My Life

Thursday, July 03, 2008

  • HAPPY
    11th
    BIRTHDAY
    GRACIE!!!

    We love you!!!
    ~Mom & Dad

    Gracie got a new Beach Cruiser for her birthday!!!



    Here's us celebrating her birthday!



    ~Di

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

  • Just a quick update on our vacation!

    We drove up to Nevada on Saturday.  My little brother (43) is getting married (for the first time) in SF Bay Area this Saturday.  So I drove her to my parents house to meet up with my sister (who lives in Idaho) and her family for a few days before we head (tomorrow) down to the Bay Area for all the wedding festivities.

    So my sister arrived Sunday night -- we have had a blast!!  My older brother drove up on Monday.  He has a sick cat that came with him.  Kitty's name is Gomez and he has a feeding tube because he stopped eating a couple of weeks ago.

    So yesterday, my dad went bowling (he league bowls) in the morning and we all went to see Get Smart (very very funny!!!).  My dad hurt his calf and knee bowling -- went to the doctor today and he ripped something and needs surgery on it -- Doc only does surgery's on Monday's so he won't have the surgery until the 7th -- in the meantime we will be wheeling him around because he can hardly walk!!!! Bummer.

    My brother left this morning for home (he lives in SF) and my sister left a couple of hours ago to go meet him so they can do some sight seeing tomorrow.   However, her son, Chris, who's 20, stayed here with us so he can drive my parents to the Bay Area tomorrow.  Elizabeth is going to go with them.  They will leave around 11am.  We will be leaving around 9am tomorrow as Steve flies into the Oakland Airport tomorrow (about 4 hours from here) at 2:30!  We can't wait to see him.

    Not sure all of that made any sense!  That's all for now.

    ~Di

Monday, June 09, 2008

  • I'm busily packing for camping.  We leave on Thursday, just for two nights.  It's with our homeschool group, and we are all looking forward to it!

    Our pastor has started the long journey on Sundays through Romans.      It has been good. We are currently on Romans 1:16-17.

    He brought up some good points to think about this last week. I'm paraphrasing off of my notes... so this may not be exactly what he said but what I understood him to say.

    He said that sin is a faith "disorder" -- meaning that sin is not a matter of unbelief, that is, not believing in anything, rather it's believing in the wrong thing.  Our circumstances sometimes look to us as though what God promises us will never come true, so we reject God and do our own thing (like the Israelites after they left Egypt).  So we sin because we choose to believe in the wrong thing (usually what we think is best, rather than submitting to the will of God in our situations). 

    So we need to ask ourselves when we are tempted to sin: What is it that I am believing in that isn't true?

    He also talked about Truth needing to be received by faith.  He said sometimes we will say that we spend time reading the word but it isn't speaking to us or enlightening us or strengthening us.  The problem isn't that the word isn't speaking to us (etc), rather that we don't see (comprehend) what it is saying.  Sometimes we must seek for Truth to be found, but once found, it does us no good if it isn't believed.

    He said that we need to be diligently praying and asking ourselves: Am I praying for eyes to see until God give me sight (or am I giving up!)?

    Good stuff. Yes, good stuff to ponder.

    -------------------------

    This last weekend was our home school's promotion ceremony.  It was really nice. Here are some pics:


    This is our highschool worship team.


    They lead us in worship of 4 songs during our ceremony.


    Gracie plays "Lean on Me".

     
    Julie does a tap dance with Jessica that they choreographed.


    Valerie performs hula.


    Elizabeth sings "Oxygen".


    Gracie graduates 5th grade!


    Julie graduates 7th grade!


    Valerie graduates 9th grade!


    Elizabeth graduates 11th grade!


    Here are some special graduates:

    Phoebe and Hannah graduate 8th grade!

    Marianne graduates from high school!

    Have a good week.
    ~Di
     
              

Monday, June 02, 2008

  • Hi all!!

    Hope everyone is doing well.  Life is just flying by.  I keep thinking that I will have a quiet moment, but no moments come. Just run here, do that, run there, do this....  pausing only long enough to throw dinner on the table and have a nice family meal -- at least we have that going for us!!! 

    Yesterday was a very, very busy day! 

    To church early for worship rehearsal -- this wouldn't have been so difficult, but my alarm didn't go off -- we thankfully woke up at 7am, but it to have the time we needed, we should have been up at 6:30. So we were in a mad dash to get ready (4 of us needed to shower), make breakfast, pack lunch (our church has a big picnic every week after church), and stick dinner in the crock pot for later on as we were going to be on the run and needed to stop in quickly for a bite!! Out the door with all that done by 7:50am. PTL!!!!

