Happy 70th Birthday, Daddy!

Today is my Dad’s 70th birthday and I want to send him a very special birthday greeting. I looked for cards last week but I couldn’t find one that said exactly what I wanted it to so I decided to send him this virtual birthday greeting.

There are so many things I could tell you about my Dad , in 70 years you have a lot of things that might define who you are. I could tell you that he is a great man and while that would be true, I know that he would humbly disagree with me. I know that he would shake his head and say “I have made mistakes in my life.”

I could tell you about my Dad and how he has stood by me during the most defining moments in my life. I could tell you how he prayed with me to give my life to Jesus, how he baptized me and how he walked me down the aisle and then helped perform my wedding ceremony. Perhaps the most poignant time was when he stayed in the hospital with me when we delivered Josiah our first son who was stillborn.

I could also tell you how he disciplined me as a child, with both authority and tenderness. I remember in high school that I did something pretty serious. I lied about something and that lie grew into something pretty big. It was ugly. I remember when he found out. The defining moment that stands out most about that situation was my Dad standing in the door to my bedroom with a look of disappointment on his face. I know what the face of the Father looks like because of my Daddy. I also know the forgiveness of the Father because in the 20+ years since that incident my Dad has never brought it up again. He has lived out the word picture in Psalms of “as far as the east is from the west“.

I could tell you that he is a faithful husband. In the age where unfaithfulness in marriage seems the norm my Dad has been faithful for almost 47 years to my Mom. In an age of disposable marriage, I have been able to look to my parents as an example of how to make marriage work.

I could tell you how he has faithfully served the local church for over 45 years as a pastor. He has been on countless youth trips and mission trips. Dad has led more VBS programs than I am sure even he remembers. He has taken every church he has served as full time pastor through at least one building program. The number of weddings, funerals, baptisms, and baby dedications he has overseen are too numerous to even imagine. It would be impossible to count the number of hours he has spent at the hospital visiting with people, or the number of hours he has prayed and counseled people in various life situations. There is no way to measure those things here on earth.

That is the thing , my Dad will not be defined by what has happened in the past 70 years of his life on this earth. Dad will be defined by eternity and the impact he has had there.. I would hesitate to even guess how many people he has influenced for eternity.

You see while I might tell you that my Dad is a great man, he would point you to the greatest man, and say that Jesus makes all the difference. My Dad’s relationship isn’t defined by what he has done or hasn’t done, it is defined by his relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ.

Daddy, on this day that you celebrate your 70th birthday, my prayer for you is that as you live out the remaining years of your life you are blessed by happiness, peace, joy and most of all love. I love you, Daddy!

Preview Service Week

We have our first service for the Church @ Skyline Valley on Sunday, so this week has been spent getting ready for it. In a church plant the week before your first service is stressful. You have the ordinary stress of trying to prepare for a worship service and then you have added stress if you are in a portable situation. There is also the emotional stress of wondering if anyone will show up. Of course things have not gone exactly as smoothly as we would have hoped.

Last weekend as I walked through the hall I stepped on wet soggy carpet. I then proceeded to fuss about someone spilling water on the carpet as I cleaned it up. About an hour later I stepped in water again. Because I have a college education I determined that maybe the water was coming from somewhere other than the children. It was very close to our air conditioning unit so I checked and the air conditioner was leaking. The rental company had someone come out Monday and it was a maintenance issue, of course they have to get owner approval before they fix it.

Monday the guy that is going to lead the worship calls and he has had something come up so he can't come on Sunday. OK! Fortunately, we have some great sponsor churches. One of them is a church in Jarrell, TX where Tim's church planting coach is the pastor. Within a few hours we had a new worship leader and a band set up for Sunday.

At the beginning of the week we started having some issues with our van, specifically the traction control/stability system. This would be the same traction control/stability system that we replaced in February. We called the dealer that did the work and they had no real advice since we weren't local for them to look at the problem.

We knew that we needed new tires on the van and made plans to purchase two new tires. Wednesday Tim ran over a screw. Fortunately, the tires were in and we were able to replace them/fix the flat all at one time.

