1 Corinthians 16:13

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong.
1 Corinthians 16:13

This is a verse that speaks to the heart of what I want for my children.  There is so much to it.  I pray this over my sweet babies often as they head out into the world each morning on their way to school.  They will need it each day as their world will most likely look much different than our world today.  Case in point, is this article that I read this afternoon.  I couldn't get this verse out of my mind.  I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm deeply grieved at the level of animosity that people in our world have against people that truly and deeply love the Lord as the one and only true God and their one and only Savior.  God is even more deeply grieved.

Anyway, I thought I'd share this article with you so you knew what today's military is up against.  There is also a link included to the original article that is being referenced in the article.  It's even more difficult to read given the fact that he's been tapped as a consultant to develop the military's policy on religious tolerance. This is only the beginning of what our nation could be facing.

Please be in prayer for strength and courage to face tomorrow.

Rattlesnake Outing

Today, we went to an area Rattlesnake Derby.  We went to this one when we were here for training about six years ago and nothing has changed.  It was mostly your typical city festival full of rides, food and more stuff than you would ever really want or need.  All of that was gathered together in celebration of the rattlesnake.  In its honor, you could eat rattlesnake, pose with a rattlesnake, see a rattlesnake butchered or just be content to experience the rattlesnake pit. So, with no further ado, I thought I'd share our experience through pictures.

 I guess  you have to store them somewhere

 I don't know why, but this guy's shirt cracked me up.  I'm thinking this is the only part of the country where you would see a shirt like that!

 This vendor had some interesting things for sale

 Just a few of the "over 200 western diamondback rattlesnakes" they had in the snake pit

 No words needed!

You might need to enlarge this picture to see them, but this guy posed this one just right for Chris to get a picture of those fangs

 Yes, that's the trio checking out those snakes up close, but thankfully not personal. (Luke in the green cap, then Andrew and Hannah in pigtails)

Just a little project

Over the years, I occasionally have gotten out my sewing machine.  However, the last year or so I've had a bit more fun getting it out and putting it to use.  I usually use it for some sort of home decor project with the requirement that only straight lines are involved.  The last time I made an actual garment may very well have been in jr. high home ec class.  So, the other day, I got this bright idea that I wanted to make Hannah a dress.  I'd seen pillowcase dresses online...ok, probably pinterest...and decided I wanted to try one.  It met the one requirement that I've stuck to - it had straight lines.  I found this simple tutorial to follow and I did it.  This was the final product.  I was very pleased with it.  I did change a couple of things because that's the way I do things...I rarely like every single thing about a pattern.  Anyway, I hand-stitched the hem because that's the way I was taught and I thought it looked a bit better.  I also used one length of ribbon and looped it through both casings so there would be just one bow on one shoulder.  In all, this project took less than a day.  If you follow the directions, it could easily take just a couple of hours. 

And as for future projects....I do have one that I'm gathering supplies for that involves curved lines.  Part of me wonders what I'm thinking. We'll just have to see what happens.

On the Job

I know I've posted pictures of Chris at work, but I thought I'd share a few more.  Earlier this week, we went and saw him take off.  We see airplanes flying above our heads quite often, but I never know if it's Chris's plane for sure.  This time, I know it is.  He's in the second plane getting ready to fly in formation with the first plane (above picture).  Below, he is waiting his turn to take-off.  He even got in a quick wave to us before taking to the skies.

Alphabet Soup

Luke had his First Grade Program, Alphabet Soup, last week.  It was really neat that Grandpa and Grandma could also be here to see it all.  What a cute program.  They sang a song or did a little poem for each letter of the alphabet.  When I first heard this, I thought it would be really long, but it was just the right length (teachers know what they're doing!!)  My favorite, which we don't have a video, didn't even have words.  They used snapping fingers, clapping hands on their legs and stomping the risers to mimic the sound of rain.  Believe it or not, it did sound like rain!

The "Bird" Man song.  It cracked me up that they got nearly all the first graders to do this.  Luke is the third from the left in the back row.

Changed Looks

So, Luke lost another tooth...  Just for the record, I promise not to post every single tooth that he loses.  However, this one changed his looks.  It left one big hole for what I'm assuming will be an equally large tooth to fill that hole.  Anyway, I thought I'd just share a couple of pictures and short video with you.  I really like the picture above.  Andrew is very intent on what is going on.  Hannah's not in it, but I'm pretty sure she was running around with her eyes covered up for at least part of the time.  Finally, the video is Andrew and Luke's attempt at completing the task.  If you must know, Chris ended up giving it one good yank with a string to make eating just a bit easier on Luke.

5K

Last Saturday, I signed up for my first 5K in 9 years.  I've continued to run on and off over the last few years, but haven't done any races.  Anyway, after my bout with pneumonia in December, it's not been super easy to get back to where I was before I got sick.  So, in hopes of getting my act back together, Chris told me about this local 5K and I decided to give it a go.  I "trained", which means I ran about 3-4 times a week for the 2-3 weeks beforehand.  I just didn't know how it would go because I had been running more than that.  So, the day of the race, I had a time that I wanted to do it in, but was being realistic as to how I thought it would go.  When it was all said and done, I was quite surprised as to how I did.  My time ended up being 29:52.  Now, I need to clarify that this was not a true 5K.  We kind of knew that.  Chris later went back and thought it was about 2.95 miles rather than the 3.1 it should have been.  I was still pretty happy with the time, though.  I have to admit, though, that I found it quite funny when a few hours later I get a call from a friend letting me know that I'd won second place in my age division!  Again, for the record, I have no idea how many were in my age division - maybe there were only three.  It was a small race with maybe a couple of hundred people running.  However, I will still be happy with that.  As for my medal, I'll have to post pictures later.  I still haven't gotten it since we had another commitment that we left for after the race. 

Let's Go Fly a Kite...

...or untangle kite string!  OK, it really was a fun afternoon.  Last Friday, all the first grades at our elementary school took the last hour of school to go out and fly kites.  We had not flown a kite in quite some time.  So, I really, really wanted Chris to take a few minutes from work to assist Luke.  We had gotten him a new kite (and cheap!) so I wasn't sure how this would all work.  The wind was blowing at about 12-15 mph so it ended up being perfectly windy and it didn't take much work to get the kite airborne.  So, we got out our nice kite that we had to read the directions to put together (yes, it had been a long time!)  It was fun to have out, but much more sensitive to the ways of the wind so it didn't stay out long because we were afraid it would dive bomb some little person that was running around.  It was also about that time that all that was going well ended up not going so well.  The inevitable kite tangles began occurring.  Let's just say that when I child runs their kite perpendicular to all other kites, this does not go well!  So, Chris and I spent about half our time retrieving Luke's kite from a tangle and then untangling the kites of a few other kids.  It was well after school was out when we finished.  After it was all said and done, we went to the school with two kites and came home with four!  We had a good time and those brave teachers knew it would be!

 Chris and Luke getting the kite flying

 Luke's kite (Air Force Thunderbirds - of course!)

Chris taking a turn with our "good" kite

Little Miss Hannah

Hannah has always been a delightful little girl.  However, this past year, she is really beginning to become a young lady.  I love it that she is now reading and writing.  You can often find her doing one or the other.  Thankfully, the last couple of days I've been on the receiving end.  The following notes are from the last couple of days.  I look forward to many more in the future!

Front:  I love you Mommy 
Back:  I am so sorry, Mommy because I whined so (much) to you.

 Front:  I love you! 
Back:  I am so happy that you have gotten out of the hospital.

I did help her spell a couple of these words.  I was wondering who she was writing it to.  Evidently, my hospital stay just before Christmas really affected her...such a sweet girl!