Christmas in July

Okay, so it's actually from Christmas a few years ago. But it's one of those things that will never really get OLD, you know? I really ought to post it to my blog every couple of months just so we never forget about it...



James called tonight and said he'd looked all over my YouTube account and all through my old blog and couldn't find this video--and he had people eager to enjoy it right there in the room with him! So I went on my own search. It wasn't on YouTube because it was on Photobucket (I didn't even know I had an account there--must've created it for the sole purpose of posting this clip!) and it couldn't be found on my blog because that post didn't have a title. Tricky. But NOW I'll always know to look under "Christmas in July" when I need to see or share it again. :-) I hope James remembers to CALL before he shows this to the crowd so I can enjoy the laughter. ;-)

Surprise!!!

I'm blogging again!!! I'm just as surprised as you are. :-)

Nothing much to blog about. We did have a FANTASTIC service yesterday morning. I was sooooo blessed. I just felt so overwhelmed by the love of God. The Lord really began to bless and move in our song service and there was a wonderful spirit of worship. Brother Chris didn't really preach, just shared a few scriptures and followed the Holy Ghost and--it would sound weird if I tried to explain it, but--we had a different kind of service. It ended with everybody up at the altar praying and worshiping, tears streaming. It was so beautiful. I just kept thinking about what an amazing thing worship is. I remember Emilee talking in her class at Ladies' Retreat about "thanks" being the lowest form of worship because it's dependant upon what God has done for us. But praise and worship not in connection with how God benefits us is just so beautiful; more precious than the other. (Not that thankfulness is BAD, of course... You know what I mean!) Anyway, I just kept thinking... Worship is supposed to be our gift to God... Why, then, do I come away feeling so blessed?! It's only right and just that we should offer praise and worship to Him--and He owes us nothing in return. Yet He loves us so. He allows us to feel His presence and His love and His power; He gives strength and grace that we can feel and refreshes our souls. He doesn't have to let us feel anything--and it would still be only right for us to worship Him. How loving He is--how compassionate and caring toward us to allow us to feel Him moving around us and in us and through us! ~sigh~ I love Him so much. :-)

Today has been a good, productive day. Got all of the laundry done, both bathrooms cleaned, and all of the floors swept, mopped and vacuumed. That feels good. :-) AND we started school today. That's right, the new school year is underway! The kids have had several weeks off from school... and they're driving me nuts!!!! Ha! Things run soooooo much smoother around here when everybody is busy and occupied with school and chores. When they don't have anything productive to do they just end up fighting and bickering all the time. They are so much HAPPIER when they have school and other work to do. They strongly disagree with my assesment of the situation, but I don't care. I've seen it and I know it to be true. Besides, I'm the Mom. That's really all that matters. :-) So it was BACK TO SCHOOL today! Wa-Hoo!!! We'll get nearly two full weeks in before the Assembly.

And... that's it! A painfully short post (far better than painfully long, I'm sure--you know, the kind of post I'm usually guilty of!), but I just have nothing else to say. I will, however, add a few random pictures. That's the only kind I have right now. :-)

Here's the TERRIFIC Coke puzzle from Emilee. Thanks again, Em--I LOVE IT! :-)

And here is officer Sam. He was all duded up for a while today. After he finished his school, of course. See how HAPPY he looks?! ;-)
And here are some of Katie's latest creations. She's taking them to sell at the Assembly Mission Table. I absolutely LOVE the cowboy!!! :-)

Just Can't Stay in the Groove!

The blogging groove, that is. It's been another whole week since I wrote anything. That's crazy! It's not like my life is THAT hectic, you know?! I guess I just haven't been in the mood or something dumb like that. I'm still not, but it's TIME.

Boy... THIS is going to be a boring post! I sat and stared at the screen for a full minute or more trying to think of something to write and THIS sentence is IT! Ha!

