Va-Ca!

YEA!! We had an awesome vacation.

Come along and see all we did:

We drove to Tennessee to spend the day with GeeGaw.

We picked honeysuckles, ate pancakes and had a wonderful visit.

Jason and GeeGaw even had time for a chat out back in the evening.
On our way out the next morning, we stopped at MeeMaw's gravesite.
We travelled all day. It was really obvious when we reached Texas:
When we got to Houston, the first thing everyone wanted to do is hug Grandma!
And then, of course, we all had to hug Jazzy!
The cousins-looking cute!
And Uncle Jake-the Baby Guru!
I am afraid we wore Charlie out:

Auntie Jenn brought presents which the kids loved:
We took a drive downtown-it's just amazing!
And we went to the Houston Zoo with Grandma
We saw some wonderful animals

And we had a great time together
Isn't he cute? We couldn't fit him in the van, so he had to stay
Eric loved the meercats:
Aunt Laurie was so much fun!

And the cousins had a blast together, especially boxing with the Spidey Aunt Jenn brought

On Friday, we met our dear friends, the Greens-missionaries to the deaf in Merida, Mexico. These are their kids: Caitlin and Dallas
We met at the Transco Tower (which someone had the audacity to rename the Williams Tower) and Water Wall. The Water Wall is on one end of the field, and the Tower is on the other.
Here is a view of the tower looking straight up. It's a monster:
We then went to the Galleria and had cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory!

Say "amen" right there!

Dallas and Kenton
Goofy kids...
Bill and Jennifer Green
Eric

This is my dear friend Chelly, who I have known since the 10th grade
Grandma and Jazzy
Jason and Jazzy
Chelly and Allyson

Eric and Jazzy
At Uncle Jeremy's house, an arm-wrestling contest broke out...

between the ladies! Here, Aunt Laurie shows off her "mommy guns"!

The cousins: (l-r: Eric, Adriana, Allyson, Kaitlynn, and Kenton)

One of my favorite pictures of the trip:

The Bruces

We went to Laurie's for bbq. Dude, the girl can cook!
The kids swam in the pool
Aunt Chelly was able to get us two tickets to the Astro's game...

in the second row!! Jason and I had a blast!
Can you believe these seats?!?

Auntie Jenn and Eric
Our last night-the three Little Kids, all grown up

Jeremy, Jennifer, and Jason

I haven't even scratched the surface of all the fun we had, and all the friends and family we saw. One of the best parts of the trip was having everyone together to hear Jason preach at Bruce and Marti's church, Christchurch Baptist Fellowship. What a wonderful church! The people were so sweet and friendly. The pastor, Dr. Johnny Pope, is a wonderful man, a great preacher, and he was so kind to us. Jason and I got to have a great meal with Dr. Pope and his wife before the service on Wednesday. The Popes were great fun to hang out with, and they are Godly examples for anyone to look up to.

We left early Thursday morning, sooner than any of us wanted to, and drove to Tenessee. We spent the night again with GeeGaw, woke up at 4 a.m. and drove back to Michigan, where everything is in bloom.

We had such a wonderful time, but man, now we are pooped!
Thanks so much to all of you who prayed for us as we traveled, loved on us while we were in Houston, and missed us while we were gone. We love you all!

I Got Tagged...

It didn't hurt, really!

(BTW...the kid's b-day blogs are below this, and they are way more interesting!)

Marianne, my wonderful sis-in-law, tagged me from her blog, and now I am duty bound to respond (do the Internet Police enforce this stuff?), so here goes:

I must tell all of you seven weird things about myself. Shrinking the list to seven will be tough, but not as tough as listing seven normal things about myself...

Weird Thing #1. When I was a kid, I thought the absolute yummiest thing in the wide world was a piece of white bread slathered in French's Classic Yellow Mustard. Delish!

Weird Thing #2. I have almost non-existant little-toe toenails. There ain't enough toenail there to even try to paint. I have gone from believeing I was completely deformed to now just being plain weird. Sigh...

Weird Thing #3. If I love a book, I will read it roughly ten times. Certain books I have read so often, I can quote entire portions of them off the top of my head, like "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother, Jem, got his arm badly broken at the elbow...." oops..sorry...like I said, weird. (Two extra credit points if any of you know what book that is!)

Weird thing #4. I can't stand Nickolodeon cartoons. I have serious issues with them. I could actually rant and rave about how completely awful they are. Seriously, do not get me started!

Weird Thing #5. I secretly long to be an Interior Designer. I actually have a binder full of pictures and clippings from old magazines of tons of beautiful homes and yards and rooms. Not only do I own this ridiculous thing, but I look at it frequently, and add to it from time to time.

Weird Thing #6. I would love to write a book. I sit down and start books all the time, but I can never get past the first few paragraphs-the planning and structure of the plot gets me every time. I just want to sit down and write the Great American Novel with no research, planning, or forethought whatsoever. Weird.

Weird Thing #7. When I was young, I always knew I would marry a preacher. I love being a preacher's wife. How weird is that??

And now, I am supposed to Tag some other folks...lol...I don't actually know seven other bloggers, so I will tag just a couple...

Jeanene, a wonderful friend and new mommy
Jeremy, Marianne's very witty husband, and my bro. in law.

I'd also like to tag the candidates in this year's presidential election, but they never answer the question that was actually asked anyway, so I won't waste my time...lol...sigh...

Birthday Girl

Well, guess who had a birthday...I know, I can't believe it either: our little Allyson is twelve! Twelve! She is really growing up good-I am so proud of her.

