Closing Out Summer

Wow! Where did the summer go? I know it is actually still summer, but for us, summer vacation has come to an end :(

Here's a recap of our summer in pictures ~ in no particular order :)

Catching Up on Other Things

We recently participated in our local AWANA Grand Prix. This is a very anticipated event in our AWANA schedule! The kids get very excited about making their cars and racing them. Even the adult and youth leaders get in on the action!

TNT clubbers' (3rd - 6th graders) cars

Will placing his car on the track

Mike, ready to release the cars in the TNT races

Will was SO excited to place 1st in Design! He's been trying to win 1st Place Design for a couple of years now. He made a submarine this year. He christened it the USS AWANA. If you look closely to the left side of the submarine, you can see that he even made a little propeller (by taking apart one of his dad's fishing lures) and attached it to the rear of the sub.

Kate (participating in the leaders category) builds her car for speed. But she always manages to come up with a pretty cool design as well.

Kate ~ the double winner ~ won 1st Place in both Speed and Design!

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How do you celebrate Valentine's Day in your home? I certainly don't like the way it is such a commercialized holiday (like all holidays). I don't like for my husband to feel undue pressure to run out and spend money buying things just to convince me of his love for me. 

On the other hand, I don't think it's a bad idea to set aside a day to focus on showing our love for each other. So... in our house, we meet somewhere in the middle. We do give gifts, just little expressions of our love. And we try to focus on becoming more loving to others, as well as trying to develop characteristics that make us more lovable.

This year we gave our daughter a beautiful red rose, to tell her that like the rose, she too is beautiful all year long and not just on this one day. My husband and I want her to know that she is special, that she is created in the image of Almighty God. And that she is a treasure to us. This is a turbulent time for her--those teenage years--when she is forming in her mind an idea of what true beauty looks like. We want her to know that it is so important to focus on being beautiful on the inside... of being conformed to Christ's image. We want her to find her beauty and her worth in Christ alone.

Don't we all need to know that? That what this world says about us doesn't matter. That despite what the media tells us, beauty and worth are not measured by our dress size, or by whether we are wearing the latest fashions. That we are created in the image of God, and that we are to reflect His glory... that's what true beauty is. If you are a daughter of the Most High King, then you are the apple of His eye! And that is beautiful. 

This and That

I have a tendency to get behind on posting things before I completely forget about them! Thank goodness I love to take pictures. I was going through some of them last night and realized that I had quite a few different things I wanted to post about, but just never had the time to...

So...I decided to combine a few posts here together.

My First Wildflowers This Year

He didn't know I was watching through the kitchen window...

He wants to surprise me...I have to pretend that I wasn't watching...

Aren't they beautiful???

 This next one is from quite a while back, while my oldest son was still living on campus at college. At Christmas break he moved back home and began commuting.

This Is Why We're Paying for Him to go to College???

Let's see...study or Guitar Hero?

Working on the Online Course for Scuba Training

my two youngest, with Dad overseeing

An Update

My fil continues to improve. He is residing in the rehabilitation/therapy unit of the local nursing home. The doctors told him he has to stay for therapy for 20 days; as of today, 5 days down, 15 to go! He is doing very well, but we continue to covet your prayers.

On a side note, he was released from the hospital on the day after the first case of swine flu was diagnosed in the state of Georgia; the patient was admitted into the same hospital where my fil was located. This pandemic has now hit "close" to home for us.

We will be traveling to north Georgia today for my son's baseball games. His team has made it through the first round of the State Play-offs, and is in the second round this weekend! It's a double-header today. Gotta love baseball!