AHA! I didn't think I had taken any pictures in the past week, but I have. THAT reminds me of something I can blog about! A few days ago James took ALL THREE KIDS (did you get that?!) to the library and into town to run an errand or two. That left me HOME... ALL... ALONE...!!!!! Whoa!!! It's been so long since I've been home all by myself I just didn't know what to do with myself! Ha! Actually, I didn't really have a chance to think about it. I had to proof the Evening Light asap, then I had my ABM service to work on for the following night. So even though I wasn't able to just party (ha!), I WAS able to get some necessary work done in a perfect still and quiet house with no distractions at all. WOW! It was terrific. :-)

Since nobody remembered to take the library cards with them (I keep them in my wallet), James took everybody in to town and let them all pick out one cheap craft from Hobby Lobby. That night it was a regular art class around here. Katie came home with a new Sculpty book (that shows how to make different creatures out of clay)...

I'll have to take pictures of everything she's made since then--she's getting better all the time. :-)

Joe came home with a wooden pirate ship to build and paint...

The boys have gotten LOTS of great play out of the ship with all of their little cowboys and Indians as the crew. :-)

Sam decided he wanted a canvas of his very own so he could do "Bob Ross painting with Dad." :-) I took LOTS of pictures of this because I just LOVED how hard he was concentrating. James coached Sam, showed him what to do, and helped him a bit, but insists that Sam did most of it.

Sam working on a tree, James edging the land and the water...
Sam decided he wanted a whale's tale in his ocean...
Signing his name...
And adding just one more tree...
Speaking of Bob Ross painting, there's been quite a lot of it going on around here lately. James has painted two or three (or four?) paintings so far. Then last week he saw that there was a 5 hour Bob Ross class at Hobby Lobby, so he went to it. :-) This is what he painted while he was there.
About a week ago, James insisted that I paint a picture, too. HA! I tried and tried to tell him that I can NOT paint and that it would be a disaster, but he wouldn't hear of it. I think he was sorry when it was all said and done! Ha! I finally gave in and agreed on the condition that he stay with me the entire time and tell me what to do and where and how. It sounded sort of like this:

"Okay, let's put a cloud up here somewhere... yeah... except... try to make it look like a cloud..." HA! I tried to explain to him that I see everything in simple, basic, primary shapes. When I think cloud, I think puffy white cloud with large, curving edges all the way around--like would be on a little kid's wall. When I think mountain, I think of a perfect and equally proportioned triangle shape. If it has snow, I see a zigzag line evenly across the top of it. I made a mountain and when I realized how UNrealistic it looked I really TRIED to add some non-equal angles to it, but it still ended up pretty much a triangle. Then James would say, "Okay, now get some light color and sort of highlight one side of the ridges on your mountain, where the light would be shining." Ridges? What ridges??? I don't SEE any ridges--I still see a little gray triangle!!! It doesn't make sense to James that some people just can't visualize stuff like that. I love and appreciate beauty as much as anyone. I just can't recreate it. :-)

Hhmmm... here are just a few other pictures I took last week. This is Sam, thoroughly enjoying the CPMA service the other night. He fell into a deep, hard sleep. It wouldn't bother me so much if he wasn't such an amazing snorer!!! Ha! He's going to shake then house when he gets a little older.

And when we got home from church that night the sun was just setting and it was raining over toward the mountain. So cool. :-)

That's about all of the excitement for this week! Today was my birthday, but there really wasn't a whole lot that was exciting. My sweet kids woke me up this morning with a kiss on the cheek and breakfast (cereal, jellied toast, and juice) in bed and a homemade gift and card. Katie and Joe had made me a clay fish and Sam had made me a fishing pole with an angler fish on the hook out of WikiStix. (Don't know what the fish theme is all about, but it was sweet anyway!) I proofed the Western Skies and made the corrections and I located and gathered some pictures (on the computer) for James... and that's about it! This morning I started the 1,000 piece Coca-Cola puzzle that Emilee had brought to me at Convention and I worked on it off and on all throughout the day, sometimes with Joe and Sam's help. Believe it or not, I actually FINISHED it tonight! Wow!!! It's a really, really fun puzzle. THANK YOU SO MUCH, EM! :-) Anyway, we had Totinos for dinner tonight. James asked if I wanted to go to town so he could take me out for dinner for my birthday. HA! Town?! Me??? On a Saturday night??? No way!!! I asked if he would please just run down to the store and pick up some pizzas so I wouldn't have to cook and I wouldn't have to go to town. So he did. He got me some purty flowers, too. :-)

And now it's way too late for me to be up and I really ought to call it a night. But at least I didn't go OVER a week between blog posts. :-)

Company & Convention, PART 1

That's the biggest thing that's been going on since that day so long ago when I last blogged. But first, I must announce that Katie & Sam actually DID stay out in the tent all night! I went to check on them at midnight and they were snoozin' right on, so I took some extra blankets out to cover them up with (Sam had a cough and I didn't want him getting chilled) and went on to bed. They were so proud of themselves. The next day we threw the tent in the trash (the zipper was broken so the door couldn't be closed--we just covered the opening with a blanket for the night), so that means Joe lost his chance. Bummer!

