thing!

Pregnant Polly errrr... Sarah

Here are some pictures of Sarah at 31 weeks.

I hope to get caught up on my blogging soon. We have been very busy doing spring cleaning.

All Is Well That Ends Well

Laura arrived home safe and sound from Argentina at about 11:30 p.m. Sunday night. She figures that she and her friend Natalie had traveled for 30 hours by the time they got home using plane, van and car. She said the trip was "perfect". Everyone got along fine and everyone worked very hard. The people in Argentina were in tears when the team left. They said that they are leary having college students come down and "help" them, but that they would have the group from Maranatha again because they worked so hard and the Lord really blessed their efforts. A great testimony I would say.

The girls were full of stories and we (Natalie's Mom got here about the same time they did) got to bed about 1:30 p.m. Natalie and her Mom left here the next morning. Keith and the younger girls arrived home from Virginia later in the afternoon. They and Josh, Mary and Matthew had gone to visit great grandma in Virginia for the Memorial Day weekend. I waited at home for Laura to get here. I didn't want her coming home to an empty house. Besides, there wouldn't have been room for me at grandma's house anyway and someone had to feed the animals here at home.

We had a cookout Monday evening. The weather was suppose to get bad but we never got it which was a good thing considering it was part of the storm system that caused the killer tornadoes out west.

We are trying to get the house ready for Bek's graduation party at the end of the month. There is always so much work to do for these things. It is good to fix things up though. If we didn't have a major event every one or two years, the once and awhile things would never get fixed. We always seem to get caught up in the day to day maintenance and overlook the big things. Could it be because it costs money? :)

The younger girls have been complaining that we never go on family vacations. I try to tell them that when they were little we went all different places. When the kids started college, vacations just seemed to take a backseat. It was just a natural progression for us, but the girls feel short changed. They travel alot for sports and missions trips and I try to tell them that those are their vacations now. They weren't exactly satisfied with that, but I gue$$ it will have to do for now.

Mother's Day Weekend

Keith and I went over to Indiana to visit Sarah and Donald last Friday night and then we came back on Saturday.

Sarah's church was having their Ladies Banquet that night. It was held at Fuzzy Zoeller's Covered Bridge Golf Club in Floyds Knob, IN. (For your info: Fuzzy is one of only three professional golfers to have won The Masters in his first appearance in the event. He also won the 1984 U.S. Open.) You learned something new today. :)It was a nice place and we had a good meal. Mrs. Ball, (Sarah's Pastor's wife) gave the devotion. It was really good. Donald and Pastor Ball did a comedy skit about the use of certain "hillbilly" words for the women. It was funny even if you were "Tard" tired.

On Saturday, Sarah, her friend Carrie, and I hit the garage sales in a few subdivisions. It was a lot of walking but we had a good time and found a few little bargains. We then had a cookout with the Pastor and his family. We got home about 8:00 p.m. The girls had cleaned the house for me for Mother's Day. That is one of my favorite gifts anytime of the year.

On Mother's Day we went to church and I ended up with three corsages from Keith and Josh and Mary. I also got some roses from Sarah and Donald and a digital picture viewer for my purse from the younger girls. I can keep up to 60 pictures on it and show off my grandbabies. Josh & Mary also had Matthew's dedication service on Sunday. Mary's Mom, Dad and brother, Pete were here for that. We took pictures, but Josh & Mary have them and will have to put them up on their blog. We went out to eat at Max & Erma's later in the day after the crowds had cleared out a little bit. We were going to go to the Cheesecake Factory, but the wait there was about 3 hours. Keith and I will have to go there some other time. Most everyone else had been there before except us.

Uruguay Ole!

Laura has been in Uruguay since Wednesday so we haven't seen any new posts from the travelers. According to their leader, they went to Uruguay on Wednesday and are to return today. They traveled by boat across part of the ocean for three hours to get there. I am hoping no one got sick. That is a long boat ride. They should be back to their temporary home base soon.

I talked to Laura on Monday. She called to wish me "Happy Mother's Day One Day Late" :) She talked about where she posted on her blog that no one would let her sing a solo. (She was just trying to be funny since she will tell you herself that singing is not her talent.) So their leader, Mr. Trainer kept mentioning the fact during his preaching Sunday night that someone had posted on the blog that they hadn't been allowed to sing a solo. So he asked Laura to get up there and sing and of course she was terrified and tried to get someone to at least sing with her, but no one wanted to do it so the whole group just went up there and sang. However on the bus ride home, she and Mr. Trainer sang a duet together. I am sure it must have been hysterical. Here is a picture.

Here is what Laura posted on the blog on Tuesday.

