A different look...

Wasn't she blessed because she knew Him like no other human on Earth ever would?  She was His mother.  She thought He would become King; He who was her precious child!

 How could He tell her what that would mean?  How could He tell His mother what that would entail?  How could He break her heart?  After finding Him in the temple at 12 and scolding Him, He wondered how she would feel when she could no longer see Him at all!

She was an average girl the year before His birth.  A Jewish girl betrothed to a carpenter, she had dreams like any other girl...dreams of a wedding and a marriage and a life filled with laughter and love and children to fill the home her betrothed was building for them.  She didn't know her children wouldn't live in that house, that indeed, they would spend many years in a different country fleeing from a dictator who would seek the death of her first child..  No, she was just a girl at the time...a girl thinking about that carpenter.

A carpenter,  an average man with a good life to look forward to.  He knew his trade well.  Didn't he already have many jobs under his belt?  And now a fiance, a beautiful girl, inside and out, would become part of his life and bring with her joy!  How could he know that in just a few short months, he would be leading a wife, soon to give birth, on a donkey, to a place so full of people, they would have to take refuge in a stable!

He had promised....promised a way back to Him.  They needed it..longed for it and finally it was here!
He knew they wouldn't understand for a while how it would happen or why it would come about in just that manner.  He knew, though, that He was willing to do it, if it meant that they would have a chance to walk and talk together like they used to in the garden!  This chance would change them all...if they accepted it...if they accepted Him and His sacrifice. He loved them so much!  He missed them!

It did change their lives!  It changed the girl's life.  It took one night, a visit from an angel and the realization that life would be wonderful, but it wouldn't look exactly how she pictured it, to change her from a girl to a woman.  What a great responsibility she now had...excited and afraid all at once.  Oh, what would that carpenter think?  Would he believe her?  Would he still want her?

It changed the carpenter's life.  Shocked to find out that the girl he had chosen to share his life with, might not be the person he thought she was, he was now uncertain about his whole life!  It would take a visit from an angel for him to decide to take on the responsibility of keeping safe the One who they all depended on.  He didn't know, though, just how much he would come to love this new responsibility of his and the girl's.  He didn't know that they would only have 33 years with Him...didn't know He would suffer so greatly for them all.

A long trip..
A new star..
A painful night..
A baby!

SALVATION!!!

Will you accept it?  He was given freely out of love... 

Whistling Dixie

I come from a long line of whistlers.  One of my first memories of my grandpa was of him puttering around in the back yard and whistling!  He was always whistling.  I'm really not sure what tune it was, (and sometimes he would just make them up I'm sure) but he was always whistling something. He was a fireman for part of the week and a house painter for the other part.  I loved helping Grandma take dinner to the Fire Station when it was Grandpa's turn to cook.(usually elbow macaroni and tomato sauce)  He had this old truck that was painted white and had lots of painting supplies in the back.  On the days Grandpa painted, he would come in wearing his paint-speckled overalls and some plaid shirt, smelling of sweat and hard work, whistling and heading for the bathroom to wash up.  I loved that man!  This is a pic of him with my uncle and aunt.(Notice the paint specks on his glasses!)


My mother is a whistler as well.  I can usually tell, though, what she is whistling.  I remember her buying us an 8 track (remember those?) of some well known whistler, and how my brothers and I would put on those Gigantic headphones and listen to it on the same stereo that had a reel to reel player( even further back : )....).    I don't hear people whistling tunes much anymore. The times have changed, they move to fast, no one takes the time to hum or whistle much.  Too bad!  Maybe if we took more time to smell the roses, we could enjoy life a little more instead of being in such a hurry all the time! 

This morning, I heard someone in the house whistling.  I ran through my head all my kids names and came up with April who is 17.  I realized that she has inherited our love of whistling!  Grandpa would be smiling if he knew that!  John Culp died last summer but he is Definitely not forgotten!  He has lots of whistlers following in his foot steps!