We had a surprise visit from Josh & Debbie Davis who were driving from Texas back to Montana last Thursday. We grilled burgers and had a nice visit with them for an hour or two before they headed on. When they left it was time to head into town to pick up Sister Bishop (our guest speaker for Regional Convention) and Sister Leist at the airport. We took them to Village Inn for dinner, then on to our BTI service. Brother Chris asked the ladies to testify and I was so blessed just by their testimonies! Such a sweet, sweet spirit and such pure hearts. It sort of made all of us a little more anxious for Convention.

Friday was a crazy and hectic day trying to get everybody to town and moved into the hotel and get everything all set up for Convention. James always has so many "props," you know. ;-) In the end, it all looked great and we were ready to head into a glorious Convention--and God blessed us with just that.



The first night is always so hard because everybody is so tired. Some of our folks drive as far as 8 or 10 hours to get to Convention and you always feel a little worn out after traveling. But we had a good service and Sister Bishop's message was such a blessing! I think I'd just as soon hear her preach as anybody. I just love her spirit and her wit and her enthusiasm--she's very old-timey. Love it. :-) I also love catching the mistakes she makes. Like saying that we're now in the year 2009... and preaching that there's still wells in the water. Stuff like that. ;-)

This is the one picture I took Friday night, after the message.



The Convention just seemed (to me) to gain momentum as we went along, getting better and better. Brother Chris preached a wonderful message on Saturday morning. This was taken just shortly before he slung rubber snakes all over the floor. ;-)



Brother Luis preached in the afternoon--a good, anointed, Churchy message. You can always count on that from him. :-)

That night was the VLB march. Here are a few pictures of that. Ha! Emilee told me that it's tough to get a picture of Robert because he's camera shy, but he looked so cute in his VLB vest and tie that I had to give it a try. He wasn't really puckering... but I love it that it looks that way! Ha!





After the VLB program we had another truly great message by Sister Bishop on "A Sound of Abundance of Rain," our Convention theme. We had a wonderful altar call and several experiences. Brother Chris went to pray with one or two kids at the altar and before long had waved several more from their seats to come and join them. There are times when I feel a little hesitant because I don't want the kids to "make a show" down there just because it seems like the thing to do, but I have to remind myself that they are learning how to pray and how to seek and how to yield to the Lord--and that's a GOOD thing! I pray regularly for my kids to feel and know and love the Spirit of God and of The Church of God. I love it when they can experience those things and and I know that it will continue to draw them back to the altar. As they get older they will grow in wisdom and understanding, but right now they are learning to let the Lord woo their hearts to Him. And I love that. :-) Anyway, Brother Chris ended up on the other side of the building praying with other seekers and Brother Dustin prayed with the kids for a while.



I love this picture. I just think it's so cool--the General VLB guy in his red vest, sitting cross-legged with the Gleaners, sharing scriptures with them and encouraging them. Hands on teaching and training, right there in the altar. :-)



I was clerking that night and missed most of the excitement on the other side of the building, but did go take one picture toward the end.



This picture doesn't really need to be included, except that I think our Regional Overseer looks mighty cute in his VLB get-up. ;-)



We had several testimonies that night, none more of a blessing to me than this one! Aby went to BTI this year and was so blessed there. She has always been sooooo shy and said that somebody told her that when she receives the Holy Ghost He would give her more boldness. She said that she hasn't received it yet, but she doesn't feel shy any more--and you could SEE it! She just sort of glows and seems so, so happy. She spoke so freely... and OUT LOUD! Ha! She's beautiful--and Belen, too. :-)



David...



Tim Cox (the western one--ha!)



I think our total registration was 130. Down quite a bit from last year since we didn't have the Letcher mob with us this time (ha!) and some of our other usual attendees didn't make it.