13 May 2008

From Laura
Hey All! Just giving a quick update....Everything is still going awesome. Yesterday we had a nice rest day but then that night we did English classes and the basketball clinic again. I found a girl at the basketball clinic!! I was so excited! She was there with her dad because her brother played there but her dad asked me to teach her a few things. I was more than happy to do that =) God is so good and I have so many stories to write but I don't have time! I can't wait to see what the next few weeks will bring. I love you and miss you all!

Josh, Mary, Sarah, and Donald-I got somehting really cute for the new babies in the family....They are gonna look like cute little Argentines =)Laura

Laura's Hidden Talent :)

Here are a few entries from Laura's blog while she is in Argentina.

From Laura
Hey Family! Argentina is amazing! I wish you guys could see it. Everything has been going really well so keep praying! I found out that girls don’t play basketball here, so me and Nat can’t really do anything in that area but we are still helping out where we can. The people here are so awesome, their faith is so strong. Praise the Lord that I have found a few that speak some English :) Even when they don’t speak English it's fun trying to communicate with them. I have so much to tell you guys when I get back. I hope you all are doing well! I love you all! And I am praying for you. Laura

From Laura.....again :)
Familia and Amigos-Hey its Laura again...I'm in an internet cafe right now and i figured I should write when I have the chance. Today I found out I had the hidden talent of making animal balloons haha it was alot of fun....I helped make them for kids at a park that we were singing at. The kids are so cute here. The parks here are goreous. Tonight we are going back to the same park and this time the radio and TV will be there which is pretty exciting, so listen if you can! ......I keep telling everyone to let me sing my solo but for some reason we seem to never have time for it ;) haha (jk Ill stick to the animal balloons) . Next week we are going to Uruguay! Lots of people are hearing the gospel so pray that the people will clearly understand and that God will soften their hearts! And also pray that all of us will keep getting the rest we need :) I miss you all! Love you! Hasta Luego! -Laura Sorry if the punctuation is messed up...this keyboard is just a lil different :)

Grandpa's Boy

Here is a picture of Matthew in a onesie that grandpa picked up while we were
out shopping a few weeks ago.

Machitos Anyone?

We got a phone call from Laura late Sunday night. She landed safely in Argentina at about 11:oo AM her time. She said it was a loooooong flight. It was somewhere between 10 and 11 hours. Ugh! She is two hours ahead of EST. For those of you who don't want to add, she would have landed at 1:00 PM our time. They have a nice place to stay and she is sharing a room with her roommate from college Natalie. The team has a blog, but Laura hasn't written anything on it yet. There was one picture of her though. She looks good. (See above.) She is the fifth one from the right.

Machitos cualquier persona? (Cow intestines anyone?) The first day they were there, they were treated to machitos (cow intestines). Yum! Needless to say, she didn't like it. I hope that isn't a daily food because Laura will definitely lose weight.

I will update you when I have more information.

Hola Argentina

Laura is leaving on a missions trip to Argentina tomorrow. She will be gone for three weeks. The Lord really blessed and all the money that she needed for the trip came in. She even got a little extra that she will use for spending money and she also bought some things to give to the kids down there.

Last Friday during my devotions, the idea came to me to make up a prayer card. So I made it up using a picture that was in the missions magazine that Laura sent to us. I sent the picture off to the 1 hour developing at Wal Mart. I picked them up and brought them home and printed the prayer requests on the back. I handed them out at church on Sunday.

The neat thing about all this is that Laura sent me an email on Monday telling me that someone at her church had a photographer take a picture of the three that were going to Argentina from her church and made up a prayer card too. Totally a God thing. You can see them both below.

Please pray for Laura and the Argentina team. Pray that they will be safe and stay healthy. Pray that they will be spiritually prepared. Pray that they will be a good witness to the people down there and that the Lord will bless with their singing, teaching ESL (English as a second language)and athletic “camp” presentations. :)

Argentina prayer cards

This is the card from Laura's church

The card I made for our church
(It didn't reprint well to the blog)

Ladies' Advance

Well, I survived the ladies’ retreat. Or as Mrs. Appleby told us, ladies’ advance. It was a lot of fun, but also very tiring. I probably got about 3 hours sleep Friday night.

Mrs. Patti Appleby from FL and Mrs. Judy Andrews from MD were our speakers. They did a great job talking about the amazing race that we are in as Christians. They talked about amazing faith, amazing forgiveness, amazing freedom, amazing focus, and amazing finish. The lessons were based on Hebrews 12:1-4.

Amazing faith is needed because it took amazing faith for us to enter the race. We had to have faith in Jesus Christ and faith to believe that he died on the cross for our sins, was buried and rose again. Faith that his word is true and faith to take the step to ask Him to forgive us for sins and to come into our hearts. There have been and there will be hurdles (events), hindrances (people), and hurts (life) that will interfere with our race.

