Images from Easter

Our Month has been very busy, So I have been not blogged about Easter yet. So I am keeping this short and letting my pictures tell the story.

Needless to say we had a wonderful day celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Favorite Flower

When asking me favorites, I will tend to have one or two, or go by what is my favorite right now. Like Favorite color is any shade of purple or green. When asking my favorite restaurant it will probably be one that Joel and have frequented recently (as I write this I still couldn't tell you). Favorite Ice Cream, I would be like Julia Child and say, whatever I am eating right now. There is one favorite that is steadfast, my favorite Flower.

My favorite flower is the tulips. Living in the Pacific Northwest I am privileged to live near some of the world's largest Bulb farms. Every April the tulips bloom through the cold muddy winter sludge and mud, Carpeting the Fields with color. reminding us that the world has not died in the winter only hibernated.

Tulips have a simplistic quality to them, which may be why I like them. The long green stem, with the slender leaves, make way for the sleek smooth petals. Petals that come in every color, from white and pale peach to dark, almost black, Purple. They have no scent, which I think adds to the simplicity of them. When it comes to a favorite variety, I love the traditional flower, not the parrot, double petals, or the temple variety. These take away from the innocence of the flower.

I like to look at flowers as having human qualities it really puts them into perspective. The Rose is the belle of the Ball, full of petals and pleasing scent, but watch yourself, as they often have thorns. The lily, all types, calla, stargazer, water, and oriental, are the drama queens bursting forth with color and beautiful petals saying Look at me!! Wildflowers, baby's breath and stocks are the wallflowers, they add beauty to arrangement or garden, but hardly ever noticed for their own beauty. The orchid is the temperamental princess needing her surroundings just right, so she can look her best. The Tulip is like the person at a party who is often quiet and soft spoken, not a flashy personality or smartly dressed, but is the person who, for some reason, people are often drawn to them; for the loyalty and uncomplicated friendship they give. The tulip comes out in the coldest and bleakest situation reminding us of the good news, Spring is Here!!!!!

So I as I have told you what my favorite flower is and why. I would love to Know what your favorite flower is.

Actual conversation

This is an actual conversation between a husband and wife, who shall remain nameless.

Wife: Do you want to go out Friday Night? I think I could get a Babysitter.

Husband: Yeah we need to go to Home Depot and get a few things. Friday would be a good day to do it.

Wife: Hmm not really what I had in mind.

They say romance dies when you have kids, but it is MURDERED when you do a major home renovation.

One day at a Time

So my life has been a little hectic lately. Joel and I are working like crazy to finish up the rest of our house, which means a lot of painting for me. I am coordinating a trip for 10 people to Africa, and am trying secure airline tickets for us. Joel's Brother, Josh, is going to marry Kristi in a few weeks. To top it all off Perry Pallet has been very busy with a lot of orders, so Joel has been pulling a lot of long days and has not been getting home til close to 7pm some nights.

I know, I know, I know. So if I am so busy what am I doing wasting precious minutes blogging? Well God has shown me something that I just needed to share.

Yesterday I found myself doing my weeks worth of shopping while Joel and Phil stayed home and napped, usually I do this on Mondays, but because I needed to work on some other projects today so I went yesterday. Then I came home to a dirty kitchen, 6 plus bags of groceries that needed to be put away and a steak dinner that I wanted to cook for Joel before we went back to church that night. In the middle of putting away groceries, cleaning the kitchen and cooking steak and stuffed Mushrooms, I started to stress and get weary from all my work. Not only that I started to stress about all the stuff that is coming up, that hasn't happened yet. I was feeling like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. When Joel woke up to my Chaos, I started to cry. He soon asked me why I was stressing about stuff that hasn't even happened yet? I don't know. I tend to Worry, which is an awful habit. It gives you something to do, but doesn't help you at all.

Well today, I chose sit down and do my devotion a prayer time, before tackling for a second time, calling travel agents. I have been reading in a great devotional called Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. The whole devotion for the day was living inside your own limitations of living one day at a time. It challenged me to take different things that come up throughout the day and to ask God if this is a part of His agenda for my day. I am not the ultimate planner and organizer for my day, it is God.

So after I finished up my quiet time I went onto contacting travel agents, with No Success. I have come to the conclusion that getting one step closer to airline tickets is not in the Lord's plan for my day today.