On Sunday morning Sister Keila had her family help her with the Sunday School boost. They acted out a song as they sang--in Spanish, of course. We couldn't understand the words, but the message was clear: Get up and get yourselves to Sunday School--all of you together as a family--because there's nothing more important. :-)





The whole Region is in love with little Joel. No kid should be allowed to be that cute!





This is my favorite picture of Sister Bishop. :-)



She was SUCH a blessing to the Convention and I know our people really, really enjoyed having her. She's just so sound and solid and has such a beautiful spirit. She shared some of her personal testimony on Sunday morning and it was so amazing. We had several powerful moves of the Spirit throughout the weekend, but Sunday seemed to be especially sweet. Had some running and shouting and dancing and flag waving and all that fun stuff. :-) The Spirit was deep and rich and ministered to our souls so wonderfully. Sunday afternoon seemed even better than the morning session and I kept wondering if things would continue to get better (but how?!) if we had a few more sessions to go! It was an outstanding Convention, full of all the things it was supposed to have--good sound preaching, sincere worship, rich altar calls, and sweet fellowship.

KEEP SCROLLING--There's more...

Company & Convention, PART 2

Convention Fun


This year's Regional Convention really had a whole different flavor to it, I thought. Someone mentioned something to me a few days ago about the UNITY we had there. He said we've always had good unity here, but it just felt especially tight and close and unified this year--like everybody there was just so in tune with one another and with the Lord. I think he was right. :-)

And in the midst of all of that "family" feel, we had an awful lot of fun! We always have good fellowship at Convention and stay up way too late eating and talking and all of that stuff, but we had a lot of fun DURING Convention this year. It was sort of like Camp and Convention all mixed together. It all started with the Western Skies boost. I got most of it on video. Pay special attention to the magazine entitled "Vanity"...




Sometime during the weekend Brother Dustin gave James a late birthday present: one of his old t-shirts, autographed and personally addressed to James. HA! It's really been a long standing joke around here and would take too long to explain in full, but it has something to do with buying and selling all manner of historical Church items on eBay and since Brother Dustin is now the General VLB Coordinator... Anyway, here is James showing off the newest addition to his Church collection.



James joked that he was going to show the whole Convention, but apparently it wasn't a joke. This is how he opened up the last session on Sunday.



Somebody said something about auctioning it off, but James couldn't bear to part with it. It suddenly occurred to him, however, that we DID have that special edition of Vanity magazine... I dug it out of my bag and James started the auction--real auctioneer style. He grew up going to auctions and knows the routine pretty well. I really should have filmed it instead of taking pictures, but it was all so spur of the moment that nobody knew how great it would be!



I should have taken a picture of the Hays, at least--they were DYING over there, half from shock that people were actually bidding on the thing and half from embarrassment I think. Ha! Things got a little wild and in the end, that crazy picture sold for $50 to Brother Daryl Clark--who insisted it be autographed, too. :-)



Here's a close-up so you can better appreciate the purchase... or not. Ha!



When that piece sold Sister Karen ran forward with a picture of the Regional Overseer's family--that she had previously had ALL of the family sign--and insisted that it, too, be auctioned off. It brought in another $20, making a grand total of $70 to add to the Mission offering. Brother Dustin wanted to know why the money went to Missions instead of Outreach Literature, but he was too chicken to say anything about it around Sister Bishop. Ha!

After the Convention had dismissed on Sunday, Brother Chris Clarkson was asked to come sit up front. It was then stated that although the world says you're not "over the hill" until you turn 40, The Church of God declares you to be officially OLD when you turn 36. Brother Chris had just a few short days left, so we wanted to commemorate the life and death of a VLB. In honor of his "passing," the General VLB Coordinator traveled great distances to be with us and say a few words. :-)



To be honest, I can't remember what he shared. I just know it had to do with the tragedy of the death of a VLB. When he was finished we presented Brother Chris with a small cake, sang Happy Birthday, and told everyone they could now come by and view the body. ;-)



KEEP SCROLLING... Part 3 is to follow. :-)

Company & Convention, PART 3

The Bishop & The Leist

I would never presume to call them such, but since that's what they call themselves it seemed like a fitting title. :-)

