Everyday Blessings...

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night the display knowledge. Ps. 19: 1&2 Gorgeous sunset on our drive home last night. My sweet husband took me out to eat last night to a cool little restaurant on the square in a quaint little town not too far away. It was a well...this will sound a little corny...enchanting. I spent a lot of the day yesterday thinking about how quiet it is without the boys at home and the inevitability of facing the echoing quietness well...forever. Sad, silly thoughts I know, but hey I am a woman...I suppose we are allowed to ponder such things from time to time. Anyway, as we sat and enjoyed a great meal together the thought hit me, I better check my phone and see if Wes has checked in. Duh. (He is back at camp for two weeks.) We had a little laugh about how different this is going to be and then I thought about how we raise them and love them and coach them and th...

We were blessed to be able to hit the road one more time and head back to the mountains of New Mexico last weekend. Wes went back to work the last two weeks of Camp Blue Haven sixth session. Not sure how we are going to pay for our gas card next month. Ouch. It sure was nice to get out of the extreme heat for a few days. We were so blessed to be there during a big rain storm and actually needed a sweatshirt. What an incredible gift! Loved it. I did not take too many pictures but here are a few below... We went by and picked up my folks and took them with us. This gorgeous sunrise greeted us as we got up on Sat. morning at their house. A lovely sight. The view outside our cabin on a sunny Sunday morning... Fuzzy, (sorry) picture of the camp staff. What an awesome group of people. Love, love, love this family. My sweet brother and wonderful wife and kiddos. So dear to my heart. This summer's CBH counselors. Not a more dedicated, loving group of people anywhere. What a blessing the...

This beautiful quilt arrived in the mail yesterday for Wes. It came from our friend Melissa Barrow. What a wonderful graduation idea she had. She asked Wes to send her his favorite t-shirts so that she could make him a quilt. This is what came back. SO beautiful. Thank you Melissa! He will cherish this forever. And if he does not take good care of it I will whoop him! Actually, I might ask him to leave it at home for a while so that I can enjoy it and spend some time being terribly sentimental about it. One t-shirt was an old Disneyland shirt from both boys toddler days. The Go Climb a Rock shirt is from Yosemite when we used to go out to the Yosemite Family Encampment. The Texas A&M t-shirts are from when we went to the football signing day when Wes was about four and the player's signed the boy's shirts. The little blue shirt with the smiling sun on it says, "My Future's so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades." This shirt that child wore EVERYDAY. It was all he wan...

For the beauty of the earth, For the glory of the skies; For the love which from our birth, Over and around us lies; Lord of all, to Thee we raise This, our hymn of grateful praise. For the wonder of each hour, Of the day and of the night; Hill and vale and tree and flow'r, Sun and moon, and stars of light; Lord of all, to Thee we raise This, our hymn of grateful praise.

1 Chronicles 16:11 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always . Psalm 27:8 My heart says of you, “ Seek his face !” Your face, LORD, I will seek. Psalm 105:4 Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.

Mr. BIG Bear that has been coming into camp at Camp Blue Haven and feasting on whatever is in the trash cans. Excuse me?? Am I dreaming? Yikkes!!! Word is as of yesterday that the game warden has given permission to shoot with real bullets. Mr. BIG Bear has taken a bullet and has not been seen for over 24 hours. Yea! Now, for the other 2 mama's and a few babies... I am sure it is really hard to know what to do about these kind of scary animals that wander into people areas. After all...the people are living in their natural territory I guess. All I know is that extra prayers are being said for rain and for safety for campers and staff and well...I guess bears. Will says it is really not so worrisome. They are no longer sleeping out. (good) and when they get up at night to (aheemm) head for the potty they don't go alone. Heavens no! I bet the girls don't get out of their cabins AT ALL for the bathroom walk at night. No sir. Wes used to call the walk from his cabin to the ba...

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The witness of God is powerful and everywhere! He is brilliant, colorful and magnificent! When you see Him in someone, you can hardly look away. Acts 17:28 For in him we live and move and have our being. He wants us to be joyful, whole, excited, poured out...filled up with Jesus. Let's don't walk through our spiritual lives with our hands in our pockets! Let's live for Jesus with full abandon...no apologies...with great love for people. Let's look at people in a different way...look at people and say, "How very much God loves this one ." We have so many opportunities to make a difference for God, for the Kingdom. We can make a difference in how we smile or bless with friendliness and also in just speaking God's name with great love. We can show that we care about people because we want them to know the peace and love that we feel and know from God. 1 Corinthians 15: 57 & 58 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Th...

Chicago, Chicago--that toddlin' town. Chicago, Chicago--I'll show you around. I love it. Bet your bottom dollar you'll lose the blues in Chicago, Chicago. Wes and I were blessed to be able to spend time in Chicago the past four or five days with Sid. He had a conference to go to and graciously asked us to come along. Wow...what a place. Overwhelming at first to a girl from the wide open spaces of West Texas. We now live in the trees of East Texas and have visited many big cities but this one takes the cake so far. Such busy-ness and noise and hustle and craziness. Constant sirens going off and you can't walk across the street without getting honked at. Wonderful smells of different foods and nauseating smells of I don't know what. We had a blast. I could go on forever but will just give you some pictures to see what all we did. If you don't like a lot of pictures I advise you to click off now. :)Chicago style deep dish pizza. Yum. On the way to Navy Pier. Kids...