So, off to go feed cows, fold Laundry, pay some bills, make dinner and maybe paint. I will wait and see what the Lord has in store for my day tomorrow. It could be travel plans, could be a cleaner house, I know it involves a dental filling (If God wanted to Heal that I would be okay with that plan), and God only know what else.

Dry my tears

Mothers dry their child's tears.

It warms your heart, when they wipe your tears with their blankie.

At a Loss

Well I am at a loss on what to write about these days. I am truly sorry for not posting more often, but I am always thinking that my life is not that interesting. But then I think the reason I read other blogs is not because I think that their lives are so much more interesting, but because I am genuinely interested in what is going on in their lives. So I will try to give you a recap on what has been going on in out lives as of lately.

Well this year has not been a bed of Roses for Joel and I. We have been working through some truly hard things in out marriage, and are having to really rely on the Lord for him to help us through our problems. Although there are a number of reasons for our problems, we have been given a lot of changes and challenges in the last two years, and in those times we have not relied upon God, but on our own worldly selves. we have been so thankful for the counsel from a lot of friends and family throughout this whole. we have focused a lot of our times in Gal. 5 and found that we both personally our sinners. We have found that we can not point the finger at the other person, because we are the sinners, and we are no better than the other.

The House, is still a work in progress. We have one more room that needs to be mudded, and a two that need painting. We then will have to lay down the new flooring in the living room and kitchen, and carpet in the new bedrooms. There is still a lot of little details, like trim, cabinets moving of appliances, and setting up the pantry and toy closet that need to be done. We hope to finish all up really soon.

Joel and I are also excited about the Mission trip to Togo Africa we will be taking this August. Togo is in West Africa, and we will be going to Northern Togo to help build a Hospital. We are going to be going with a team from our Church. Joel and I are very excited about this trip and are excited that some of our closest friends are going to be going. I am personally the project coordinator for this trip, so it has put a lot of responsibility on my plate, but it keeps me out of trouble.

Phillip, Phillip, Phillip, where do we start with Him. Well His vocabulary, as I said it would, has taken off. He is coming up with new words every day. We have started Potty training, which we feel is going to be a slow process, but we are willing to put in the effort and see it through. Phillip is keeping us on our toes, he is very bright and can follow complex directions we give him. the other night Joel gave him a plate to take outside and put the food in the dog food dish and bring the plate back in. and he was able to do all the steps. If I had to make one guess about Phillip's future profession, after truck driver and tractor, I think it would be Lawyer. He just really does not like it when you give him an answer he doesn't want to hear, and is ready to make change the facts so that it works to his advantage.

San Diego 2010

So We have back from our Vacation for over two weeks and I have been so busy with birthdays I have not blogged at all. well When people ask us how are Vacation went I tell them "well besides both of our flights being delayed, having problems with our rental car and losing power on our last night, it went fine." I am not kidding about all these problems, they all happened, but despite it we did have a good time.

We stayed with my grandparents who live downtown just a few miles away from Balboa Park. so we were able to go to the park several times, we took in the model railway museum, rode on the carousel, and played on the playground. We also got to go to the Zoo one day. Yes, we saw the Panda bears, even the four month old baby panda, but my favorite animals were the giraffes and the elephants.

I ran in the Carlsbad half marathon on Sunday. I thought the course would be a lot more flat, but it was not. It's highest elevation is 75', that is about 50' less than the Bellingham bay, but the Carlsbad has more rolling hill action so you go up a hill only to go back down, then you go up another hill. the route itself was just beautiful, we ran along the coast, so it was nice to watch the waves on the beach. I went and did this race with my uncles wife, Shari, unfortunately we didn't run much together as she had to go slow because of Back problems. It was really fun to see my Family along the route cheering me on. I crossed the finish line almost a full 10 minutes ahead of my first half marathon time, so I was really happy about my run.

The rest of the trip we tried to take easy. Joel got to go out to the desert one day to ride 4-wheelers and shoot guns. I was able to go to the movies, museums, the symphony and shopping with the girls. Joel, Phillip and Grandpa, went to the beach on our last day and played in the sand. It was really nice to spend time with family, we even had a birthday party for Phillip while we were down there. All in all, we had a good time and a lot of fun. We hope we are able to get down there again soon.