Football Season

My youngest, James is 10 and has decided that he is going to play flag football this year.  James takes after my side of the family and is built like a football player.  We have been looking forward to this day for years...(My husband and I have dreams of being supported in our golden years...just kidding ...lol)  He is very excited about playing and even when he was two, Loved tackling kids 3 times his size...No kidding! 

So yesterday, 6 of us pile into the car and drive a mile away to the field near his school where they will be playing.  The league is I9 and we love it!  The goal is to have fun!  Not a whole bunch of parents on the sidelines screaming for blood or complaining that their kids didn't get to be on the field the whole time!  This is definitely the league to go with if you want your kids to learn the sport but not Live the sport.

Anyway, James scored a touchdown during the practice!  We are so excited for him!  Can't wait to see him in the next game...Definitely going to get pics next time!

Labor Day Weekend

We really enjoyed our Labor Day Weekend this year!  Normally we stay home but this time we decided to do something different.

After church, we all piled into the car with the cooler packed on top and lots of towels/beach stuff around the kids and took off for Cold Water Rec Area!  There was much fun had by all; especially April who had chosen not to come the other two times we went.  We parked and floated the cooler up the river as we walked to one of the little islands in the river a ways away.  Craig went back and got the rubbermaid full of our little hibatchi and tools.  He cooked hotdogs, hamburgers and pizza rolls on the grill!  I know what you are thinking--Pizza Rolls?...Yes Pizza Rolls and they are Delicious on the grill!!  We did the same thing when we went on our RV trip last year!  The kids Love them and They are easy to do as long as you don't drop any through the wires!lol..

The kids didn't catch any new turtles but Jasmine was able to catch a minnow(which later escaped)!  She also was able to get a few shots for her photography class at school!  I took lots of pics and edited them ( so much fun!)   What did you do for Labor day?

School Time!

Every year I look forward to summer vacation; swimming, getting up late, not looking for socks in the morning....
And every year, I look forward again to the first day of school; quiet mornings, getting my housework done, fall...  I love fall!  I can't wait for the weather to turn cooler and the leaves to start dropping.  I really enjoy taking walks in our beautiful neighborhood and even more so when the weather is cooler! 
   That being said, when it came to the kids this morning, we weren't all on the same sheet of paper.  Some were really excited and some ...not so much..  First day of high school is Definitely not the same as the first day of middle school!  However, I am sure by the end of the week, things will have calmed down a little and everyone will be used to the new schedule.
     As for me, I am putting an ad up today to teach some of my skills. I sew, crochet, quilt and design, and most recently, I knit.  I love creating!  The things that I make are mostly my own design.  I get some of my ideas from nature and some are part of someone else's design that I have changed to suit my own creative whimsy or to best serve a need.  I am an analyst so that means my mind is always thinking of the best way to do something; or even just a better way to do something..   This year, however, I have decided that I need to pass these skills along.  There are so many people out there that long to know how to do these things and have no idea how to learn or even who to go to.  I don't know how many times someone has admired something I have made and said "I wish I knew how to do that!"   A whole generation of people out there never learned from parents or grandparents, the skills that most of the baby boomer generation were able to learn from family and friends.  So I am going to start changing that!

    Next stop, the class room!

Happy School Season everyone!!

At the Beach

         We haven't spent that much time at the beach this year due to BP.  We actually didn't think we would be able to go back for a long time, but thanks to some big machinary and lots of workers, we were able to go yesterday afternoon and stay till dusk!

         Although it was not as fun to swim there this summer due to tar balls, we did get some swimming time in and even got to joke around a little..: )

Those are my husband and kids doing the dead man's float, not bodies found at the beach...  Of course, we weren't the only ones there!  These gulls looked as if they were posing for me and Craig was later able to get this awesome pic of a Heron!

 You can see the beach is clean again. The workers come out every night and sift/clean the sand so that we can all enjoy it again.  We were all saddened at the state of the beach earlier in the summer and even though the sand is looking better, we know that there are veins of oil running underneath. We all wonder how long it will take for the water to get back to a healthier state.