WE HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH THEM!!! With all due respect, they are the craziest old ladies I've ever been around in my life! Ha! It's amazing how they can be so nuts... and yet be so amazingly respectable. It would take me all day to try to explain all of the ways they're insane (ha!) and all of the ways I so deeply admire them spiritually--and even the way they carry themselves. To sum it up, all I can say is that I want to be just like them some day when I grow up! :-) I just love them to death. The kids fell in love with them, too, and we all wished they could have stayed longer. We're so thankful they were able to stay with us a couple of days after Convention just to visit. We'll always remember fondly--with lots of laughter--our time with them. :-)

These pictures were actually taken before Convention, I think. Sister Bishop and Joe spent a LOT of time with guitars sitting in their laps. She taught him a whole lot of things and she declares he taught her a few, too. I don't know about any of that, but I do know they both seemed to enjoy the "lessons" quite a bit.

Sister Bishop wanted to trade hats with Sam, but he just wasn't willing to wear the pink one. Ha!
Joe decided he'd be a good sport and wear it. :-)
Sister Bishop & Katie sitting out front, enjoying the nice weather.
On Monday, we spent most of the day just sitting on the porch visiting. We were all tired from Convention and just wanted to relax. The weather was beautiful and we sat out there by the hour, just talking. :-) I made potato soup for lunch and we set out sandwich stuff.

That afternoon I asked Sister Bishop to teach me how to make fried chicken like a southerner. :-) She was a little bothered to discover I didn't have any buttermilk (naturally!), but said we could make due with sweet milk and vinegar. When the chicken was done we loaded up the picnic basket with potato salad and watermelon and whatever else we had and headed up into the mountains for an evening picnic.

The kids always run straight to the top of this rather steep mountain and Sister Bishop was determined to join them, Sister Leist hollering after her all the while to get back down here, that she was going to break her neck. Ha!

We never found out how far Sister Bishop would have been able to make it because she slipped on those leaves (probably the next step after the picture was taken) and slid do a gentle and uninjured (thank goodness!) stop. We laughed a while and finally got her back down to the picnic table where maybe she'd behave herself. Of course, it wasn't long before she was teaching the kids how to spit watermelon seeds and outdoing all three of them. HA! She's so cool. :-)

When we finished eating we piled into the van and started driving up to the crest. Right next to the picnic grounds where we had eaten there was a car stopped in the road and the driver was staring up the hill. He said there was a great big bear up there--he'd just seen it. Wow! We've always heard there are a whole bunch of bears up there, but never have seen one in all the time we've lived here. We looked for quite a while and finally Sister Leist and Katie started screaming that they saw the bear, but it was only for a second and the rest of us missed it. We thought that was pretty exciting!

Until we drove about a mile up the road and look!!!

This little guy crossed the road right in front of us! How cool is that?!
Here's the view, yet again, from the top. Seems like I post the same pictures a lot, but that's because there are only so many FREE things you can take people to see when they come to visit, you know?! Ha! Anyway, I love this ridge. :-)
Overlooking Albuquerque...
Not sure what they were cracking up over at this point, but one of them was probably saying to the other, "You're not my mother. You can't tell ME what to do." HA! They're NUTS, I'm telling you!
James & Sister Bishop
I took this on as we drove back down the mountain. The scenery is so pretty that time of day.

Of course, once Sister Leist had seen TWO bears she was just convinced they were crawling all over the mountain and was determined to see #3. And everything she saw was a bear--the rocks, the tree trunks, everything. Ha! When we got back home and James stopped to get the mail, there was a sign saying that a bear had been spotted just a few blocks from our house. If THAT didn't throw the ladies into a tizzy! As excited as they were about seeing the bears, they were at least that nervous, too--and were just sure one was going to crawl over or through our fence and come eat the children. "Brother James, do you own a gun???" Ha!