J has impetigo which is very a)contagious and b)hard to get rid of. So this week I have been washing more laundry than usual with extra towels and sheets/bedding.

W has had a little tummy bug which has brought on very nasty diaper changes which also led to more laundry.

Can you guess what happened on Thursday? If you guessed that my washer of 10 years (which I adored) stopped working you would be correct. Of course it stopped working mid-load of clothes without draining the water out of the clothes. Tim and I spent quite a bit of time dipping water out of the washer, then ringing out a load of wet/nasty towels. I researched on the Internet possible problems. We checked all the lines and the pump/filter. Nothing was clogged and the lid latch works so that means the pump died. The good news is that we have a Sam's Club membership. They have a nice washer within my new washer budget (that we just created) and they deliver. The bad news is they will not deliver it until next Thursday. Do you want to guess how much laundry I will have to do in one week?

Moving on to me personally, Tuesday I wasn't feeling very well. I went to a scrapbook workshop which I enjoyed but just felt off. I came home and realized that I was really, really sick. You see I don't EVER run a fever. I suffered through every childhood illness with no fever. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard a doctor say to me or my mom, "Well she doesn't have a fever." Tuesday I started running a fever and then I got chills. I took some medicine and went to bed at 9:00. I really wondered how Tim would take me to the doctor/hospital if I didn't better. What would we do with the children? By the next morning I felt somewhat better. I began using some natural remedies and they kicked in and by Thursday I was doing much better.

Friday rolls around and we plan to go to the mall with the little boys while the big boys finish up VBS. We stopped to get the keys to the Civic Center where we will be having church on Sunday. We ran a couple of errands and went to the mall. We picked the boys up from VBS and Tim finished up the last of his pre service Friday tasks. I worked on cleaning up the house. Tim came home from baseball practice and we did a few things around the house, then he took the boys outside and set the sprinkler up so they could jump on the trampoline and get sprayed. We put the boys to bed and begin to wind down when Tim says "I can't find my keys." No real big deal we still have mine so I wasn't worried. He continues to look for them when I realize he put the keys to the Civic Center on his key chain. We HAVE to find those keys. We look every where (there is now no change or pens or chapstick down in my couch). We look in every box and bag and under every piece of furniture. All the time I am praying "God you know we have to find these keys. PLEASE help us." We look out in the car. We checked the attic (Tim had moved some boxes up there for me). We checked in the garage. Finally Tim goes back outside and he retraces his steps of moving the sprinkler to the back yard and he finds his keys...in the grass.

So today is Saturday and I am posting this before anything else happens. Now don't you all want to go out and plant a church? If not then the next time you meet a church planter be sure to hug them hard and tell them you will pray for them (and do it).

Digital Scrapbooking

I have really wanted to get into digital scrapbooking. Not because I need another hobby to pursue but because I have been too economical to print out all the digital photos that I have. Now I have all these photos sitting on my computer and I need to get creative with them.

I was scanning a scrapbook magazine and I found an ad for www.scrapblog.com. I decided to take a peak and when I did, I found they were offering free Mother's Day cards, you have to pay the shipping. So I decided to check it out and I created 2 cards one for my mom and one for Tim's mom. It was super easy to figure out and I enjoyed playing around with the cards and personalizing them for each mom.

Plus as you can see below it was easy to upload to my blog and also to my facebook account.

So if you have been wanting to try digital scrapbooking but don't want to fork over alot of money check out www.scrapblog.com. Be sure and look around, some of the "themes" are free and some aren't so check it out. Let me know what you think.


Here is the Mother's Day card I made for my mother in law.



I actuallly had it printed and sent to her and here is the one for my mom.



Here is one of the scrapbook pages I made.

fun little map site

I think this site would be especially fun to do with kids.

Here are my maps.

Countries I have visited.


visited 5 states (2.22%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I made this one of states I have lived in.


visited 10 states (20%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

And finally states I have visited.


visited 30 states (60%)

Bambi came to visit us.