We opened presents on Friday afternoon...
Allyson loves scrapbooking!
Mom and Dad thought it would be hilarious to give her a bag full of hangers.

She thinks we are a little weird.
So, we had to give her the clothes, too.
Isn't she beautiful?
She's as pretty on the inside as she is on the outside.
Oh, yeah-we had to give her some black olives-they are her favorite!

Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Birthday Boy

Kenton is seven. I can't believe it either. We celebrated his birthday on Saturday by having a few friends over for a Backwards Party. We had a wonderful time, although we were unsuccessful in reversing the age process in the children.

This is Kenton and his good friend Jonah, sporting the very finest in Backward attire for the party. Yes, their jeans are on backwards, too.
The syrup bottle is on the table because we obviously had to serve breakfast for our dinner guests!
Kenton is now the proud owner of a Spidey skateboard. Watch out!
I love seeing them grow. Kenton has such a sweet spirit, and a loving heart (unless he and dad are wrestling, then he's fearless, and he has no mercy!). Sigh...

Rose Street Wrestling

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE :

Coming soon to a living room near you:

Rose Street Wrestling

Starring Big Bad Dad, and Little Skinny Stud

Special Guest Star: Eric the Menace

See amazing feats of strength and agility

Thrilling throws!

Awesome holds!

This, my friends, is more entertaining that Ninja Warior,

more exciting M.M.A.,

and baby, this is for real!

The calm after the...play

The play is over for another year. 73 souls walked the aisles and professed Christ-what an amazing sight. I will never get over sitting on the platform watching them come forward, scared, excited, joyful, apprehensive, but all coming. God is so good.

Jason's birthday was crazy with the play this year-he's not had a moment's rest yet. Tomorrow, he has the morning off, then it's off to the college to take his place at Cross America. This year, he's the Goofy Game Guy.

The kids are growing like weeds. Their personalities are becoming so distinct. Kenton had a pretty big role in the play this year, and people kept telling him what a great job he was doing (he was, too-the kid can act, wait till you see the dvd!). The last night, after the performance ended, some of the folks onthe front row motioned him over to compliment him. He goes right up there (mind you-he doesn't know these people from Adam), shakes their hands and introduces himself like he's Something Special in the acting world. It was hilarious.

Eric, on the other hand, is completely fascinated with the back-stage goings-on. Our set director is always running back and forth hammering something, sawing something, working the dry-ice machine, setting stuff up, taking stuff apart, messing around with fake blood, and Eric is his little shadow. He was totally thrilled to get to help scrub blood stains out of the carpet after the performance. He said to anyone who cared to listen, "When I get big, I'm gonna do Mr. Acie's job!"

Allyson is going to be twelve any minute now. (Actually, not until the 18th, but you know how time flies.) She has been on the special music schedule for the last two months. She has an amazing voice. No formal training, no nothing, but she's got power and maturity and musical ability that I couldn't even fake at that age.

Now, we enter the calm before the storm...we have a couple months before summer camps begin. We'll need every minute to recover from the play, but our anticipation and excitement about camp grows every day: military theme! Dude, we are gonna get to blow stuff up! We are gonna make PVC guns and have a giant marshmallow war! It's gonna be awesome!

I gotta get to bed...

It is still snowing. Still.

I'm cranky.

Here it is March, and last night, six (6!) inches of snow landed in our laps. Like Dr. Hamblin says, that's enough to make a stone weep. March in Michigan is not for the weak.

Or the patient.

Or the native southerner.

Sigh.

Oddly enough, the native-born Michiganders in the house, aside from Jason, are not at all upset that it's still snowing out. The boys played outside like it was the best thing ever. My bad attitude never looked so bad.

But, the snow brings out the chivalrous side of the neighbors: When my neighbor with his massive snow blower sees me and Ally out with our little shovel, it's like the man can not wait to rush over to help. If only we could invent a huge gas-powered laundry machine or vaccuum cleaner. "Pardon me ma'am-I've got the Craftsman Laundry-Folder 7000, lemme take care of those sheets and towels for you!"

Busy Days...

Well, I need to first apologize for being such a terrible blogger-camp has been over for more than a month, and this is the first minute I have had to update. We have been busy. The kids are very busy with their school work. Allyson is writing a book (!) for her co-op writing class, and she's taken up sculpting in art-she loves it-must be Gramma's genes.
Kenton has been very busy too. He is learning to count money, reading all about maps and ships and the Assyrians. We finished "Red Sails to Capri" and now Kenton knows the beautiful secret of that great book-go get it and read it to your kids-it's wonderful. Talk with an Italian accent while you read it-it is so much fun.
We have been working on a great puzzle that is helping us with our geography skills, oh, and our patience as well. We finshed the puzzle map yesterday, and are now free to use the dining room table for actual mealtime...lol.

But, the biggest news is in the next pictures: Kenton was baptised today. He was saved when he was almost five, and we have been waiting to have him baptised-Kenton does not like water. In fact, he hates the water. It is a big deal for Kenton to venture into a swimming hole of any size. We tried to teach him to swim at camp the past two years, and while he's doing much better, he is still pretty leary of the water.
But, Kenton wants to be baptised. He asked Dad to help him practice, and they did in the tub for a long time. Finally, this past week, Kenton said he was ready, and today, he was baptised. What a blessing! When the pastor asked him if he knew Jesus as his personal Savior, Kenton answered, loud and proud, "Oh, yes, sir!" What a beautiful brave testimony Kenton gave today.
Eric has been busy too-he's learning to be a "big boy" now, and he's doing really well. He's not still long enough to get his picture taken. I'll have to take an action shot of him for next time!