Sweet awards and a wonderful prize!

There is only one reason I have not posted about my blessings earlier! I have caught the lazy bug when it comes to thinking in order to blog! I have alot on my mind, but it takes to much time to process said info and type it out in words that sound even mildly coherent!

But shame on me! I have been given some blessings hand have not shared them with all of you yet! But no more, here we go!

My dear bloggy friend Nancie over at More than Conquerors gave me these two awards

Sharing the Love award!

Friendship Award

As I think over the wonderful group of women I have come to know, and some I already knew, but now know better, it's hard to choose any one to give these awards too! But there are 3 that come to mind right off the bat so I am sending these to awards out to:

Linda @ Mocha with Linda

I just so enjoy her blog! I feel like we are old friends, even though she did say not to visit her in Texas, just because we may have been in Ca during an earthquake and forest fire! Just kiddin' Linda!

Diane @ My Journey's Path

Diane is my sista in Christ! We have known each other quite a while! She is a tremendous support to me, and a wonderful prayer warrior!

Connie @ Little Red hearts from God

Connie is such a generous soul! You can so see her heart in her posts! I could never do what she does for a living! All I know is that these people are blessed to have her there to help them!

These are just three, but I think your all fantastic, and have had so much fun getting to know you and growing closer to God through your posts!

Now unto my little blessing!

E-mom had a Summer bloggy carnival contest and I won a couple of books!

The Boy Who Would Be King: The Story of David

- Streams: Five Psalms on Film (O.K. so maybe this one isn't a book)

I can't wait to get them!

Have a wonderful evening, what's left of it and a wonderful day tomorrow! If you think about it about 9:20 Michigan time if you could say a quick prayer for Jeremiah! He is getting his bottom braces on! YIPPY! Well at least it's not a retainer! I hate those things!!!!!

Lessons learned in California!

I thought I would write about a few things I learned while on my vacation in California! Some simple, some profound (at least to me)! You'll have to chose which is which! I wanted to get these down before I forgot, so here we go!

• Alot of Central California from LA to Visalia is BROWN! It's still beautiful, but BROWN!
• Visalia is HOT! I mean really HOT!
• The happy cows from California are not found in Visalia! There are alot of cows there, because it's a huge dairy farm community, but they definitely do not look happy! Now the comes in the foot hills with lots of land to roam, they look happy!
• People in California, especially Visalia get used to the high temps and think it's cool to keep their air at 85 degrees! They think we're wimps! I may have to agree!
• California is a big state that takes alot of time to travel from one area to another.
• Mountains have very curvy roads! I mean really CURVY!!!
• There is not as much oxygen in the mountains as down below! It takes alot of effort for an incredibly out of shape, heavier woman to make it up the sides of mountains!
• I can Kayak and have fun while doing it! This has become a new family outing! Anyone have any kayaks they'd like to see for cheap?!
• Sequoia pine cones only open due to fire! There is a great spiritual lesson in that don't you think?! The seed cones are 4-7 cm long and mature in 18-20 months, though they typically remain green and closed for up to 20 years; each cone has 30-50 spirally arranged scales, with several seeds on each scale giving an average of 230 seeds per cone. The seed is dark brown, 4-5 mm long and 1 mm broad, with a 1 mm wide yellow-brown wing along each side. Some seed is shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, but most seeds are liberated when the cone dries out from fire heat and/or insect damage
• The sequoia's are amazing! There is just no describing them!
• The inside of a sequoia can completely burn, but it the membrane stays in tack the tree continues to grow! God sure has a great plan doesn't he!
• Yosemite is breathtaking! Everywhere you look you just can't believe the beauty! Only 5% of the park is ever seen! Can you imagine the part that most people don't see! Oh how I wish I had the time to hike it!!!!!
• Yosemite is also a big vacation spot for Europeans. Just like in Napa I told Steve I felt in the minority.
• It doesn't matter where you are in California, like Squaw Valley, you can still get a good expensive cup of Joe'!
• The mountains can hold back clouds! We've seen it! We will have beautiful cloudless sky over us, but when you look towards the mountain range you see huge clouds on the other side that never make it over!
• Elephant seals stink! But are very cool to watch!
• Napa is not California's only wine country. The central valley going to the coast has alot of wineries! We couldn't stop though!
• Even though I grew to like the smell of the ocean I still prefer my big lake smells! I love how God plants you just where you fit best, and that he transplants to better suit who you are!
• Sea shells are very hard to come by!
• In california (at least Calabasas) you can get Gecko's in your house!
• And don't let you cat out at night otherwise the coyotes will get them!
• Even though we were in an earthquake, California did not fall into the sea! At least not yet!
• Steve's sister Mary like to eat late, like at 8:30pm, but that never seemed to bother us!
• I love the fresh fruit you can get, right out of your yards!
• LAX wasn't that bad!
• Driving wasn't that bad!
• California is a wonderful place to visit! We hope to go back someday, but I love my Michigan!

Thankful Thursday!

Well I'm a little late, but still well within the day of Thursday so I'm doing good! It has been a busy day, week and promises to be a busy month, what with the coming Fall Children's Ministry season FAST approaching and with a pretty BIG change happening that only promises to bring more work, and possibly stress! Bring it on! Oh wait on second thought don't bring it on I was just joking! Enough babble until what I am thankful for this week! Iris' theme is hope! The verse she has on her site is the one I quoted all the way to California, Psalms 42:11 - Why are you downcast Oh my soul? Why so disturbed within me! Put your hope in God! For I will yet praise you my savior and my God! I love that verse! We are Christians have much to put our hope in! This verse is also said in Psalms 42:5 and Psalms 43:5! Isn't that great! David has to repeat it to himself too! Boy I love that!