We stayed up and visited quite a while that night. James called us out front to look at the stars because they were sooooooooo bright that night, so we all stood around in the yard looking into the sky for a good long while. And tried to convince Sister Bishop that THAT is the Big Dipper. She said she KNOWS what the Big Dipper looks like and that just ain't it... although the rest of us could see it plain as anything. We spent quite a while talking and laughing and trying to convince her, but to no avail. :-)

The next day we had cinnamon rolls for breakfast (they tasted good, though they didn't rise like they're supposed to!) and then headed into town to take the ladies to the Botanical Gardens, since they're both such big flower buffs. We drove them through Old Town and they thought that was pretty neat, but were anxious to see the flowers, so we drove on. We got there and it took us a good ten or fifteen minutes to even make it to the entrance because they we kept chasing this roadrunner around trying to get a good picture of him (it was their first time to see a roadrunner) and they oohed and aahed at the bush outside for the longest time before we actually went in. :-)

They were soooooo fun to watch. They were as excited about the flowers and trees and bushes as I've ever seen any kid about animals at the zoo. They were hilarious--bending and stooping and talking in botanical language completely foreign to me. It was so much fun to watch them!
Aren't they both just so beautiful??? I JUST LOVE THEM TO DEATH. :-)
Here's Katie in the cactus garden
We had a wonderful time there, but it was soooooooooo hot. Upper 90's, at least--maybe even into the 100's. We all started getting overheated and tired and Sister Bishop found this particular specimen (the fan) worthy of her attention for a few minutes. We were in the butterfly pavilion at the time.
After we had finished up at the Botanical Gardens we walked over to the aquarium (it's a combo ticket) to enjoy some good air conditioning! Sister Bishop pointed out several of the stuffed fish on the wall as species that she has caught before and had great stories to go with them. I am just AMAZED at how much she and Sister Leist know--they seem to know sooooooo much about EVERYTHING. They are just a wealth of information about whatever subject seems to come up. Makes me realize that I really ought to be more inquisitive and curious or I'll grow up to be a dumb old lady one day! They really are incredible.
This was the biggest, ugliest puffer fish I've ever seen in my life!
We took the ladies to Furr's for lunch, since they'd never been to one. They seemed to enjoy it and we had a really good visit with them there. We got home in the early afternoon and most of us adults went to take a short nap--all of the walking in that heat had zapped all of us! As I was cooking dinner that night, Sister Bishop was out front playing with the kids again. She had brought a bag of balloons for them and they would all stand in a line and blow one up, then take turns releasing them and letting them zip around--in an effort to hit Sister Leist, who was sitting on the porch bench directly in front of them.
They'd collect their balloons, stand in their line, blow them up again, then take a giant step forward to try again to hit her. Ha! The balloons kept whizzing every direction except toward the intended target. Sister Bishop said, "We're gonna take one more giant step forward and try again. And if that don't work I'll tell you what we're gonna do... We're gonna walk right over to that hose and fill 'em up and try it again!" Ha! They never did include water in their game, but it continued for quite a while. I went inside to work on dinner some more and when I glanced out the window, Sister Bishop and the kids were standing RIGHT in front of Sister Leist with their balloons just a few inches away from her face, ready to try again! HA!

That night we stayed up visiting and watching old Church videos until way too late. James even showed them where they can find and buy some old Church books online and we placed an order for the two of them. :-)

The next morning we loaded up and headed into town to take them to the airport. They insisted on going to Home Depot first, and then Wal-Mart, but were unable to find what they were looking for. So they gave James some cash and told him that they wanted him to find some knockout rose bushes--two of them, red or pink; not yellow--and even told him where in our yard they want us to plant them. :-) Is that not just so thoughtful?! James has looked and couldn't find any in town, so he ordered some today. We'll get them planted right where the ladies told us and we'll think of them and the wonderful time we had with them every time we see those knockout roses. Of course, we'll probably call them body slam roses instead. HA!

I only wish I could express how blessed and encouraged I feel after getting to know such wonderful ladies as Sister Bishop and Sister Leist. I've "known" them for years, but never had a chance to spend any real time with them until now. My life is richer because of it. They are wonderful--both of them--and I feel so blessed to have had this time with them. My kids, too--they think they are just terrific!

The only other news around here is that Sam was sick and now Joe is. Nothing serious, but Sam spent a day in bed with a fever and a headache and today seems to be Joe's day. He had a fever last night and trouble sleeping. He's been laying around all day today, still in his pj's. The fever comes and goes but his head hurts consistently. He had some soup for lunch and watched a movie this afternoon, then took another nap. Now he's just laying there, not even reading a book. You know Joe doesn't feel good if he's not even reading! Ha! So if you would please, say a prayer for God to heal him and protect the rest of us. :-)