    Myself and a couple of the girls worked in the nursery for both the Sunday School time and Worship Service time.  Gracie really wanted to help out, but she had started feeling bad the afternoon before, so I told her no.  She actually was feeling really bad during church, so she just laid down outside on the grass outside where I work in the nursery.   Thought maybe she was running a fever, but couldn't find my thermometer before we left.

    After church scrambling around to do things that needed to get done, and then a short youth worship rehearsal for next Friday's Youth meeting, which I choked down my tuna sandwich through, and recharged myself with some diet pepsi. :)

    Finally -- a moment to sit and fellowship at probably 1:15 or so, although I was fellowshipping and working on a bible study I needed to finish for a meeting we had later in the afternoon. But still a chance to sit and Gracie seemed to be doing better.

    Steve and I serve on our youth ministry team and we had a meeting at 3pm yesterday - so we left from church about 10 after 2, dropped the girls off at home and then (after maybe 5 minutes) headed to the meeting. That went until 5:10 -- we zipped home (5:30), slammed down dinner (thankfully done in the crock!) and then at 6:45 off to an AWANA awards ceremony for my two younger girls -- it's at a neighborhood church near us.

    My friend, Sandy, that serves in the AWANA ministry called me a few days prior to let me know that Gracie was receiving an award, so to be sure to come -- Gracie didn't know she was getting an award and Sandy didn't tell us what award it was - so it would be a surprise for us all.  During the ceremony Gracie started to feel really bad -- now I'm sure she was running a fever, because she warm (I always "take" my kids temperature by feeling just below the nap of their neck on their back -- usually if that's hot, there's a fever!). I didn't think she was going to make it through the ceremony!

    We get to the special awards part and they call Gracie up for the "God's Princess of the Year" award.  This was an award that the Girl's club leader picks (for those of you who know AWANA this would be the Girl of the Year award).
     


    Here she is receiving her award. This is her and the Girl's Club Leader, Miss Gloria.

    She was thrilled, although, feeling really bad...

    To our surprise that was not the only award she got -- she also got the highest award "Workmen of the Year" which is chosen out of all the kids in AWANA at that church by the leader of the AWANA program.


    Here she is receiving her award. This is her and Leader of the AWANA program, Miss Honeybee.

    They both said that Gracie was always willing and offering to help in any way each week, and the first to befriend a new AWANA member, that she would drop everything if someone needed something and concentrate on their need, was compassionate, kind, and had a servants heart.  Gracie was sooooooo surprised by both awards.  We are thankful to God for the girl He is forming in her and for her love for the Lord and for others!!!!

    So afterwards, even though Gracie wasn't feeling well, we all wanted to go out and celebrate - so we went to Spire's for dessert.  Since we all only slammed down a bit of dinner we were a bit hungry too, so we (crazy family we are) ordered hot fudge Sundaes, french fries and an appetizer platter (with fried zucchini, fried cheese, chicken strips and onion rings).  Talk about junk food!!!!  I have to say, though, it was quite tasty!!!!!!

    Gracie's fever was rising at the restaurant, so I gave her some advil and we headed home.  I finally found the thermometer -- She's running 103.6 today.  Has a cough, stuffy nose, and sore throat... hope it's not the flu (El and I had it in February, but everyone else escaped it!!).  She's been lying around all day, poor thing!

    I was outside BBQ'ing and took some pictures of our kitties -- they are getting BIG!!  They are about 16 weeks now.


    This is Ariel (I call her Ariee).  She's our hissy kitty.  Everything scares her!!  She loves to climb in my office chair behind me and sleep.


    This is Wiakiki -- we call her Kiki for short.  Ellie named her that because she reminds her of white sand.  She is our mouser and our curious kitty.  She also just loves to climb the the bushes and plumerias in our yard.




    This Kona -- she is our very loving and cuddly kitty.  When ever you need a friend -- she is there!!

    The kitties are so curious it just cracks us up.  Here is Ariee looking at a gopher whole.  She will stick her whole arm down the hole in an attempt to swat at something -- it's really funny to watch

     
     



    You can't tell but she's got her whole arm down the hole here! teehee....

    Oh well, that's about it -- my book post!!! :)

    Ciao!
    ~Di

Thursday, May 15, 2008

  • My oldest daughter turned 17 over the weekend!!!  Yay!

    Happy Birthday, Baby!!


    We love you!!

    She's gonna hate that picture!

    We celebrated with a bonfire party at the beach. It was a blast!!

     Our school year is winding down, but our summer plans are ramping up!  We have many things to do this summer: 2 camping trips, my brother's wedding in the SF Bay Area, and a worship conference in Maryland!!!  Can't wait -- too much fun!!

    Other than that, not a lot going on.
    Catcha on the flip side!
    ~Di