Amazing forgiveness is needed because Jesus first forgave us for our sins and second because we need to forgive other people for the problems and hurts that come into our lives. Forgiveness can be very difficult because we are human and it takes us awhile to get to that point especially when people have hurt us badly. We may never forget which is good because we may be able to use that time in our lives to help someone else in the future. But we need to forgive.

Amazing freedom is needed because when we are weighted down by burdens and sin, we can go to Jesus and He can take those burdens and sins and free us up from the weights that keep us from running more freely. Sometimes God calls upon us to get rid of things that may not be sin but cause us to stumble such as TV, shopping, reading material, computers or friends. These may take up too much time and energy that we need to run the race well.

Amazing focus is needed because we need to keep our eyes on Him. Looking back, down, left, or right can distract us and we may stumble. We need to always be looking forward and upward toward Him.

Amazing finish is needed because we need to finish well. We need to become like servants and serve those around us. Not for our own glory but for His. To do those jobs nobody ever sees and do them well.

Each area was important for us as Christian women to understand. The most important thing is to keep running the race and don’t stop. We have had veteran runners before us and we need to learn from them and then pass this information down to the younger women to encourage them and keep them in the race.

The workshop I did on marriage went pretty well. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. There were about 20 women at the workshop. I think that was a good number and not overwhelming. Mrs. Appleby and Mrs. Andrews were not too far away and they heard some of what I said and they were encouraging when we talked later on. I told them that they were the “A” speakers and I felt like a “B” speaker. I tried to watch them and learn as much as I could from them as they spoke. Overall, it was a very good weekend.

Workshop Ramblings

I have been working on a workshop I am going to do on marriage next weekend at a Ladies Retreat. I am calling the workshop Marriage: Staying on Course. The theme of the Ladies Retreat is Amazing Race and I thought the title of my workshop should be along that same line.

It isn’t like I don’t have nearly thirty years of marriage experience to work with, but when you stop and think about it, it is quite overwhelming to think about standing in front of a bunch of women and telling them how to stay on course when you know your marriage isn’t perfect. Not that anyone’s is.

I have been working on this for sometime and have several pages of notes. I have been reading articles online, going through the Bible and skimming marriage books. I have several ideas about the way in which I would like to go, but have yet to settle on a definite direction.

I am praying that whichever direction I choose, that there is someone there who needs to hear what I have to say. That is what is important and that is why I want to do a good job. That thought keeps me motivated to keep at it and not to be weary when it starts to feel like a daunting task.

I think back over the past thirty years and there are so many memories of fun times together with Keith and the kids, the highs and lows of traveling and moving with the Air Force, all of the people we have met that have touched our lives (hopefully we have touched them as well), and just the day to day aspects of married life and I realize I should be able to talk for days let alone a 45 minute workshop.

In other news....

Bek, Han and I all went to see baby Matthew on Tuesday. We have to have time for that you know. He is changing so much already. He seems longer too. I am not there all the time, but he seems to be a really content baby.

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that I was busy and gearing up for next weekend and that is why I haven’t written for awhile.

Fifteen Years Ago and Today

No April Fools

Fifteen years ago today in Albuquerque, NM at 3:54 pm MST Hannah Joy was born. Keith & I always tried to play at least one joke on each other all the years before this. We were so busy that day that we didn’t even realize until the next day that we hadn’t played a joke on each other. I guess having a baby on April Fools Day was enough fun for one day.

People say that having a birthday on April Fools Day must be tough, but no one ever really made fun of Hannah over it. One woman we know that was born on April Fools Day had it rough growing up especially from her cousins who would give her things like a phone book for a gift. Relatives of one guy we know who was born on that day after several sisters thought his Mom & Dad were playing a joke on them when they told them that they had a boy.

Anyway, I can’t believe that my baby is fifteen years old already. She is already talking about getting her permit which you can’t do until 15 ½ in Ohio. She takes after her Mom in height, so I told her she had to get taller before she can drive. Do you think that will work?

Speaking of babies, while we are still basking in the glow of our new little grandson, we found out yesterday that our oldest daughter, Sarah and her husband are having our first granddaughter. We get one of each our first year in the grandparent business. Pretty good, huh? It was the day before April Fools and I asked her if it was a joke and she said no, of course. She was thrilled to find out that everything looked good and the baby appears to be healthy. Only 20 weeks to go!

Congratulations Donald & Sarah!

Happy 15th Birthday, Hannah!

We love you! Contrary to what you think, even though we have grandbabies, you will always be our baby.

L Is For The Way You Look At Me

MATTHEW

M is for Mommy who did an awesome job delivering you. (Daddy's awesome too.)
A is for how Adorable you are.
T is for all the Things that you will grow up to do.
T is for the Time we are looking forward to spending with you.
H is for He who created you and gave you to us as His gift.
E is for Everybody that loves you already.

W is for how Wonderful our life will be with you in it.

Matthew with Mommy & Daddy