I am so thankful this week that:

• I do have a God that is faithful and true! That I can put my hope in him and never be disappointed!
• That I have hope and a future with Him! But also hope and a future here! "On earth as it is in Heaven"!
• My little peanut is at camp for the next 3 days! She has looked forward to this all year! She loves going to Camp Geneva and was quite bummed that it was only for 3 days!
• I have read Philippians 4 and it has given me the right perspective for the next month and the changes that could otherwise stress me out! I love how God times these things for just when you need them! I was thinking "Boy I'm not getting through Philippians very fast!" Ah.... it's not my timing, but God! Thanks for that lesson Daddy!
• I have two children that I sincerely love to be around! I am going to miss them so much when they go back to school! School right now is a "four letter word" in our house!
• We laugh with each other, and genuinely enjoy being with each other as a family!
• I have a husband who works hard, and loves taking care of his family!
• I have friends to talk to about things that are on my mind! We don't get together much, but they are there when I need them!
• I learned a lesson on friendship. It should be about "expectancy" not "expectation"! Ah... , but boy how I did the latter for many years!
• There is rain and sunshine! For beautiful blue skies with fluffy white clouds, and for buckets of rain!

I need to get busy, so that is all I can do right now! Have an absolutely blessed evening, and check out the other ladies at Sting my heart who are sharing their thankful hearts today!

Wordless Wednesday

Elephant Seals sparing off the California Coast

Right-Hemisphere Dominant! Interesting!!!

Lisa over at The Preacher's Wife had this handy dandy little quiz on her blog, so I thought, "well I have nothing else to blog about at this time, why not take it and see how I function. Or don't function! Anyway here are the results! I love these quizzes! It's amazing how they figure this out! I have to admit I didn't understand parts of it! Oh well it says I don't operate as efficiently as I desire, so I guess that would be right!

Kim, you show a slight right-hemisphere dominance with a moderate preference for auditory processing, an unusual and somewhat paradoxical combination of characteristics.
You are drawn to a random and sometimes nonchalant synthesis of material. You learn as it seems important to a specific situation, and might even develop a resentment of others who attempt to direct your learning down a specific channel.
Your right-hemispheric dominance provides a structure that is only loosely organized and one which processes entire swatches of reality, overlooking details. You are emotional in your reactions and perceptual more than logical in your approach, although you can impose structure and a language base when necessary.
Your auditory preference, on the other hand, implies that you process information sequentially and unidimensionally. This combination of right-brain and auditory modes creates conflict, as you want to process data more rapidly than your natural processes allow.
Your tendency to be creative and free-flowing is accompanied by sufficient ability to organize and be logical, allowing you a reasonable degree of success in a number of different endeavors. You take in information methodically and systematically which can then be synthesized rapidly. In this manner, you manage to function consistently well, although certainly less efficiently than you desire.
You prefer the abstract and are a theoretician at heart while retaining the ability to be practical. You find the symbolism in a great deal of what you encounter and are something of a "mystic."
With regards to your lifestyle, you have the mentality which would be good as a philosopher, writer, journalist, or instructor, or possibly as a systems designer or social worker. Perhaps most important is your ability to "listen to your inner voice" as a mode of skipping over unnecessary steps to achieve your goals.

Then sings my soul saturday!

INDESCRIBABLE!

Jeremiah made this video of our trip to the song "Indescribable" by Chris Tomlin. We thought of this song many times over the past 2 weeks! God revealing himself in nature! No big boom made this world! Only a creator filled with love could make a world so unique and full of places for his greatest creation to explore and see him! Many times I was overwhelmed with emotion thinking about how much he loves me and wants me to know Him better!

Romans 1:20

For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Some random California Pics!

Tell me where would you expect to see a coffee bus! Urban areas? Nope, try Squaw Valley, CA! We were on our way to the Sequoias and Kings Canyon, in the middle of no where, literally! Low and behold Bern spots this bus! Now it was pretty hot out so I got a hazelnut frappy! YUM!!!! I had to have Steve take a picture of it!

The boys at the ocean on the way to Morro Bay! Notice all have shirts on!
Now notice most shirts off! by the time we caught up with them they were completely soaked, and my sons pockets were full of sand because he got pounded by a wave! I heard about that much later!
A surfer at sunset by Morro Rock! Bekah found 5 perfect sand dollars on this walk!
My new favorite bird! The pelican! These birds are so graceful! They can fly just above the waves, with their wings maybe just slightly touching the waves! They move up and down with the waves! Also watching them dive bomb for fish is amazing! The literally go head first into the water at a high rate of speed!
Bekah after the wave took her under! She was covered in so much sand! We witnessed the mighty power of God in alot of things in California! From fires, to earthquakes to climbing on rocks on top of mountains, to waves! It was amazing and I am so thankful for his watchful eye as we explored this part of this creation!

This probably won't be the end of the pics either! Steve whittled it down to 670 last night! Aren't we nuts!!! Now we have to pic 200 or 250 of our favorites to print!

Have a great Friday!